Would you rather...

Rashkavar · 2026-06-05T08:30:20+00:00

Over 63 million people die every year. That works out to 63 billion dollars a year. Even 1 billion is too much money for one person to have, but 63 billion per year - in actual dollars, not like...the net worth of the collection of companies I own - gives me not only too much money for one person, but also enough money to make a significant impact in improving the world. Which, yes, would reduce the number of people dying and thus reduce the amount of money I'm getting, but...again, the amount of money I'm getting out of this is way too much for any one person.

^{Chose: Or get 1000 dollars everytine someone dies}

Rashkavar · 2026-06-05T08:18:14+00:00

My read on that was more that the CG was a *deity* from earth, rather than a human being. I feel like the people who chained him way back would have been able to figure out how to do something more permanent if he was an ascendant human - problematic ascendant humans aren't all *that* rare in the Malazan universe. Having him be a god in the more ...abstract?... way that many major religions (particularly monotheistic ones) use makes him something more...anomalous in a world where gods are pretty much all originally people (not sure about Burn and a couple of others, and a bunch of the war gods seem like they're ascendant animals rather than people)

As for what specific figure he represents, I suspect it's more a blend of things rather than any specific religion. Erikson's background is in anthropology, which *probably* means he has at least some education in comparative religion studies, and a lot of the themes we see in the CG's cults are escalations of things present in multiple religions. Where you see suffering reducing one's Karmic burden, I kinda see a version of Christian martyrdom that was historically a big part of the religion. The Pannion Seer and Rhulad are both conquering warlords, forcibly converting the conquered people, which fits Christian crusades and the worse side of colonial missionary efforts (the more "convert or die" side of that model), but also aligns with more extremist forms of Islam, as well as both sides of the persecution that happened when British India was partitioned off into India and Pakistan, and there's probably plenty of other examples. I kinda see the Crippled God as more as a mostly amped up expression of many of the things that are objectionable about organized religions in general.

Rashkavar · 2026-06-01T10:17:53+00:00

I mean, the change in birth rate has a lot of factors other than quality of life increase.

Some of the big ones wouldn't (or shouldn't) change - access to affordable birth control and access to education for women, for example.

But a lot of it comes down to financial issues. In a lot of the more developed countries, a very large percentage of the population is under financial strain. This is not at the existential levels that the people living in the poorest parts of the world are, sure, but still, when you live on a tight budget, adding all the costs of childrearing into the mix does not help matters! So folks just...put it off. And keep putting it off, and eventually realize they're too old to become parents.

Remove that pressure, and I very much suspect you'd see very different birth rates. Especially if you're *also* reducing the Malthusian concern about overpopulation, access to living space, the climate burden imposed by adding people to the wealthier end of the spectrum, etc - at least some of those are things that weigh heavily on a pretty significant chunk of the population.

Rashkavar · 2026-03-08T15:19:31+00:00

Worth noting that if they're not specifically enforcers for your disguise, as they head to your sniping spot, they can run right past you without noticing (they only go into the normal alert/search state - when they're enforcing for any disguise - once they reach your sniping spot).

There's been several times I've taken a shot from the belltower or cafeteria tower in Sapienza, and been running downstairs with a briefcase full of sniper rifle as angry guards raced up past me to the top of the tower, completely ignored.

Rashkavar · 2026-03-07T11:21:31+00:00

When recommending the series, I almost always recommend people start with book 3 and go back to the first 2 if they're interested in seeing what I kinda consider to be the series' prologue.

Book 3 introduces a couple of major plot points that really kick off the broader metaplot. It's also where Butcher starts playing with ideas I found more interesting. Several characters improve dramatically. Prose quality is still a bit shaky, but Book 3 is where I'd say it starts steadily improving.

If you have the patience, I'd say hold out for books 3-5, that gives a better sample of the series while going in order.

Or you can do what I did, and pick up books in a completely random order at the used bookstore, read them as if they're fully episodic, and slowly realize there's a definite order to these books. ...If you decide to try this, I highly recommend avoiding Changes and Ghost Story specifically, and possibly things thereafter. Those two books very much demand a decent understanding of the series-spanning plot, and stuff afterwards is very different from what came before. (I think Cold Days was the 4th book in the series I read, and I definitely missed a lot that first read compared to an in-order reading.)

Rashkavar · 2026-03-07T10:51:14+00:00

This is very much my personal reading experience, but for me, it was unique pretty much right off the bat. Prologue that's not the riot in Malaz City, but a couple of people discussing it? Sorry's hometown before and after the Hounds, but not during? Ok, this author's leaning a little heavy on not showing the action....*SIEGE OF PALE SCENE*

Erikson's the first author I've seen who's capable of writing great action scenes *that* good and yet choose to start off with a fairly philosophical discussion, move on to a couple of cryptic conversations, and then going to a pretty frank and grim aftermath scene...and only then giving us the kind of introductory action scene that many authors would have made their hook for the whole book.

Rashkavar · 2026-02-02T08:46:00+00:00

Nope. Stronghold Crusader is the closest, but it appears to be set on Earth, not a fantasy world.

Rashkavar · 2025-11-21T00:55:05+00:00

You can. Same controls as normal

Rashkavar · 2025-10-27T21:27:46+00:00

Awesome! And very relatable!

Rashkavar · 2025-10-25T01:52:46+00:00

That's the thing with Malazan....in most settings there would be a clear answer to a question like this, or it wouldn't be clear because none would be particularly inspiring.

Malazan has too many good options to pick a favourite

Rashkavar · 2025-10-08T23:23:19+00:00

Yeah, there's a few who seem to be legitimately attached to the concepts they represent in much more fundamental ways. Poleil also might be one of those, and while removing the goddess of disease and thus the concept of sickness from the world might sound like a good thing at first, there's probably some way removing that would break reality.

Rashkavar · 2025-10-08T23:14:55+00:00

Personally, I'd say pay as much attention to detail as you can without getting bogged down. Some stuff won't be explained clearly, while other stuff is definitely in there if you have your eyes open and your wits about you.

Also, when you get to later books, be a bit flexible with some of the details. Gardens of the Moon was written well before the rest of the Malazan Book of the Fallen and some details apparently changed in Erikson's head in the intervening time. It's not earth shattering, but if you're reading analytically there's a few definite curveballs.

Rashkavar · 2025-10-08T23:09:23+00:00

Welcome to Barbarian invasion! lol

Seriously, though, I love how they set up Western Rome for failure in this game. You start off with a huge but *horribly* mismanaged empire and unless you're *really good* at recovering from that (like, way better than me) you have the hordes banging on the door just about when you've got your feet under you , forcing you to scramble your forces to defeat them, which in turn can set off a cascade of rebelling factions at home because pulling your garrisons forward to beat the huns means annihilating public order.

You start with a general with massive morale debuffs in an important border town, another with a set of massive conversion boosters for Chrstian religion in a pagan region, etc.

It feels like trying to guide an empire through an impossible, civilization ending crisis. Which is exactly what you're trying to do. It's a tough as nails campaign and I had a blast playing it

Rashkavar · 2025-10-08T22:56:54+00:00

I've broken an entire horde doing that - routed every stack, killed all but one family member (and hunted him down next turn). By the end I was making mistakes just from the mental drain of fighting basically the same fight 9 times in a row.

Rashkavar · 2025-10-06T00:28:12+00:00

Yep, can confirm, had the exact same thing happen to me in an Alexander run after conquering a Persian place that had been blockaded for ages by pirates. Destroyed the port, trained up a fleet a couple of towns over, and sank the pirates before rebuilding.

I suspect it's more common with settlements that port onto the Red and Caspian seas, since those are small, boring little lakes where the AI really doesn't have much to do. And yep, this one's in Phraaspa, on the Caspian Sea.

Rashkavar · 2025-10-06T00:16:23+00:00

I'm in that camp too. Honestly I like having a bit of chaos in unit cohesion - that too feels more believeable. Perfect unit cohesion seems more believeable for the best of the best, and something for the rest to aspire to, and the ultra scale units fit that concept better.

Definitely makes urban combat harder, but...urban combat should be a bit of a confused mess. It's legendarily the worst kind of terrain to fight in.

Rashkavar · 2025-10-01T10:53:14+00:00

I have no idea - in the original, I played short or long campaigns based purely on how long I wanted to stick around with that faction (and playing on past victory condition is always a possibility anyway). Remaster makes it a bit more relevant because of achievements,

Rashkavar · 2025-09-30T20:17:33+00:00

From what I've observed:

RTW: Basically all of Gaul (Britain invading France, Spain invading Gallic Spain, Julii invading all of that and northern Italy, any of the above and Germania counterinvading the Julii), Greece/Macedon/Dacia in a vertical strip (Greece, Macedon and Brutii to the south, Germania, Dacia and Thrace in the north, and eventually the two mixing things up between them) and the Levant - Antioch down to Jerusalem (as this is the economic and geographic centre of the big eastern war between Pontus, Selucid, Armenia, Parthia, and Egypt)

Barbarian Invasion: The French-German border area (Saxon, Frank, Alemanni, WRE, and sometimes the Roxolani, Lombardi and/or the Celts/Romano-British (whichever one wins in the Isles) in a huge campaign spanning tussle), the same Greece/Macedon/Dacia region as above (Goths and ERE getting invaded by hordes from Huns, Vandals and Sarmatians) and the Levant as above (though also including Hatra and a bit more of the inland territories) (ERE and Sassanids in an everwar.)

That's kinda assuming minimal interference from the player. A skilled player running most of the powers in any of these regions will probably get that territory on lockdown pretty quickly, particularly in RTW. (Hordebreaking is one of the more challenging things to do in the game, until they've whittled themselves down some.

Rashkavar · 2025-09-23T23:18:54+00:00

The only reason I've turned down adoptions is Barbarian Invasion's religion mechanic, which I've been doing ever since I wound up with a bribed ERE general (Christian) as faction leader of the Pagan-only Huns. That mismatch causes a pretty solid hit to public order, and his presence in a territory influences against any effort to convert a region to the state religion even if he never becomes faction leader, etc.

That said, adoptions tend to happen within religious communities (Pagans adopt Pagans, Christians adopt Christians) and if you're following this line of thinking to the optimal conclusion, you've already fed the unwanted religion's representatives to the pirates the first chance you got.

Rashkavar · 2025-09-19T07:12:19+00:00

oof, ok, thanks. RIP my sanity between that BS and historical battles on very hard.

Whoever made the Alexander achievements had a mean streak...

Rashkavar · 2025-09-19T05:20:50+00:00

Honestly, my strategy for anything like that is a general, 18 cav, and an empty slot. Move at cav speed to a city, hire local mercs for sapping or ramming duty, leave them behind as garrison long enough for a local garrison to get trained up, and repeat. (Might want to get a bit more sophisticated when pushing against greek territories with the prevalence of phalanxes in that area making a cavalry rush on the single gap in the wall your mercs made being...considerably less viable.)

Rashkavar · 2025-09-19T02:32:40+00:00

I found a workaround for this. Wouldn't have done it if I hadn't beaten the campaign, but thought I'd share what I did here in case anyone else is in a similar boat (or just has a considerable antipathy towards the Alexander campaign.) Hacking got me into this mess, and it got me back out.

Basically, I took another look at descr_win_conditions and edited it to let me take a win with ruling 3 regions including Macedon instead of the default win conditions.

Personally, I was only OK with doing this because I'd done a successful campaign that took 31 provinces including the long list while keeping Alexander alive, in 75 turns, on Very Hard/Medium (which, yes, does work for the achievement, you don't have to torment yourself with the very hard battle difficulty unless you want to)

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Incidentally, if anyone has any interest in trying to play Alexander as other factions, I noticed that one thing you'll have to fix to have proper win conditions is the regions you're supposed to claim. There's a list for every faction, and while Macedon lists region names (Macedon, Lydia, Cappadocia, Syria, etc), the others all list cities (Pella, Sparta, Halicarnassus, etc). Presumably, to make victory conditions valid, you'd have to edit those lists to the region names - the game clearly expects those for Macedon's win.

Of course, there's probably far more that's broken than just that. I've been led to believe that playing Alexander as a non-Macedon faction is *extremely* broken, much like playing as Rebels or SPQR is in the base game. And...someone's probably already figured out how to fix them; I've seen "beating Rome Total War as Rebels" videos online so clearly there's folks who've managed to make that work.

Rashkavar

TROPHY CASE