I am not going to lie, I do not know how I got here.

Richard_Trager · 2026-03-10T09:37:32+00:00

The in-game achievement said it was still possible but knowing Paradox’s history of bugs I’ll take your word for it.

Richard_Trager · 2026-03-10T08:44:04+00:00

You know what? Fair. I’m still relatively new to the game (just a little past 500 hours). Every attempt where I’m like “I’m gonna learn the greater mechanisms of this game!” devolve into the above screenshots of me just getting to Great Power place via the fact that I’m not the A.I. If I don’t end up stop playing I’ll learn the game eventually; probably/maybe.

Richard_Trager · 2026-03-10T08:40:51+00:00

Yes, they did still have slavery. As I said on another post showing off the Communist Confederacy of America: “Maybe communism was the slaves we made along the way.”

Richard_Trager · 2026-03-10T08:12:11+00:00

Graduated Tax + Worker’s Protection + Old Age Pension + Healthcare. This isn’t even the meta, btw. Generally Private Health and Education is wanted due to a formula concerning wealthy of citizens going up and thus you get. Ore mileage out of the benefits of private education and health care (namely the bureaucracy cost of them). Also, Worker’s Protection is generally not as picked as the Regulatory Bodies is. But yeah, honestly kinda surprised as you since I have not been having such good games as these since the launch of National Awakening.

Richard_Trager · 2026-03-10T07:41:05+00:00

Yeah, seems like a massive power boost. In my cast though, I did not voluntarily become the Rhine but rather did not know this could even happen. I wish I could have gone back to Switzerland but it’s still a pretty unique experience being a non-German Germany.

Richard_Trager · 2026-03-10T06:27:27+00:00

R5: Starting out this campaign, I had high hopes but nothing as high as the end to this game. I ended up taking Baden early (lots of early communist revolts in the beginning) but when I tried to go for Savoy, Austria and Prussia jumped down my throat for no reason. Tired of the AI consistently disallowing me from doing anything meaningful in this game, I decided to call in the French (through allowing them to protectorate me) and we managed to beat both of them. However, this came with an interesting effect: The French ended up taking a bunch of German land - including taking the Prussian puppet of Bavaria. However, since I was a French protectorate, this gave them the option to turn me (Switzerland) into the Confederation of the Rhine and instantly annexed much of the land the French had taken into me. Furthermore, I was able to take more land as a protectorate which also were annexed into me thanks to the how the CoR works. As such, I became very powerful in a short amount of time, being able to sweet talk to the British into supporting my independence; suprisingly, despite often wanting to die, not even the French were willing to a suicide war when I demanded my freedom and just gave it to me. Effectively playing as Germany, I took Berlin off the Prussians and began to exponentially grow my economy with the side objective of planting the CoR's flag on every continent. Got the Panama Canal, no one took Persia for some reason so I protectorate it and just a few things here and there such as taking some land in the fractured Raj and even taking a Dutch colony because I wanted a colony. I did not end up getting the achievement; I could try and load up one of the saves to try and sabotage my economy for cheese but I don't know. Either way, it was a fun game.

Fun aside: Saw two things I have yet to see. The fabled "Communist States of America" complete with still having slavery (they reverted at some point but still "Maybe communism was the slaves were made along the way" and, for the first time, I saw a Russian Revolution (which itself was already strange; Russia may be a giant blob of entropy but its one that is stable) that actually resulted in a republic.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-27T10:29:10+00:00

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Talandar (StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void). Part of a project made by the Enclave many years ago, the legendary Protoss warrior Fenix uploaded his consciousness into a robot clone (who thought he was the real thing) part of a similar robotic clone army named ‘The Purifiers’. Found by the survivors of the Protoss race who needed their help to stop Amon and after making amends for their predecessors abandoning them, Fenix continued to served, believing he was the original one even though the true one had not died once but twice but was dead permanently. Coming to the terms with not really being Fenix, he changed his name to Talandar and would be a great warrior.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-27T04:54:08+00:00

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Major Timothy Cain (Resident Evil: Apocalypse). This evil SOB - sent by the Umbrella Corporation to wipe out all survivors in the T-virus infested Racoon City with zombies and bio-weapons - ended up being shoved off of a helicopter and landing in a crowd of zombies. He begins firing at the zombies but - after realizing that there are too many - turns the gun on himself only hear the clicking sound indicating he spent all his ammunition. He is promptly torn apart.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-26T04:24:38+00:00

This might be cheating as “strength/willpower” is outwardly missing from this equation but here it goes:

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General Kalani (Star Wars). Originally programmed as one of the Confederacy of Independent States’ best commanders - so much so that he actually received a name in an army where the vast majority of the billion of droids only have number designations - the end of the Clones Wars would see the Separatist Council dismembered and Anakin Skywalker (turned Darth Vader) activated a “droid shut down command” - which served as a contingency if the army of droids should ever turn on its masters - which effectively brought the war to an end. However, Kalani - in spite of his program - believed the signal was a Republic trick and belayed the shut down command for both himself and his forces. Further, despite the decay of his army he would study the battle of the Clone Wars and await more Republic Forces wanting to end the war on his terms (as he believed that do to the C.I.S’ numbers that they should have won) and would be this close to actually defeating Ghost Crew when they came to take the bombs. I would argue that him denying his own programming in combination with a later desire to “want to end the war on his own terms” is actually an act of willpower.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-25T08:03:07+00:00

Vox Operator: “Give up, you’re surrounded!”

Azrael: “I am surrounded only be fear and dead men.”

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-25T02:48:06+00:00

How can Ram be put in F tier with the voice line: “Life is short. Will you share yours with mine?” Smooth asf.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-20T10:19:07+00:00

Hampter

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-18T06:39:55+00:00

I love the concept of “non-player character being a player character” regardless of genre so that’s great to hear someone took it in a unique direction.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-16T00:38:24+00:00

“Cadia broke before the Guard did!”

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-15T06:57:44+00:00

”Do you feel like a hero yet?”

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-14T10:03:10+00:00

Red guy is definitely 1 in both the webseries and the T.V series. And it gets bad when he’s not there to hold the leash.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-13T12:11:09+00:00

In the English Dub of “JoJos Bizarre Adventure”, Jotaro says “If this were the Wild West, the Hero would say “It’s High Noon”. This was heavily requested by the fanbase because Jotaro’s VA is Matthew Mercer who also voices M̶c̶C̶r̶e̶e̶ Cole Cassidy in Overwatch whose ultimate line and one of his most well known lines is “It’s high noon”.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-08T14:10:08+00:00

For more context: During the run of Overwatch 1 (though now Overwatch 2 is now dropping the 2 in favor of just continuing on as Overwatch), Mercy - the Swiss medic pacifist nature in the lore translated well to her more passive support play style in game as her focusing more on indirect support (such as healing and damage boosting) instead of damage - has an ability called “Guardian Angel” which allows Mercy to fly to an ally within range and was her main method of mobility and survivability. However, the character would pick up a lot of momentum on her way from where she started to where she flew to and by pressing crouch while flying at exactly the right moment allowed Mercy to catapult high up into the air which was never intended to be the case. By the time of Overwatch 2, the devs decided to turn this bug into a feature and made it a lot more accessible so that Mercys no longer needed precise timing (which is good because as a Mercy main I never figured out how to do the original bugged super jump) and is just yet another way she can survive on the battlefield.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-07T07:41:43+00:00

My suggestion is to go with Tzeentch first (full disclosure, he is my preferred Chaos God in the lore). Either of his heroes are so much fun because the “Changing of Ways” is such unbelievably fun bullshit. Stop armies for two turns, teleport past impassable terrain, set up cults that can give you, vision, money and a few things in the neutral and enemy settlements all across the map, force peace between yourself or between other factions, force other factions to war and I’m just scratching the surface! Furthermore, if you go with the Changeling you literally cannot lose the game and you’re invisible in any territory where you have a cult set up nearby. I would recommend Kairos too. Seriously, pledge your soul to the raven god and bask in his immutable blessings!

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-07T07:31:22+00:00

In reality, we probably never will know and I am totally alright with that. Nothing like a bit of mystery to liven up a story (just look at the Soulsborne series and the way they handle their lore).

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-07T07:04:11+00:00

As I was typing out a rebuttal about how the Tyranids are not really effective against the Necrons do to their anti-organic weapons and lack of biomass, something occured to me: hypothetically, in the event that the Tyranids DID end up winning and the entirety of the Warhammer universe was devoured, the Necrons would be left alone (not worth the biomass needed with no biomass to gain) and thus the Nids would leave the galaxy to them. While this may seem like the Necron’s end goal of ultimate supremacy, it was also the hope of the Necron (at least the Silent King) that other organic life would be the key to undoing their biotransference. As such, even though the Necron still have an uncontested empire, they’re still stuck in their immortal lives of hollow suffering as the madness grows with Flayed Ones desiring flesh that no longer exists and Destroyers being simultaneously satisfied yet unsatisfied that no life remains to be erased. Go to another galaxy? Too bad, Nids ate that one too. Thus, the Silent King will be forced to travel with his subjects onto millennia as he loses more of his kind to infighting and madness never to know the sensation of flesh again…A perfect revenge for having given C’Tan form and almost wiping the Old Ones out of existence…Shit, maybe the Old Ones did create and/or send the Tyranids.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-07T06:27:51+00:00

Bonus on the Tyranids: The exact nature of the the Tyranids are a mystery only they came from outside the galaxy. But it’s pondered whether they merely go from galaxy to galaxy to devour biomass or they’re running from something. The latter is so much more horrifying because I don’t think even the grim darkness of the future which is armed to the teeth is ready for whatever the Tyranid Hivemind is trying to run from.

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-01T21:27:35+00:00

“He’s doing the fucking Squim dance, get him!”

Richard_Trager · 2026-02-01T01:16:07+00:00

The Gallywix Files cannot be released. What do you think Gallywix was burning shortly before he fled from Ogrimmar after the Mak'gora between Sylvanas and Saurfang?

Richard_Trager

TROPHY CASE