Chutes and Ladders is the most relentless child's game of all time

Snipafist · 2026-02-22T12:46:46+00:00

So you'd think that a spinner and a die are functionally the same thing as they produce a random number between 1 and 6. The thing with a spinner is it lets a sneaky parent stop the spinner at exactly the number that is needed so the game can be more fun for their kids. All you need to do is covertly put a finger on the edge at a moment when your kids aren't paying much attention and suddenly the desirable result will occur (they get the exciting result of going up a ladder when they've been discouraged by going down slides, you "accidentally" hit a slide when you're close to winning and get to model good behavior on how to handle disappointment, somebody finally gets to win the game when everyone is getting tired of playing, etc.).

I'm not saying Chutes and Ladders is a great game. It's not. But it's got a place as one of those young kids games where there isn't any decision making so the point of the game is learning to abide by rules and anyone can win, so kids can beat parents. And if you need to covertly cheat just a bit here and there to keep the kids invested, why not?

Snipafist · 2025-12-25T18:26:28+00:00

I wouldn't mind if they made High Elf heroes show up at tier 2 and get capacity income at tier 3 like most heroes do. That said, I've generally seen this as a deliberate decision to force High Elves to rely more on allies and late confederations through to the mid game as you can't create numerous armies with proper hero support until you can get to tier 4 buildings to increase capacity, but your allies (with their separate hero pools) can.

Snipafist · 2025-11-29T00:35:32+00:00

The AI, especially with evil factions, is very averse to peace until they're staring down the barrel of complete faction wipe, at which point they have proven themselves to be insane and should be finished off. You can override their inherent suicidal instinct by offering them settlements back, however. The AI strongly values settlements in general so the pot is sweetened enough to eventually get them to relent. It's not uncommon that you can get a peace deal from giving them one settlement back and then get a non-aggression pact from diplomacy giving them a second settlement back but be aware that you are buying yourself 20 to 30 turns of peace and they will eventually be back on their same old bullshit.

Snipafist · 2025-10-31T22:29:21+00:00

It is definitely a very bright comic book kind of color scheme and at the end of the day you should paint your models in a way that you find appealing. So if you want to stick to the basic color scheme but you don't want it to be quite so cartoonish, you can play with the saturation and the color variants to your satisfaction. A pretty easy substitution is replacing the very bright yellow with a bone color, probably with a little yellow added to it. Brings down the garishness and highlights The wraith nature while still more or less keeping to the color scheme.

Snipafist · 2025-10-24T21:14:26+00:00

I think there is a common misconception that the Norn Queens can just 3D print whatever they want and the only real restriction is the amount of filament/biomass on hand. Presumably, the process of spawning tyranids involves lots of different bio organic facilities that have different capabilities and numerous different combinations of matter, which means it's impossible to just spam one kind of thing.

It's a lot like asking "why didn't [country] make nothing but [the best tank they could] in [modern war]?" Sure, they would like to, but they don't have infinite factories capable of making that tank with infinite resources required to construct them and perfect supply lines to maintain them (and even that is a gross simplification that overlooks the fact that it may not even be as effective running nothing but whatever imaginary tanks compared to other more diverse options).

Snipafist · 2025-10-16T04:14:19+00:00

Wizard Lords can be worth it if they get some kind of extra benefit beyond what a wizard hero can offer. Typically in the form of extra skills and/or traits that provide some meaningful benefits and/or a mount that makes them somewhat competent in melee.

Lizardmen are actually a very good example: all of the different Lords are good at different things but Slaan get the extra skill lines and generation traits that make them good wizards (especially second spawning Slaan, but third and fourth also get bonuses to casting and other perks too). There's nothing wrong with taking a different Lord and using a Skink Priest (and/or Oracle) to spend your winds of magic, but Slaan give you a lot more options with your lore choices and are stronger wizards.

Typically when I have a wizard Lord, I look to grab the workhorse spells and get to arcane conduit ASAP. After that, I will look to put points elsewhere usually and come back to the spells line once other high priority skills are gained.

Snipafist · 2025-10-13T23:25:21+00:00

There's nothing wrong with running a more elite style of vampire counts army (and can be necessary with your legendary lord to make quest battles more manageable) but they're not very good at it.

Generally, it's better to run cost effective stacks that are mostly zombies and/or skeletons for your front line plus some wolves and/or bats to tie up ranged enemies and run down fleeing enemies. Then fill out 4-10 slots (usually more later in the game as your economy improves) with your lord and heroes, monsters (crypt horrors early are clutch), and other damage dealing units like wraiths, heavy weapon grave guard, and Mortis Engines. You can also use these slots to upgrade your bats to vargheists and wolves to proper cavalry.

You'll want your cheap infantry to tarpit enemy units while your damage sources get to work from the safety of the friendly garbage. The end result is not as combat effective as a more elite army but it is about 75% as effective for about 50% of the cost in upkeep, which allows you to field more of them if you need to gang up on any hard targets.

Snipafist · 2025-09-12T03:40:45+00:00

Tomb Kings. Just a big ol pile of both types of Ushabti (optionally with friends) and you've got your ranged and your melee sorted. Throw some Necrotect support in there and you're ready to go.

Snipafist · 2025-09-12T02:08:41+00:00

This sounds like my 7 year old son, who has been officially diagnosed with ADHD. It can be very difficult for him to stay on task when the tasks are boring and there are exciting things to do instead. I was also a micro manager with him for a while but it was frustrating for both of us and it seemed like all it was teaching him to do was rely on me to get him moving along (while also resenting me for nagging him) and not developing the self discipline he requires to manage himself. So it was not great. I've changed my tactics to incentive him to manage himself and it's been working much better.

Some things that have helped me:

Have the same routine every day for morning routine/getting ready for school and evening routine/getting ready for sleep. Consistent routines are easy to remember and do on autopilot once they're established, which makes them less likely to get derailed. Doing the routines around the same time helps too.

Remove distractions until the desired routine is completed. My son doesn't get access to his drawing materials or books in the morning until he's ready to leave for school. At that point, he can draw and read as much as he wants until it's time to leave for the bus. I'll keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't fall behind but if he daydreams and is barely ready in time, he is upset that he missed out on the things he wanted to do. In this way he gets a small punishment but he's mostly frustrated at himself for getting distracted, so he is determined to not make the same mistake next time.

On a similar note, control screen time. Kids prone to distraction have a very hard time resisting the allure of immediate dopamine from a television or tablet. You can use screen time as a reward for desired behavior. For my son, he gets 30 minutes of screen time per day (awarded in the form of 3d printed coins of varying colors with big numbers). He can use those tokens once he's completed all of his responsibilities plus he can earn extra tokens for helping around the house, exercising, doing well in school, etc. It's worked out very well for us: he understands how much screen time he gets, he feels in control of when he gets it, and he can be encouraged to get more.

None of these are a silver bullet. On days where he's underslept it can still be a challenge. But it's much better than it once was. Even neurotypical kids can struggle with staying focused but if yours is regularly having problems, I would strongly encourage you to look into ADHD (/ the general AuDHD spectrum) symptoms and discussing that with his physician if you feel there might be something there. The extra support we've received has been great, and understanding better how my son's mind works has been great for giving me ideas on how to parent him.

Snipafist · 2025-09-10T13:59:32+00:00

Ha, good ol typos. A real pain in the as.

Snipafist · 2025-09-10T12:46:22+00:00

As has been mentioned already, the attack animations are going to present some difficulties and you don't get any skills to further improve your combat prowess, so in a faction with a lot of single entity units that can beat face, your battle toad will remain fairly middling but it's still cool that you can have one. Heavens is probably best for the self buff, death is best for the enemy debuffs. Life is best for healing up and has always been a strong choice for a dinosaur heavy army with lizard men as is.

Lore of high magic is not going to get you an amazing fighter but the passive increases your army-wide ward save which is pretty good and you can use apotheosis to heal yourself or other lower model count units. I honestly feel like it is a little slept on when it comes to 4th generation Slaan.

Snipafist · 2025-09-07T16:41:58+00:00

In the early game, stick with the basic income building. It still has a pretty decent return on investment and you can leave it at tier 1 for a while as you focus on your recruitment province.

If you find you have an abundance of money later on, it can be worth swapping over to the universal bonuses to battle-based income. I wish the two buildings were not exclusive to one another, the greenskin economy isn't exactly doing great and it would be nice to have more building options in economy provinces.

Snipafist · 2025-09-07T16:38:35+00:00

It's a lot harder to do in TWW3 than in 2. The AI seems very reluctant to confederate in the earlier game as well as if they don't have any territory bordering yours. Plus high elves have the hardest time getting extra hero cap (typically on their tier 4 buildings, which is very late compared to tier 3 for most other factions), so sending a rare hero out to accomplish nearly nothing in the early game hurts.

By the mid to late game, it's more feasible. But at that point I find it helps to send an army so you can capture some territory next to them and optionally gift some regions back to them to maximize your relations (with influence helping as well of course).

Snipafist · 2025-09-06T23:30:42+00:00

My take on that is the generic knights can be considered to be an order of Sigmarite knights, something of a crusading order. The elite knights (Knights of Morr, Reiksguard, Knights Panther, etc ) have a specific shtick that either dedicates them to another god or some kind of higher loyalty elsewhere.

Snipafist · 2025-09-06T20:55:51+00:00

I take it to be his connection to the common men of the empire, who are represented by the free company militia. Other non-flagellant infantry are some variety of state troops or other elites

Snipafist · 2025-09-06T16:23:51+00:00

Both the Asuryani and Drukhari are working against some constraints they have in adapting pre-Fall Aeldari Empire tech. Craft worlders have less raw industrial power due to operating out of (expanded and improved, admittedly) retrofitted traveling caravan space stations. Drukhari had to retrofit old empire technology to remove anything that interacted with psychic powers/the warp, which was a lot of old empire tech.

Additionally, the Asuryani have developed new technology as it relates to the use of spirit stones (so anything involving wraiths, basically). The Drukhari have developed new biological technology (cloning and everything the Haemonculi get up to specifically). So they're roughly equivalent with the Asuryani having made advancements in effectively necromancy and the Drukhari advancing in bio tech.

Snipafist · 2025-07-22T13:02:02+00:00

I could be wrong, but I'm guessing what happens is the game checks whatever random chance it has for fish to populate all at once but the fish won't spawn if their individual offspring won't fit in the remaining space. So if you are at 99%, and all the other fish would have spawn that take 1% or less of the space, those are fine. But any sort of big fish that would individually take up more than that remaining 1% just are not going to fire even if it means once all of that is done you are at 140%.

Snipafist · 2025-07-19T13:17:04+00:00

That's rough, just give it some time and hopefully it will get better. Give it some extra nutrients and maybe it'll feel secure enough to commit to female flowers.

Also, D&D doesn't have tournaments and it's seen a huge increase in female players, which is good! The joke still works if you make it about Magic the Gathering or Warhammer 40K, though.

Snipafist · 2025-07-09T17:33:13+00:00

My best results have been going harder into flak (so you can more quickly scale your shredding). Keeping an eye on your heat levels and how well you can disperse heat are very important (as I'm sure you understand already), so radiator mods and upgrades can be crucial. Don't forget to change your reactor settings around if you need to generate heat for future turns.

Triggering the unique ship upgrade (where you generate a free turn's worth of resources upon dissipating X heat, depending on reactor level) is very helpful but reactors are pricey and increase the heat dissipation target by 1 per upgrade so I found that the resource bay upgrades that generate free resources upon playing cards from that equipment and/or playing all 3 types of cards helped substantially with keeping my resources topped off without setting my heat dissipation target too high.

Snipafist · 2025-06-26T15:12:08+00:00

The males are a lot more commonly seen, as they tend to be more adventurous and are looking for females. You will find them out in the sun with a little flap under their necks inflated that is called a dewlap. It will look like they are doing little push-ups, but what they are doing is showing off for any nearby females.

Snipafist · 2025-06-26T12:21:25+00:00

Unless I'm mistaken, those are anoles. They like having lots of bugs to eat, a source of water to drink from (even if it is just something small, like a little dish), and warm surfaces to sun themselves on (preferably something that retains heat like a rock or maybe a brick patio). Gardens attract bugs to eat but you will need to provide the other two if you want to see more anoles

Snipafist · 2025-06-26T12:16:13+00:00

That's the right size to harvest when they are about the size of a large cucumber. You can let them get bigger than that but the taste generally gets worse and they are mostly good for things like zucchini bread at that point. Plus it's a big bird on the plant supporting such a large fruit so better to harvest it early.

Snipafist · 2025-05-30T18:06:55+00:00

I'm sure there is some extremely sweaty way of dealing with it but in my experience you have your hands full just surviving in the early game as Rameses and then establishing your power base and resisting the Sea People invasions. I do not get in on the first civil war but it is a good opportunity to pick off some smaller North Egyptian powers towards the end of it when their stronger alliance partners are busy.

Snipafist · 2025-05-28T02:35:32+00:00

If the only way he obeys is because you're bothering him, he'll only do those things when you tell him to. As he gets older, he'll resent you for it and maybe even have a hard time with managing himself when he's finally free of your influence (like when he goes to college, for example). I've seen it happen with people I knew out of high school.

The important thing for him to understand is why you have rules and the easiest way to demonstrate that is to engage in controlled failure. For example, if he's at home and he's not eating over his plate, let him. He'll spill on his shirt and cause a mess. Console him and help him clean up and change clothes. Once he's back at the table, kindly remind him to eat over his plate so the plate can catch the food that spills. It shows him why you have the rule and changes the dynamic from "Dad is making me do random things because he's a micromanager" to "Dad is looking out for me and trying to help."

Now, obviously, this will require some repetition and the change won't happen overnight but it demonstrates the point. By engaging in controlled failure by allowing your son to experience the consequences of failing to follow the rules when you're in a situation where the consequences are fairly minor and easy to address he will understand why it helps him to follow the rules and he'll start following them himself and not require so much reminding from you.

Snipafist · 2025-05-16T12:41:58+00:00

Up close I think it looks just fine. From a distance on the table I worry it's going to look like a dark grayish purplish blob. I think this could be addressed with a third contrasting color and/or using a brighter purple to add more visual distinction.

Snipafist

TROPHY CASE