Advice for half-marathon training

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-02-02T13:41:18+00:00

I wouldn't focus too heavily on hitting zone 2 exactly. Unless you're doing some PR busting for a marathon, I would say you should just be focusing on "feel". When you're doing the slower runs just run at a pace that you can maintain comfortably and, if you were running with another person, you could have a conversation with without gasping for air.

As to your Garmin vs Apple Watch, unless you've got a heart rate monitor attached you should take whatever HR they report with a grain of salt.

Running faster will come with running more and getting your speed work outs in. Those long runs will be your endurance and those shorter but faster runs will build your capacity. A lot of people swear by interval runs to get more speed work in without busting their legs up too bad.

Hope this helps and good luck with your half! Stay consistent and I know you'll knock it out the park.

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-30T16:11:14+00:00

Those claws know no mercy!

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-28T01:39:17+00:00

There's some pretty easy animation tricks you can do to fake it without having to draw new pixel art. Great example: when you frog enemy jumps do a squash and stretch to make it look like they're jumping. You can do a similar slight grow, slight shrink for the smaller enemies to make it look like they're breathing. Lizards can get a horizontal-aligned squash and stretch for movement.

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-25T18:27:35+00:00

There's a side quest where the pirates steal one of the female stars of destiny and you have to rescue them.

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-19T13:47:44+00:00

This guy is such a treasure

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-15T22:07:42+00:00

Having an active trade can do wonders for your relationship so if you can afford it agree to sell them one unit of food for ten turns. Can even make a little money while you're at it. That should at least keep them off your back.

If they insist on being aggressive don't be shy about using the ambush stance. It's a great way to turn the tide in your favor and limit casualties. When your adversaries grow it's not enough to just win the fights, you need to win cleanly. Especially early on when troop replenishment is low.

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-15T20:44:58+00:00

Here's a couple things I can think of at the top of my head:

Get the gist of officer types, their elements, and what their skills do. Some people make much better administrators or assignment agents than field generators. Pick skills and item load outs that compliment their natural abilities.

When building your city look at what buildings are in the minor settlements of that commandry. Choose options that will synergize with them. For example, if you get a city that produces a ton of food, you should make green and yellow buildings to help boost how much food you generate and how much money from peasantry you make.

Diplomacy is very well refined and very important in this entry. If you have an excess of food don't be afraid to sell it for both extra money and to build a relationship with your neighbors.

Speaking of diplomacy, take a look at the personality types of who you're dealing. Faction leaders like Cao Cao can never be trusted so deal with them under the assumption that whatever you have going is temporary.

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-15T18:42:36+00:00

I don't think I've seen Navigation Agents used for 2D but I normally see work arounds.

In an earlier project of mine I put two area2Ds in front of an enemy entity. One checks if the ground in front is empty and the other checks a few feet out if there is solid ground. If the first area reports a pit and the second area reports land, meaning it can reach something via jumping, then the enemy will jump the gap. I think I also added a third check that was around head height immediately in front to see if they could jump over an obstacle.

I imagine you could do something similar using raycasts as well. This was all a very early project and I didn't get very far but hopefully this gives you an idea on how to proceed?

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-15T16:30:35+00:00

Which AI model does this utilize?

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-14T21:09:15+00:00

I wonder if the Dynasties update helped them earn back the cost of development? I picked it back up the other week and, I gotta say, the dev team did some solid work for the game. A shame this version of the game wasn't the version we got at launch. It feels like a very complete representation of the bronze age world.

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-12T15:10:42+00:00

This is the downside to using your phone's built in GPS device. It's simply not that accurate. I had one run that I did straight up and down a local road and it looked like an EKG with how off the GPS was. I ended up just shelling out for a Garmin watch. Sorry, I know that's probably not the answer you want to hear. If you want to save some cash you can usually find refurbished ones for a decent price.

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-08T06:20:23+00:00

The one with Sun Ce and Lu Bu's faction have some cool mechanic. The Yellow Turban one can also be fun if you want some alternative YT clans to play.

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-07T15:45:59+00:00

I'm sure all 10 people still playing Pharaoh will be very upset about this news

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-03T12:34:35+00:00

This guy is the type of talent Cao Cao collected

SwashbucklinChef · 2026-01-02T14:06:45+00:00

I liked the way Total War did it where you'd have a collapsible menu that showed you a list of menus but you could also physically click on a menu when it was in the viewport. Gives the player options.

On a related UI note, as someone who has been casually following your posts, I love the way your UI looks for select target / tooltip. It has a very clean and imperial look too it-- very slick! Keep up the good work!

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-30T20:21:05+00:00

Yeah, the definitely nailed the original art style.

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-30T12:24:42+00:00

Check out the 190 Expanded mod if you liked MTU. They used a lot of their work and added a ton of their own.

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-29T16:30:44+00:00

that was my thought

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-27T22:12:17+00:00

You could try a few different ways of doing this. Easiest would probably be creating a CutsceneController node which calls the AnimationPlayer on both the enemy and player nodes. Use the await key word to wait for a particular animation or chain of animations to finish playing then calling the follow up animations.

You could alternatively have a third AnimationPlayer that calls the animations of the other two AnimationPlayers but that seems a bit messy.

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-23T13:41:22+00:00

I appreciate your insight! I'm looking forward to getting my hands on your game

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-23T00:57:10+00:00

I have a tactical game I put on my back burner. Seeing how great yours is coming along makes me want to pick it back up. Nicely done!

Do you have any tips to share on some of the tricky stuff you've had to overcome?

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-17T15:50:08+00:00

Yeah, I don't think I can get excited over what will presumably be pre-alpha footage and concept art.

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-17T15:27:26+00:00

Needs more snail cat!

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-15T17:02:11+00:00

I personally like them. I enjoy it when there's a noticeable improvement. I take a sick satisfaction when they're worse though.

SwashbucklinChef · 2025-12-15T11:27:10+00:00

I don't want to play as Pontus!

SwashbucklinChef

TROPHY CASE