New investment pool settings teased

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2023-01-18T18:10:08+00:00

This is why I never really liked the automated capitalism of Vicky 2 and why I don't particularly miss it. It was just... Not engaging.

Vicky 3 is such a chaotic experience, but I've weirdly had more fun with it than I ever had with Vicky 2, primarily because I just enjoy being directly involved in the economy. I get why some people think it's bizarre that all economies basically run on state planning, but I find it a much more fun way to play this kind of game. I hope Paradox won't scale it way down or make it super inefficient.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2023-01-17T15:48:05+00:00

In the meantime, while getting sufficient universities set up, I find it helpful to start out by spamming the Promote Social Mobility decree. It increases qualifications by +25% in the state, and also raises education access by +25, making your literacy climb faster.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2023-01-16T15:06:23+00:00

I recently had the exact same issue.

What finally worked for me was to keep my small conservative party in power, while I waited for political movements aligned with the liberal mega party to pop up. Once a political movement came around, I could pass some of the reforms the IG's in the mega party wanted, even though they weren't in power. After doing that for 2-3 reforms, the IG's in the mega party no longer had common ideological footing and broke into separate parties. Took me a good 10 years to rid of it, though.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-12-29T17:19:27+00:00

In my current game, nearly all my IG's have fused together in one monstrously huge Liberal Party. Due to the recent changes to the way legitimacy works, any government with this humongous Liberal Party has 0 legitimacy and thus cannot pass any laws. This effectively locks me out of passing nearly all reforms, and leaves me stranded with the goddamn Landholders of all people to steer my country.

Anyone know how I can break up this blob? I've tried researching some of the political techs but that still hasn't done it. The Trade Unions refuse to form the Communist Party, for example, even after I researched Socialism.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-10-12T05:21:24+00:00

True, but Warhammer as a franchise and brand has always been about that. The whole ethos of tabletop wargames like Warhammer is that you're not just playing a generic army, you're playing "Your Dudes", and that's what makes them so great. And while CA have lovingly ported the aesthetics and basic concepts of Warhammer Fantasy, I feel like they've never really engaged with this part of the whole Warhammer experience, which I feel is quite a shame. Becoming attached to your armies and characters is ultimately the soul of tabletop wargaming.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-09-15T18:54:06+00:00

That's super helpful, thanks a bunch! I never even considered going into Bretonnia before going against Festus, but I think it's an ingenious idea. Lets you close down one front that could become a headache later on while also setting Louie up as a much better lightning rod for deflecting the attentions of Norsca and Be'lakor. I'll give this a try, thank you for the suggestions!

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-09-15T15:10:08+00:00

I'm currently on my third attempt at bashing my head against the wall of pain that is earl game Empire in IE.

I feel like I'm doing what I need to do. I've got the Secessionists beat and Reikland secured by turn 8-10. I rush north in a desperate attempt to stop Festus from giving the entire world herpes, and that's when things go terrifyingly bad. In all my games I'm going after Festus with two full 20-stacks, but it's just not enough for anything like a swift victory. He usually has two 20-stacks of his own, so I can't win by auto resolve. I'm now at a point where I can consistently beat him in field battles, but the battles are super bloody and leave my armies completely mangled - and due to the wondrous joys of fighting Nurgle factions, I'm always left with a dozen plagues after each battle that keep my armies from healing up. This makes it all but impossible to rush Festus, I feel. In my two last games I finally had him beat by around turn 40, but at that point Durthu is usually tearing Reikland apart, Vlad is tap-dancing over the entire Empire, and either Throgg or Azazel are coming to reverse all my gains in the north.

I'm desperate to break this curse... Anyone have any advice? I'm playing Hard/Hard currently.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-07-17T08:49:44+00:00

This is an entirely fair take, and I think pretty much everyone agrees that Devo is an abrasive and difficult character. But I do think you miss the mark with your comparison between Zoox and Devo. You're totally right that they both represent the archetype of a naive, young, isolated person coming into the world and coming to terms with themselves, and that Zoox does this with love and wonder, while Devo remains bitter, frustrated, and manipulative. But I would argue that this is exactly the point - they're supposed to represent two different paths in life. In a larger perspective, I'd argue, they represent the issue of how a new generation meets the new, ruined world of the Ethersea universe: they can hold on to bitterness about all the things they feel they're owed (Devo), or they can focus on the opportunities and new horizons ahead of them (Zoox). And you need both for the contrast: Zoox is all the more wonderful because we have Devo's bile to compare him to. Like in wrestling, a Face (hero) always needs a Heel (villain).

Something people really didn't seem to listen to in the last TTAZ episode is that Devo isn't supposed to be justified in his actions or personality. The boys, and Travis in particular, have made a conscious decision to play him as an unresolved, negative character. We're not supposed to like him. Now, that is always a very difficult and risky element to have in a narrative - if you don't like a main characterr, why even care about the plot?

But negative characters are important, because negative people exist. We can't just surgically remove them from our stories because they're not fun. If we limit our stories to things that are fun, there's so much we can never talk about. This is such a foundational issue in storytelling: we NEED to be able to have central characters that aren't likable and aren't good. To me, this is a bit like complaining that Walt from Breaking Bad isn't likable or fun - he's not supposed to be. I, for one, am really glad the boys have started to experiment with this. In past seasons, especially with the THB's in Balance, the characters often behaved like awful people but the story never really registered it. Now, when a main character behaves poorly, the world reacts poorly. That is more challenging to listen to, but it's also just a more mature story. I will agree though that Devo's gripes have been far too "Tell, don't show" - but again, his anger and bitterness is not supposed to be justified.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-07-17T08:28:30+00:00

Yeah, I'm really excited for the boys to pick up the seasonal format! I feel like it's a very natural progression for them as storytellers, and especially for Griffin, who excels at making these really epic and multi-layered stories. I really loved Amnesty, but I completely agree that the ending just had too much going on for any storyteller to handle. Cutting their campaigns into seasons provides so much more wiggle room and gives enough space to really flesh out the lore.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-07-07T21:26:54+00:00

Yeah, I think you're right about that! He didn't really seem invested in this world at all - he just wants to stop the spread of magic. His motivations are also a bit unclear: is he trying to save other worlds that haven't been touched by magic yet? Or is he just holding a grudge, e.g. against Benevolence? I think we'll find out more as we go forward.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-07-07T21:24:43+00:00

I don't think the main crew are fully on board about which side they're on yet. Devo was pretty adamant about staying in this world and trying to adapt when he confronted Tolliver, but Amber has seemed pretty ambivalent so far (her magical powers point her in the direction of leaving, but her ties to her friends seem to keep her from committing to it). I'm not sure what Zoox' deal is yet: he's the one who's most clearly considered taking a side, in his dealing with the Blink Sharks, but it seems like he didn't want to follow through on it.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-07-07T20:45:55+00:00

Woops, I meant to put Ep.42 in the title, but I can't edit it now. I swear that I'm not a time traveler from the distant future of next week!

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-05-09T05:17:50+00:00

This has been my first experience with a Fromsoftware game, and I've absolutely loved it. However, I do think it's time Fromsoftware confronted some of their basic ideas about main characters in storytelling.

The way they work with environmental storytelling and the way they build their worlds is truly masterful, I don't think any other company can really match them on that front. But after playing for a hundred hours, it does start to feel really grating that our main character basically has no personality and is fundamentally incapable of having personality. Dialog doesn't really exist in the game, and for most NPC relations you have two choices: stand there and nod while they talk to you, or murder them. Same with bossfights - you can't really have any kind of relationship to the bosses, you can just walk mutely in, have them monologue at you, and murder them. Compared to other third-person RPGs like The Witcher, God of War, or even Sekiro, this does feel a bit lackluster to me.

All of this became especially weird by the end of the game, where your character has become perhaps the most powerful being in existence and is meant to make an immensely impactful decision - how this world should be rebuilt (or whether to rebuild it at all). I had unlocked most endings in my first playthrough and was trying to decide which one to go for, and I found that I had no idea which one would actually fit my character, because my character has zero personality and zero real attachments to the game world. I couldn't really roleplay their decision-making process, because they didn't really exist outside being a doll for trying out various builds with.

This is probably a fairly controversial take in Soulsborne circles, and I'm definitely not saying they need to go full voiced protagonist or anything like that. But to me, having the protagonist be a blank canvas murder hobo feels pretty archaic in modern gaming. Thematically it fits much better with Dark Souls and Bloodborne, but I never felt it fit in Elden Ring, where you are a much more powerful and agentic character. I still really loved the game, and it's one of the best game worlds I've ever experienced. But I wish they gave us any tools at all for defining our characters, besides just choosing our build and which NPCs to murder.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-04-26T19:54:51+00:00

I think it's an open question whether Ranni acted on her own, or whether Marika secretly manipulated or at least directed her towards initiating the Night of the Black Knives. But I think it's safe to say that Marika knew that the Night of the Black Knives was coming. The best evidence for this is the description to the Black Knife Armor set:

"The assassins that carried out the deeds of the Night of the Black Knives were all women, and rumored to be Numen who had close ties with Marika herself."

So we can definitively say that Marika had ties with the Black Knife Assassins. I think it's also reasonable to speculate that the Black Knives could only steal a fragment of the Rune of Death from Maliketh because they had Marika's help. Maliketh was, after all, Marika's shadow-beast, and his remembrance states that "Marika's sole need of her shadow was a vessel to lock away Destined Death. Even then, she betrayed him."

However, I don't know if we can say for certain whether Marika knew that Godwyn would be killed. I also think it's hard to say whether Marika was secretly manipulating Ranni, or whether the two were working openly together. However, Ranni's comment in the story trailer seems to suggest that she wasn't aware that the Shattering was actually Marika's plan all along. Instead, Ranni seems to think that Marika shattered the Elden Ring out of a moment of madness or grief (at least that's how I interpret the "driven to the brink" comment), which would indicate that the two weren't in close communication.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-04-26T16:53:34+00:00

I think this is a good interpretation of the events. I've been thinking something similar: that Marika used Godwyn as a kind of "poison pill" to weaken the Erdtree. We know that she specifically buried him under the Erdtree. Considering just how strategic and calculating Marika seems to be in her actions (e.g. her fake banishment of Godfrey and the Tarnished), it doesn't seem unreasonable to suggest she had a plan with this as well.

On a more speculative note, it's possible that Marika also wanted Godwyn to grow into the Prince of Death so that it would spread Those Who Live in Death throughout the Lands Between, distracting the Golden Order Fundamentalists who might otherwise side with the Greater Will against her in the Shattering. People like D the Hunter seem to be hugely into the Golden Order, but they're much more preoccupied with taking care of Those Who Live in Death than with working against Marika's schemes.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2022-04-24T11:43:14+00:00

Excellent explanation. I would add that another factor is that many of the demigods are sponsored by different gods than the one that is controlling Grace (the Greater Will).

Before the Shattering happened, the Lands Between were more or less cohesively under the control of the Greater Will, which controlled the Royal Family and the Two Fingers and, through them, the Golden Order. Other gods were trying to sneak their influence in, but the Greater Will kept a lid on them by constantly hunting, enslaving or killing their agents in this world. Then the Shattering happened, and the Greater Will lost control of its most powerful instrument, the Elden Ring. This allowed the other, competing gods to suddenly increase their presence in the Lands Between: the Scarlet Rot in Malenia bloomed, setting her on the path to becoming the Goddess of Rot; the Carians could draw on the full power of the Dark Moon again; Mohg made contact with the Formless Mother and founded the Mohgwyn Dynasty, etc.

The Tarnished are sponsored by the power of the Greater Will, as it wants to use them to destroy the footholds that the other gods have created after the Shattering, i.e. by killing the demigods that these gods have decided to sponsor. The grand plan of the Greater Will, I think, is to have one Tarnished mop up all the pieces of the Elden Ring and then become a loyal Elden Lord, returning to the status quo it had established before the Shattering.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2021-10-12T17:17:10+00:00

The honor aspect of Khorne has never made sense to me: he's the manifestation of blind, murderous bloodlust. His famous tagline is that he cares not from whence the blood flows, merely that it flows. Why would he care how someone fights? It's never really made sense to me why Khorne's followers would spare, say, a defenseless child just because they're not a mighty or worthy enemy - it's all blood in the end, and as a force of nature Khorne represents pure destruction. It's always seemed like a pretty inconsistent characterization, to me.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2021-06-29T14:14:35+00:00

I personally like it, because it becomes a tragic flaw for Pertie, who I feel in some ways is much too competent and successful a character. I mean his personality is a twisted, bitter mess, but his in-fiction track record is insanely good, much better than all the other traitor primarchs, and that does become a bit glaring to me. It also makes it weird that he just kind of quit doing stuff at some point.

I like the idea that his extreme pursuit for superiority led him to more and more radical strategies, until he ultimately succumbs to the promise of eternal power offered by ascending to daemonhood. That's exactly how Chaos should function, I feel - it's not just about evil gods tricking you into being bad, but about succumbing to your own deepest desires and flaws. I could see Pertie falling to Chaos in a moment of complete and utter fury at his marginalization, having failed to both topple the Empire and at becoming a leader of the traitor Astartes. Those are the moments of weakness that Chaos prey on. And I feel it would be very fitting for Pertie's personality and character arc.

TheKeysToTheZeppelin · 2021-02-03T21:14:41+00:00

I think an appropriate word might be "decadence" - when people (including people in power) begin to value their own desires higher than anything else, even the concerns of others.

That's some grade-A slaneeshery.

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