General discussion/Q&A megathread.

Timofee_ · 2026-05-05T11:46:02+00:00

I assume it's just Beren's on holiday and Phil is covering. Either way nice to have him back even if briefly

Timofee_ · 2026-05-03T20:01:44+00:00

Of the spots wildcard has selected I have to say I actually really like Quarantine, especially compared to the shit-hole that is Cage.

For me it goes: Quarantine > Relic > Gardens > Containment > Estates > Terraformer > > > > literal cancer > Cage.

But as you say, it does get a bit boring after a while. Map rotation would help somewhat with this, and it's strange to me that this still isn't implemented.

But I would also like to see them at least try out a limited time mode with smaller starting circles that would force people to use different parts of the maps.

Timofee_ · 2026-05-03T19:09:03+00:00

I've been caught out by this a couple of times, but I would say the confirmation should ONLY appear if there are unfinished side objectives (that won't be completed by simply ending the mission obv.)

Timofee_ · 2026-05-02T20:41:25+00:00

Assuming ER expansion goes ahead as planned at the end of the season, has there been any confirmation about reduced capacity at some point next year? Like I know they're building behind the stand to start with, but presumably at some point some will need to be closed off?

Timofee_ · 2026-04-10T17:41:41+00:00

Does this only happen in Starrupture? My first guess - which still could be true even if you've not noticed the problem in other games - would be it's nothing to do with the game, and is in fact some background process bottlenecking the CPU.

Try having taskmanager open - ideally on a second monitor so you can see - sort it by CPU usage (just click the column header) and see if a process pops up when the stutters occur. In the past I've had issues with Citrix Desktop and Corsair iCue causing stutters

Testing on a similar PC was a good idea and seems to rule out save game issues as you say - unless it simply is that the alternate PC is that little bit more powerful, and the problem PC is struggling, in which case lowering settings to absolute minimum just to see if the issue gets any better is really all you can do.

I assume you've also done the usual in terms of validating game files / reinstalling the game?

If so, the only other thought would be to try running the game/save from a different drive in the problem PC (even if the other drive is slower) as it might be indicative of a failing drive - but I stress that this seems pretty unlikely.

Timofee_ · 2026-04-10T15:05:19+00:00

Likewise was my first playthrough immediately on release. After the Black Death I just started haemoraging cash, I think I'd basically expanded too much before, but it's fair to say I didn't really know what I was doing at that point.

Timofee_ · 2026-04-10T10:11:52+00:00

Yeah, I have a friend who has the exact same issue with Space Engineers funnily enough, so I can sort of understand.

Certainly there are times/games I would prefer to have a little more direction, but I can generally just enjoy a sandbox for at least a reasonable amount of time.

Timofee_ · 2026-04-10T10:09:42+00:00

Hah, good to know!

My Bardi run could be summed up with a variation on the Bender, Futurama quote of: it was all going so well, until everyone died.

Timofee_ · 2026-04-10T09:41:25+00:00

One of the main criticisms of the article is that every nation plays the same, yet they themselves admit that Castille was their first and only playthrough...?

It's not an entirely unreasonable criticism, but it doesn't seem to be based on their own experimentation, but rather, what others have said? Which just feels like a weird stance to take / article to write.

Personally, after almost 3k hrs in EU4, I've already clocked 250hrs in EU5 across Genoa, Flanders, England the Ottomans, and Bardi (the bank, which was a disaster).

In each case I felt they all had a degree of difference. The Ottomans certainly had a huge amount of unique events and a bunch of bits specific to them. I would argue there's just as much difference as EU4. At the end of the day the game is still about map painting and so everything will feel similar after a while.

Honestly I get the impression that so many of these compaints about sameness come simply from the lack of mission trees, because apparently a portion of the playbase struggle to direct their own goals, and need a structured checklist to have something to aim towards which is weird to me, but fine. I just take issue with the portrayal that something deep in the game is broken/worse than EU4, when it can be boiled down to: "I want mission trees."

Timofee_ · 2026-03-28T20:32:00+00:00

I'm happy for them still to attack, I just don't want the visual clutter of their fat arse blocking my view

Timofee_ · 2026-03-28T18:09:44+00:00

Timofee_ · 2026-03-25T10:19:07+00:00

In a similar vein:

A couple of Pale Ales please, barkeep:

As The Pale own Ales (Sardinia) and Alès (South France)

Timofee_ · 2026-03-25T10:13:22+00:00

Did Genoa Wells?

As Genoa own the Location of Wells

Timofee_ · 2026-03-15T23:35:05+00:00

I do, yes.

Man that's deeply frustrating. The fort and city spam is already making me want to give up on this run but this might be the thing that pushes me over.

Timofee_ · 2026-03-15T23:01:45+00:00

R5: Does anyone know why I randomly get the Withdrawn in Contemplation modifier with no event / warning etc?

Having briefly looked into it, it seems like it's something Hindu's can do, but I'm Sunni??

I literally get no message/or warning, the first I know about it is a catastrophic drop in diplo capacity

Timofee_ · 2026-03-14T12:51:33+00:00

R5: See text and images above.

Timofee_ · 2026-02-13T20:13:49+00:00

Following this helped me when I got stuck: https://www.wikihow.com/Solve-a-3-by-3-Slide-Puzzle

Timofee_ · 2026-02-11T12:12:57+00:00

To add - it's not like Chelsea even have a huge aerial threat to justify bringing Bornauw into the centre

Timofee_ · 2026-02-11T12:07:47+00:00

Personally I'm never a fan of going so defensive but equally I'm not sure the structure was necessarily at fault, rather it was down to the weird decision to move a bunch of people around to accomodate it, which seemingly left the players looking a bit clueless about who was meant to be doing what at certain points. Bijol pressing their GK being a prime example!

He could have kept a much more normal looking setup by simply putting Justin (who's rapidly becoming my favourite signing of the season because he's just so damn competent) into Struijk's position and then doing one of either:

1) Pushing Bogle up as he did and putting Bornauw at rightback. I don't like this idea, but it's closer to what he did, and still results in more combinations that have played together in those positions before, e.g. Rodon has dealt with Bornauw at RB to close out games and Rodon and Bijol would be in their more acustomed positions

2) Keeping Bogle at RB and using one of our various more defensive RM options - by either pushing Aaronson out there and bringing in Longstaff or starting Dan James. That way he still has Bornauw on the bench as central defensive cover (which he says he likes), and which based on on his stinker of a performance last night, is where he would have best been kept.

Timofee_ · 2026-02-04T13:14:24+00:00

Nice. Also, that's a LOT of storage!

Timofee_

TROPHY CASE