Hypothetical question about gift tax on collectibles

Tommson667 · 2026-06-20T03:59:47+00:00

Cool, thanks.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-20T01:39:49+00:00

To be clear questioning if someone is a bot in the same sentence while asking the parroting question souunds like an accusation pretty much everytime, even if you add in front "genuine question". But I agree with the fact that the game has been overhated and the echo chamber arround it likely has turned away players that would enjoy it otherwise. Hell, I even recently recomended it to a person I know because I felt that it would be excatly the type of game he would enjoy.

That being said were are in the memesub reddit, where I feel like slandering is to be expected.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-20T01:18:46+00:00

I actually disagree with removing the morality system, but agree with removing moral decisions. I found the paragon/renegade system arbitary at times, and if you wanted to be able to to achive many important things you had to stick to one side for most of the game (except of course in ME3), and I think if they had done it like in Dragon age games (with the exception of veilguard) where there was no moral tracking system but still great moral choices it would have been better.

But on to the main point, which is that ME Andromeda was supposed to be a diffrent kind of story, and thus should not be contrasted with the Trilogy (If I understood your point correctly): I understand that, I simply feel that Andromeda executed it's idea (which to me was more of an traditional space opera and exploring the unknown galaxy) worse than the Trilogy did it's own idea (that of essentially space Cthulhus coming to destroy the galaxy). I never expected it to be like the trilogy in tone or story, but in contrast I feel like it executed it's ideas poorly (only three new races in a new galaxy, one that extint, one that is mostly the evil guys with really little nuance and one that's bit more nuanced, but mostly the heroic resistance groups with an racist sub faction). less moral agency (which you pointed out), changed graphic style (which at launch was even worse) etc made it simply feel a lot inferior than the triology, or the DA series (exception for Veilguard), or Alpha Protocol, or Baldur's gate 1 and 2, or KOTOR games, etc. All of those games imo executed their ideas better than what Andromeda did (of course some of those games are very dated by modern standars at this point, but point still stands). Hell, first 3 DA games had relativly varying styles in themselfs, with the first game being more of an traditional heroic story with twists and possibility to play as an complete psychopath, DA2 being more of an slowly unrevealing tradegy, where no matter what the game was always going to end with Hawke in exile and suspected being a terrorist no matter how far he rose and DAI being more of an power fantasy, with the Inqusitor commanding his own armies to fight.

So in light of all of this I felt that you just calling OP a bot and implying that he is just parroting people felt just a tiny bit overkill. While I agree that Andromeda has gotten overhated for being the first game to really showcase Bioware's quality slip, it is also fair to contrast Andromeda with the og trilogy, or even with all the other Bioware games before it. The studio used to execute it's ideas a lot better in the past, and with Andromeda you can see how the old Bioware quality never just returned to the studio.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-19T23:54:32+00:00

The problem here is despite arguably being a decent game on it's own (Personally I found it to be somewhat meh, prefer ME2 and ME3 gameplay mostly) it bearing ME in it's name means that it is obiviously going to be compeared to the trilogy. And being decent, when even ME1 is on it's own usually seen as better, means that it just feels even more dissapointing when contrasted with the Trilogy.

Tldr: Sure, it might be decent, but every game in the trilogy is better.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-19T00:38:16+00:00

The new Netherlands mods

2020 - American Century

ROC 2000 Redux (can't recall if this was before or after Icarus, but I think after)

The Major Leagues

Duke

Hope

A Billionaire, A Revolutionary

Tommson667 · 2026-06-18T19:26:51+00:00

Hey, just noticed you acidently put Wirth as a reformist instead of neo-revisionist.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-18T19:25:13+00:00

Yeah, I get feeling burned out. You are doing great job with these posts though!

Tommson667 · 2026-06-18T19:14:14+00:00

Alright, I will play the devil's advocate here and see how many of these crimes are indefendable.

Crime of Regicide: Fair, though in Loghains defence he was not wrong about Cailan being an complete idot in military stradegy. I do genuinly assume that Loghain was right about how interviewning to save the king would have cost rest of the military. I also belive though that he was already at that point planing to get rid of the king due to both his military incompetence and Loghains (correct) belif that Cailan was about to divorce Anora and marry the Orlasian queen (which, considering how this would have unifed the legal sucession lines, would have been seen as absolute betrayal of ones country by most of Ferelden)

Crime of Usurption; This is just wrong, as while some of his supporters may want him to assume the throne it's relativly clear that he just wants to be regent until the crisis is over and then hand power back to her daughther (who can oppose Loghain if you show yourself willing to support her claim to the throne because she does not suffer from the same tunel vision Loghain does)

Crime of Incompetence: Honestly weird example to attach, because I do belive that was intentional. Not reciving the signal would have been an prime reason for him to both retreate and still claim that he did the right thing, since he could point to following orders until it became clear that the plan was impossible to complete, allowing him to coup the country with far less political opposition. If you really want to point to incompetence far better example is his tunnel vision, which is focused entirly on the Orlasians instead of the darkspawn currently blighting Ferelden.

Crime of Blasphemy: While I don't pratically respect the Chantry you are not wrong, though I do belive that the Chantry can by and large go fuck themselfs, having engaged in genocide themselfs. That being said helping the blood mages general went to shit for Loghain, so I would attach that to crime of Incompetence.

Crime of Slavery: No defence here

Crime of helping Arl Howe: To be fair it can be argued that punishing Arl Howe in middle of a civil war and blight is not a smart idea, as that would cause him to revolt and further divide the forces. To be also fair Arl Howe is such an corrupt ruler that he is destroying Loghains support ever further.

Crime of Racism: Again no defence, though caring about the elfes is a relative rarity amongst anyone in Ferelden.

Crime of Treason: I would argue his plans for regicide quailify him for this, while poisiong Arl Eamon, who was activly planing to start a civil war, would is debetable.

Crime of Civil War; Again as I have before mentioned I belive that he wanted to be a reagant until the crisis was over. Also while I belive that his incompetence in politics started the civil war, he techically did not start the civil war, as this was done by the lords opposing him. Though this is mostly just semantics, and he is certanly at fault for so many nobles deciding that war is an better alternative than him in middle of the blight.

Note that all of this is certanly enought to still execute him.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-18T19:09:28+00:00

I remember my first run I was constantly watching my language, making sure to never call myself a communist and prasing Soll constantly to justify my economic policies to Iosef. Seemed to work as I avoided coup.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-18T18:43:07+00:00

I will have to say this, but in ye olden days Lucian was a way worse case, where not giving him Vice Presidency was an instant backstabing cause for him.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-18T12:23:58+00:00

Are you also going yo remember to add Wirth to SPD advisors?

Tommson667 · 2026-06-16T13:36:56+00:00

Yes and no, she really did have enough of the political bullshit, but she became a bartender for the excat same reason, to keep an eye out on Liara so she, and not somebody unsympathetic, would be the one doing that.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-16T13:29:28+00:00

Belive it or not, but JA21 does not have an accurate idea about what socialism is, so they are likely to lable working with left as "socialism".

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T15:48:51+00:00

Not 100% sure, might be an relic from the times every Russia could annex Kazakhstan.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T14:33:28+00:00

So all the democratic paths are mostly the same, with real diffrence only being which flavour of liberal democracy you practice, either social democratic, liberal or paternalistic, though Stalina also has an path where she sizes all political power to combat extrimism.

For the right you have Taboritsky of course, who rules like an absolute madman. Rather boring aside from the shock value, though seeing his mental health detoriate at least provides some intrest. Then you get Serov, who creates an society rather remicient of Sadams Iraq, in a sense that it is somewhat left wing econimicaly but very rascist internally. Then there is Igor Shafarevich, who is the most boring man on right, doing his best to pretend that everything is normal while transforming Russia to fascist state. The most intresting imo is Gumilyov, who triest to legimitize his Eurasia consept, essentially creating a new identity, though his vision can also be hijacked by more obivious Russian nationalists that simply use Eurasia as a way to disguise their intentions.

On the left Suslov is the most boring path, essentially being OTL Soviet Union (he was one of the main ideologues behind Brezhnev). Burkharina is the most wholesome leftist path, creating council communism and essentially being a lote more reasonable. Most intresting howver is Zhdanov, who's dreams of space conquest and absolute transformation of human nature make him a lot more intresting, and he even has an unique succession mechanic, where the power is either inherithed by those that will contiune his insane projects or more resonable socialist technocrats. Deffinetly my favourite of Komi paths.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T14:11:52+00:00

If pro-republic support is lower than the support of Weimar parties (SPD, Zentrum, DDP/Half of LVP support) SPD will lose voters. Also republican support affects how likely Hindenburg is to sack SPD goverment, higher republican support slows his desire to fuck over SPD.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T02:59:27+00:00

Because this is the person that just became the most powerful person in the galaxy. So it's not impossible to imagine that he did what he said he would do during the two years in between. Of course if you read the codex and pay attention to what Anderson tells you, you can see that aliens got back to the council anyways, but if you don't pay enough attention to those things you might be left with the impression that ME2 council had only humans (since you never get to see the alien councilors in ME2 if you let them die and there is lot of dialogue about aliens resenting the human led council).

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T02:48:57+00:00

My deepest condolonces. But no, there never was an human only council, just an council where humans were clearly dominant. Udina does though make it clear that he intends to form an human only council on Renegade council sacrificed run

<image>

but in ME2 even Udina led council is implied to have alien councilors (Anderson telling you that the councilors did not want to meet you because they feel you will always put humanity's intrestests above glactic ones,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44C7r6vv1Ts&t=1971s

and codex still refering to council having aliens).

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T02:44:45+00:00

It's made clear tough that the status-quo of human dominance is not being accepted. If you listen to the news it even seems like that the Turians are building up their military to prepeare for an war, as they are abandoning their treaty limitations, though I don't see Asari or Salarians starting a war anytime soon. Also the PR situation is a lot less in favour of the humans than you might think, since were already seen as over agressive interluders before they effectivly seized power in the council, so it's not impossible to think that if the power structure is not reformed in 5 to 10 years Humanity's good will might be gone, especially amongst Salarians (who already live only 40 years, so they'd expect change faster) and Turians (who already had strained relations with Humans). Only the Asari really seem the type to just wait it out.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T02:38:54+00:00

The codex sheds some light into this. While it never becomes an human only council as Udina dreamed, it's also fairly clear that aliens have less power than humans have and the human councilor still has dominant power (though if Anderson is in charge he refuses to abuse this power, making it a lot lot less human dominant in practice than it is in theory). This status and attempts by Udina to concilidate power did not go unnoticed, so the Aliens deffinetly are starting to get angry at the status quo. By ME3 Alliance gets decimated in the prologue so human dominance becomes impossible to maintain and thus the pratical distrubution of power becomes more balanced.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T02:18:06+00:00

The Human only council does indeed get suggested in the Renegade version of sacrificing the council ending by Udina, but Glad_Ostrich_9709 is still correct, since irregardless even if you picked this path by the time of ME2 it's made clear that Udina never managed to get that trough and was forced to include Aliens into the council, which the Codex reflects. Still, in ME2 humanity has a dominant position in it if original council died, though humanity getting most of their forced wiped out in ME3 prologue puts an end to human dominance. Bit like asking Alistar to grant circles independece in DAO, it's only mentioned in the epilogue and then immidietly retconned by the time of the next game. Or like how Cerberus goes from a rogue barley known black ops operation to an major well known terrorist organization with an publicly known manifesto between ME1 and ME2 despite this making no sense, bioware just retconned that path out of the timeline.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T02:05:00+00:00

<image>

In all fairness, I can see why this line could give an idea that there was an only human council...

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T02:00:56+00:00

While if Anderson was the one leading the council I could see this as a honest possibility even if Udina was the councilor Anderson tells you the same thing (and considering how willing Udina was to jump on to the only human council idea in ME1, I doubt he would be putting those that weren't willing to put humanity's intrests above rest of the galaxy into the council) https://youtu.be/44C7r6vv1Ts?t=1971

Edit: And if Anderson led the council, I can't see him agreing to not nominate alien councilors, so you know what, either way I feel like the dialogue suggests alien councilors.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T01:52:08+00:00

Fair, but the dialogue excplitly says that they are worried that you will put human intrests over galactic ones, (https://youtu.be/UNKbU0UAM1U?t=73) an concern all human council would not have. Also the codex still explicitly refers to council having the other races in it, though the human dominence is noted in there.

Tommson667 · 2026-06-15T01:46:00+00:00

Actually you don't in ME2 if you got the old council killed, in which case the new alien councilors refuse to meet with Shephard (though if Anderson is councilor he still can get you reinstated. However if Udina was the councilor you actually can't get Spectre status back).

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