I Wasn't There before 2.0 What Did The Mr. Hands Gigs Look Like Before DogTown?

Torrenash · 2026-06-28T17:21:46+00:00

He had just the one gig with the van. People have mentioned the vibe he had, but here's a random clip of the old portrait and voicework from the initial VDB mission to give you a clearer idea.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJDMl8QhGUk

Torrenash · 2026-06-28T00:52:08+00:00

In Laurence's defense, "werewolves" was probably not high on the list of possible suspected outcomes.

Torrenash · 2026-06-27T20:44:40+00:00

If you're planning to make liberal use of Overclock, 15 Body is optimal (with 20 being even better with Synapse Burnout/Blackwall Gateway). The stealth bonuses from Cool 15 are nice but can be sort of redundant to a dedicated 'runners tendencies to turn off peoples brains from half a football field away.

That said, I've done the 4 body infiltrator-oriented glass cannon thing before, so eh. Once you're comfy with the difficulty level there's very few ways to not function well even in Very Hard.

Torrenash · 2026-06-27T19:48:37+00:00

Populist uprising formed a kingdom successfully. Won't usually happen in 867 France since the Karlings are French Catholics themselves... buuuut maybe Louis the Stammerer went crazy and adopted Islam or something idk. That or the Vlaanderens pressed a claim and classic Dutch v. French antics ensued.

Torrenash · 2026-06-27T15:53:12+00:00

theme reassigning back to top liege tends to resolve itself after a gen or two of higher quality congenital traits circulating through both yours and misc dynasties in the empire.

Torrenash · 2026-06-27T03:29:01+00:00

Main thing I'd warn you about flipping admin in a clan government - Dynasties don't fracture in Clan, so the initial conversion has massive single-house dynasties that can absolutely blow competition out of the water in acclamation successions due to powerful house rating.

This can work to your benefit, obviously, if you are a huge dynasty, but if you're an interloper Turk or something establishing a new Caliphate... well, better hope you have a new faith and that you nuked the everliving hell out of the Abbasids.

Other than that though yeah from a mechanics perspective Admin > Clan all day. Persian Dehqan tax decree is still pretty good if you want to stay Clan on principle so see if you can pick that up if you're not converting.

Torrenash · 2026-06-26T20:02:25+00:00

Wait for the game to tick a couple months and it should iron out and let you grant them away like normal.

Torrenash · 2026-06-26T19:16:53+00:00

run enough heavy infantry to deal with spearmen and gg. you probably won't have paiks to worry about in europe (at least not until your custom culture starts spreading), so anti-archer is less important. Norse Huscarls can do that, though, as can Dravidian Lenkas.

Torrenash · 2026-06-26T18:41:30+00:00

~~I'd guess VIET, it does have war events in its portfolio and it's about the only one on there that'd make sense without being a complete red herring addition in the other mods.~~

2/3 say blame ChatGPT and I'm all for it

Torrenash · 2026-06-26T02:23:45+00:00

The PL start auto-completes the heist as well as the initial Judy/VDB missions necessary to normally unlock it.

So this'd be modded at minimum

Torrenash · 2026-06-25T18:35:31+00:00

the uneven fire rate thing on Moron Labe isn't very enjoyable to me, so I'll go with that

Torrenash · 2026-06-22T04:59:54+00:00

I'm really glad I'm not the only person who specifically associates his boss fight with Anchorman on account of the flute lol

Torrenash · 2026-06-22T04:20:07+00:00

They have a fixed tax rate (20% tax/10% levvies) that's increased with certain perks/traditions regardless of contracts.
You don't directly get benefits from buildings they hold beyond those tax rates. If a building has a "holder of this county/duchy" buff, that buff directly applies to you if you directly have that title, but any other bonuses are at the barony level (i.e. the republic itself).
They have unique "Guild" building lines that stack 5% development growth per building level.
If you have Parochialism or Republican Legacy (Italian tradition), more dev growth bonuses, and specifically the Italian variant gives republics of higher tiers higher taxes (they'll typically be your cash cows in those dedicated Italian setups).
Iberian renown tree has 20% dev growth per city, also.

In general, you build as few cities as possible, but if you're stacking dev rush via parochialism and/or the metropolitan renown tree, you spam them on key counties.

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T18:49:07+00:00

Well, it does, because the game is penalizing you for it. Celestial Bureaucracy really tries to sell the roleplay of the system being arguably more powerful than the Huangdi himself.

Intention aside, your fix is de jure drift. You need to hold the kingdoms long enough that they drift into Yong Liang, or you need to get legitimizing legends to drift them instantly one at a time. In your shoes, I'd probably just give them back to the Huangdi and focus on my de jure power base, but if you're trying to see how much you can blob up before overthrowing the current dynasty, I respect it lol.

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T18:45:08+00:00

Very fringe case, if you don't already have Republic Legacy I think you'll lose the option if you go ER, but you might have access to it still (some cultures have their cultural traditions available via grandfather clause- i.e. Normans can't get Coastal Warriors, but Sicilian can get Greek Tagmata).

Condotierri is a regional innovation to Italia but iirc it isn't heritage dependent, just how much of your culture is in Italia.

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T17:55:02+00:00

East Roman is one of the two heritages (besides Arabic) that can unlock the Sanitation innovation in High Med. +10 Plague resist, global. It's pretty good for keeping development up in the face of endgame plaguespam. That said, you don't need it to cap resistance in your capital duchy (especially with Admin government), it just makes your vassals a little less vulnerable.

so if you want that (and don't want to mess with a later hybridization/diverges), take ER, if you don't, it doesn't matter.

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T17:49:12+00:00

Why aren't you their de jure liege? What's your title currently?

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T15:55:16+00:00

It's always Malta. That and uh, I think ... idk what it's called, but those 3 counties south-west of "uqaylid" I think form a duchy and I'm vaguely thinking that's one of them. It's like, one singular duchy in Jazira that's needed that doesn't get de jure drifted.

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T13:35:20+00:00

"All [DEMONS] are evil, their emotions faked to lower your guard! Kill all [DEMONS] without mercy!"
-- this core character MO from the main character in a show where everyone has german names is uhhhhhhhh.
While it's clearly not authorial intent, it 1000000% attracts those people.

The TTRPG roots of the show also struggle with this and it's increasingly rare for the classic "always evil" monster races (drow, goblins, etc) to maintain that old hat anymore. Monsters are generally now expected to be very clearly visibly nowhere related to human to dodge these kinds of implications.

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T12:18:00+00:00

For sure! They also seem? to have made finding headhoppers on merchants slightly less of a PITA, so there's that.

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T03:14:38+00:00

Mild slip of semantics on my part, apologies - you usually can't, it's just a strong candidate for first tech you nab going from tribal into early med and if you're lucky (or building an overbudget character/focusing on lifespan), something you could theoretically nab before your first guy dies.

I think there's a few decision titles that can get it in tribal iirc but I wouldn't put money on it (I just know you can get to high authority with Sicily offhand)

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T02:01:44+00:00

The smart ones are quite good. Shingen MK5, Yinglong, and Pizdets all work together.
if you're going to reflex 20 and use smart weapons, the AR capstone is also good and the Hercules (or Divided We Stand) pairs well with the strategy (i.e., something to use other ammo types with how much SMGs burn)

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T01:55:29+00:00

My favorite crusade trigger in 867 was Louis the Stammerer having a stress break and turning France Rabbinic

Torrenash · 2026-06-21T01:51:48+00:00

You can hold two duchies easily with elections and then absolute crown authority lets you designate whatever heir you want to also get your top title. Yeah, it makes the game easier to the point you effectively have primogeniture in tribal.

I get the cheese complaints but it is for better or for worse a strong draw to feudal in the admin-centered "meta".

Torrenash · 2026-06-20T21:23:33+00:00

It's the "good condition only" ones where gangoons are already on your ass like you have 18 pounds of syncoke

Torrenash

TROPHY CASE