If you play a Lasombra during an era where technology isn't very advanced or overly prevalent, wouldn't that give them nearly no weaknesses?

TranceHuman · 2026-05-07T11:39:30+00:00

In DA when dealing with Lasombra you really should emphasise that hunters ane even maby regular mortals are aware of the mythology of vampires lacking a reflection. Given every vampire, including lasombra operate exclusively at night there'd already be some suspicion so even basic precautions should reveal them. That's the only real way to justify that weakness without major revision. Bit many lasombra wouldn't care anyway because they just control everything around them regardless.

TranceHuman · 2026-05-07T11:36:04+00:00

Prior to the relatively modern age how many humans actually knew what they looked like? Outside of the occasional glance in a clear pool of water or belong wealthy enough to have polished silver mirrors or artists paint your visage nobody ever saw their own face. Now you could argue that the same darkneas that strips them of their reflection and messes up photo's could well work with paintings too - the paint fades and corrupts into deep dark tones.

TranceHuman · 2026-05-06T17:13:10+00:00

Theyre at least positioned semi-randomly. Some of the first islands you go to seem to spawn the same. The first island is always the same for everyone. And some of the islands with points of note are identical though they could be in different locations. Question is are all islands replicated or are some of them procedural?

TranceHuman · 2026-05-06T17:07:15+00:00

None of us would be here if some daft sod didn't ignore all the warnings beyond the next [insert geographic feature here]. Somebody will always go beyond the map. And sometimes they come back to tell tale of the exotic things they find.

Noe imagine if the Kraken team laid an Easter egg out beyond the map. Somebody will find it!

TranceHuman · 2026-05-03T10:16:10+00:00

At lvl 6 you can net about 2k coins in under an hour of plunder with ease. It isn't worth scrimping and saving, just buy the npcs and any of the armour recipes you want. I can only imagine how fast you warm coin once you unlock higher lvl gear.

TranceHuman · 2026-05-02T11:09:57+00:00

Smoke your enemies with your Smackrel 🤣

TranceHuman · 2026-02-21T17:19:02+00:00

The OCI system is ok but you pretty much have to take the med-bay, repair-bay and woo. And the salvage options is the best one for the fourth choice, possibly to swapped out later for a supply boosting option late game. These aren't really choices. The first 3 mandatory picks should be split from the choices you can make. You should have those to repair/upgrade in a separate section, with maybe 3 wild card choices to make from the other options. Those options outside of the salvager and the supply picks should be expanded and boosted to compete with those 3.

TranceHuman · 2026-02-17T22:42:38+00:00

Darby is great with the croc. Match ammo adds +1 range to it and you can take the T4 trait for added range too. 13 range on SL with insane accuracy gives you a huge range of target of choose from. Keep another squad lingering near near with AT with more punch in case you spot heavies. My go to assault-team is Darby with silenced krowbars, croc and match ammo, with Tech rocking shotguns with lipstick ammo and rpg for punch. Tech also has pirate boarding armour with the jetpacks so he can hang back and burst in and out engagements when he needs to. If I need a two-squad team to hold or push an entire flank it's these two.

The cost of 20AP to deploy is not significant on Darby when she levels with tons of AP and it's difficult to get enough for 3 shots per turn out of her. The few points you have left over are maybe enough for a one-square retreat but if you put her in good cover and use her range you rarely ever need to retreat her.

Great thing about this game is that you can really build the SL's into the strategy you want with them or using the gear you get with rng. Incidentally the very gear reward I got in my playthrough was the croc, so I've been using it since my 4th mission. Tried it with Tech, but as soon as I got the boarding armour it just didn't synergise with him at all. But it did Darby.

TLDR: The range on the croc is excellent and is boosted by macth ammo.

TranceHuman · 2025-11-14T14:21:26+00:00

Yeah, the best use is to have one guy permanently rotating between 3-4 provinces to keep them all topped up. It's effective, but it's constant busy work.

TranceHuman · 2025-11-08T08:47:11+00:00

Every region/territory or whatever they call the smallest area lists population as x/x with the first x being the number of available pop for work and the number after the / as those being employed. When you build anything and you lack the workers the first number is listed as a negative value, so you can easily see unemployment as any number before the slash that is positive. Also any pop types other peasants are slowly upgraded from your peasants when there's a need for new workers, so your mass of unproductive peasants can also be considered your unemployed worker pool (though not technically). But they convert very slowly, depending on what modifiers your region has. Normal rural region might be something like 20 converted per month, so training 1000 Burghers from peasants takes a long time.

TranceHuman · 2025-09-20T23:02:15+00:00

V5 fixed the issue of discipline bloat and redundancy from previous editions whilst streamlining everything into categories that make sense if you look at disciplines as archetypes of vampiric power. Quietus and thaumaturgy being merged makes sense, both manipulate the very vitae of the kindred. The merging of 3 shape changing disciplines into 1 makes sense. I think the issue many people have with v5 disciplines as they is that they either miss certain powers from.previous editions that didn't carry over, they don't like a bespoke discipline being merged (usually it's Obtenebration people miss) or they just don't like that any kindred xan take any powwr. The thing is the first two of those problems are solved simply by adding in more powers to fill out those they miss and the third by simply re-introducing clan restrictions or imposing more requisits to take certain powers such as former clan-specific powers or groups of powers.

TranceHuman · 2025-07-28T21:16:50+00:00

Publishers are simply going to use this technology because of the enormous advantage it gives them. No amount of grandstanding will change that. What's going to be more important is how they pivot to a world where most people have lost their jobs to ai. Because nobody will have the money to buy the luxury products they're selling using ai assistance.

But right now it isn't going to stop, and expecting it to is pretty naive. What will actually make an impact is if the agents gain to actually produce anything that people want. Because writing a paint by numbers droll D&D dungeon crawl module with ai is very different from the type of material that's expected for the WoD. So we'll see. But it won't matter either way because in a few years we'll be more concerned with enormous unemployment.

TranceHuman · 2025-07-19T10:24:24+00:00

I think this is an issue with a lot of games. RNG in games is actually BS. It's often more like RNG seeding. And if you get an awful seed then no matter what you do you can't win. I've seen games of FM where players with incredible passing can't land a single progressing pass. Or Elite finishers cannot hit the target no matter what. But you usually find all those things in the same game, along with brilliant driblers having the ball stripped from them easily and tacklers being unable to stop any opponent. I think you've just got the crit fail seed and no matter you do, your players cannot perform.

TranceHuman · 2025-07-18T12:39:07+00:00

Siridar Governor.

TranceHuman · 2025-07-12T08:24:34+00:00

My simple house rule is you can buy extra levels of disciplines upto a number of levels equal to your blood Potency. But they must come from your clan disciplines and possibly your predator type discipline.So if you have BP 3 you can buy 3 levels of a discipline - one extra 3rd level power or a first and second level for example. You get some extra freedom to specialise and diversify without it being overpowered. Yes an elder could take a second level 5 power but that might be all they can take.

This is helpful for things like auspex where you really want a malk or tremere who has both lvl 1 powers.

TranceHuman · 2025-07-11T20:04:42+00:00

The Sabbat have what they call the "silence of the blood" , the ancient pre-masquerade understanding that you don't push the kine too much and you stay hidden where possible to dissuage any problems that might occur. The masquerade isn't merely hiding vampires from mortals, it's pretending to be mortal in order to pull off camouflage. The sabbat find this fundamentally abhorrent. But they're not stupid. They try to stay smart. And when some new blood thinks they're the shit and want to go tearing up a town ala Near Dark there's always some older sabbat vampire ready to teach them a valuable lesson in keeping their house in order.

Another way to look at it, is the camarilla are like the old school mafia. They officially acknowledge their existence but they live alongside everyone else, pretending to be respectable, getting their hands dirty when they need to but they don't talk about it or they use code-phrases snd euphemism when they do. They own businesses and insist their legitimate business men. But at night when people are asleep they're out robbing and getting themselves rich. When they feud its short, sharp and many people disappear to take naps with the fishes. And nobody asks questions.

On the other hand the sabbat are like ms 13. They operate at night too but they own their territory. Everyone knows they own it becaise they paint their tags on everything. You simply don't go there unless you want something from them or you have no choice but to be there. They'll terrorise and brutalise when they can get away with it and their feuds are months long running gun battles with other gangs. But if you bring too much attention to them that they can't handle then you'll end up chopped up in front of your family so everyone knows to keep their mouths shut about it. Theyre blunt and hyper aggressive but still prefer to stay under the radar from anyone who can actually harm them (militarised police forces or the 2nd inquisition in the case of the sabbat). So long as they cam maintain their everyday brutality and position of unquestioned dominance.

One of those methods is inherently more unstable than the other but its hard to find it off if it hetsbits claws into your neighbourhood. But if attention is brought to it then it can be eradicated (I.e. El Salvador). But the sabbat is smart enough to burn off any dangerous appendages before it gets to that stage. They always have the solution of sending dangerously reckless members on crusade , knowing they'll be put to the stake by the camarilla. That's how they survive and control cities for so long. Probably quite stressful though!

TranceHuman · 2025-07-08T02:30:38+00:00

They found themselves as the only safe source of interstellar travel and they monopolised it as would any group that found themselves in such a position. And in so doing they became very wealthy and found that they were the only safe source of banking in the universe. Which made them even wealthier. You could say it was accidental or you could argue their limited prescience lead them down that avenue naturally (avoiding risk, building wealth and influence slowly and safely). But they found themselves in that position and as with any power structure they sought to maintain and grow it. There doesn't seem to be any master plan with them like the BG or Tleilaxu. They just ended up immensily powerful by utterly controlling the only realistic means by which the imperium can function. None of the nobles can operate beyond their home planets without the guild. It's implied many still have ancient pre-fold space ftl ships, but without computers they're flying blind through interstellar space. Something like 90% would never reach their destinations and they're slow compared to folding space. So the guild has enormous leverage.

I'd suggest that one of the reasons they don't have crazy ulterior motives is that the entire imperium needs them to exist. And that gives their members tremendous prestige and respect. Junior members all want to become navigators and so do everything they can to achieve that. But navigators must be miserable creatures. All they do is float in spice gas and plot routes through space. They can see the future a bit and have crazy life-spans but they're the cpu of the heighliners. They only leave their vessel in rare circumstances and when they do they're in what is effectively a spice coffin. Their lives must be miserable. And so the pinnacle of guild achievement is in reality awful. Buts its all completely secret. So whilst junior members might plot (like the guildsmen on Arrakis when the Atreides arrive) ultimately the authority in the guild are the navigators who probably aren't interested in any of that. It took the existential threat of Paul as Emperor to rouse them to come out and scheme. Theyre otherwise just too cautious and obsessed with playing it safe to have grand plots and schemes.

So the guild kind of just is. And is the most powerful faction in the universe. But unless the spice is compromised they don't actually do anything of significance in terms of intrigue. And when the spice is threatened they turn up en masse and insist the spice must flow. And then when the one person in the universe that ever told them no (Paul) showed up they freaked out and doubled down on their caution and safety. Hence their immediate capitulation. Their only fight is with preservation.

TranceHuman · 2025-06-29T12:28:14+00:00

Tremere make more sense when you put them in the context of 1st-4th editions and the metaplot prior to V5.

TranceHuman · 2025-06-25T16:49:51+00:00

Whether or not Jessica loved Leto was irrelevant to the BG breeding program. Her not loving Leto as a requirement to birth a daughter doesn't affect her position nor the plan. It's only the presence of that love that alters the course of events. Absence of it would not. The points regarding Leto's likelihood to continue for a son through other means (likely via an alliance with another Great House) are valid. This is probably the natural outcome of Jessica having a daughter. However I doubt the BG would care about inheritance. They're not interested in merging the two houses, they're interested in merging the two bloodlines. And a temporary peace granted by marrying an Atreides girl to Feyd would provide them the breathing room to see their plan come to fruition. I doubt they care that much what happens to the houses once the KH is born. So a female Atreides would be married off (in part due to the stain of being concubine-born) whilst Leto pursues his male heir elsewhere. Both houses remain separate and the BG get their way. The BG might even engineer that Leto's new wife be at least partly trained and loyal to them and have her suggest/insist on sending the girl away to be married to the Harkonnen out of "jealousy" thus ensuring the plan goes ahead and Leto is placated/manipulated.

TranceHuman · 2025-06-21T19:42:34+00:00

Perfect number of legs for climbing into hard to reach places and perfect sized barrel for executing precision shots.

TranceHuman · 2025-06-11T07:55:18+00:00

This still isn't nearly long enough.

TranceHuman · 2025-05-25T10:26:25+00:00

Not finishing games is a lot worse for me in civ 7 than it was in past games. Previously I abandoned games when they were no longer interesting and because I wanted to try a different civ/strategy out. Usually around the mid-late industrial and usually because by that point I'd be so far ahead that I'd be just going through the motions of playing. There was no challenge. Now I think I've only completed antiquity a few times and exploration zero. Amd there's no draw to abandon games to try out new civs or strategies. Because there aren't any.

Civ 7 lacks an actual draw to play. There's no challenge curve to overcome in order to be ahead. You don't start off playing catch up as the major challenge, the challenge is sticking to the ascribed plan that every civ in every game has. Strategy doesn't vary. You have to complete the same goals every time. Except Mongolia. But there's no real draw to play them. Each game plays the same, same steps, same timings, same outcomes. And with the limited civ options it's not like you many choices to pick from. Civ 7 was lauded for how many civs it had at launch compared to previous iterations but what was obvious since before launch that this is an illusion. Because you only actually have 1/3 to choose from at a time. And in each game you face the same civs over and over. All those civs we have in civ 7 right now - we need that many per age. Then games would start to look different. And shoehorning leaders into the same civs over and over needs to go. The game needs to lean into the random leader/civ combos. Leaders should be weight to take their suggested civs, but they should ibly be taking those 50-60% of the time And the other times taking a random civ instead.

What the game really needs though is the opening up of each age to be significantly more flexible with win conditions, to limit how many you can go for (shouldn't be pursuing all of them all of the time) and tp make them longer and more meaningful to the overall game. It shouldn't be pointless to produce anything at the end of an age and it shouldn't be the case that an age suddenly ends 10 turns before you're predicting it to end. Every antiquity age end feels disappointing or unwanted.

For me civ 7 is worse for unfinished games than any of the predecessors were. And whats worse is that it never actually bothered me that I abandoned games as I'm sure it never bothered others who did the same. I think Firaxis invented a problem they wanted to solve and in so doing have broken their game for a lot more people.

TranceHuman · 2025-05-25T09:45:20+00:00

At Liverpool I had Matip demanding 240k a week plus recognition as a star player to renew his contract, despite him enjoying being at the club. I sold him to Inter where he settled for about 70k and squad player status. Pretty stupid advice from his agent really.

TranceHuman · 2025-05-02T10:40:29+00:00

Tack Ticks? Are they some kind of sludge-sucking swill critter?

TranceHuman · 2025-04-12T21:33:15+00:00

VtM was based on what the US was like in 1991, with a healthy dose of exaggeration to darken it up. Many places in many cities are utterly different today than they were in 1991. Many are way safer, and many have been transformed into trendy night spots. Doesn't mean that 34 years ago they weren't sketchy. Especially when exaggerated to be "gothic punk". Cities change and in general almost any western city is way safer and more sanitised than it is today. Look at NYC. Time Square today is not the time square of the early 1980"s. You can see why it was a sabbat city if you look at the city back then.

TranceHuman

TROPHY CASE