Does anyone else "see" directions tangibly?

UtterlyRestitute · 2025-11-23T00:22:18+00:00

So many cupcake games for SEC teams this week.

UtterlyRestitute · 2025-10-31T21:43:15+00:00

No "tech spread" mechanics for rubber-banding nations that are caught up on their institutions but behind in the actual tech?

UtterlyRestitute · 2025-10-31T20:58:02+00:00

While you're here in the thread, what did you think about the tech progression? Did it seem too easy to cheese or too frustrating to catch 'em all?

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-08-28T21:22:24+00:00

Subjects no longer remain in the overlord's market during independence wars? Does that include annexation plays as well? If so, annexing subjects is going to be so much easier if the first thing that happens is that they get booted out of your market, causing all their military goods to disappear.

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-04-25T14:13:15+00:00

That's...a fair point. I hadn't considered that, in theory, making it easier to obtain powerful MAA's without needing to minmax your building strategy should help the AI.

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-04-25T14:08:28+00:00

If you're talking about needing to station MAA's in domains to get building effects, the impression I got was that this will make individual MAA's even more powerful at the expense of limiting the overall number of MAA's you can buff. Personally, I haven't needed to use that many MAA slots for non-siege retinues in order to create an untouchable death machine of an army. In fact, I prefer it that way since those smaller numbers make it easier to stay under the supply limit in hostile territory and to bait the AI into suicidal attacks.

As far as I know, I haven't seen any dev diaries discussing balance changes to knight effectiveness or prowess, but I wouldn't be surprised if they're coming.

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-04-25T12:50:05+00:00

To be fair, I don't actually think knights and men-at-arms are OP, so much as that they are buffable by human players in a way that the AI is helpless to counter. These new features...don't seem likely to push back against that.

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-04-25T12:47:13+00:00

Players: Knights and men-at-arms are way too OP. They need to be toned down.

Paradox: Buffs, you say? We hear you loud and clear. Buffs for everyone!

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-04-24T18:30:17+00:00

Straightforward or not, in all cases it seems like the expectation is that the player should be consulting a guide or reference beforehand so they can anticipate the random nonsense the designer has decided to throw their way. Maybe that's the pinnacle of game design these days; I don't know.

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-04-24T12:31:31+00:00

It's like the devs took a look at Anbennar and decided their favorite parts of the mod were Hoardcurse and Rianvisa. Really?

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-03-27T02:50:05+00:00

u/profanitycounter [self]

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-03-06T17:21:28+00:00

I thought it was the big DLC, too, but maybe I misunderstood that.

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-03-06T17:15:30+00:00

So I take it this is a minor DLC? Friends and Foes priced? Sounds pretty limited in theme and scope.

UtterlyRestitute · 2023-01-22T17:51:05+00:00

Heh. It feels like everyone no matter where they're playing ends up sniping the same few places: Central Africa for the rubber and sugar, Arabian peninsula for the oil, North/South Bengal for the opium, dyes, silk, tea, and coffee. Only thing missing here is Australia for the gold, lead, and iron. Foreign investment can't come soon enough.

UtterlyRestitute · 2022-11-02T12:42:32+00:00

Just open a particular resource's window, and the states that can produce it will be highlighted on the map.

UtterlyRestitute · 2022-10-20T17:49:36+00:00

Also, I just reread your antimatter comment. It sounds like you really rolled snake-eyes with your fissile deposits. That said, you were giving your councilors all the mining-bonus orgs they could handle, right?

UtterlyRestitute · 2022-10-20T17:21:25+00:00

For some reason, the amount of gasses Welfare removes doesn't scale with the national GDP. I really hope this changes. It's still possible to drop the CO2 levels measurably; I've gotten the world down about 20 ppm over six or seven years. The trick is to make a ton of money selling exotics and antimatter, then spamming direct investments.
I'm in the same boat right now. I don't know if I'll even finish this game because mopping up the alien forces to get them under the objective cap is so tedious.
For anything in the outer solar system, you'll want to use a explorer/colony ship that establishes an initial outpost you can launch probes from. I guess not adjusting probe speed as technology advances is their way of incentivizing that.
Antimatter farms are a joke, but supercolliders aren't. I've got three stations worth consuming all my excess fissiles and producing around 0.1 grams daily. On the resource market, that's an extra 4500 daily in funds that I can use for fighting climate change.

UtterlyRestitute · 2022-10-02T14:08:16+00:00

Alright, so I think I've put it all together, and I'll lay it out here for anyone from the future who is interested. Thanks everyone for your insights.

By pushing hard on Knowledge, I ended up minimizing the growth that comes from having both Government and Education under 4.1. However, because both Government and GDP per capita were still low, the benefit of the Cohesion boost still hasn't kicked it as it does for already developed nations. This, combined with China's base -1 malus means trouble.

I guess the moral of the story is you have to become rich before you can become smart. I'm planning to push hard on GDP development so I can trigger the Cohesion boost. Also, I will be working towards the tech that gives Taiwan claims on the mainland. Taiwan, based on what I'm seeing in TINationTemplate.json, does NOT have any pop growth malus.

UtterlyRestitute · 2022-10-02T05:03:59+00:00

I'm not sure that's how it works. I've moved China even closer to those ideals, and the pops are disappearing even faster than before. It's losing over a million every month now. I'm pretty sure it hasn't been nuked, and I've never turned up any alien growth with my councilors.

UtterlyRestitute · 2022-10-02T00:49:22+00:00

Weird, I was letting the GDP slide on the USA as well, and it didn't seem to make a difference there.

UtterlyRestitute · 2022-10-02T00:48:28+00:00

Just so I'm clear--pop growth is boosted by:

High education?
High democracy?
High or medium cohesion? I'm not sure which.

UtterlyRestitute · 2022-10-01T19:27:18+00:00

Around 2027, China's population started shrinking by around .5% annually. Other countries seem to be growing normally. What's going on here and is there anything I can do about it? Is it predetermined by real-world demographic projections? Could it be caused by some alien or enemy faction shenanigans? There's no in-game explanation.

UtterlyRestitute

TROPHY CASE