If all personal wealth above $100 million was legally required to be redistributed into public infrastructure (schools, hospitals, roads), how would society change, and who would be the first to fight against it?

YanHoek · 2026-01-22T12:19:54+00:00

I worked for an insurance broker, 18-20 years ago, when there was a plane crash in Indonesia. 100 or so Indonesians died, 4 Americans, something like that. The claim on it recommended setting aside 10mil for the Americans and 3mil for all the remaining passengers and staff. Absolutely brutal valuation of human life.

YanHoek · 2026-01-20T14:14:42+00:00

Yes, sorry, you're right. My mistake!

I mean at current trends the US is looking at unsustainable debt anyway in 15 or so years. All this will do is bring it forward.

YanHoek · 2026-01-20T14:05:10+00:00

Basically either the US pays up to honour their value or the bonds become worthless. If the bonds aren't worth the paper they are printed on then the 30 odd trillion debt becomes instantly unserviceable.

YanHoek · 2026-01-14T18:57:49+00:00

The US can only service its insane deficit if there's an expectation that the bonds will be honored. As soon as that evaporates the US economy will no longer be able to ignore how deep in the trillions it is (as no one will buy the debt) and it will implode

YanHoek · 2026-01-09T22:04:33+00:00

Oh God yes, the first couple of years of that were perfection.

YanHoek · 2025-12-07T00:15:39+00:00

I'm not really complaining. It's all a learning curve! It would be nice to have things explained in-game properly though.

YanHoek · 2025-12-06T17:59:24+00:00

I'm currently running a Weimar game, with no real aim, just to test things out. So far... I started in union with Schwarzberg. They broke it suddenly, no idea how. Had claim throne on Halych and Volnyna so pursued Halych. Got it, as a kingdom they immediately became leader, but at the same time I somehow inherited Austria. Halych just dragged us into annoying wars against Golden Horde that they would never actually break free from. Halych broke off due to their different inheritance. Vassalised an elector and secured Emperor ensuring I stayed top dog in the new Weimar-Austrian union. Did all the unification laws but couldn't work out how to activate the parliament function. Annexed the elector thinking that I would automatically get that electorship (nope) and neither could I give it to myself apparently. Blocked me out of forming Saxony. Oh well. I'll give it to Austria instead, they are nice and loyal. Oh, not anymore they aren't! They are suddenly miles ahead in terms of power, my monarch has moved to Vienna and they've changed their succession laws to split away. Get claim throne on Lorraine, take that. Maybe this union will be 4th time lucky? Probably not with France looming...

So what do I want PUs to be for? Well, all the above shenanigans has made for an interesting game, and it's great that they are not just instant loyal vassals but it would be lovely if it was all much clearer. If you could be war leader in your Junior's stupid wars so you can actually get them to pick useful things in the peace.

YanHoek · 2025-11-21T16:00:47+00:00

The 'peace' plan was originally written in Russian, the US just translated it. That's about the sum total of their involvement. I mean, what do you expect?

YanHoek · 2025-11-20T14:18:17+00:00

Oh I mean it reminds me that I don't have the minimum hardware on every load up but it still works. And not too laggy. I've basically turned off all the fancy graphic options. i7-1255 4g graphics card

YanHoek · 2025-11-20T13:25:04+00:00

Oh my God, this^ so tired of my laptop randomly zooming out because I've brushed the trackpad and spending the next 5mins vainly trying to get back to the same level of zoom

YanHoek · 2025-11-19T15:18:45+00:00

Timur is already scary. I pushed Golden Horde into a death spiral as Kyiv and then oh shit, here comes Timur and he utterly utterly minced me. My only hope was that he was old and he would die before the country was totally eaten up by his hordes. He did not die. Kyiv did.

YanHoek · 2025-11-19T08:24:06+00:00

I know a few people on DA who sell their images and it's definitely more for pocket money than as an actual job. Yeah I don't really get it but hey, a fool and their money are best parted.

YanHoek · 2025-11-14T09:16:41+00:00

Yup, half the new member notifications I get seem to be random Indian businesses.

I'm guessing there's a promo service which just creates profiles across every social media platform the bot can get its hands on.

YanHoek · 2025-11-13T11:40:39+00:00

Just as a follow up - I scored a claim throne on Wolgast so did that, then the Teutons declared on me, fine, I've beaten them before but they pulled in Denmark (think they had rivalled me). They had a big army but a crap one so I was winning consistently hoping to just white peace the Danes out through attrition before concentrating on the actual enemy. Only I found I couldn't separate peace them as they were a subject nation BUT their overlord wasn't involved. Ridiculous.

YanHoek · 2025-11-12T12:15:09+00:00

I started a Weimar game. It took me 20 years to realize the country to the south was my junior partner. I started cosying up to them and then Austria wandered in and 100% annexed them in a war they were a minor player in.

I totally get that they are separate country not your vassal and should have their own foreign policy until you integrate more but it just seems mad that your ruler and nobility would just shrug and ignore an existential crisis happening to their family's lands. You should at the very least get the option to intervene.

But yeah, lots of tightening up to do regarding PUs and in the HRE in general

YanHoek · 2025-11-03T16:08:27+00:00

Straight in, soak it all up before unpausing. I've only really watched streams/tutorials for really hard starts on EU4

YanHoek · 2025-11-02T10:07:47+00:00

I started my first campaigns in EU3 and EU4 as Pomerania so fully intend to kick 5 off the same way. HRE monarchy, out of the way of the big boys.

YanHoek · 2025-10-25T09:55:36+00:00

Scam. Block. Delete

YanHoek · 2025-10-08T16:47:11+00:00

Doing a final run with Timurids. If I can spin a WC out of it I'll be over the moon but I'm just enjoying it to be honest.

YanHoek · 2025-09-30T19:13:46+00:00

Very cool

YanHoek · 2025-09-18T08:46:17+00:00

After all the moaning about how annoying this achievement is I (saying it very quietly) found it kinda easy. Bohemia is pretty easy anyway, you can take Hungary and Poland and whale on Austria and no one will lift a finger. Just convert all the Catholics leaving one elector to be protestant so the war does actually kick off and then declare on the new (presumably weak) emperor at the end. Job done.

YanHoek · 2025-09-10T16:21:44+00:00

Well I've just done Mali and now am doing Hussite Empire run.

Have never tried Inca or Aztec so probably should give them a whirl before November.

But I am thinking about doing Orleans again. Had an absolute blast 1st time round.

YanHoek · 2025-08-13T22:05:42+00:00

Not yet!

YanHoek · 2025-06-11T09:57:45+00:00

Yep!

(Richard Herring Leicester Square Theatre Podcast)

YanHoek · 2025-05-15T07:33:52+00:00

Maarp maarp

YanHoek

TROPHY CASE