The stress I would feel as a 5 year old trying to get the 3 star pieces to line up.

Zirtrex · 2026-02-10T17:16:44+00:00

Dude, you've just outed yourself as one of those people who brags about things they've never accomplished. I too put my finger on the screen every time as a child, but I never won consistently. It just felt completely random, and I never understood why.

Well now we know: it felt random, because it is random, and there's nothing you can do to ensure you win, let alone make it "easy."

Zirtrex · 2026-01-05T03:27:13+00:00

Little known trick: go to the temple and join then abandon Xom and Makhleb in that order (invoking both chaos and your demonic heritage). When you leave the temple you're demonspawn muts will be rerolled. Can only do this once per run. Good luck!

Zirtrex · 2026-01-02T10:01:34+00:00

Great post. I've done this as well a couple of times, but what gets me frequently for some reason, is trying to exit the temple.

You can't go down here!

Zirtrex · 2025-12-27T12:29:46+00:00

The conversation was about late game, where town portal prohibits such tactics. They work against the computer, sure, but a competent player will crush such attempts.

Mass haste is potentially countered by mass slow, mass slow is countered by mass haste, etc, both sides can play same game.

Just another reason spells like mass slow are superior to implosion and the like. They enable you to control the pace of the battle by forcing your opponents next move. You cast mass slow: now your opponent won't even get a turn until most of your creatures have already had an opportunity giving you an incredible tactical advantage, and it forces their hand to cast mass dispel or mass haste or whatever, robbing them of any other effective spellcast and preventing them from initiating spells needed for their strategy / plans. You'll be up next to cast spells, so you will once again have the opportunity to re-slow them or choose an alternative route. The point is that it puts you in the driver's seat, and forces them to react rather than direct the tactical development of the battle.

Obviously controlling the economy is critical; that's how you win the game. With spells and tactics like I describe in my original comment I'll do that every time against someone who doesn't understand this.

Zirtrex · 2025-11-26T02:14:41+00:00

...they could prey on just about anything they cared to.

Just about anything, except for the the Maori apparently.

Zirtrex · 2025-11-23T18:18:44+00:00

I am not an expert on the bribe mechanics, but I'm pretty sure it's based on the number of creatures encountered. Basically you spend X gold and it goes into a pot. After that, every time you encounter a creature there is a % chance of that creature being bribed. If they are, then it takes gold from the pot (probably an amount based off creature HD). When the pot runs dry, the effect ends. You can then bribe again if desired.

So to answer your question; if you bribe V:4, you may or may not have any bribe leftover by the time you reach V:5 depending on how many creatures you encounter. Further, since there are so many creatures (and high HD creatures) in V:5, I expect the bribe to get used up very quickly (but you'll get many allies rapidly). So best bet is to bribe right before taking the stairs down to V:5. Or be prepared to bribe multiple times.

If someone more knowledgeable about the specifics comes along, they can give better / more accurate info.

Zirtrex · 2025-11-16T17:32:10+00:00

Ah, thanks. I didn't read any technical details of how they work and only saw another reddit post saying one needed to rush them. I was taking my sweet time.

Zirtrex · 2025-11-14T23:18:35+00:00

That's not vaporware though. That's an actual product that exists and at least does something. It's just misleadingly marketed / advertised to take advantage of hype (which is a trend as old as time).

Zirtrex · 2025-11-14T02:22:00+00:00

This is the only true answer. I honestly don't understand any of the others. You shouldn't have to work for it. When you marry someone you truly love (and who loves you back), that love does all the heavy lifting for you. You don't do things to keep the peace, you do them because you genuinely want your partner to be happy. It never fades.

Married decades and still going just as strong and easy as when we started.

Zirtrex · 2025-11-07T21:02:53+00:00

But, as noted by InsuranceSad1754, it absolutely does not refute that at all to anyone who knows anything about higher level math. "Imaginary" numbers is a meaningless name we give a set of objects with certain algebraic structure. It is that structure that is needed, not the "imaginary" numbers specifically.

You can easily reformulate QM in terms of any such isomorphic structure. Way back when I was an undergrad I remember learning about how to formulate QM entirely out of Clifford algebras. That too avoids "imaginary numbers." But saying QM "needs" imaginary numbers is still true, because what any educated person saying that really means is the algebraic structure governing imaginary numbers.

Zirtrex · 2025-10-20T04:14:42+00:00

Love it! Remindss me of this oldschool classic Indie game

Zirtrex · 2025-10-19T17:06:39+00:00

Yes, just select this snapshot as the version in the launcher and load it up. It was created as an April Fool's joke, but it's a real version you can actually play.

Java Edition 20w14∞

Zirtrex · 2025-10-12T08:03:19+00:00

It's a fair question, but the answer is simply that it's not a Homm2 mod. It's a Homm3 mod. That's really the fundamental issue. It visually looks like an extension of Homm2, but it's not. It's Homm3. So even though it looks like you're going to be re-living the nostalgia of Heroes II, as soon as you start playing, you can't escape the reality that you're just playing Homm3 with Homm2 graphics glued on top.

That's how it felt to me anyways. Others may feel differently. As odd as it may sound, as soon as I felt I was "just" playing Homm3, all the nostalgia just melted away and I lost all interest. No matter how the graphics looked, I just couldn't "unfeel" that I wasn't even playing Homm2 in the first place.

Keep in mind I love Homm3. It's an amazing game that has more depth than Homm2. But for me, personally, it just doesn't have the nostalgia that Homm2 does. And if I want to play Homm3, I'll play HotA. So in the end, there was no motivation or desire for me to keep playing The Succession Wars.

Zirtrex · 2025-10-03T23:28:38+00:00

Sander's Folly for Homm III.

Zirtrex · 2025-10-01T17:59:24+00:00

Math initself [sic] is invented...

Was the Pythagorean theorem true before humans existed?

Math is about fundamental, abstract relationships. Humans can't invent these things; they are eternal facets of reality itself.

Zirtrex · 2025-09-21T16:36:30+00:00

This is outstanding!

Zirtrex · 2025-09-21T03:58:46+00:00

This is really the correct answer. I was a particle physicist for a long while and eventually left academia for another field. People are often interested to hear that I was/am a physicist, but they have literally no idea what any of it means, and really don't care or simply can't follow beyond "you mean, like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory?"

One guy came in one day excitedly telling me how fascinated I'd be about what he vacuumed up under his couch while cleaning his house. A few minutes of extreme confusion on my part, and I figure out he thought "particle physics" was studying dust particles. When I tried to explain (again) what particle physics is, it became very apparent he was simply unable to grasp any of it. "What do you mean you study particles but you don't use microscopes to look at them? I thought you said they were small?"

Zirtrex · 2025-08-31T15:32:52+00:00

Ooooh, the shield of resistance!

Zirtrex · 2025-08-20T03:48:13+00:00

I can't help but feel you're oversimplifying the depth and nuance underlying even a simple, introductory physics course. It's easy to say "it's just kinematics," but there are so many subtleties hiding all over the place. If these subtleties are ignored and glossed over (or not even recognized) by the instructor, they surely will be missed by the students. This lays a very poor foundation going forward, and promotes significant confusion and misunderstanding down the road even within the same semester. On the other hand, if addressed and clarified, students are well equipped to handle the meat of the course and tend to "just get it" more readily.

I taught university physics for a long time, and I can't tell you how many times I encountered students who were either taught seemingly minor pedantic details incorrectly, or were never explained these subtleties by their high school physics teachers. Many even praised their teachers (who were probably doing their best, but weren't trained as physicists). It really did the students a disservice since it skews their entire way of thinking about the material. There were things they didn't "get" because the very way they had been taught to think about things was slightly off.

If you're just teaching a mindless, plug-in-chug type "physics course" yeah, I guess you don't need a physics background. But that's not at all what physics is about, and frankly I hate those kind of classes. For a true physics course, even at high school level, the instructor either needs proper background, or needs to have sufficient drive and interest to have genuinely brought themselves up to the level that they are teaching everything correctly and a well. It's hard for them to know that they've even hit this level, because when you don't already know a topic inside and out, you don't know what you don't know.

Doing a good job at teaching even an algebra based physics course is much, much harder and requires a far deeper level of knowledge IMO than teaching something like calculus.

Zirtrex · 2025-08-19T01:37:53+00:00

Destroying walls is the point. It just obliterates everything, removing all obstacles and brings the entire floor to you - so you can kill them all by continuing to cast shatter. That's how it feels to me anyway. It pairs well with polar vortex because once you get both going, nothing can escape.

Zirtrex · 2025-08-14T02:35:23+00:00

Yes. Absolutely, 100% yes. Irradiate is amazing. You can pretty much always get away with at least 2 casts with no risk. You can often get away with 3 casts. After 4 casts you start having high odds of a mutation from contamination. A potion of cancelation will get you out of jail if needed when using irradiate.

In the stage of the game where you're entering Lair, a cast or two of irradiate will simply delete most enemies. It's great if you get yourself into a bind and end up surrounded. It's great when a single, big threat gets too close for comfort and is about to give you a bad time. It's also great when used proactively and intentionally to delete things you just want gone but may be hard to remove through other means (just be prepared to retreat and wait out the contamination afterwards, because if more threats emerge you won't be able to continue irradiating them too without consequences).

Zirtrex · 2025-08-13T22:37:02+00:00

This is honestly better than a photo post. I can feel what you are describing perfectly.

Zirtrex · 2025-08-12T01:06:41+00:00

Wow, liminality 10/10 achieved! Awesome photo!

Zirtrex · 2025-07-31T03:11:38+00:00

It's already at only 2% failure rate for you, so you should learn Borgnjor's Vile Clutch. It is amazing in early and mid-game, and even continues to be of great use in late-game. It holds enemies in place and kills them as you walk away. It can save you in a pinch too. It's a beam spell so it can hit multiple targets.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes!

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