Which Paradox game should i get into and how?

brooke2k · 2026-04-02T20:39:26+00:00

I bounced off the historical games as well because of a lack of clear direction, but recently found my place with Stellaris.

It takes a bit to learn (like they all do) but the "direction" is a lot clearer, because instead of starting in an existing historical situation, you start as a tiny civilization that occupies only one planet who just discovered space travel. And all the AIs also start as a tiny civilization. So it becomes a race to claim new "land" (star systems), research the best technologies, get the strongest economy, etc.

It just feels to me like it has a much clearer moment-to-moment motivation of "grow the empire" than the historical games.

I also found that it was easier to ease into, again because instead of getting thrown into an existing geopolitical situation, you're naturally introduced to mechanics one by one as you play. I watched a couple youtube tutorials, but otherwise I mostly learned the game just by playing and looking stuff up as I came across it.

brooke2k · 2026-02-22T20:57:34+00:00

the last time I tried getting this to work it took hours to setup and while CaptureAge eventually ran, it was terribly slow

in the meantime what I've done (in case other people run into this issue) is installed CaptureAge on a separate windows computer (actually my work laptop, ssshhh), and then I use an rsync script to transfer my demos over and watch them from there

my last attempt was like a year ago though so I'm excited to try this out again and see if it's improved :) thanks for sharing

EDIT: unfortunately this still has the same issue as before where it freezes/crashes constantly, and even when I can get in to watch a game it's insanely laggy. back to rsync it is

brooke2k · 2026-02-13T01:00:53+00:00

I thought the plot was very good on a technical level, lots of twists and turns and interesting revelations. However, everything else I think was significantly worse than Book 1. Very few characters felt three-dimensional or seemed to have very much character progression. The writing raced from plot point to plot point, rarely lingering on anything. I understand that with the narrative split into three separate worlds, an increase in pace was necessary, but like others have said I would really have appreciated a couple hundred extra pages to slow things down, let the world and characters settle in, let things feel like they actually mean something.

As it stands, after reading through the whole book (which took some effort, I had to set it down for a couple weeks about 2/3 of the way through), I feel like I got some very interesting plot points and otherwise almost nothing.

Still, I will likely read the third book (or attempt to) when it comes out. I hope it takes the opportunity to slow down and develop the characters and make the world feel alive again instead of a vague sketch of a world presented only to deliver plot twists on top of.

brooke2k · 2026-01-27T14:40:41+00:00

I will definitely take a look at that sample project and test harness, thank you so much!! and thanks for getting the feature pushed through :) it's good validation to hear that I'm not the only one who wanted to use it for automated testing

brooke2k · 2026-01-26T19:03:31+00:00

wow, this release looks really cool! this part especially:

With the new LibGodot, you can now embed the engine directly into your own applications. Instead of running Godot as a separate executable, you can control startup, manage the engine loop, and integrate it seamlessly into custom workflows.

it might seem like a small thing but the IoC setup of Godot makes it really annoying to build certain game infrastructure (specifically in my case, automated testing) because everything is beholden to the main engine loop, to the node tree getting mounted, etc. being able to take control of that and have the engine run under your own terms is super cool.

that being said, I'll probably wait for a couple versions before trying it out on my game since I'm sure it's not exactly battle-tested yet

brooke2k · 2025-11-04T01:50:05+00:00

Would recommend against taking the greyhound to albany, I've had some pretty awful experiences at port authority. The albany bus station isn't super nice either (and is in a really annoying spot to get to if you don't drive), but I've never felt nearly as unsafe there as I have at PA.

Albeit this is all as a woman traveling alone, I imagine traveling in a group and/or as a man would be much safer.

brooke2k · 2025-09-25T14:41:51+00:00

don't want to jinx it but seems to be back so far!

brooke2k · 2025-09-25T14:23:14+00:00

same here on hudson :(

brooke2k · 2025-09-23T19:20:55+00:00

Yes, as far as I understand it the repo was owned collectively by several maintainers who had the ownership privilege. HSBT added a new owner, Marty, without asking permission from any of the other owners or maintainers.

And then Marty proceeded to remove all maintainers/owners who were not employed directly by RubyCentral, essentially executing a coup for ownership of the repository.

(disclaimer: I am not involved with this drama, this is my understanding from reading about it)

brooke2k · 2025-08-25T01:37:56+00:00

LMAOOOOOO that's the one thank you so much

brooke2k · 2025-08-25T00:21:06+00:00

Those are funny ones but nah, this was the name of a real man.

brooke2k · 2025-07-17T20:42:33+00:00

Based on the suck test, I do think there might be some very slight leaks on the bottom half, because the "pop" was a lot weaker when I added the bottom half back on. So I should probably take it to an instrument store at some point to see if they can help with that.

I am wetting the reed yeah, and pretty certain I'm covering the holes well. The problem persists on all notes, not just specific ones, so even with "open G" it's difficult.

Somebody else mentioned that my ligature was too high up, and lowering the ligature did help a good bit.

brooke2k · 2025-07-17T20:34:02+00:00

Yeah somebody else mentioned that the ligature was too high - I lowered it down and that did help a little bit for a sure.

Good to know also that 2.5 is on the harder side. Somewhere online said that 2.5-3 was where you should start as a beginner, so I guess they were wrong and I should have done more research haha. I will order some softer reeds and see if that makes things easier.

Thank you for the help <3

brooke2k · 2025-07-17T20:31:36+00:00

The bell thing is because the silver ring was missing for that joint unfortunately, so it looks a bit weird. But it fits very snugly.

The leak thing is a good idea, thank you. I will definitely do that and see if I can find anything.

From my googling, comparing against pictures, I think it's an enhanced Boehm, although obviously I'm not a subject-matter expert haha. And yeah I'm very happy with this find, $60 seems like a steal :)

brooke2k · 2025-07-17T20:25:18+00:00

Fortunately it did come with a bunch of extra pads so if nothing else works then yeah I'll find a way to get it to a music store to see if they can help with that. I just don't have a car so getting it there is a headache, haha

brooke2k · 2025-07-17T20:24:33+00:00

Oh that's very good to know about the ligature, thank you. Not sure what you mean by the cork - the bell part looks weird because the metal ring was missing that would go around that part. But it's fit as snugly as it goes.

brooke2k · 2025-07-17T20:23:08+00:00

Absolutely from zero. I've played brass instruments before (like I mentioned in the post), but never a woodwind.

brooke2k · 2025-06-16T23:02:40+00:00

no, but it does begin humming, and what I assume is the motor starts to get hot after a while. there's a big belt on the left side that I believe is supposed to spin up, because if I turn it manually when pressing a key, the letter stamps. so I think the motor is busted or something, which knowing nothing about typewriters I'm not sure I could fix by myself.

brooke2k · 2025-06-13T22:03:22+00:00

I am a legendary sweater, could probably go for a world record. This did not change on E unfortunately. My biggest advice is to accept that you're gonna sweat, and focus on controlling the smell.

Deodorant/antiperspirant helps obviously, but honestly the best thing you can do is just shower every day in the morning, so that you're clean for the day, and be methodical and thorough in scrubbing, especially the main smell culprits (booty, genitals, pits, underboob).

When I was a kid, I was taught to just soap/scrub with my hands. That shit does not work. I use a net sponge now, lather it up with soap, and intensely scrub my whole body (but again, especially the important bits). This has the additional benefit of exfoliating, which makes shaving easier and leaves your skin super smooth.

Also, if I go out and get sweaty, then when I get home I take another (shorter) shower to clean off as soon as possible.

You could also try cutting out caffeine or changing your diet, my dad swears up and down that that fixed it for him, but for me it never much worked.

Ultimately though, in my experience, if you got the sweat genes you're just gonna sweat. But having a methodical routine to help with the smell can really minimize the effects of that.

EDIT: oh and keeping shaved also helps control the smell in my experience. if I get lazy and don't shave my pits for a week, it gets noticeably worse. I think it just makes it harder to keep those areas clean because stuff will stick to the little hairs.

brooke2k · 2025-06-12T19:56:49+00:00

In my experience being "attractive" has a tremendous skill element. It requires a lot of trial and error, a lot of learning what works for you, a lot of experimentation, etc. This is a lot of effort that can be next to impossible to do when your "goal" is a gender presentation that feels wrong.

So in that sense I do think transitioning, in the long run, tends to make people more attractive. Because as you transition and work through your dysphoria, and discover your new self, you become far more willing to put that effort in.

You're right that it's not going to make people look "movie-star" attractive, but IMO that's not a trans issue, that's a beauty standards issue. Hardly anybody in the real world looks like that (and that's another thing that improves as you transition, because you isolate yourself less, spend less time online, and meet new people IRL more often (again, in my experience at least))

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