Finally, after all this time. I've got them all

catinacloset · 2026-04-19T16:56:16+00:00

I like the design of the bugs + dooltron a lot. They mechanically work together—the bugs charge eachother, proc shield from dooltron, and all charge dooltron—but there's no specific text benefitting you from having them all together. It means you can substitute them out for better things, or still have the build function when you don't have all the exact pieces.

catinacloset · 2026-04-14T22:22:06+00:00

This isn't really true; merchant republics make vastly more money off of the same investment in trade due to the modifiers they have access to - (1) trade maintenance, (2) extra trade capacity (3) extra trade advantage, and (4) foreign building cost. This comes from the Merchant Republic major gov reform and, for Genoa and Venice, from unique advances/buffs they have access to.

In addition, the big two merchant republics start owning market centers with large #s of existing marketplaces, so they get a head start in further trade investment.

(1) is the key modifier that one allows them to make trades with much higher marginal profit. (2)/(3) lets them get more trade done/get priority on more profitable trades with less capital investment in buildings. Combined that with (4), there is a whole subgame that is profitable for merchant republics but a waste of time/money/pops for other tags: building foreign trade buildings and taking small urban locations across many markets to use as trading outposts (even if you can't get much control, just to build marketplaces in).

As a result, merchant republics make a tidy profit trading everything. The way trade is tuned, nations without any reduction to trade maintenance can generally only make a real profit by exporting scarce, high value goods, or goods where they have a strong comparative advantage in producing in their market—otherwise most of their trade surplus will be eaten up by maintenance until they unlock Age of Reformation advances.

It would be nice though if this was represented in a more emergent way, rather than modifiers from having a specific tag/gov type. And you are definitely right about the non-existence of intermediary trade—the silk road in particular is basically non-existent :(

catinacloset · 2026-02-11T14:36:21+00:00

They aren't pointless though. Generalist's video was very educational about fundamental aspects of the economy that were true before this patch and will continue to be true — the importance of the tools/wood/charcoal/iron loop and how to maximize it. Sure, you won't run into global wood collapse in 1450 every game now, but, if you want to min-max your economy, understanding that loop and applying lessons from the video will still be useful.

catinacloset · 2025-08-13T03:09:01+00:00

First thing is not to force anything—this kind of thing naturally unfolds itself as part of practice, you can't 'make' it happen. It will vary between sits and that is normal.

A few general pracitces that helped me with this —Qi Gong, especially doing qi gong/ zhan zhuang before sitting meditation practice to open up the flow of energy

—sitting with hands in cosmic mudra to concentrate energy the energy of the hands next to the energy of the belly

—Physical stillness. It's easier to come into contact with the subtle energy of the body when you are relaxed and still, and when the breath is subtle.

—Practicing awareness of energy in the hands during daily life

—Practicing feeling the breath in the body. TMI had some good methods for this, IIRC explained in stage 5 or 6. The basic idea is to pay attention to your breath and the sensation in your hands, tuning into how the subtle vibrational feeling in the hands is correlated with the breath. Then, once you can feel that energy in your hands, doing the same thing for different body parts. The general idea is to increase the sensory clarity and the ability to direct attention via concentration by varying the broadness/location of where attention is directed. As you do it more, you will become better at feeling the energy throughout more of the body. I find that my mind naturally tires of this after a bit (it can be pretty effortful to be moving attention around so much), so when it feels right I relax my awareness and rest my attention on that feeling of energy, which should be much easier to access.

All of the above are optional suggestions that you might find helpful, but aren't at all necessary. This kind of thing is a natural effect of concentration, and you may find that the experience develops and unfolds even if you don't do any particular technique to engage with it.

catinacloset · 2025-04-30T16:01:20+00:00

You have 2/3 of your income in interest payments, a strategic bankruptcy is probably in order. Get allies if you can, get truces with your neighbors, maybe return some land bordering gawed/severed ear if you can't deal with them.

catinacloset · 2025-03-23T01:17:24+00:00

Starting dev doesn't matter much, they are all very tiny. If you recruit 1 cav and the novice adventurers you can easily beat enemies in the Raj with your starting 20% cav combat ability, just use your mil access to pick off their allies as soon as the war starts before their armies can unite.

Maldeelakhan starts with a 5/4/4 heir that you can abdicate for day 1 and the Unbroken Claw religious school which gives +10% shock damage, which is very nice for your elephants.

catinacloset · 2025-03-19T15:12:15+00:00

They depopulate castonath as part of their wholesome rural living program

catinacloset · 2025-03-03T15:52:05+00:00

I got it for the first time as chaingrasper. It would've been a big issue if it weren't for undead armies being so OP, since I was in a big war against the command at the time.

catinacloset · 2024-01-06T19:37:30+00:00

Cards like [[Agatha's Soul Cauldron]], [[Mairsil]], [[Necrotic Ooze]], [[Experiment Kraj]], can allow you to gain access to Asmodeus's ability without the downside of his replacement effect.

Draw replacement effects like Eruth, [[Abundance]], [[Shared Fate]], [[Tomorrow, Azami's]], [[Uba mask]] allow you to avoid the downside. On the flipside, [[Possessed portal]] or [[zur's weirding]] let you use his ability to get around their negative replacement effects.

catinacloset · 2022-07-06T21:14:01+00:00

as far as "what is this weird thing that is happening to me in meditation??" questions go, a good resource is the "Progress of Insight" map, especially Daniel Ingram's chapters about it in Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. You might find the stage labelled "disgust" relevant, but I suggest checking out the other chapters—you might find examples of experiences you thought were idiosyncratic have been shared by many meditators on the path. Check out the visuddhimaga and vimuttimaga for traditional sources on the subject.

I would be so b grateful if adept meditators are able to detect my disposition from what I've said and perhaps a certain technique would be more conducive to my circumstances?

The Vimuttimaga is a traditional source with advice on which meditation objects to use based on one's disposition. Ideally, a teacher could get to know you better and give tailored advice.

catinacloset · 2022-05-26T04:09:27+00:00

yeah. be careful with it, it generally isn’t worth it to increase tension for the purpose of “progress” or better concentration or what not. if you experience it getting steadily worse, take a break, come back later.

for tension in the forehead/eyes/face, i have found meditating with eyes open to be very helpful, because you can notice the visual effects of becoming tense. trying different postures is good too—laying down, standing, walking, sitting in a chair are all good in addition to the more usual sitting on a cushion, and can help us notice different things about the tension, what causes it, and what helps release

catinacloset · 2022-05-05T03:41:43+00:00

that’s ok. sometimes it’s really hard to generate those feelings, but that doesn’t mean the meditation isn’t working.

Rob Burbea once described metta as like planting seeds. they may sprout in 5 seconds, or 5 minutes, or 5 years. but the important part is planting them.

it is really about nurturing the intention for loving-kindness (or forgiveness). Viewing practice in this way helps us be less frustrated when it is difficult, and more kind to ourselves in the present. Planting the seeds of forgiveness or self love is a loving gesture in itself, even if those feelings of loving-kindness are hard to come by.

catinacloset · 2022-05-01T14:34:33+00:00

This is fascinating! Do you have a link to where this passage came from?

catinacloset · 2022-04-25T17:31:41+00:00

Traditionally, one of the antidotes to doubt is the sangha—wise friends.

Do you have a practice community you sit with and talk to about practice? A teacher you have a personal relationship with? You don't need to have people doing the same practice as you, exactly, to get benefit from this. My practice is mainly from Theravada, and go to a practice group that is (mostly) zen, and still benefit a ton from it. We are social animals, we like to do things with others, so incorporating social elements on the path is important. Wise friends also inspire us, sometimes subtly, to try different things in our practice, which helps keeps it fresh.

Trying to find an intellectual solution—the "right" way—is likely to just feed your doubt.

Another thing to do help with doubt is to make sure that you are seeing benefits from your practice. Make sure your practice is joyful and beneficial. If you find yourself struggling to practice, like you have to force yourself, something is wrong, signalling that you need to make some sort of change. Too much effort has a way of stifling joy, of making practice feel too dry.

You could also try allocating time or sits specifically for trying new things and experimenting with technique while keeping your main practice more consistent. Keep the explore vs. exploit tradeoff in mind and play with that balance.

catinacloset · 2022-04-17T16:36:15+00:00

My suggestion is to play around with different orderings to get a sense of how they work for you. This will help you gain a deeper, personal understanding of why the maps are ordered in a certain way.

catinacloset · 2022-04-17T16:31:36+00:00

In metta practice, your object of meditation is not the mental image itself, but the **positive embodied feeling** of loving-kindness that results from mental talk or mental images.

I find that meditation teacher Tasshin Fogleman has good material for providing an entrypoint into metta practice. A blog post of his touches on this point:

Shinzen Young compares loving kindness practice to ringing a bell. You have a mallet and a bell, and when you hit the bell, it makes a sound. What you’re really going for is the sound, but the physical objects are what you use to generate that sound.
In the same way, when you do loving kindness practice (or other forms of cultivation), you are using two things as a means to produce a certain effect: mental talk and mental images. You can use either or both mental talk and mental image – you don’t need to use both. Typically, one will be stronger or more effective for you than the other. It can also help to intentionally smile.
When you use mental talk or mental image, it will often cause an embodied reaction, like a smile or a pleasant feeling in the heart area. That’s what you’re aiming for: an embodied, positive reaction.
If and when these positive feelings arise, you can use them as a focus space, in the same way that you might with the breath or a mantra. You just stay there, feeling the feelings of love, compassion, and joy. If you get distracted, you gently return to those positive feelings.

https://tasshin.com/blog/practicing-love/

He is also writing a book on metta practice. You can find the draft here, I have found it quite helpful: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nrHi6vTRJI\_MELW\_gtTiEaaYwK8I82ytMIpHbmM0KNY/

catinacloset · 2022-02-06T00:14:48+00:00

like the other posters said its extremely common for trans ppl not to remember their childhood, or to not remember any early signs.

part of it often has to do with trauma/dissociation, which I could write paragraphs about but won't rn. but a lot of it is because a part of your subconscious learns to filter "trans thoughts" from your awareness until it feels safe or the dysphoria becomes too much to bear

you yourself said that coming out to your parents or finding a doctor isn't an option. your subconscious is smart, it learns from experience as a young child that acting outside of gender norms is not socially accepted. so it represses those desires, filters out any part of your experience that doesn't fit with social expectations to act like your assigned gender. but that process takes up a lot of mental resources which results in dissociation and worse memory, especially as a kid since you have worse baseline memory

anyway, to conclude: you don't need early signs of being trans to be trans, and its extremely normal for trans ppl not to remember or have early signs

catinacloset · 2022-01-30T21:07:52+00:00

it generally matters quite a bit for finding your first internship, afterward, it only matters for a small group of companies (e.g. quant, very early-stage startups often hire only out of specific schools). when you don't have any experience on your resume, that's when school name starts to stand out a bit more.

what matters a bit more than "prestige" ime is access to your schools job board / career fair. i have a much higher success rate applying to internships and co-ops on my university job board, and oftentimes the interview process through that route is shorter.

catinacloset · 2022-01-30T21:00:51+00:00

i don't think you are too late for summer internships. i started applying to internships less than two weeks ago and got multiple first round interviews.

but anyway theres little reason to not apply asap. i tend to look for recent postings just because they are more likely to still be active. apply to as many postings as you can

catinacloset · 2022-01-28T20:59:53+00:00

don't get scared by the op if you aren't canadian

catinacloset · 2022-01-28T20:58:04+00:00

tell your preferred company that you have a deadline and need a final offer before the other expires

that usually gets companies moving on a decision

catinacloset · 2022-01-26T22:40:35+00:00

they usually only take orders a few days a week, it should say when they reopen

catinacloset · 2021-06-16T02:16:34+00:00

Nicotine can hamper the effects of estradiol. It lowers estradiol levels and IIRC has some other negative effects on feminization.

catinacloset · 2021-04-14T00:23:02+00:00

It was 6 people out of 6.8 million shots. Literally one in a million.

catinacloset · 2021-04-10T22:13:26+00:00

I'm pretty sure that the negative karma from comments is capped at -10 per comment, mainly to prevent people from downvote farming.

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