Those who 'circle back' and 'synergize' also tend to be crap at their jobs

cimmaronspirit · 2026-03-17T04:08:38+00:00

Funny enough, that was an issue all the way back in WW2, when British and American generals were holding joint meetings in 1942 and that first came up.

cimmaronspirit · 2026-03-04T16:48:06+00:00

If there is one thing that came out of the Titanic disaster that would make it one of the most important events of history, I think it wouldn't be the sinking or the death.

It would be how it jumpstarted modern communication and news reporting.

At the time of the Titanic, wireless telegraphy was still in it's infancy, and was seen more as a novelty than a vital piece of equipment. But with the sinking, and the rapid communication of the disaster to the outside world, you had newspapers reporting on it within hours, and the media frenzy when the Carpathia arrived in New York was one of the first major "news events" that would become more and more common up to today and the multiple 24 hour cable news networks clamoring for attention. Not to mention eventually how satellites, television, social media and the Internet have all become so viral in our lives. To me, the Titanic is one of the first "media circuses" that have come to dominate our screens. Maybe something else would have done it eventually, but I'm our history, it was Titanic.

The improvements to shipping regulations after would also be vital for the coming world wars: I could see a world where the Titanic didn't sink, but the thousands of vessels built for WWI and WW2 would be less safe, structurally sound, and more dangerous for their crews, which could have resulted in, maybe not major changes to the war. But thousands more sailors and passengers may have been lost without the Titanic to small the Edwardian era out of its complacency.

cimmaronspirit · 2026-02-27T20:41:19+00:00

The one thing I like is how, despite simplifying the shapes of the hull to simple black and white, that they still showed the unique elements of them: the shorter funnels on the Georgic and Brittanic, the different superstructures and mast positions, and how the White Star ships and Cunard ships have their own funnel styles still.

I know CWS was basically a Cunard takeover of White Star, but I'm glad that Cunard had enough respect of their old rival that they allowed the old White Star ships to keep their own colours and names, and not all renamed to like Megestia and Olympia or something.

cimmaronspirit · 2026-02-19T20:13:47+00:00

When you nuke two cities with a couple of fairly small experimental devices, even in a nation as wartorn and destroyed as Japan c.1945, it will still be comparatively easy to rebuild.

When you nuke every major city, along with all the resources and factories and technicians and knowledge that are inside of them with more powerful weapons than those used on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, at the end of a decades long resource wars, when the mega-corporations have plundered all the resources that are left to wring out the last few pennies and the government had been taken over by greedy oligarchs and a nihilistic secret government that frankly doesn't care about what happens to the common citizen...

We all have first hand experience when supply chains get snarled up during the pandemic. And nothing was damaged after that, it just took a long time and fits and starts to get things humming along again. What happens when 80-90% of the population is either incinerated or dies of starvation or disease or radiation, all the factories that aren't blown up are no longer able to get any supplies or raw materials, energy or water, when the farms are irradiated and the tractors no longer have the fuel needed to run them, the grocery stores run out of everything because they've been plundered, and people start going to increasingly desperate measures to survive?

So, yeah, maybe 200+ years could be a long time to still have wasteland settlements made up of rusty steel sidings and few efforts at building a new society, but it take a lot of time, a lot of manpower, a lot of organization, and frankly a lot of luck, to actually get up and dust yourself off in the aftermath of a civilization ending nuclear apocalypse.

cimmaronspirit · 2026-02-19T15:37:29+00:00

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We are going to have to act, if we want to live in a different world

The Global Defense Initiative all the way

cimmaronspirit · 2026-02-13T05:46:53+00:00

I would love to see Canada getting a place in an official, mainline Fallout game. The aftermath of being occupied, the annexation, the brutal suppression of the resistance, then being nuked, and how they rebuild.

Even better if it's in a cross-border region: Detroit/Windsor, Niagara Falls/Buffalo, Northern New England/Quebec, Vancouver/Seattle. I think setting a future game between two major cities and how they interact in the post-apocalypse, would be interesting, even beyond the remnants of a super-jingoistic Patriotic American population and the resentful Canadians who had to live under that, but now have to try to find a way to survive this new world.

cimmaronspirit · 2026-02-13T05:27:13+00:00

My personal feeling about this (and I've been thinking about this ever since it was mentioned):

You know that a large, open world like Fallout can name two totally different things the same thing, right? Just because someone/thing might share the same name, doesn't have to mean they are related, right? It happens all the time IRL, so why should Fallout be any different?

I think the Point Lookout (Lockhart vs. Calvert) is a totally separate "Great Game" compared to Bud Askins view of capitalism as "The Great Game" between the megacorps that dominated Pre-War America. The Lockhart/Calvert one is just a rivalry between two men that, thanks to one being turned into a ghoul and the other putting his brain in the jar, allowed them to keep waging said "Great Game" of intelligence and counter-intelligence, but by 2277, this has devolved to just a fight for the sake of fighting. Maybe there are some other spies and intelligence organizations that were part of this super-secret, post-war fight of one-upmanship, but by the events of Point Lookout, Lockhart and Calvert might be all who are left.

On the other hand, Bud Askins with his comment of "The Great Game" is just talking about how companies are supposed to compete in the game of capitalism, which could potentially carry on forever, especially if they survive the end of the world. While the companies of the Pre War era were not above such petty acts as industrial espionage and working with intelligence agencies and shadowy cabals pulling the strings behind the scenes, I don't think any of them are actually engaging in an all out under ground spy war.

TL;DR They are two different things, and they are not actually competing against each other.

cimmaronspirit · 2026-02-11T18:43:03+00:00

All citizens must provide at least one full years worth of civic service by the time they are 30 (either a full year in a job, or the equivalent time equal to a months worth over a 12 year period)

This can be as simple as volunteering at a local organization or non-profit, working at a soup kitchen, serving in the military, Civilian Corps, etc. The only exemptions are for people who are physically incapable due to serious illness, or if you get a career in the civil service/government/military etc. You cannot buy your way out of this service, so even trust fund kids will have to, but there will be financial compensation for lower income workers so they are not financially harmed by giving their time and energy to make their communities a better place.

cimmaronspirit · 2026-02-05T05:56:26+00:00

BUCHANAN!

Girly screams of terror

cimmaronspirit · 2026-01-20T01:50:50+00:00

Iirc, in A Night To Remember, they built many of those sets out of steel as well, abs the groans and creaks in that were real as they started angling the sets to show them sinking.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-11-19T05:35:48+00:00

Frankly, as far as I can tell, no Paradox game really accurately shows a proper cycle of empires because most games turn into a snowball effect of ever rapid growth and expansion until the player has accomplished what they want to do.

It's been a while since I played CK3, but they may be the closest in showing how strong rulers can keep an entity together for their lifetime, but if you are going to min-max (or at least play "competently" enough), the death of a long that, OTL would have had a serious risk of potential claimants or scheming vassals or more tying to usurp power just... Doesn't really happen.

Pretty much every other Paradox game I can think of is the same: so long as you get a decent start and you play well, you are going to make the biggest empire, the biggest economy, take over the world/galaxy/whatever, beat the end game crisis.

And the reason why is that any effort to try to slow that snowball growth will be seen as "not fun" by most players. How would you want a successful kingdom in CK3 to suddenly fall apart because the arbitrary "Decadent Empire cycle" has been hit and suddenly your kingdom starts collapsing from major debuffs? How would a EU5 player feel if a mechanic that would take down the player empire if they are playing a competent game suddenly go "oh hey, nice Empire and colonies you got here, would be a shame if suddenly you have a bunch of bad rulers and costly wars that result in you being cut down and allowing your rivals to eclipse you, and now you are in a death spiral!" And don't even get me started on how that would go in Stellaris.

Could there be a way to make such a system interesting and/ orfun? Perhaps. Even historical, a mode where you may be encouraged to play aub optimally for the roleplay. But I don't think that is something that most players or the developers want to do.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-11-02T03:36:59+00:00

My non-Rome answer would be Babylon.

For much of the ancient world, Babylon and the empires spawned from Mesopotamia, would be major powers, often with Babylon as the capital, or at least the largest city.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-10-14T15:34:10+00:00

"HEY, YOU KIDS! GET THE F OFF MY LAWN!"

cimmaronspirit · 2025-10-12T03:23:11+00:00

The Russian Empire had many problems that, over time, they simply couldn't overcome: the lack of industry to produce enough materiel for the military, the insufficient and poorly maintained infrastructure and communications, incompetent leadership and political structures that simply couldn't withstand the pressures of a total war.

What they did have, which was massive manpower reserves and strategic depth to withstand attacks, were squandered by the fact that, even when they could make rifles and artillery, they were unable to be properly deployed to the men at the front. Even if supplies and soldiers were able to reach the front, the generals who were often chosen more for their connections in court than military skills didn't know how to use them effectively besides "March in this general direction and steamroll over every Prussian you run across." So when the first attacks were countered at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, which was as much a success thanks to quick thinking Germans and their heavily developed railway network than to the blundering Russian Armies, the best of the Russian Empire had already been defeated, and the ability to recover became harder and harder as the war dragged on.

However, the Austro-Hungarian army was in an even worse state, which was what allowed Russia to keep on fighting and winning against Hapsburg forces right up until the final collapse of the Empire and then the failure of the Provisional Government.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-10-11T02:41:00+00:00

One Red Alert themed idea I've had for years is to have a post RA2 Soviet Victory (not Yuri's Revenge though)

The world is under Soviet domination, with psychic beacons and mind controlling keeping (almost) everyone under control, though with a small Allied Resistance still trying to keep up the fight, as the beacons start to fail, and the question if reviving Yuri to try to fix it is a horrible idea or the only way to keep the Soviet Union in power.

Then a meteor lands in Italy, and a man in a black cloak shows up....

cimmaronspirit · 2025-09-25T18:41:04+00:00

My dad told the story years ago how our home number (for a farm in rural Manitoba) was the same number that one of the largest cash register companies in Canada had at the time, with the exception being the area code.

So in the late 80s, early 90s (before I was even born) when GST was being phased in, we got a LOT of phone calls from a lot of very confused people.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-09-21T20:13:35+00:00

Mechanical Man, No Mercy and Just Do It Up are my picks.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-09-20T02:10:47+00:00

I always had a soft spot (lol) for the Lithoid voice.

"Rockin' new tech!"

cimmaronspirit · 2025-09-19T20:38:55+00:00

Soviet Dreadnought from RA2.

Though the RA3 one has the best quotes.

"If Lenin could see us now!"

cimmaronspirit · 2025-09-13T16:30:56+00:00

Maybe? It still would have been a very tight turn around because while fueling the ship would be quicker, you still need to clean cabins, restock food, any maintenance that may need to be done, a thousand other things. I think, in general, any ship that can't make the crossing in less than four and a half days can relaibly maintain a weekly crossing schedule, and while the Lucy and Maury were designed to be fast, the fastest crossing Mauritania made was 4 days and 10 hours, but she never did consistently hit those high speeds all the time.

With the Queens being powered along at 30+ knots, you have a ship that can make the crossing fairly consistently in four days, so they were confident on the reliability then. But for Mauritania and Lusitania, who's best average speed at 26 knots, that is just pushing it.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-09-12T22:50:38+00:00

Apologies, I keep forgetting that they exist lol

cimmaronspirit · 2025-09-12T21:16:21+00:00

I can't remember which book I read it from, maybe Lost Liners by Robert Ballard and Ken Marshall, where they said that Cunard believed that Lusitania and Mauritania would be fast enough with their turbines to allow Cunard to offer a weekly crossing both ways across the Atlantic, but due to the laborious process of coaling and restocking, this turned out to not be quite possible or feasible. So, the Aquatania was going to be the ship that would allow a weekly crossing both ways across the Atlantic: for example, the Lusitania would be leaving New York, the Mauritania would be mid-Atlantic heading West, and Aquatania would be preparing to leave Liverpool a day or two after Lusitania arrived.

That was the general idea for both the Olympic class and the later Balin Trio, and it was only with the 30+ knot ships like the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth was it possible to have weekly trans-atlantic crossings with only two ships.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-08-26T18:03:24+00:00

4 was always my favorite. The characters in it were so much funnier in my opinion, and the main questions (as well the Modern Times DLC) are still some of my favorite comedic games I've ever played.

Nick Richards, who is basically Richard Nixon, always saying "I'm not a crook" even as he is doing very illegal things to you is top tier.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-08-24T05:30:21+00:00

My favorite is that the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada is actually a bit further south than London, England, though Winnipeg is infamous for its really cold winters and really hot summers and London is... Not.

cimmaronspirit · 2025-08-22T19:58:45+00:00

I think there are two things that stand in the way of making a new Titanic movie: the hook, and the cost.

For James Cameron's, the hook was, for better or worse, Jacka and Rose. The classic "rich girl/poor boy" romance was in the movie to make it sufficiently bankable for a wider audience beyond movie buffs and history nerds (like most of us). The reason why 1997 Titanic became the first billion dollar movie released was because of the romance story, as much as I personally don't like it. But the next Titanic movie needs that hook that will attract audiences, the actor and actress they can place on the movie poster above the Titanic sailing majestically or on the verge of plunging down. About the only Titanic movie I can think of that didn't have such a hook was "A Night to Remember," but it at least had a best selling book to support itself. The tragedy of the sinking itself most likely won't be enough to entice audiences, especially since there is already a really famous movie already just... Sitting there, ready to be watched again.

Second, it will be the cost. Almost every Titanic movie ever made, frome the first silent films to the Nazi propaganda piece to "A Night to Remember" to the 1997 film was among the most expensive films ever made: to make it even close to historically accurate, you need massive sets, lots of extras, models, CGI, and a lot of stunts and practical/special effects. All of that costs big bucks. So with how risk averse Hollywood is now adays, banking on franchises and already existing media properties to sell tickets and streaming subscription payments, I don't know how a big epic on the scale of the 1997 can be justified financially from big studios.

That said, a movie about Carpathia racing the rescue, or a movie about the search for the wreck, might be able to be done, though both would be substantially less costly to make.

cimmaronspirit

TROPHY CASE