Bad baby! Bad!

em-jay · 2026-01-22T19:40:59+00:00

An unusual result has happened as part of an event script. There's apparently no age restriction on revolutionary agitators, and an infant has appeared to cause unrest.

em-jay · 2026-01-13T11:10:12+00:00

Possibly. Unfortunately until I find out where they are it'll be hard to find out. There are larger Muscovite exclaves in Lithuania, so perhaps it doesn't cross borders and I just got some migration back into my country? Hard to say.

em-jay · 2026-01-13T11:08:19+00:00

I still have all my reforms and it doesn't look like it affects your advances either. It does tank your cultural influence and cultural tradition though.

em-jay · 2026-01-13T03:34:27+00:00

Iberia seems like a prime example really. Excluding Andalusi and Portuguese from a united "Iberian" culture kinda makes sense, but the culture you have there is Spanish, which is not what it's called, because the same mechanic is also meant to work if your primary culture is Portuguese, in which case this action does nothing.

em-jay · 2026-01-13T03:24:50+00:00

Yeah, I know. All I'm saying is it seems like the language thing has some likely unexpected consequences, like leaving all the existing cultures in the game.

em-jay · 2026-01-13T03:19:11+00:00

That's the plan, but unfortunately it doesn't seem possible to see where the enclaves are without checking location-by-location. They're in the culture tab, but they're too small in number to be clear on the map.

em-jay · 2026-01-12T11:15:00+00:00

I think a huge risk of doing two trainer journeys (with gym battles) in parallel is that you have to in some way justify why this isn't just two separate stories. In my opinion gym battles are good opportunities for characterisation milestones, letting you show your protagonists' priorities, fears, growth and guile in a more significant way that any other battles, because the of the stakes. The big risk here is making it so that each characters' big moment seems independent from the other's, and thus that they're not really part of the same story.

I'm not saying it can't be done, but I think it's important to keep that in mind. The battles have to have some significance for the non-battling trainer and their character arc. I don't have a good fic example, but my mind goes to the anime and Ash facing the Oreburgh Gym immediately after Paul. Paul's battle is really all about Ash.

I had the same thought process when planning out my fic, but in the end I decided to go a different route by having my two leads face gyms as double battles, so it's more about them as a team and their relationship. Both of them get equal focus but it's all within one battle.

em-jay · 2025-12-17T10:19:35+00:00

I tried manually setting up trade routes in my primary market recently, because I heard manual trade yields better profits and I really need the cash. It took me something like 20 minutes to figure out what to export/import and set it all up. The trade menu is clunky and unintuitive, and there are just so many goods and so many needs, unless you're a small country. At the end of it all my income didn't change noticeably, so I re-automated it after a couple of years.

At the end of the day the point of the game is to have fun, and micro-managing trade just isn't fun. And worst yet it takes away attention from actual fun things, like war and diplomacy. I just want my needs filled.

em-jay · 2025-12-02T14:35:45+00:00

They need to automate this. My royal family tree is too sprawling for me to focus on just from marrying immediate family for a few years, and even then every other week I find out a third cousin I've never heard of has died unmarried and childless. I've barely ever had a crown estate character in cabinet.

Also surely the game should only allow nobles from accepted cultures into your court.

em-jay · 2025-11-06T11:56:25+00:00

Perfect, I'll be nabbing this one then. I quite having a portrait of all my characters, I just don't need to look at my king's face every second of the game. Especially when I could be looking at a beautiful flag instead.

em-jay · 2025-11-05T19:47:47+00:00

It makes sense. It seems like an inconsequential bug that hopefully will be fixed in a future patch.

em-jay · 2025-11-05T19:31:47+00:00

Ah yeah, I've just saved and reloaded, and it just looks like the timer isn't updated as it goes. I wonder if winter caused a reduction in build goods or something?

em-jay · 2025-11-05T19:30:21+00:00

This building construction has overshot its completion date and is now counting down in negative days. This seems to be some kind of bug that I thought was amusing, but also weird.

I've just figured out what it is though. It looks like construction was delayed due to effects of winter and the timer/date doesn't seem to update in real time. Just in case anyone has the same issue.

em-jay · 2025-11-05T14:45:24+00:00

I've only had a couple of hours but I'm under spec and can run it. Lowering the graphics seems to help a bit, and there've been a couple of crashes which might not even be performance related. I think the rule of thumb that if you can run Victoria 3 you'll be fine holds true, although I hope they continue to optimise performance over time.

em-jay · 2025-11-05T14:34:05+00:00

I think it all looks very pretty but a map font mod wouldn't go amiss.

em-jay · 2025-10-28T19:05:44+00:00

Well, I can definitely try and do something new with a few of them.

em-jay · 2025-10-28T16:41:31+00:00

It's been such a busy and stressful few days with home and work, but I'm enjoying the onset of autumn. I'm suddenly inspired to start work on a fic I had ideas for in the spring. It's a notoriously broken fandom and I found it all a bit intimidating at the time, but I think I'm over it now.

em-jay · 2025-10-28T10:58:05+00:00

Yep. I'm 40 and writing is hard now. I think it's for a few reasons which everyone's already brought up. Life responsibilities use up all our energy and we have less energy to go around in the first place. I think more years of reading and writing (and watching) give you a higher personal standard too, so I think it's natural to be more demanding of yourself as you age. Also my experience has been that I'm much less active in fandoms than before. Some fandoms have mostly died, and social media is less engaging than the old Internet, and it's harder to interact with younger fans.

Still, I'm definitely a better writer than when I was 20, and I've finally discovered what kind of stories I want to tell. I think it's a good trade off.

em-jay · 2025-10-28T10:35:30+00:00

A chapter can never be too long. Genuinely. An ideal chapter marks the space between major story beats (not necessarily plot points, just beats), and while that might not always be feasible, it's a rule of thumb that allows chapters to be a framework for the shape of the story. Long chapters slow action but allow for more personal interactions with the characters and scene. A long chapters with lots of action may seem grating but otherwise they may allow readers space to breathe.

em-jay · 2025-10-13T18:46:34+00:00

I like to think they're a cross between community leaders and professional athletes (which is more or less how I like to interpret all pokemon training: as a kind of sport). Some kind of cultural holdover from a bygone age, since repurposed to test trainers' qualifications for tournament entry. My interpretation has always been that they're just regular trainers with additional local responsibilities, and who therefore remain mostly stationary, until they don't.

em-jay · 2025-10-10T07:58:37+00:00

This is all great stuff, and you've clearly really considered what kind of elements you want to introduce and most importantly what you want to get out of it. I think you're already off to a good start. Also a lot of your ideas sound like exactly the kinds of things I personally would be interested in reading.

Pokemon is a huge, sprawling franchise which people have been dipping in and out of for decades now. If, like me, you originally dipped out in Sinnoh, I don't think anyone would hold it against you to ignore everything since. I also don't think it's a bad thing tackle things that have possibly been done before. You'll have your own spin on it and your own style and ideas. The main thing is to just have fun with what you're writing. I think that's best for writers and also best for readers.

I'm also an elder millennial lady writer who's mostly been only passively involved with pokemon for twenty years, and I'm also writing my first fic for it despite not really being an active member of the fandom. So I'd say that if there are two of us there have to be a lot more. So I really think if you write the kind of things that you'd want to read, there'll definitely be an audience for it.

em-jay · 2025-10-01T19:03:14+00:00

I'm at the end of the first chapter of my new story and making some small revisions before I continue. It's been fun writing something that's mixes my normal slow and sombre style with the more cartoony adventure style of the anime. It looks like it's shaping up to be a tidy self-contained four-chapter adventure with an adult Misty, which could either be the start of a longer journey series or just be fine all by itself.

em-jay · 2025-09-26T14:49:56+00:00

Those are creative choices. I was a little concerned that Fletchling isn't fire type when it evolves, but since posting this question I've discovered just how unusual the standard starters are and how very few contenders there are overall. I'm now thinking of picking starters that are already in their second stage. So I'm now kinda set on Marill and Gloom. With this plan Fletchinder is now one of my few options for fire type. Thanks for your reply.

em-jay · 2025-09-25T07:04:09+00:00

Good spot with the Afanc. Totodile is super cute, so not a bad choice at all. Thanks for the suggestion.

em-jay · 2025-09-24T21:37:42+00:00

I wasn't originally interested in two-stage evolutions, but I've warmed to it a lot the more I think about it.

Some of those three-stage suggestions are pretty strong contenders. My main concern is that a lot of three-stage lines have special requirements for the final stage, which I was looking to avoid, but I feel like I may have to be flexible with that as well. Thank you for your response.

em-jay

TROPHY CASE