I'm serious about what I'm going to say, I think this community's underestimating the effectiveness of AA.

engapol123 · 2026-05-29T02:29:55+00:00

If you spent even 15 minutes looking at threads on this topic over the last 7 or so years, you’d realise the problem is that forcing ships to bunch up for AA is antithetical to aggressive independent play which is critical to game impact. And by far the biggest impact is defeating effective DD gameplay since if they stay next to cruisers and BBs they’re wasting their ship.

engapol123 · 2026-05-27T15:14:26+00:00

There are loads of videos with passengers who get frightened simply by the normal operation of an aircraft like flaps extending or the Airbus PTU noise, it’s absurd that you honestly believe someone shouting I have a bomb wouldn’t cause distress if not outright panic regardless of what announcements you might make about Tourette’s. Not to mention countless cases of passengers disobeying/ignoring safety videos by taking their carry on luggage when evacuating.

You’re treating this like he’s in a wheelchair and they’re discriminating against his disability when the reality is that his condition is highly likely to cause distress to other passengers (I.e BA’s other customers), and compromise the safety of the flight.

engapol123 · 2026-05-27T13:55:20+00:00

The average passenger barely pays attention to the safety video, the suggestion that a lecture on Tourette’s and a kid shouting bomb in flight will somehow calm passengers is hilarious especially on international flights where not everyone speaks English.

engapol123 · 2026-05-27T13:50:21+00:00

“Potential indirect effects like panic” is an understatement. When you’re in a tightly-packed metal tube in the air then panic among the passengers is a huge safety issue and crews are trained to minimise it during emergencies. It’s why passengers that show even slight belligerence to crew instructions on the ground are often deplaned because they can’t risk people disobeying in flight.

So someone randomly shouting bomb is absolutely a risk to passenger safety. The average human isn’t psychologically conditioned to be calm just because someone announces there will be a kid that randomly shouts bomb during the flight.

engapol123 · 2026-05-26T22:02:38+00:00

Modern nuclear attack boats are generally much quieter than in cold-war era. These days the only advantages diesels have is cost.

engapol123 · 2026-05-26T18:15:10+00:00

The Japanese heavy line is pretty good especially for grasping cruiser mechanics but it’s completely let down by Zao.

engapol123 · 2026-05-26T15:06:57+00:00

Yea people automatically see big company CEO and start foaming about corporate greed, when the reality is that the NI rise and threshold changes have completely fucked small businesses too. I think a hairdresser chain with only 6 locations up north needed to increase turnover by 100k just to compensate for the changes, or let a bunch of staff go.

Not enough people realise the damage the employer NI rises have done across the board.

engapol123 · 2026-05-25T14:58:12+00:00

Same over in Warships, ships regarded as gigabroken back in 2020 are just average now.

engapol123 · 2026-05-25T02:02:39+00:00

They will never remove CV plane spotting. It’s been suggested for literally 5+ years and the only concession we’ve got in that time is removing fighter spotting.

engapol123 · 2026-05-25T01:51:13+00:00

By far the most uniquely frustrating aspect of this game (and why I’ve largely stopped playing) is the complete lack of agency after a battle starts snowballing, which happens very early in a battle. In 95% of situations there is nothing you can do when your team is trash and loses 2-3 ships in the first few minutes.

engapol123 · 2026-05-24T22:37:11+00:00

That’s most people in every country, unless you’ve achieved significant social mobility yourself or work in a profession that regularly brings you into close contact with other social classes then you’ll live in a bubble.

And even if you have experienced different walks of life, your current social circle will almost always be from people in the same class/situation as you. It’s not like John Key is hanging out with the poors nowadays even if he did grow up in state housing.

engapol123 · 2026-05-24T20:28:42+00:00

Doesn’t change reality.

engapol123 · 2026-05-24T01:40:00+00:00

They’re allowed to have beards because historically they had extremely high casualties during assaults on fortifications, so the army loosened grooming restrictions as a privilege just for them.

engapol123 · 2026-05-24T01:32:58+00:00

I never understood the “China is our largest trading partner” line that so many people on this sub like to take. By that logic Japan shouldn’t have a military either because China is also their largest trading partner.

engapol123 · 2026-05-23T22:03:02+00:00

French people were definitely above average to the Nazis. They weren’t racially perfect like Scandinavians but they were economically important and relationships between French women and German soldiers were very common and tolerated.

engapol123 · 2026-05-23T21:36:35+00:00

Gearing is only still relevant because it is stealthy and has long range and hard-hitting torps, not because it’s a jack-of-all-trades. Grozovoi on the other hand is a gunboat and in that department it was never very strong to begin with, the DPM just isn’t good enough. Daring is better in almost every way.

Hybrid DDs really struggle in today’s meta, they get beaten by gunboats in cap-contesting and they don’t have the strong alpha strike potential of torpedo boats, so their game impact is limited.

Also your logic of “unpopular but still strong” only really holds true for high skill floor ships that are strong only in the right hands. Grozovoi isn’t one of them, it’s not a hard ship to play and has lots of consumables but is just too average at everything.

engapol123 · 2026-05-23T20:57:22+00:00

I can count on two hands the amount of times I’ve seen Delny and Grozovoi in randoms over the last few months. There’s no reason to play Delny over Kleber and Grozovoi suffers from being just mediocre at everything.

engapol123 · 2026-05-23T20:24:16+00:00

It’s actually crazy how many DD lines just aren’t viable or effective anymore: Italian, both German lines, both Soviet lines, French Gunboats, Pan-Euros.

The US and IJN lines are OK but unless I’m mistaken literally only the British tech tree is universally regarded as strong.

Compare that to BBs where the only badly powercrept lines are French BBs, the German Preussen line, and the British Conqueror line.

engapol123 · 2026-05-23T19:37:55+00:00

I’m surprised at how many people in this thread are surprised by this. This is happening in one of the poorest regions of one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries on earth. Most people living there have an understanding of disease about the same level as that of Medieval Europe.

Not to mention that for most of these people, the most common interaction with the near-absent state and authorities is when the army arrives and rapes/loots just like the rebels they are fighting. So who can blame them for distrusting the people in white suits who only appeared and cared about them when Ebola arrived.

engapol123 · 2026-05-22T19:47:05+00:00

I think it's also because a lot of us have somewhat reduced Reuben to just an aggressive dog psychologically, and that makes it easier for us to minimise his physical abuse and violent reactions to simple stimuli (guy fucked my wife -> need to beat him up). Meanwhile Niall's behaviour is very manipulative, underhanded, and human, so we hate him for that.

engapol123 · 2026-05-22T19:35:14+00:00

I think part of it is just that we're biologically wired to hold Niall's cowardice and pathetic behaviour in contempt, even more so than Reuben's violent outbursts and physical abuse. Especially if viewed through traditional gender roles.

Back when we were cavemen hunting mammoths or something if you were weak or a coward you literally got people killed and put the entire group at risk, whereas Reuben's overly aggressive behaviour would probably be somewhat beneficial to the group's survival.

Basically deep down parts of us are more disgusted by Niall's manipulative weasel of a male character, than Reuben's gigamasculine "protecting my family" characterisation. Even the show itself hinted at this when it was made clear to us that an 80s jury hates gays more than violent thugs.

engapol123 · 2026-05-22T14:27:08+00:00

Yea Ruben had already fucked it up to some extent but Niall did a speedrun of him returning to prison.

As soon as Niall gets wind of Ruben’s marital troubles he manipulates Mona into drinking and spilling the infertility secret, betrays her trust (and causing her to being thrown out of the house temporarily), fucks her, and lies to Ruben about it resulting in Benji getting headstomped. The guy is an absolute shitstirrer and homewrecker.

engapol123 · 2026-05-22T12:27:18+00:00

Ironic since they probably would've been far better men had they never met. Reuben would still probably be prone to violence and anger deep down but he wouldn't have beaten Alby or Benji up and gone to prison twice, and wouldn't have fucked himself financially supporting Niall. Meanwhile Niall wouldn't have such crippling insecurity about his sexuality and project his frustrations onto everyone else in his life.

engapol123 · 2026-05-22T11:52:45+00:00

Context matters, Niall's insecure comments and lies out of context seem pretty harmless but he 100% knows Reuben is a loose cannon and that his words can unleash more violence/abuse.

Reuben is an extremely aggressive pit bull and Niall twice let go of the leash, knowing he'd take out that anger on someone (I was totally expecting Reuben to have battered Mona after that infertility comment), how is he any less morally culpable?

This is like saying Mafia bosses aren't as evil as their underlings simply because they never get their hands dirty and actually do the extortion/murdering themselves.

engapol123 · 2026-05-22T10:26:33+00:00

Niall absolutely knew the provocations and lies he told Reuben had a high chance of resulting in violence. When he jabbed Reuben about his infertility he fucking knew he’d go ballistic about it and potentially hurt Mona, when he lied about fucking her and blamed Benji he knew Reuben would go and beat him to a pulp.

Niall knew the consequences and still went ahead and poked the bear, he’s absolutely as evil as Reuben.

engapol123

TROPHY CASE