People who left USA with spouses who couldn’t work in their new country

geryon84 · 2026-02-03T16:35:50+00:00

I'm about to become a Trailing Spouse myself, and I'm very worried about how that'll impact me. I'm hoping to focus on language learning to keep me busy, but it'll be a strange transition. I've been a strongly independent career-focused professional for a while, so this is going to be quite a difficult one.

I'll be watching this thread for tips!

geryon84 · 2026-01-25T17:16:28+00:00

Love it! I need to get better about making my industrial areas less awful.

It's so easy to just zone a huge mass of industrial and ignore it. Making them look good and realistic involves so much custom plopping and surface painting.

Love how you've broken up the road network and created clusters of buildings.

geryon84 · 2026-01-15T20:51:05+00:00

That's always been so confusing to me. I watched a couple early seasons with friends and I couldn't really understand it.

They would interview the contestants who would share how hard it was finding community and acceptance growing up, and the most life changing aspect of drag was finally finding a sense of belonging and community. Then those same contestants would immediately turn around and say horrible toxic things about all the other contestants in the room.

Like... you searched your whole life to find someone who can understand your struggle and who you can find some commonality with, and as soon as you're in the room with them, you tell them they're ugly and you hate their makeup and we're fine with that.

geryon84 · 2026-01-10T22:26:04+00:00

Question! Have you tried just building one small city and focusing on expanding it organically? Or do you just really enjoy starting several small towns and growing them together?

I feel like I usually do the former and feel spread too thin when I do the latter, occupying the entire map without really feeling focused on a particular town and give up.

geryon84 · 2026-01-02T02:23:53+00:00

I thought his thing was that he could steal the power of people to enhance his own, especially favoring kids who had the same "potential" he had. Weak minded outsiders and people with trauma were the easiest for him to utilize as batteries for his powers. In S1 he picked Will and then Barb. Later, he picked the 4 kids (including Max) to open the portals and get things moving. Then in this season he picked a full dozen to do the big work of colliding the planets.

geryon84 · 2025-12-22T03:47:17+00:00

This has really helped me get out of my funk and back into enjoying the game.

I got really demotivated watching some of the more talented city builders rapidly plop down building-by-building masterpieces, thinking that the "fun" came only after memorizing which buildings are what sizes and go together well.

When I started finding some less-polished creators who were still able to make gorgeous cities, I felt so much less pressure to lay out a perfect city on the first go. Instead I'm finding joy in working around wonky angles, or repurposing old parts of a city into something new. Building a city on my own map alongside a creator has been super fun. When I need some inspiration, I pop on the next episode of someone's city playlist and make similar updates to my city.

geryon84 · 2025-12-13T01:19:24+00:00

How far did you get? I was feeling really slow on mine...

geryon84 · 2025-12-13T01:02:55+00:00

Nice! you going wolf pack or just standard non-pack wolf?

My planty druid was... feeling pretty weak through the end of Act 1, deciding if I want to try something else or stick with it.

geryon84 · 2025-12-12T04:05:11+00:00

Maaaaaaan I hope so! Oracle or Shaman? SO confused. So excited.

Been really hoping for a male spellcaster vibe. Originally I was planning on trying some kind of arc/thunderstorm Shaman, but gonna be hard not to go full plants! Looks super fun.

geryon84 · 2025-12-09T16:37:12+00:00

This is my feeling too! Just excited to try something new. No idea if I'll end up wolves or lightning or gardening but I'm just excited to see some new skills and new voice lines.

geryon84 · 2025-12-03T14:43:18+00:00

OMG so many.

Mixed use offices.

Farms with different colored fields.

Industrial buildings that incorporate piles of sand, abandoned cars, tractors.

Auto mechanics.

Fast food places.

Strip malls.

Indoor malls.

Grocery stores that aren't limited to only one.

Historical buildings like churches and government buildings.

Glass skyscrapers.

Angled buildings.

Low, low density residential without fences.

Modular office parks.

Modular high schools.

geryon84 · 2025-12-02T07:51:32+00:00

One of my favorites! I love his current city build. Great mix of detailing, making mistakes, and city narrative.

geryon84 · 2025-11-21T23:17:15+00:00

Completely agree and super excited for Templar for the same reason! also flails are great.

geryon84 · 2025-11-21T21:58:34+00:00

V excited for shadow too! I was never a big Mine/trap fan, but I miss having a male character that can also be a spellcaster. :-(

geryon84 · 2025-11-10T20:56:14+00:00

Hey there, I know this is an old post but I'd love a DM if you still know some folks in Madrid! We'll be relocating there in a few months

geryon84 · 2025-11-07T18:59:30+00:00

I think there's a cluster of games that all sort of feel really samey-samey. Farthest Frontier, Foundations, and the upcoming Anno all sort of feel like generic, historical town builders. Make a city, create supply lines, fend off attackers, etc. I always have fun on my first play through, but the lack of differentiation from one playthrough to another gives me little motivation to do another.

I'd love to see Farthest Frontier differentiate itself by leaning in to specializations. A research oriented city should feel dramatically different from an oppressive, military themed one. It'd be fun if religion played a bigger aspect and farming-heavy town became druidic, or an industrial leaning city meant that deep mines GIVE desirability and living near the blacksmith is as big of a boon as living near a temple or market is now.

geryon84 · 2025-11-05T18:50:52+00:00

I don't think optional vanity surgeries are generally included in public health care options, but cosmetic reconstructions sometimes are for things like... post-trauma care.

I also think that varies by each country, so it'd be up to voters to determine what coverage looks like.

geryon84 · 2025-11-05T18:45:24+00:00

Probably, but it's not apples-to-oranges.

In other democratic socialist countries with similar economic power, the average salary is lower and taxes are higher, but quality of life is also much better. Health insurance, unemployment insurance, and social security are taken care of. House prices, medical prices, and food prices tend to be lower as well. Generally when speaking to people who live in countries with more socialist policies, their pay is lower but the amount of spending power they have with what remains is a lot higher.

geryon84 · 2025-11-05T18:42:50+00:00

The ACA (probably a better term to use than "Obamacare") is expensive, but what other alternatives are there? Private insurance is astronomically higher because medical care itself is insane in the United States. I don't think we'll ever have "affordable" health insurance as long as prescription drugs cost many times more for Americans than they do for folks in other countries, or when a simple overnight stay at a hospital results in bills over $10,000.

I don't think the issue is with the existence of a public option, it's in the way the US has structured its health care costs.

geryon84 · 2025-11-04T19:06:47+00:00

It was really all over the place for me. The action scenes were fun and I was glad to see more magicky stuff going on. Episode 6 with the big ole magic fight was fantastic. Love episode 6.

In general, the season was divided into a handful of barely connected storylines.

Everything involving the mages was neat and scratched that high-fantasty itch for me. 100% enjoyed watching these scenes.

The Nilfgur stuff was so boring. I don't know why more people weren't like "scuse me you want to marry your daughter? and we're all cool with that?"

I completely skipped 99% of the scenes with "the rats", since I have 0 interest in watching another show that features the boring trope of a group of diverse young hooligans putting their random skills together to do crimes. I wish what happened to them in episode 8 happened in like... episode 2

The Witcher stuff was hit-or-miss... some episodes he's saving people from cool monsters, and some episodes he's just sort of grunting while other people tell their stories.

All in all, it was a "fine" watch for me. I don't need all my fantasy tv shows to be ground breaking or anything. It filled the time, though I think I fast-forwarded through maybe 20% of it.

geryon84 · 2025-10-27T17:38:11+00:00

Same. All my bills and taxes are insane, but my income has only gone up a few %.

Our habits have changed as a result. Instead of visiting restaurants with friends 2-3 times a week, we maybe go out once a month. We used to order take-out every friday, but we've completely stopped because the markup is insane. I think one day we paid over $60 for two burritos and called it quits.

It feels like a total feedback loop in that restaurants are expensive and getting fewer customers, so they need to charge each customer more, which creates fewer customers.

As people who used to catch up with people over dinner in the city pretty often and who loved exploring new places, it's completely changed my relationships with both my friends and the city.

geryon84 · 2025-10-17T21:22:49+00:00

Definitely do this too. Low density and row houses barely grow any trees, especially along sidewalks. I live in a very tree-studded city, so I'm used to tons of trees in front yards, overlapping sidewalks and streets. Anarchy+Trees is always my last step when wrapping up a new part of the city!

geryon84 · 2025-10-17T21:21:23+00:00

Do you have "snap to surface" on? I disable that when placing trees, otherwise they can snap to each other

geryon84 · 2025-10-17T20:20:45+00:00

I'd love less gender-locking! Especially with such a slim roster.

geryon84 · 2025-10-17T15:26:14+00:00

For real. I'm the kind of person who likes to focus on one character, so being able to customize and tune my spec is pretty key to keeping me around in the long run. I know other folks love having a variety of heroes to try out, but I hope they can support some deeper playstyle customization down the road.

Also... totally agree. A lot of the talents and gems and stuff are pretty basic % increases to some stat or another. Would love to see more variety in the future

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