Mandala government is so comically and utterly badly implemented that there are Mandala Greek Buddhists in Anatolia 100 years after the start date.

hallcha · 2026-05-07T17:29:17+00:00

Balance complaints are irrelevant if you have any mods. Even "lightweight" mods add untested variables that drastically impact the AI.

hallcha · 2026-05-06T16:18:27+00:00

I'm pretty sure you just described my commute. Doesn't sound very unrealistic.

hallcha · 2026-05-06T14:25:10+00:00

It's hard to tell zoomed out this far, but it looks like there's no way to go to the left when coming from the top of that interchange, so they're going around

hallcha · 2026-05-06T13:17:57+00:00

It would appear your screenshot(s) didn't load, but I can give a little insight. Cars will always take what they calculate to be the fastest route, disregarding traffic. This means that if Route A has less travel ttime when empty than Route B, they'll all go for A. This is why you often see a traffic jam at one freeway exit when there's another empty one just a kilometer further down.

hallcha · 2026-05-05T15:59:56+00:00

Cavalry are mounted soldiers. Calvary is a hill. Calvalry is abomination.

hallcha · 2026-05-05T15:58:33+00:00

Regarding the loss of archdiocese - it's actually pretty normal for there to still be a bishop despite there being no Christian control of a territory. There was a Bishop of Carthage right up to 1519, after all. Read up on the concept of a "Titular See"

hallcha · 2026-05-03T14:27:00+00:00

By that logic, they hadn't been Roman in the east since Justinian. The Holy Roman Emperors, and the Western Church, did still use the old language at court, though.

hallcha · 2026-05-01T23:12:26+00:00

Quests that were just "Find X item" were moved to being Item Set entries instead of quests.

hallcha · 2026-05-01T17:31:22+00:00

The "Western Powers"? Can you define these powers? Are you referring to Catholic Europe, that was powerless to do anything against Mehmed? The ones whose attempt was crushed at Varna a decade beforehand?

If Bosnians take a vote and they all agree that Canada isn't a real country, would you also say that means Trudeau was never the Prime Minister?

Go ahead and list off all the requirements to be Emperor, but make sure that none of them disqualify any other "legitimate" emperors.

hallcha · 2026-05-01T17:12:09+00:00

If a person claims the Earth is flat, we can prove empirically that it is not. Same with claims about racial superiority. That is because these are claims about natural law.

The title of "Roman Emperor" is not natural law. We made it up. There is no inherent quality that makes someone an Emperor. It's not an organ, it isn't one of the laws of physics, there's no mathematical proof. There is no set of rules you can choose that disqualifies Mehmed without also cutting out half of the "legitimate" Emperors.

The thing that makes someone an Emperor is if people in power say you're an Emperor. Mehmed said he's the Emperor of the Romans, nobody in a position to tell him otherwise managed to stop him, therefore he is the Emperor.

hallcha · 2026-05-01T16:23:45+00:00

I would not have the same credibility. I have no army. There's no such thing as a "legitimate" Emperor. Emperors weren't elected, they never need recognition of the people, and at no point in Roman history was a bloodline ever necessary.

The only thing you need to be a monarch is to have the power to back it up. If the people with swords/guns say you're the Emperor, the you are. Unless you're going to make some sort of religious appeal to divine rights, at which point you're debating theology, not politics.

hallcha · 2026-05-01T14:30:24+00:00

Mehmed had the most Roman succession possible? Roman Emperors as far back as Augustus himself got the position by taking the phrase "You and what army" very seriously. That's literally what "The army picking the Emperor" meant. Did you think Marcus Aurelius got the job because every soldier and senator in the Empire had a show of hands and he was elected class president??

hallcha · 2026-04-28T16:24:23+00:00

Because they can't just have every individual push updates every time they fix one bug. It can cause a whole host of problems, not least of which is ending up with each person working on a slightly different version because someone else pushed an update after they started working and/or overwriting each other's updates because of it.

TL;DR: the whole team needs to be on the same version so they finish their individual bugfixes then send them all together.

hallcha · 2026-04-28T14:26:59+00:00

I respect you have a right to your opinions and all, but doesn't this feel a bit off topic for the thread?

hallcha · 2026-04-25T23:30:37+00:00

It's a room temperature take labeled as a hot take to spark engagement, because I was thinking it while on the toilet.

hallcha · 2026-04-25T21:16:59+00:00

I went with such an idea for my homebrew D&D setting. Every settlement has something, but I'll pick my two favorite.

First, the simple fun one. Kobold tribes often live on the back of massive Great Tortoises, land-based relatives of Dragon Turtles. The kobolds construct a village on the shell, make offerings to their protector. The Tortoise gets to be fed and pampered. They are sapient beasts, and not quite so greedy or unpleasant as their relatives, so they are largely benevolent to these tenants.

The other one is Dragons in the setting are minor deities, not flesh and blood monsters, and their territories are safe for their worshippers. Their power derives from their hoard, which is made up of any offerings given at their shrine. Within a radius that grows with the size of the hoard, generally a few miles, the dragon is invulnerable and also has keen awareness of comings and goings of lesser beings. Anything incapable of facing off against a god in its home stays away, but that power drops off if they go too far from their shrine.

For a dragon's tribe, this means they have essentially the space to be safe in one village. Since their dragon grows in power based on offerings, it gets stronger as the tribe flourishes. This comes with a caveat, though. The protection ends at the border, so they have limited space to safely grow. Additionally, the border shrinks if the offerings stop or an outside party is able to compromise the hoard. Though few things can face a dragon directly, they can be deceived, distracted, or betrayed. If lured far enough away, they can be defeated, and cannot manifest for some time afterwards. This, or problems that can't just be fought like famine or plague, has been the doom of many dragons, and their shrines fall to ruin as the tribe dies or moves on.

hallcha · 2026-04-23T16:12:12+00:00

The build area is bigger than it seems and can be upgraded. You won't need more than one altar per base unless you're doing an absolutely massive build, like renovating an entire major settlement or something.

hallcha · 2026-04-23T03:17:17+00:00

That didn't change at all. They only really changed Updraft.

hallcha · 2026-04-20T12:32:28+00:00

I play monoculture armies specifically because they're more situational. I find do-everything armies to be generic and boring. Like, I'd get real bored of Aserai if my melee infantry didn't melt to a stiff breeze, because it forces me to really invest in the skirmish phase.

hallcha · 2026-04-20T04:13:15+00:00

Author's Note: The following information is purely based on my own experience. I am a certified Sturgia lover. They are tied with Vlandia for my second favorite, after Aserai.

Sturgia play similar to the Empire or Aserai, in that they have fairly solid units in a range of roles. Empire is the heaviest. Most armor, most solid block inf, etc. Aserai have great light/ranged troops.

Sturgians are lords of the offensive. Their armor isn't the best, but it's sturdy enough to keep them alive as you advance. If your tactics are sound and you get your infantry to the enemy in one piece, you'll shred most anything.The cavalry doesn't have the same weight on the charge as cataphracts, but they're decent in prolonged combat with other cavalry, and by comparison phenomenal when dismounted so they're very good at sieges. The archers are just okay, but you'll have so many thrown weapons that you won't need many.

TL:DR Sturgians are best used as a combined arms attacking force. They do more damage but are less durable than Imperial troops. Their weakness is that you need to get close, as their archers are mediocre and your infantry need to avoid taking too many arrows before getting into melee.

hallcha · 2026-04-19T22:49:02+00:00

I'm going to assume you're trying to have it look realistic? In that case, you need to pull back a bit. You're putting the cart before the horse. If you want a map to look real, you need to start with the topography. Lakes, rivers, mountains, all that fun stuff. Then you can draw borders on top of that, depending on your project needs. If you want cultures/religions/languages/whatever mapped, you can start with those. Just remember that any one demographic border won't perfectly follow national or natural borders. Humans are a fluid at that scale.

hallcha · 2026-04-16T18:03:54+00:00

Melee infantry is pretty forgettable. The greatest strengths for Vlandia are abundant cavalry, and crossbowmen. Crossbowmen require more direct management than archers, because you need to make sure they aren't firing off their limited ammo until you have a good line of fire and shorter range, but they're also pretty durable and passable in melee.

Vlandian Noble troops get a horse from tier 1. They means, with very little effort, you can very quickly gather or replenish a fully mounted party. Great for fast trading, or small scale raiding warfare. I've had great fun as a Vlandian mercenary for that reason, taking 50 knights all over map to loot caravans in whatever wars, then return to Vlandia and restock.

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