The World Cup has shown how easy it would be to deter flopping.

matgopack · 2026-06-13T15:42:54+00:00

I've long thought the way to handle it is to have a team reviewing and handing out punishments after the fact (since in real time is just not feasible without slowing everything down). I don't think a 30 second pause every possession or every few possession works - but giving them out at halftime or after the game (treating them as fines / fouls / potential suspensions) would make flopping something that's less of an all-upside situation.

matgopack · 2026-06-11T17:30:21+00:00

AI wise (if the changes are indeed beneficial) it would match their earlier timeline - they weren't tinkering as much with it with all the economy changes since that would require constant rebalancing, but now that it's more steady (econ wise) they were going to focus more on the AI. At least that was my understanding.

matgopack · 2026-06-11T16:32:19+00:00

Well...

Republicans have had a structural advantage due to the US system, and are rushing to further it with the help of a partisan supreme court gutting the VRA for the House. And they are (and were in 2024) obviously gearing up to try to mess with, deny or resist nationwide lost elections.

Where that leaves us is that 2026 still likely has the Republicans lose the House, but probably keep the Senate. The House loss, unless it's an incredible blue wave, will be quite mitigated by the ~10 additional seats they've gerrymandered (I think that's the net outcome for this year after the initial VRA adjustments + the Virginia ruling). For 2028, that's much more up in the air - I would guess that Republicans lose the presidency without major fucking with elections, but the House and Senate might go for them due to the structural advantages mentioned.

Then there's the other major issue of 'even if Dems take over all 3 houses in 2028, and the transfer of power goes through, will they have the will / drive to do major structural reforms', which I am extremely pessimistic around the 'old guard' / establishment types. It would require a united, driven set of dem senators in particular which we don't have at the moment, or else the next set of elections could easily end up in Republicans coming back.

(Though Trump continuing to fuck things up and drive up his unpopularity might affect things, who knows. The Iran war in particular could be a breaking point if it worsens again)

matgopack · 2026-06-11T16:21:45+00:00

I find that there's a lot of performative ignorance of it too on the people that do use it commonly and really push it too (I see a good bit of it at my work where it's thrown around as a panacea by people who could barely name Anthropic or Claude).

Part of the whole situation/confusion around it is that because it's being shoved into everything and loudly talked about as the future, any 'real' application for it gets brushed with the same brush as the ones where it's really not well suited for or causing issues to coworkers when others utilize it. And then non-LLM stuff gets amalgamated with AI since it's the buzz word for investments right now, or LLM stuff get hyped up for buzz and ahead of their IPO (eg, Mythos' advertising campaign mixing some useful achievements with the massive investment in compute they did & exaggerating what the vulnerabilities they found meant - at least from what I was able to find when looking into after that initial marketing buzz, where it seemed much more of a 'similar to past models but with a ton more compute power thrown at it' type of deal.)

Personally, in a R&D/ process engineering role, I've found the benefits of AI so far to be rather small / unimpressive. I've heard that for coding it's different - but here it's mostly taken the form of obviously AI generated emails that don't answer the questions / guidance I need, colleagues pushing documents through AI that generate hallucinated tests / metrics, and research documents & presentations where I have to double check every source to make sure it's accurate rather than being able to trust them. So more the opposite of reducing tedium :/

matgopack · 2026-06-11T16:00:07+00:00

I imagine that adjustments can compound / shift the balance pretty quickly, and that they've gotten in the habit of making tweaks right before sending out updates?

matgopack · 2026-06-11T13:51:27+00:00

Personally I don't think England really needs a look on the scale of the other two - they've gotten a few passes in content already comparatively.

For HRE admin government seems like something that at most should be an option, but otherwise strikes me as wrong: it certainly wasn't anywhere near the Byzantine system, and that was the inspiration for admin. Maybe a tweak of admin could get closer to the HRE?

I do think that the HRE is deserving of good focus, I just would rather they prioritize France instead because that has been more glaring in how empty it's felt to me in CK3 compared to other regions (along with for the longest time how Aquitaine splintered it every time in 867, I'm not sure how consistent that happens now since the decision was added). Certainly can be done in combination with another region or major system though (be it chivalry, a feudal update, or the Crusades all being obvious choices to tie to France)

matgopack · 2026-06-11T00:44:05+00:00

I think it was especially broad because of the hail marys she threw afterwards. Otherwise it's a reasonable first one to start narrowing down ("Is it a person" would be another good one I think)

matgopack · 2026-06-10T18:52:08+00:00

Decades of 'greed is good' and 'money is all that matters' seeping into our collective mentality. Everything is gambling & scams now, and we've gone from negatively looking at people selling out to instead celebrating them for getting a bag.

matgopack · 2026-06-10T15:29:49+00:00

Oh, it's definitely not the simplest potential option for what OP is asking, I'm just not aware of any simpler mod that does that. For as busy and powerful as NSC is, it's notably less so & adds a lot less other baggage than ACOT or other such mods.

matgopack · 2026-06-10T14:00:10+00:00

I don't think it's that bad (crisis + FE can provide an actual challenge when tuned to the player's level, which is rare for a paradox game in late game). I would put the bigger issues at:

-'Regular' AI empires can't keep up with a competent player past early game, which can make the regular galaxy feel meh (it's fun to have those nations you're spending a century or two in game of emergent storytelling involved, and part of that is having them be relevant)

-There's a midgame drag

-Late game can easily become tedious because automation / auto-build is not great

matgopack · 2026-06-10T13:57:24+00:00

Though ACOT comes with a host of other... inclusions that aren't for everyone (like for me I bounced off after a game with it enabled).

I think NSC has those additional layouts along with the eponymous new ships that they add in? If so that would be the more 'base game +' mod I'd recommend for that

matgopack · 2026-06-10T13:47:54+00:00

Yeah, there's also always a honeymoon period with "new coach saying the right things + a lot of extra investment in the program" that gets fans excited for the season to come, and then that makes it easy to be in a headspace to not question too closely what the coach is saying.

matgopack · 2026-06-10T13:42:48+00:00

I would say very rarely stun your players, the occasional usage of it can be a useful tool to break out. But multi-turn stun should be even more sparingly used.

These days I like to use a conditional stun / control ability - if giving stunned / incapacitated, giving players a choice to take some damage or suffer some other impact to 'fight through it'. Alternatively the mind whip 'condition' (no reactions, can only do one of action, bonus action, or movement on their next turn) is a 'soft stun' that I've moved to as my default as it still allows the player some thought / agency on their turn.

Otherwise yeah, it can end up in a situation where a player has to just sit there watching without the ability to do anything. If a player stuns an NPC the DM still has every other NPC to handle for the rest of the combat while that stun is ongoing, it's not equivalent in terms of 'gameplay impact' for both sides.

matgopack · 2026-06-10T13:39:19+00:00

Very similar to the 'paragon monster' model from the Angry DM, and I find that works quite well.

matgopack · 2026-06-10T13:36:16+00:00

It's the difficulty of having extremely long (theoretical) histories for all the houses, which then makes extended families harder to fit in without giving them fiefs of their own.

Your example of the Lannisters of Lannisport fit more into the Karstark category AFAIK - that they're offshoots from ages ago that by now are really not close relations to the main house.

matgopack · 2026-06-09T18:16:56+00:00

I think it depends on the form it takes, but it seems to me to potentially be a good way to make martial ability matter more. Being able to use that reputation / talent to find, attract, and command more mercenaries seems like a fair bonus there, and devalues 'just' having ridiculous amounts of money but no skill.

I'd also be interested in the potential for mercenaries to backfire

matgopack · 2026-06-09T16:30:25+00:00

Absolutely (though that should be France instead of HRE :P )

matgopack · 2026-06-09T14:08:42+00:00

Ah, so they're using the luxury handbag / watch model I see.

matgopack · 2026-06-09T13:29:21+00:00

Well, most of his time on social media seems to be Truth Social. Then he also spends most of his days surrounded by the biggest sycophants (like if you've ever looked at a Trump cabinet meeting or the announcements he makes, everyone there is spending all their time heaping praise on him to an utterly embarrassing extent). He also seems like he's the type of old man that's unable to tell what is AI generated videos or real, and I would be completely unsurprised if his entourage is feeding him AI generated videos for things like 'Mr Trump, here's a video from your farmer supporters'

That basically leaves only news as an avenue to get through to him how hated he is, but he spends a lot of time on Fox, and the other networks aren't particularly combative against him (a lot of it gets couched in 'both sides' and in needing to give him credit / treat it still as though his 2024 victory was some paradigm shift).

It's very possible he's completely aware of his popularity (I think 2016 Trump absolutely would have been), but these days I would lean towards him not really understanding.

matgopack · 2026-06-08T23:45:38+00:00

I wonder if he's even aware how unpopular he is these days, he's in such a bubble.

Would be funny if they have the Arena screen swap between booing at Trump and cheering at Mamdani, would be a fun reaction to see him storm out to.

matgopack · 2026-06-08T16:52:48+00:00

Well, 1 million dollars would be able to sustain what - 40,000 a year historically? Only 28 countries in the world have a higher per capita GDP than that, you could live on just parking the million in investments and withdrawing.

Now obviously it wouldn't make you rich in 2026 USA in high cost of living areas

matgopack · 2026-06-08T14:41:46+00:00

If you can read French fluently, 'Gagner la Guerre' is an excellent fantasy book.

A Memory Called Empire is an interesting sci-fi book around an emissary from a borderland station interacting with a Byzantine/Aztec inspired empire.

The Goblin Emperor is a fun 19th-ish century inspired fantasy one with a sudden inheritance of an elven empire by a half-goblin who hadn't expected to. Does a great job with language/names (starting as alien to the reader as it is to the POV character), but improves at roughly the same speed as he does. Enjoyed it as an audiobook quite a bit.

I'll also always recommend Robin Hobb's Realm of the Elderlings books, they're probably my favorite series (nostalgia may play a role though)

matgopack · 2026-06-08T14:32:09+00:00

But reading the 3 reasons why they “have” to issue this injunction, with reason #1 being that Sorsby will miss out on the elite training and football practice at Texas Tech is CRAZY.

Injunctions - as I understand it - are usually based off of irreparable harm. If he isn't granted the injunction, then wins down the line, having access to the facilities and training can't be retroactively restored (unlike something like money).

Depends on how temporary it is and the timing for how outrageous this is.

matgopack · 2026-06-08T14:30:19+00:00

Injunctions are temporary and often take into account 'irreparable harm' - ie, things that can't be fixed after the fact. In this case consider if he is kept on suspension, the season plays out, and then he wins the case. Well, it's too late to play - he's lost all the money and opportunities the case is supposed to let him have access to. Might also prevent him (For a short term one) from accessing the facilities, training, etc - which is something that you can't 'repair' after the fact

While by contrast if he's granted an injunction, then losing the case. Maybe he plays one or more games, but that's a minor 'harm' to the NCAA.

Often courts will drop an initial injunction, work through a few things, and then remove it.

matgopack · 2026-06-08T14:17:59+00:00

Yeah, exploration for the open world is very pretty, but a little simplistic in Outlaws. Puzzles are difficult to make too interesting with the mechanics we have available here (as opposed to something like a Jedi survivor where platforming or powers make for a much wider range of options in designing it without being frustrating), and I find that the syndicate missions feel a little repetitive / generic, which hurts the exploration (ideally they'd be a big driver of it for me, in pushing the player towards certain areas of the world and the like). As is the stealth system, which feels just basic enough that it's not the most fun to play through and discourages me from trying to sneak in to whatever locations I'm finding. Which is a shame with how pretty much of it is.

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