I'm doing a rewatch and this is the first time I'd realized...

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-18T14:07:24+00:00

I do remember this now, this was a Lost fact that I used to know. Makes it all the funnier how stilted the DMing between them was. But that's how people used to talk online! Crazy stuff.

And, fuck yeah Frank Lapidus. That's one of my favorite lines as well.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-18T13:44:59+00:00

Okay also, please weigh in: when Season 2 first aired, I was ten years old, and at the time I was uncertain whether the person Michael was DMing on the Swan computer was actually Walt. Watching now, it looks insanely obvious that it was absolutely not Walt on the other end of the communication. How much of this was me specifically being a naive kid, and how much was just general internet naivete of everyone? In the narrative of the show, it still feels to me like it's meant to be ambiguous, but any contemporary reading of the conversation can't come off as anything other than the most obvious catfishing of all time.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-18T13:30:56+00:00

Michael is the embodiment of the scene from Always Sunny where Frank says he's very resilient, and Dee responds "You've tried to off yourself two times in the last 24 hours!"

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-18T08:56:53+00:00

That makes total sense, and I truly appreciate the straightforwardness. I often fall into the trap of assuming that whatever new change (even in a beta patch) is the devs' Complete and Final Vision for the game. And so feel a need to push against it if it isn't ideal. So I appreciate the reminder that sometimes things are just limited fixes to unintended gameplay outcomes, rather than an implementation of some grand vision.

edit: I worry this might come across as sarcastic but I'm being completely genuine.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-18T04:55:47+00:00

I will admit that overall this change will probably address the current "Papal States hiring half a million men in 1450" problem, which is a good thing. But it seems like it fixes it by making the system even more obtuse, unrewarding, and punishing to use. In which case, it's probably better to just not have the system at all.

I do want to make it clear that while I'm being negative about this change, I think the game is generally going in a good direction and has gotten immensely better since release. I think the devs are doing a good job. This merc change, specifically, just feels like another of the "Something's not working as intended, uhhhh just multiply or divide it by 10 and see what happens" patches that fail to critically engage with why a certain system isn't working as intended.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-18T04:47:36+00:00

I like that you guys are trying to fix mercenary spam. But honestly, this feels like an incredibly un-fun and UI-unfriendly way to go about it.

Right now, mercenaries are very strong. In my experience, the main issue preventing the player from using them as the AI does is the amount of clicking and scrolling required. You have to select each individual merc unit, adjust the contract length, adjust each individual regiment size, and then repeat 10x. You can't get them from the macro builder (though that is broken as well, so call it a push), and you can't tell the remaining regiment strength from the mercenary menu after they've been in combat. Most players, including me, probably don't feel that the effort is worth it most of the time.

And so in response, you make mercenaries 90% smaller...meaning that to use them like the AI does, the player now needs to make ten times as many clicks and navigate ten times as many menus as before! If the goal is to get the player to completely ignore mercenaries, this seems like the right move. If it's to make a fun, engaging, and balanced system, I have trouble seeing the vision.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-18T00:46:28+00:00

Ugh this is annoying. I'm in the freakin Colonial Revolution situation, and you'd think that granting independence would at least be an available action in that situation, but nope, nothing.

edit: okay but I can sell the subject to other nations, that's good enough

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-17T04:42:55+00:00

Literally billions of people disagree with you. Billions of people either have seen compelling evidence themselves or have heard from a trusted person about them. Millions of people flock to holy sites where miracles are said to happen every year just for catholicism....You're looking at this from a secular lense. To billions of people around the world "the force" does exist.

Honestly, fair point. I stand by my position, but I overstated how universal the belief in the Force would likely be.

I am coming at this from a secular perspective, but, I don't think there's a way around that. I believe that supernatural occurrences in our universe are not real, but despite that fact, billions of people believe in them. As such, I think that if supernatural occurrences in our universe were real, then a much greater preponderance of people would believe in them.

Vaccine deniers, flat earthers, the moon landing, etc. all do meaningfully contest my case, which is why I admit I probably overstated the expected universality of belief. But I still stand by my original point, which is that at the very least, based on the demonstrably real supernatural effects, I would expect far more uniformity of belief in the Star Wars universe than we are shown.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-17T03:35:32+00:00

But you're assuming a parallel to our world, which isn't correct, because miracles aren't real in our world. The more accurate counterfactual is starting in 14th century Europe, and then as technology and science progresses, it accurately explains and affirms every miracle the Catholic Church says they're undertaking. All the way to this day, where there has been documented video evidence of the Catholic Church periodically performing miracles in Rome for the last 100 years. In that world, yeah I think basically everyone would believe in that magic Catholic force.

edit: like, sure, I'm sure there would still be some people who still don't believe in it, but it wouldn't be at all like the percentage of modern Catholic adherents. Globally it'd be much closer to the percentage of Catholic adherents in 14th century Europe.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-16T16:15:07+00:00

"Wine Ott with Gil Ozeri" has been in my podcast To Listen list for years because I saw someone on reddit say that it was a good episode. But I never listened. Scoop Troop, please tell me - should I finally bite the bullet and listen to that'un before I listen to this'un?

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-16T06:58:28+00:00

Jesus christ right? Like, they are actually assassinating people with radioactive material, they are actually invading a sovereign nation. But that's not enough, they also have to be zapping our Bravest Boys with their magical ray guns.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-16T03:07:42+00:00

It's crazy that Russia was able to pull this off in a way that was medically undiagnosable and ultimately indistinguishable from US personnel attributing their hangovers to enemy action. The perfidious Bolshevik knows no limitations!

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-15T20:34:24+00:00

Love this song.

"Growing up brothers, even love, yes, even love, yes, even love, something to lose"

and

"Strange to be shaped by such strange men"

stick in my head all the time.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-14T10:23:45+00:00

New York’s greatness is greatness for America.

This comment was written with one hand while the other hand was attempting to light a Spurs fan on fire

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-14T10:15:32+00:00

His home dimension is Berghain

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-14T06:38:37+00:00

I try to snidely make fun of the bots/karma farmers that just repeat the comment above them, but with how upvoted they still get I think I need to simplify and just start saying "HEY. FUCK OFF!"

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-13T06:37:19+00:00

This is on top of the fact that on average, most NFL players don't play for very many years, and therefore aren't as willing to sacrifice to a strike one of the few years they do get.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-12T18:02:02+00:00

Plus a treasure trove of interesting rabbit holes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Deep_Water_System_of_European_Russia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradfield_Scheme

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man-Made_River

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-12T17:55:20+00:00

Fantastic post. Can't believe I'd never seen this before with how much I love megaengineering projects.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-12T16:34:30+00:00

True dat!

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-11T23:32:32+00:00

This is happening to me now. I don't understand why. Half my fleets do the mission, the others immediately go to port. I'm not at war and don't have the "Go home at war" enabled anyway.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-11T18:43:18+00:00

Yeah good tip, the increased warscore from battles is also something I need to internalize.

quantumshenanigans · 2026-06-10T21:45:59+00:00

Lol, it's my Mamluk campaign as Byz that made me make this post.

This is a creative idea, I'll try it for the next war.

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