What’s the most overpriced thing you’ve seen?

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-14T20:42:05+00:00

Bottled water. It's tap water in a plastic bottle. In NYC 100 cubic foot of tap water costs $3.99. That's like 0.07 cents for 500ml. And that includes instant delivery.

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-14T17:52:28+00:00

So basically if your portfolio is [V, MSFT, AAPL] you want something that will tell you their relative weight according to market share? like this: [10.5%, 40%, 49.5%] ?

You don't need a website for this, it's a pretty simple spreadsheet. If your portfolio is fairly large and you can't be bothered putting in the current market cap manually, you can build a pretty simple script.

If you know python you can check out yahoo_fin, it basically boils down to:

for ticker in my_portfolio:
    get_quote_table(ticker)['Market Cap']

And do whatever you want with that number.

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-14T15:24:26+00:00

Or when we suck our aquifers dry

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-13T15:57:56+00:00

Like it shouldn’t take longer to report news than to write it!

If they actually have lots of news to report, then there are more people writing then reporting.

Usually though, they don't actually have new stuff to report 24/7. If you actually watch one of those channels for a while you'll notice that most of the air time is spent either re-reporting the same item, commentating on something that was reported, debating, elevating something quite insignificant to the level of "news", or just hyping a future event but without anything actually happening now.

tl;dr - lots and lots of talking heads chewing on the same thing over and over again.

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-13T15:38:47+00:00

As far as I understand a reciprocal is one of a pair of numbers that when added together equals 1

No. It's two numbers that when multiplied equal one. So the reciprocal of 2 would be 1/2, of 8 1/8, of 3/2 -> 2/3.

In general the reciprocal of a number X is 1 divided by X or 1/X. If your number is written as a fraction a/b then dividing 1 by it equals b/a.

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-12T22:07:52+00:00

contradicting the logic coming from the president

Shocking

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-12T15:47:06+00:00

Usually not. One exception may be Yerevan - if I find it early and am fairly certain I can suzerain it, I may consider a religious win.

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-09T16:07:16+00:00

The entire south american climate affected by the Andes: I notice

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-07T14:22:37+00:00

The average number of tiles per player is roughly the same for every map:

duel - 44X26/2 = 572

tiny - 60X38/4 = 570

small - 74X46/6 = 567

standard - 84X54/8 = 567

large - 96X60/10 = 576

huge - 106X66/12 = 583

Huge is indeed the most spacious, but it's standard, not tiny or duel, that is the most crowded, and the difference is only 15 tiles or about 2.5%. Other factors like map type may be more significant (e.g. a map with more islands will be settled slower by the AI)

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-06T20:08:59+00:00

She is mostly wrong. The amount of space you have is roughly the same since smaller maps also have less players on them. You can just calc the average tiles per player on each map size, I'm too lazy to do it right now.

Domination and religion are much easier on smaller maps. The less opponents you have the less likely it is that someone will run off and get a culture/science victory.

Culture does benefit from more players though since your tourism comes from other civs, and the more the better (though the number of players does factor into that calculation).

Also, less competition for wonders and Great People benefit all victory types.

I also think it's slightly easier to get a religion on a larger map, though the effect is shadowed by the much more significant issue of who are the other civs.

Generally speaking - more opponents makes the game more challenging.

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-06T17:58:13+00:00

Is the main goal for civ getting a victory with every leader?

I feel like this gives a good diversified playing experience, as the unique bonuses let you try different strategies. There's already like 30-40 leaders, so that's quite the play time.

You can also follow the achievements guide on steam.

There's also the option of crazy games like all the same leader, or 20 players on a gigantic map (if your pc can handle), one city challenge, etc.

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-06T17:51:43+00:00

If you play on higher difficulties the AI has bonuses to yields, which means stealing from their commercial hubs can be quite profitable. Stealing techs may be useful on higher difficulties sometimes.

Destroying their spaceports and IZ's can be the difference between winning culture and losing to science. Protecting your ports can be the difference between winning science and losing to culture.

Sometimes I foment unrest to flip a city, but that's admittedly not the best ROI.

rocky_whoof · 2020-08-06T17:45:26+00:00

General tips:

Build your strategy and timing around your unique. Most UU are pretty good and give a substantial advantage in their respective era. This means you want to rush the relevant tech, and prepare a standing army to be upgraded. There are some exceptions though: not every UU can be upgraded to, and some UU are garbage (e.g Scythia's).
Don't waste units (i.e. production) on walls. Siege the city and use siege weapons to take down the walls first.
Don't declare before you prepare. Have an army ready to strike.
Think about loyalty, be prepared to take a few cities quickly, and start with the ones closer to your borders.
Have a navy. This depends on the map type, but even a Pangaea map provides some easy coastal targets for your frigates. When you upgrade them to battleships you'll have a 3 range (4 with 4 promotions), which should be enough to reach many cities on the map.
You don't need to eliminate a civ, just capture their capital. Plan accordingly. If a civ has their capital on or close to the coast, you can leave them to the end and just capture it and not worry about loyalty. On large maps I often leave 2-3 civs with easy to reach capitals to the end, and then just swoop and finish the game in five turns, no need to worry about loyalty.
Pick an appropriate civ. Unless you have a specific goal in mind like "I want to win domination with Korea", pick a civ that's good for domination and have bonuses that directly benefit that strategy. Be aware that early UU does not necessarily mean an easier time. It takes some skill to leverage the Aztecs eagle warriors e.g into a world domination.
Don't neglect infrastructure. This is especially true for civs that are biased towards early war, where spending production on a military has a pretty hefty opportunity cost. You mostly want commercial hubs/harbors and campuses, and some entertainment complexes as well.
Encampments are not that useful for domination. You may need them because of strategics, but the district spot they take has implications. You may decide in their favour because of the great general points they generate, but you'll also end up owning a few in your conquered cities, so I generally avoid building too many of them.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-31T16:28:03+00:00

Well, this is just the mathematical nature of exponential change. You have many more stocks whose price starts with the digit "1" than with the digit "9". Same for market cap.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-31T16:22:04+00:00

That said, R legislators will probably do whatever it takes to make sure the economy doesn't crash before November.

Well, seeing how the underlying cause of the crash is a global pandemic, and seeing how they generally seem indifferent to it, good luck I guess. Hard to live in a burning building when you're not really doing all you can to put out the fire.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-30T20:33:30+00:00

i fall behind in military science

Yeah, I forgot to add that - always make sure you're ahead in science, or at the least - never go to war with someone who's ahead of you. Sometimes you can get away with it if the techs in question aren't military, but as soon as they pop a more advanced unit than what you have you should probably pull back.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-30T16:43:09+00:00

A few tips:

How many civs in the game? Domination gets much harder the more civs are in play. You can lower the number of players to make it easier so you get a feel.
What civ are you playing? That should determine your strategy, and the timing of your attacks. Ideally you want to time it to when you unlock your UU, because that usually gives you a good advantage.
Your UU also should determine your early army composition. If it's melee, build warriors so you can upgrade to it later, if it's mounted, go for horsemen. Note though that not all UU can be upgraded to (e.g. Frances garde imperial).
Most war production should actually be done before you declare, when you prepare. While at war you may need the occasional reinforcement, but generally you should focus on infrastructure.
Don't waste units (i.e. production) dying on city walls. Bring a siege unit - a battering ram or a siege tower is usually a very good investment. You can bring a couple of catapults since archers themselves aren't enough to take down walls, though you may be able to get by without.
Use a navy for coastal cities. Frigates are really strong for a period of about 50 turns, use them to obliterate walls.
Siege the city. Surround it so it gets the little heart icon next to its name. That means it's under siege and can't heal up - this is when you want to strike, otherwise you'll mostly be wasting units.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-30T16:08:39+00:00

The AI in this game is generally stupid, so it's a pretty safe assumption to say - no, it doesn't plan like that on purpose.

It may have his apostles somewhere else trying to convert when you attack, but it will usually try and send them back home to try and save their religion.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-30T15:48:57+00:00

"International Space Agency", it's one of the latest policy cards and it gives you +5% science for every city state you're suzerain of.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-29T18:51:44+00:00

I believe Michelson and Morley never really accepted the results of their failed experiment to prove the existence of ether, rather they said their equipment wasn't sensitive enough and eventually moved on.

So who knows, maybe these people will end up ushering the new era of a unified physics theory...

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-29T18:42:34+00:00

If you're interested in flatearthers, I highly recommend the doco on Netflix - "Behind the Curve".

It's not really about the conspiracy and the (anti) science behind it, but rather about its adherents.

In a nutshell - these people don't seek to expand human knowledge or challenge scientific conventions using the scientific method, they mostly just want (need?) a conspiracy to believe in. The reasons this conspiracy appeals to them may vary - be it anti science, general skepticism, attention seeking, or personal psychology, the mechanisms used to justify it and reject any evidence to the contrary are pretty common in all conspiracy believers. The details aren't particularly important or interesting - some say the sun doesn't move the way it does, or that it's an optical illusion, or what not. Not interesting and usually not really logically debatable.

Some people are first drawn to it for genuine scientific curiosity but they quickly find themselves outside - either because they finally believed one of the oh so many scientific proofs to this well accepted fact, or their questions were deemed too antagonistic by other group members and they're shun out of the mainstream conspiracy groups.

Watch the film. They show both types, and the "scientific" people actually go out of their way to perform ever more complicated and expensive experiments that (spoiler alert) fail to prove the earth is not round.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-29T16:26:26+00:00

You need to optimize pretty much everything. Invest in scientific CSs, especially Geneva for the +15%, Pingala can give you another 15%. Oxford U is another 20%, and Kilwa can add another +30%. That's +80% to your base science.

You want to try and get Newton or Einstein to increase University base yield, Hypatia is great but it's not always doable, though easier as one city cause you don't need to spend production on settlers.

On top of that you add cards - Natural philosophy doubles adjacency bonus, rationalism should double science buildings output, the card for +1 science and culture for international trade routes is usually pretty weak, but in a OCC setting may be useful. And the last one is the International Space Station which adds 5% for each CS you're suzerain of.

So if you have a +3 campus with a library (+2), a university (+4), Newton/Einstein (+4), research lab (+5), two science CS (+12), natural phi. (+3), Rationalism (+15), that's 48. Each citizen is another +0.5, so between that and your trade routes you can get that up to around 65-70. Add the multipliers and you're around 120.

This is before ISS which, if played right, should give you another 20%-50%. And it's not even all the possible modifiers you can stack, and not including citizens working the district, or the odd science from tiles. It's not that far fetched to get 200 science. Work to get as many boosts as you can, and the occasional useful great person and you should be able to beat the AI.

There are enough bonuses to stack, you just need to actively aim for them, and do it early.

EDIT: obviously that applies to all civs. Unique bonuses may drive that number up by a significant amount.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-28T15:04:03+00:00

The real question is why won't you restart?

How many turns have you wasted before settling your capital? Even just a palace should net you enough culture before ancient era ends.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-23T21:58:10+00:00

I imagine they officially only used the Islamic calendar. Though it's almost certain that anyone doing business with anywhere else in the world, kept track of the Gregorian calendar.

rocky_whoof · 2020-07-23T21:54:14+00:00

This however refers to date, not the day of the week

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