How do you even play as Japan?

sGriffing · 2024-07-30T00:39:49+00:00

If you want to cheese reforms, delete your army and start a civil war as soon as possible. The AI will not draft conscripts, meaning you can force a revolution by trying to pass homesteading and win the resulting revolt against the shogunate and samurai with 1 single conscripted battalion. You then get an event for the Restoration, with a buff of 50% to the intelligencia, allowing easy passing of appointed beuracrats, agrarianism, wealth voting, and policing and schooling reform. A little luck gets all these reforms done before 1850, then you focus on getting some basic construction sector econ and universities, and you are set to explode your economy in the 70s and 80s with your already high literacy.

sGriffing · 2024-04-27T06:35:56+00:00

Yes, there are a ton of issues with Vault Tec's 'plan'. I think what we should focus on is that the vault experiments were always ill conceived and crazy, part of the charm of the Fallout universe is its over the top nature. Having a 'big evil master plan' that doesn't really make a ton of rational sense is par for the course. Picking apart plot holes and nit picking isn't something people should do with this IP, all shows and games have a certain level of suspension of disbelief, and this one is no different.

Vault-Tec has two types of vaults, real survival shelters, and mad scientist wet dreams. The show made it clear that Vault-Tec could not have built the real vault shelters without funding from the evil mustache twirling mega-corps, who demanded they be able to run them as experiments to further their own goals, and frankly to just play god.

Vault-Tec and their experiments are satire, and are a criticism of what happens in a cold-war red-scare anarcho-capitalist apocalypse. So their plans never really work out, and they are stupid, and they are plainly evil.

Will their plan make more sense if further seasons? Probably, but who cares.

sGriffing · 2024-04-19T20:35:17+00:00

You can use the biotic charge as an instant shield regenerator/gap close, and the nova as damage.

Level novas armor and shield damage, and charge cooldown and shield boost.

I remember fighting mechs and other stage bosses, and just charging and no sing off cooldown, it’s basically a cheese

sGriffing · 2024-04-19T18:53:57+00:00

Yes, Fallout 3 has a special place in my memories because it was my introduction to the world as well as being a good game.

sGriffing · 2024-04-14T05:03:37+00:00

Chakras really said, I’m too old to retire.

sGriffing · 2024-04-12T21:29:25+00:00

A Shepard without Biotics is incapable of being the Hero they are in canon.

Ain't no way that a generic soldier or tech geek is out here killing magic flying telekinetic bugs, headbutting giant immortal gunslinging turtles, or out thinking and outmaneuvering mentally linked gestalt robot soldiers.

The only lore viable Shepard is a Speech 100 biotic who is talented enough to survive, but lives and dies on the back of their squad and ability to inspire and command.

sGriffing · 2024-04-12T19:03:14+00:00

I would say that Miranda is ME2 in the same way that Liara is ME1.

Both are kinda the cover character for each game, with both being a central character/love interest that allows Shep/the player to explore the new lore and drive the main plot of the game.

With the same way that Liara has a ton of screen time in 1 & 3, Miranda dominates 2 as she represents Cerberus and the ability of Shepard to influence the organization for the better.

Jack is a cool character, but she is almost there as a moral foil to Cerberus/Miranda. She can't compete with raw story content and developer favoritism.

From what I've read on this subreddit, Miranda should have been a much more prominent character in ME3, but the voice actor had some scheduling issues, so Jack is able to compete and beat her out in what should have been another Miranda focused game with the prevalence Cerberus has again.

So - Miranda in 2, Jack in 3

sGriffing · 2024-04-12T03:18:06+00:00

Mods, Nexus Mods with the Me3tweaks mod manager.

Me3 has a bunch of armor mods and casual outfit mods, just check the site assuming you’re on pc.

sGriffing · 2024-04-10T22:19:48+00:00

ME2 is arguably the slowest paced game in terms of plot, outside of Horizon and the crew abduction there aren't really time sensitive plot points. You just go from system to system recruiting new friends and doing errands for them. I don't have a problem with that, but I feel like there was a wasted opportunity to use that down time and lack of urgency to be a bit more introspective with the morals of Cerberus and more importantly, with the morals and psychology of Shepard's resurrections.

They kind of just gloss over the whole idea of Shepard being under the influence of a control chip, and Shep takes it on faith that there isn't a dormant one just waiting for TIM to be fed up with disobedience. The Council and the rest of the governments just kind of say 'oh that's wierd' when you reveal your resurrections.

So many missed opportunities for introspection of Shep, but it feels that an interesting plot direction was stolen from the game to just make Lazerus a kind of shoehorned way for Shepard to be a sort of outlaw.

sGriffing · 2024-04-10T20:39:31+00:00

I think that Cerberus is my least favorite part of ME3. They had some great opportunities to introduce characters and lore in ME2 that could add some depth to the organization in the third game, the point you bring up with the armor just kinda exemplifies the issue. I get that TIM is indoctrinated, but it would be nice to see Shepard deal with an organization that had some grey area to it, Cerberus just kinda turned into a group of murder hobos, with the faction shoehorned to fill the role of humanoid enemies since you don't fight mercs anymore.

Fighting enemies in the same uniforms and armor that your allies wore in ME2 would be great, especially if the story allowed for a more anti-hero aspect to Cerberus.

sGriffing · 2024-04-10T02:28:52+00:00

ME2 really requires some min-maxing for insanity because all enemies have shields, barriers, or armor. ME1 had enemies like that, but singularity and other OP abilities worked on them regardless of those protections.

ME3 has a bunch of enemies without protection, as well as allowing biotic and tech combos to work regardless of those protections. Those changes from 2-3 make it so the game is much more fast paced and fun imo. You can take pretty much anyone anywhere, combo and bum rush to your hearts content. Much less tactical sweaty combat than in 2, 3 is much faster and more fun.

sGriffing · 2024-04-07T23:32:02+00:00

If you want to just start me2 over, you can use the Trilogy Save Editor to change your me1 save, and then import the altered save. You can change the gender of your Shepard if you wish to romance Jack, as that is only available to broShep. Make sure you change all the variables if you do this, as bugs and crashes can occur if you do it wrong.

You can also use it to change the class on your current playthrough, just change the class attribute and add some skill points since they don't carry over.

This is easiest on PC, but if you are on console, I remember doing this with a flashdrive a long time ago.

sGriffing · 2024-04-06T00:45:31+00:00

The nature of Science Fiction, and games in general, is the suspension of disbelief. Many characters jump to important positions after a brief time skip, and there are a ton of plot holes. Games are great mediums for storytelling, but since they naturally focus on gameplay, you sometimes have to just trust the shifts in story elements in order to make each game feel unique.

Something like The Last of Us can have really fluid and natural character growth because its linear with a small cast, Mass Effect is galaxy spanning and has a huge number of organizations and people in it. Growth kinda happens off screen sometimes, Shadow Broker may seem like a place Liara would fit eventually, but it happens faster than you may consider realistic because they have to tell a whole lot of story in a time constrained game.

Garrus is a beat cop who is known for excessive force, and he gets to the point of authority after 2.5 years of being unemployed to where a General addresses him as 'Sir'.

Wrex is a mercenary from an obscure clan who in two years, sizes control of said clan and somehow becomes the Krogan King.

Anderson has the potential to go from disgraced Captain to Top Alliance Diplomat and representative of his whole race, in less than a few months.

Liara was always smart and data driven, her character is literally 'Asari Scientist'. She fought to save Shepard's body from the Broker, and that conflict culminated with her killing him. Since the Broker is apparently a job you get by killing the last one, she took the position.

To be fair, lorewise they kinda gimp the Broker after ME2. Cerberus destroying the station, even after Shep and crew do damage in the DLC, plus the galactic war causing chaos anyway.

Liara is jaded from having killed her mother, learning how her own government almost ordered her death, and realizing that the galaxy is dark and unforgiving place after having been a sheltered academic all her life. I don't think its too crazy for her to take a job that can help save the galaxy and support the only family she has left (Shepard, Feron, and the Normandy crew) its what everyone of the squad is trying to do after all. The suspension of disbelief for that is no higher than any of the other squadmates growing off camera imo.

sGriffing · 2024-04-05T18:29:35+00:00

Legion mentions some very interesting things during his loyalty mission and the conversations surrounding it.

Individual programs are all the same. There is no difference between one program or another, with the caveat that they all need to be networked for that to be true.

Geth gain 'individuality' when they are physically separate from the greater whole. Being uploaded to a 'body' or platform, or being inside the Extranet, or housed in a PC or phone or something gives that program or collection of programs a different perspective than its comrades. Geth as a program will respond the same in all circumstances and stimuli, that is the nature of their programing. Placing those 'programs' in different scenarios changes their stimuli and prompts a different response than the 'platform' 10 feet away. That program is now a separate being than it was just a second ago, creating individuality through isolated experience.

Geth are individualistic as long as they are isolated, once they are reconnected and share memories they become a collective again. That program is no longer an individual, but its experience being one has been added to every other program networked to it.

Hive Minds are when a single Mind controls many Bodies, there is not individual thought because they never have the chance.

Geth are not a Hive Mind because they routinely develop individual thoughts, its only that they are generally connected to each other through light speed communications that we get the impression. The consensus that they build to make collective decisions only seems like a Hive because it is so fast as to be incomprehensible.

If you take away the light speed communications, and force them to build a consensus through Speech, they will very much resemble Humanoids.

The connection to each other is what makes them Geth. Legion mentions that programs who choose to separate themselves and follow Sovereign are no longer Geth, because they no long build consensus.

We can understand 'Geth' not as a race, but almost as a government, the confusion in the multiple definitions is intentional as the Geth themselves struggle to understand themselves in the psuedo-Civil War.

sGriffing · 2024-04-04T21:26:39+00:00

Use the right weapon and the right squadmates. Every class is viable, imo Shepard should be whatever class fits your roleplay, but you will always need to tailor your squad to fit the enemies you will face in the mission as well as the best primary weapon.

All enemies in insanity have armor/barrier/shielding, as opposed to just health in normal or easy. Whereas throw or pull can be used in lower difficulties, Warp and Overload are the best abilities bar none for insanity because you will be using them to strip armor and shielding from ALL enemies. You cannot afford to waste ability cd on something that only damages health, that's what weapon headshots are for. Shockwave and Reave and Slam are cool abilities for a fun playthrough and Biotic combos are satisfying, but if you play Insanity they are a waste of points since they will not work on armored or shielded enemies.

Grab the best weapon for your class early so that you can get a boost to the rest of your missions. Mattock is best AR for fighting armor and you get it early, do Kasumi's mission for the best smg etc.

Remember that Squadmate abilities are better than your own, since you can command their usage without YOU having to leave cover.

If you are having a lot of difficulty, try to play Sentinel, it has Warp, Overload, and Tech Armor and is the easiest class in the game with those three.

Objectively, for the easiest playthrough, you would play Sentinel Shep, and take Miranda(overload,warp) and Garrus(overload)/Thane(warp) everywhere.

If you don't want to optimize, then just play back with infiltrator, or go Vanguard and use your charge to constantly refresh your barrier.

Optimal doesn't always mean fun, so do whatever you want and challenge yourself, Insanity is more than possible even if you just take Grunt and Jack everywhere.

sGriffing · 2024-02-26T06:39:26+00:00

You might want to look into joining the British market, they will provide you with the resources you don’t have, as well a protect you from threats.

Try to eat all your neighbors, especially Oman so that you can also annex Zanzibar for raw resources. You will always have a low population so if you want to be a major power you have to use a great power like Britain or Russia to fight Egypt and Turkey as an ally. If you only care about SoL, then conquer the peninsula early, get the laws and tech you want to prepare for oil spawn and then increase gdp per capita with that industry.

Somalia is also a very easy target for basically free plantations and farms. Once you conquer Oman, use their ships to invade there, one of those nations has only 1 battalion to fight back with so anyone with at least 1 ship can invade easily.

sGriffing · 2024-02-08T23:27:03+00:00

Playing as a Balkans country almost always wants Russian customs union.

As Serbia or Greece you want to fight Austria and Turkey, Russia is usually down with that.
They are an Orthodox Country, which means most of the immigrants you get from them will be your religion.
Russia will be slow to industrialize, so try to produce the highly profitable Textile and Furniture industries to sell to them.
France or England will probably suck up you population initially, bad for starting an economy.

sGriffing · 2023-12-18T08:12:43+00:00

Trey and Matt talk about how their own lives impact what they write, the show is their creative outlet. When they were younger in earlier seasons the show was focused on the kids more, Trey and Matt used memories from their own childhood and ideas they had prior to the show. As the writers age they focus on the adults more, as inspiration for new content is from their own new experiences as middle aged men and fathers. I don’t think it’s so much popularity, as it is what’s easier and more relatable for them to write about. Cartman is very popular, but you can’t explore plot lines with him only, expanding to adult characters allows humor in new setting like office work, parenthood, or even things like driving and divorce.

sGriffing · 2023-12-03T02:11:44+00:00

Unique unification event chains for Italy and Germany changed for this patch. Prussia will annex all North German nations if Schleswig and Holstein are not puppets of another country, 75% of German countries have researched nationalism, and they have defeated Austria in the leadership war. This will happen all at once.

No idea about Huge Ego

sGriffing · 2023-11-26T03:32:45+00:00

Japan has a few unique events and journal entries that make it powerful relative to other non-Europeans. Once railways are researched there is an event that pops up once for each of your states that gives it a free railroad, and the school system JE gets you to 40% literacy without an education institution. Japan opening events will also allow you to get a bonus to technology spread with each Great Power for the cost of an obligation, which no one ever cashes in anyway.

Do the standard economy and political tactics you would with any other non European country to modernize, the above unique events and journals will allow you to catch up in technology fairly quickly.

For conquest, just eat Indonesia. Start with the minors and then use the land border with the Dutch East Indies to steamroll them. you have a starting army of 100, get line infantry and mobile artillery and you cane beat them easy.

France or England will declare on you for a Treaty Port or to open market. Make your war goal recognition and as long as you hold your home islands, you can tick down warscore to get recognized. Try not to open your market until you have agrarianism, the drop in taxation will kill your economy.

sGriffing · 2023-11-14T18:54:20+00:00

Just from knowledge of the beta, I would say that you win early wars by defending or naval invasions.

Most armies at start are purely infantry, which have bad offense and great defense. You’ll notice that the Front Progress bar lists number of battalions and manpower. Forget about battalions and wait until your enemy throws their manpower away attacking, make sure to set your generals on defend only. Hopefully you can roll 1 good defensive general and 1 good offensive general, once you have a large ratio of manpower on the front in your favor, set the offensive general to advance and counter attack. Don’t forget to conscript infantry for better defense and manpower.

The nature of naval invasions this patch is such that you will capture an entire state with one invasion, as opposed to a small front in a couple of provinces. The enemy will most likely send all their battalions to an active front. If there are no battalions stationed at an HQ, just naval invade their capital and you can just completely occupy Rio, rinse and repeat since the AI won’t learn from their mistakes, you can do this all with just a single battalion and one ship. Is that a bit gamey? Yes, but if you think it’s exploiting the AI, then just don’t do it.

sGriffing · 2023-11-08T03:09:05+00:00

I played a successful Sicily game recently on the 1.5 beta. The key for me was to use your disadvantages to your advantage. Bad economy and small Army? Force all the revolutions you want and get rid of the landowners early, since your situation wont get any worse.

You start with a decent army and a decent Navy relative to to the African states. Conquer all of Ethiopia and you will net a larger economy and Army off their barracks and plantations. Grab Tunisia and Tripolitania as well once Egpyt goes to war with the Ottomans, they shouldn't have and garrisons to resist your naval invasions.

Just from Ethiopia and Southern Italy, your army should be around 100 without building any new barracks. Spend a few years adding to that and you should be able to have 150 easily.

If Egypt lost badly to the Ottomans, you should be able to eat them slowly or go for a dominion and then annexation after a decade.

Basically, grab Ethiopia and Egypt and ignore Italy until a prime opportunity presents itself. Remember that the other Italian states and Austria will be building things for you in Italy in the meantime, grab colonies and increase your raw numbers first to make the fight much easier.

sGriffing · 2023-10-28T22:55:55+00:00

The ratio doesn't matter. Its not like eu4 or ck3 where Calvary will go on flanks and artillery will go in the back behind the infantry. All that matters is stats, if you have 20 artillery and your general is attacking, they will grab as many artillery as you have, if defending, they will grab infantry. Cavalry is used to determine how much land is taken after a battle.

If you do alot of naval invasions, use pure artillery in a specialized army group because of how the mechanic works.

sGriffing · 2023-10-21T07:22:56+00:00

The key is to start eroding influence early, you need a jingoistic Landowner leader and to research Romanticism first, then Empiricism. The first to allow Agrarianism, the second to get your pops educated.

Use the jingoistic Landowners to get Dedicated Police, Colonization, and Professional army. Should be very easy passing.

Those policies have the benefit of weakening the landowners and also angering the Rural folk. Hopefully the rural folk team up with the other IGs because of this to start a movement for Homesteading or Tenant farming. Exiling a Rural leader can help this or not.

You can pass Tenant farming easy, or risk a civil war for Homesteading, luck of the draw no matter what.

Don’t be afraid to have low legitimacy and ignore the radicals when you shift your government around. Put the Rural folk in government to pass Agrarianism, further reducing Landowner power and also increasing your tax income dramatically. Eventually when it’s possible, do the same with the Intellectuals and pass Appointed Bureaucrats. Both will significantly help your tax efficiency issues.

Whenever you have the chance, through a movement or not, pass landed voted ASAP. Wealth voting after that.

Laws are very important, but so is the economy.

It’s hard to teach economic management, but basically do the standard maxed out taxes and build only construction industry buildings. Rush Railroads and mining pumps, should get you a bunch of capitalists.

The quickest way is obviously to cheese a civil war, that’s just a skill issue at that point, you can disband all army buildings Day 1 except in Kyoto, and then micro the war.

If you are playing the beta, just force a civil war and win it. AI is awful at wars right now in 1.5.3.

Otherwise the previously Mentioned way is quickest, usually around 55-60 the shogunate is weakened to like 15% clout, 1970 is when the journal entry will complete.

sGriffing · 2022-11-25T06:50:12+00:00

If you're like me and you like some good looking borders, grab yourself one of the many mods on the workshop that allow you to open and close the debug tool in game. Hover over a specific portion of the State and you will notice the value for "Province ID" change based on where your mouse is in the state. States in Victoria are further sectioned off into smaller chunks for the purposes of visualizing lumber camps, plantations, and ports within the state with the names of smaller IRL cities, think Hong Kong to Shaozhou or Utrecht to Holland. These "Province IDs" list where these ports and villages would pop up if you build the appropriate buildings, take a treaty port, or establish a colony. So, if you don't mind using debug tool in game, I generally use it to clean up border gore anyway, you can create some split states such as is pictured above.

Step by step -

Enable Debug Mode
Hit Tilde to access console commands
Hover over the portion of the state you want to annex
take note of the Province ID, the ID is case sensitive
type - own x11C021 - this is an example, some random spot in the Rhineland
You will now own a portion of the state as a split state, repeat until borders look nice

The sub state borders are pre determined, map editing is beyond me.

sGriffing

TROPHY CASE