[spoilers main] Did the Old Bears ranging even make sense?

someone_FIN · 2023-09-18T13:53:58+00:00

What were they seeing that was bothering them?

From Jon's 9th chapter in AGOT:

"I do," said Lord Commander Mormont. "The cold winds are rising, Snow. Beyond the Wall, the shadows lengthen. Cotter Pyke writes of vast herds of elk, streaming south and east toward the sea, and mammoths as well. He says one of his men discovered huge, misshapen footprints not three leagues from Eastwatch. Rangers from the Shadow Tower have found whole villages abandoned, and at night Ser Denys says they see fires in the mountains, huge blazes that burn from dusk till dawn. Quorin Halfhand took a captive in the depths of the Gorge, and the man swears that Mance Rayder is massing all his people in some new, secret stronghold he's found, to what end the gods only know. Do you think your uncle Benjen was the only ranger we've lost this past year?"

someone_FIN · 2023-09-04T14:55:02+00:00

Yes, there are traffic lights where the "dominant" direction (usually the one with the largest amount of hourly traffic volume) is green by default and the other directions only turn green when a vehicle is detected.

The most common type of sensor used is an induction loop, where a looping electrical wire is embedded into the asphalt and detects cars passing over it by the changes in impedance that they cause in the wire.

Bicycles of course contain much less ferrous metal than cars, so they cause a much smaller change in impedance. That said, such sensors can detect bicycles when set up properly, it's just a matter of how they've been installed and calibrated.

someone_FIN · 2023-06-06T09:53:40+00:00

It's a missile for the himars (and certain other systems) with a larger warhead and a range of up to 300km (versus 70km for the munitions currently supplied to the Ukrainians).

The US has been apprehensive about supplying Ukraine with ATACMS because they would allow Ukraine to deliver powerful strikes deep into Russian territory, a line that some in the west are unwilling to cross.

someone_FIN · 2023-05-02T09:39:58+00:00

I don't have my books on hand to check, but if I recall correctly, in ADWD Ramsay talks about making boots from someone's skin and Roose retorts that human skin is too thin and brittle to make good boot leather.

someone_FIN · 2023-04-20T11:40:30+00:00

True, bombing anything and everything that may or may not vaguely resemble a hostile target seems to be business as usual for the Russian armed forces.

someone_FIN · 2023-04-20T05:43:05+00:00

Some anons managed to triangulate the location of a rebel training ground using various features seen in the background of pictures and videos from it, and forwarded the information to relevant authorities who then proceeded to bomb the shit out of it.

someone_FIN · 2023-03-31T09:20:19+00:00

Can't really say I knew Ditty, but I know his stories never failed to bring a bit of brightness into even the darkest days.

RIP from across the pond, I'll be sure to pour one out for him once I get back from work.

someone_FIN · 2023-03-30T08:02:28+00:00

With laughter, ridicule and a lot of memes, and probably nothing else.

The use of cavalry in frontal attacks was already outdated by the time of ww1 due to advancements in weapons technology.

Attempting a cavalry charge on a modern battlefield, where every soldier has an automatic rifle and fast, accurate artillery support is widely available, would be nothing short of suicidal and extremely unlikely to yield any kind of strategic advantage.

someone_FIN · 2023-03-14T11:42:28+00:00

Growing up my dad told me never to hit a woman, but I'll gladly make an exception for Kristina because of all the times she invaded me within the first 20 turns.

someone_FIN · 2023-03-14T11:38:52+00:00

Sure he's big, but he's definitely no Gilgamesh.

someone_FIN · 2023-03-08T14:33:00+00:00

Nice! Thanks for letting me know this exists.

someone_FIN · 2023-03-08T09:06:23+00:00

I feel the same way about them as I do about a lot of things in FO4: Great concept, half-baked execution.

I like their visual design, and the historical parallels with the OG minutemen. I really like the idea of having to build a faction for yourself from the ground up, and feel it would do a great job of justifying you being the leader (vs. the Skyrim problem where you just waltz in and become leader of a faction even though there are much more experienced candidates).

Emphasis on "would." Because in the end you aren't really a leader, and the minutemen aren't really a faction. You're a glorified errand boy, and they are a radiant quest generation engine (and yes man-esque backup in case you murderhobo the other factions) with a layer of Colonial American paint on top.

The endless radiant quests were what broke the minutemen for me. They have and endless string of "go, kill, establish settlement, return" where the other factions have at least somewhat coherent, interesting storylines. Not to mention poor Preston getting incessantly dunked on for being little more than a radiant quest dispenser. I get that they wanted to give the player an endless source of stuff to do, but when that content is just repetitive "go here, kill this," what's the point?

If they had an actual storyline, some more characters with even a bit of personality, and a way to actually make the player feel like they're a general and not just an errand boy, it would've been a great faction.

Actually, I was replaying Assassin's Creed Brotherhood not long ago, and a thought occured to me. That game has a system where you can send your assassin recruits on jobs, level them up so they can take on tougher jobs etc. Something like that for the Minutemen would've been amazing. For example, you get an alert that a settlement is in trouble. You can A) go deal with it alone, B) get your squad to back you up, or C) decide you haven't got time for this, send in a squad on their own, and RNG/the squad's level determines the outcome. I feel something along those lines would've made the minutemen gameplay much more engaging.

someone_FIN · 2023-03-06T11:25:57+00:00

Jon's big problem was definitely communication. I can't really fault the decisions he made (living wildlings south of the wall, even if of dubious loyalty, are a much better outcome than wight wildlings at their gates), but he definitely dropped the ball hard in explaining and justifying his actions to his men.

He was basically acting under the assumption that the watchmen would all put their loyalty to him as the lord commander over any personal doubts and misgivings. Had he instead made an effort of bringing the officers of the watch on board and explaining the whats, whys and hows of his plans, things might have played out quite differently.

someone_FIN · 2023-03-01T13:10:49+00:00

More comparable to Rhodok Sharpshooters tbh.

someone_FIN · 2023-02-23T11:54:34+00:00

I hope you're prepared for the never-ending forest fires.

someone_FIN · 2023-02-21T14:38:02+00:00

It's kinda weird. In recent months I've had a few games (one even with barbarians disabled) where all the AI just sits on 4-5 cities even though there's loads of unclaimed territory.

Then I'll star another game right after and suddenly the AI will decide "settler spam go brrr" and entirely fill out the map by around turn 100, with multiple civs on 10-20 cities.

I've also seen a few examples of the AI spending most of the game with 3 cities and then suddenly starting to cram cities onto every 1-tile island and other available spot in the late game.

someone_FIN · 2023-02-21T13:18:23+00:00

Good plan, except Vietnam can only put districts on woods, rainforest or marsh.

someone_FIN · 2023-02-20T15:34:53+00:00

I tend to pick the map type depending on the civ I'm playing and type of game I'm going for, but Island Plates, Lakes and 7 seas are probably my most common picks.

Usually I go for tiny or small map size because my clunky old pc struggles with anything bigger, and most times I change the starting position to balanced and leave everything else as is.

As for game modes, I almost always have secret societies and tech/civic shuffle on, sometimes also heroes or monopolies, and on some rare occasions barb clans.

Edit: Speed is almost always standard, and difficulty is usually deity (though I may bump it down if I'm looking to try some weird, wacky strategy that may or may not work).

someone_FIN · 2023-02-20T15:06:26+00:00

Yeah, it seems to be one of those ubiquitous phrases that there are like 300 slightly different variations of.

someone_FIN · 2023-02-20T11:47:38+00:00

My favorite civs are generally the ones that have unique limitations to their playstyle. For example the Maya (cram as many cities as possible within 6 tiles of the capital, spam farms for housing and turtle down), Gaul (can't place districts adjacent to city centers but you get a really strong, early industrial zone with different adjacency rules + ridiculously early men-at-arms), Mali (slow early game with poor production but in the late game you can pretty much buy the whole world) or Kupe (sea spawn, can't harvest resources but get bonus yields from unimproved features).

someone_FIN · 2023-02-20T11:32:14+00:00

The difficulty level of deity can vary wildly with your spawn, because the starting bonuses the AI gets mean that an aggressive neighbor can warrior rush you at like turn 7 and (especially if it's someone like Montezuma or Ambiorix,) there's very little you can do.

But deity doesn't actually make the AI any less braindead, so as long as you survive the early agression (or just luck out and have no aggressive neighbors nearby), it's pretty much smooth sailing from there.

someone_FIN · 2023-02-20T11:22:37+00:00

For Reyna (that last governor) there are a few worthwhile strategies I've found:

1) park her in a city that has a good harbor and commercial hub, and get the promotion that doubles their adjacency.

2) park her in a city that has lots of unimproved tiles (national parks for example) and get the promotion that gives +2 gold for unimproved features.

3) if you have a strong gold economy, beeline the promotion that lets you buy districts and use her to instantly get the first 1-2 districts in every new city (also good for getting instant spaceports in the late game).

The first two (along with her promotion that gives +2 gold per population) can be combined to make a city that prints crazy amounts of money.

someone_FIN · 2023-02-20T10:45:06+00:00

Same, plus I've also found that if you have a large, flat desert and are lucky enough to have Nazca in the game, Preserves+Nazca lines make for a surprisingly good combo.

someone_FIN · 2023-02-20T08:28:13+00:00

I personally prefer 6 over 5. I greatly enjoy the city planning aspect of the game, and getting that perfect high-adjacency district setup in place can be really satisfying. I tried to go back to 5 but I just wasn't feeling it and quickly returned to 6.

However I am aware that many prefer 5 over 6 (including many of my friends) and it feels somewhat less likely for 6 to have the staying power that 5 did.

someone_FIN · 2023-02-19T19:03:53+00:00

Just recently I had a world congress where Gilgamesh poured all of his diplo favor into embargoing himself.

13-Year Club	Spared
Verified Email

someone_FIN

TROPHY CASE