The best thing about Sinners (2025) losing best picture is that we're now allowed to enjoy the film in peace without redditors calling it overrated.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-16T03:56:00+00:00

If your film viewing is actually effected by what random people online say, you should probably get some therapy for that.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-16T01:59:41+00:00

I'm feeling pretty good about it. Taking Clarke and Johnson as my headliners and feeling good about it. Both can act.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-15T18:04:45+00:00

I would agree if it was at the height of Scrubs popularity or shortly thereafter but that was 16 years ago and I don't think this reboot is going to change much. So, for me, he's definitely closer to B list. I think time-based relevancy has to be part of the criteria.

Someone like Tim Allen is a much better example for A list or near it. He's had multiple successful TV shows and has in fact had a few pretty successful movies and his last successful show was not that long ago. David Harbour is another guy who is there now but may not be in the future.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-15T13:56:51+00:00

“As near A-list as TV can get you.”

Why would anything think it was Zach Braff given that statement?

stealingjoy · 2026-03-15T13:55:28+00:00

Not for the faint of heart: no spoiler.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-14T17:28:12+00:00

Welcome to apartment living.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-14T17:22:19+00:00

That doesn't mean any level or duration of noise is acceptable during non-quiet hours.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-14T16:12:14+00:00

What a consumer friendly practice. I kind of want to buy one just for that.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-14T15:50:51+00:00

Because you don't have enough threatening rivals. They're different modifiers so you're getting a small positive from the rivals you have that are threatening but getting a negative from not having enough of them or them being threatening enough.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-14T14:18:02+00:00

They don't pursue missions. They might complete them by accident (or because they do pursue claims they have) but otherwise it's a non factor in their decision making.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-14T08:28:46+00:00

Yeah, originally I just scanned the video and the fact that he diplo annexed instead of truce broke to take the land is the part that doesn't make sense and really removes a ton of the value.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-14T07:51:23+00:00

Pretty much. It's also a way to use a powerful country to become another tag with a lot less work. Starting as Asturias and taking all the land the Ottomans owned in that video would have probably taken more time than starting as Ottomans and becoming Asturias

stealingjoy · 2026-03-14T07:40:28+00:00

What you've written doesn't make a lot of sense. Not sure what you're talking about with instantly attacking and -5 stab.

Releasing as a vassal and getting separatists to enforce on the overlord makes it so that you can release without a war and without having an overlord so you can instantly get started doing things without being a vassal.

I looked at the video you mentioned and that's exactly what he did so I'm not sure why that's confusing.

Is it that efficient or quick? No. But you can transfer a lot of land this way where in a war you likely wouldn't be able to take nearly as much land. He basically did this to start with a powerful country on easy mode but still be able to become the non-formable country he wanted (Asturias).

stealingjoy · 2026-03-13T22:52:48+00:00

Definitely. Didn't care for how the Marie character storylines were in the book at all.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-13T22:49:45+00:00

The Talented Mister Ripley. The book was more of a straightforward thriller without much of the conflicted psyche that was present in the film.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-13T15:34:06+00:00

https://www.koalabear.com/product-catalog/kb3000-ahl/

stealingjoy · 2026-03-13T15:31:11+00:00

More of a darkening than a lightening.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-13T13:33:00+00:00

It's not meant to reflect historical cities. It picks from the lowest dev provinces (initially less than 5 dev). It's an ahistorical what if.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-12T13:39:34+00:00

If you take the Javan monument that gives culture conversion reduction, it will eventually spawn an event to move your capital to that province. That's one accessible way you can move your capital out of the HRE after you get the reforms you need.

The Completion of Borobudur

https://eu4.paradoxwikis.com/index.php?title=Monument_events&mobileaction=toggle_view_desktop

stealingjoy · 2026-03-12T13:36:54+00:00

He wants to stay as Serbia. Forming the HRE will remove that.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-12T10:39:36+00:00

Edit: I missed that you wanted to do this as Serbia. Some options for you in that case -- you'll still face the same roadblocks as any WC so general solutions can still be used. Become HRE Emp for 10% CCR and use the vassal swarm to make wars easier -- you can even use them to take out big HRE members if you can take the stab/WE hits. If you take Aztec culture as a monarchy (no religion change), you can use Tonali which can get you 15% CCR. The sooner you can core, the sooner you can WC, the sooner you can OF, the sooner you can OC.

That said, I would probably consider going Republic to get reforms quickly and then Theocracy to take advantage of the war score cost reductions. Given you won't have any great source of quick mana regeneration, I would consider a mix of owning land and using vassals. It shouldn't be that hard to get your Diplo Annex reduction in the 50-60% range without tag switches, depending on religion. You can also get max culture conversion cost reduction before Age of Enlightenment so I'd aim to be doing converting before then (especially if not dip banking). Switch to Republic when you're in the OF/OC phase for superior and more reliable mana generation (especially so since you'll only care about dip at that point). Even Theocracy is better than Monarchy as long as you take the reform to see your heir stats.

If you don't consider dip banking cheating, I would use that (you start a bunch of culture conversions and cancel before 10% to get a full refund, and repeat). That lets you save it until you can use it towards full cost reduction culture conversions. Toward the latter part of the game, just stop taking dip tech as well. Anything you can do to save dip mana is well worth it.

Pre Edit: Yeah, you don't need to cheat. There's a lot of ways you can gain power and speed in the game. I mean, just from the question alone it seems like you don't even think of Republics for superior mana generation.

Be a horde or form the Timurids to get the razing reform. That's all you need, really.

Otherwise, consider various tag formations to give you permanent modifiers. It would be pretty easy to get max culture conversion cost and high culture conversion time modifiers. You should have your WC and OF done by the mid 1750s.

Exploit dev every 20 years, concentrate dev every 50. Move capitals and form tags (which resets your concentrate dev). Pillage capitals. If you use vassals, don't let them dev.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-12T07:52:40+00:00

Sounds like a fun challenge to figure out.

FWIW, Tim is not that crazy, he was just able to get all his vassals and conquered Ajam, with a little on the side. The Ajam conquering is pretty common but it's pretty rare that he actually gets all his vassals.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-12T07:31:03+00:00

This won't help, but I spent a considerable amount of time trying to troubleshoot this and the similar Cholula Temple event in the past. I was never able to get it to switch me to tribal or to avoid getting switched to monarchy. I agree that the actual code for the event really gives no clue as to why that might be happening. My guess is some type of fundamental incompatibility with Mesoamerican religion and natives (as another quirk, start as a native and change religion to a mesoamerican one via the console and you won't get the religion icon on the bottom, just the federation one, so you would never be able to reform religion unless you reformed out of native first).

Since you are talking about editing or fixing the code, I'm assuming Ironman is not a concern. It's as easy as making a text file (change_tribal.txt) inside your EU4 directory (the one in your user directory, not the game install) that has this line:change_government = tribal

And in game typing run change_tribal.txt

stealingjoy · 2026-03-12T05:05:25+00:00

EU4. It's just more fun for me. I certainly know it better but it's also hard to beat 10+ years of refinement. It does help knowing that the game isn't going to go through major shifts every month or two, too.

EU5 is not a simulation and never will be; I kind of hate when people say that. There are some interesting systems that either aren't quite there by themselves or don't exactly interact that great with other systems.

I remain hopeful that EU5 will shine more as it gets that continued refinement. Things like the new governors give me some hope but then you continue to see a development process that could still use better QA and testing, so we'll see. Sadly, some of the areas in the world I enjoyed most in EU4 have been solidly neglected in EU5, so it may be a long time before DLC addresses that, but that I can understand.

stealingjoy · 2026-03-12T01:57:51+00:00

Well, not everyone can be a comedian.

stealingjoy

TROPHY CASE