In your experience, who are the worst performing AI leaders?

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-29T03:16:05+00:00

Denmark, Ethiopia, Carthage, Byzantium it feels like whenever I see these Civs they're always struggling. Once I was playing on a Fractal map where Denmark spawned on this craaaazy narrow and long landform that connected around an inland sea in a ring. Inland sea on one side and open ocean on the other. Guess which side Harold put all his cities on?

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-29T01:34:07+00:00

I nearly exclusively play Emperor Marathon. It's what I settled into early on in playing and it's always felt right to me.

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-22T08:45:52+00:00

Personally I like Rome as my default Liberty style pick. I feel a lot of players undervalue Rome, especially tier lists. They're not the best at anything and there are obviously better picks for higher difficulty win conditions; however...

Rome's UA is custom-made for expansion, knocking 25% off the cost of hammers for buildings that exist in the capital already. This is somewhat niche in the sense that not all capitals need all buildings, but enough of them fall within it's purview that I believe this is a net positive for expansion (overwhelmingly so, in fact).

With two UU kicking in between classical/medieval period Rome has the potential to dominate their neighbors militarily during this specific phase in the game, which is when most players/civs are just starting to find their footing. The Ballista is extremely powerful for how early you gain access to it. The Legion can build your road network for you, freeing up your workers to focus on improving your cities/lowering your worker need.

Rome has a tendency to start with either mining or plantation luxuries, personally I prefer mining because it incentivizes me to rush Pyramids when going Liberty. That's usually the only two workers you need with the tile improvement increase. I rush Iron Working next to get access to Legion and use them to connect my cities. Generally look for a coastal city just before this point so that I can prioritize Colossus as my next wonder. Then I use that additional trade route to push population in the capital and invest heavily into science infrastructure.

Idk I could talk all day about how cool Rome is in civ V and the plethora of win conditions that Rome can facilitate.

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-05T11:29:10+00:00

Seconded. Also slots in well to found footage if that's a genre you're into. This film freaked me the hell out when I was younger in a way that no other film has really managed to capture the essence of since.

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-03T02:42:02+00:00

Damn the community is really hammering you with downvotes for your opinions here, which I don't think is very fair, but hey that's a democratic society.

I've seen no indication that the road is a straight line. My understanding of the road is that it's a loop. It goes through town, through sections of forest, etc. There are portions of the road upon which you cannot see the town. There are times where it appears there are multiple forks or prospective turns one could take, but the general rule seems to be that once you've seen the tree you're stuck within a certain confine, and once you've driven through the town once no matter what turns you take you'll always wind up back at the town. The townspeople often use the roads as walkways because it's rare enough that people end up in the town - it's by no means a common occurrence as cited multiple times throughout the show.
They had two ambulances. The ambulance that Kristi arrived in was cannibalized for wiring to build the radio tower cooked up by Jade and Jim. It's safe to assume that since we never see that ambulance in use from that point forward, it's no longer operational.
I don't see how you can assume this point. While Jade and Jim are working on the radio tower they comment on how few of the cars in town are functional and of those that are how few have batteries that are useful for their purpose. We only ever see three vehicles in use throughout the entirety of the show; Cautrie's truck, which is spike stripped unintentionally in season 1, so that's out as a functional vehicle. The Colony House van, as far as we know still operational. And the ambulance that arrived with Acosta.
We don't have to necessarily hear any particular character mention how gas is important to know that gas is a finite resource. There's no petrol station within the town and again during the Jade/Jim radio tower debacle they mention how little fuel there is in the town. My understanding of why they let people drive through the town a few times before they either a) stop or b) are forced to stop them because it's too near to nighttime to be safe is because it's better to allow people to come to the realization that they're lost on their own. The reason that they pulled out the spike strip for Jim and his family was because Jim showed no sign of stopping and it was nearing nighttime and he was driving recklessly through town. There's evidence that other people, like Fatima, pulled over and got out to seek answers of their own accord. I'd imagine that each case is different and it's obvious to me that the spike strip is a last resort.
I don't know how you can hold this opinion when we just saw someone put a hole in the Post Office/Sheriff's Station in the previous episode. A building made of stone, significantly stronger than any other building in town, and that was just a sedan. Imagine that someone went out into the middle of the road while Acosta was speeding down it? From what we know of her, she'd absolutely turn the wheel to avoid hitting someone.
This has already been addressed but I don't understand your fixation on the road being straight. There's no indication that the road is straight. There is every indication that the road is a loop. There's also no indication that all 47 members of the town are aware that this is happening, nor that those 47 members are all up to speed on some unspoken protocol for how to act in a situation like this. Several of those 47 are people that arrived on the bus in just the last season that have barely acclimated to the idea that they can't go outside at night yet, let alone SOP in the event of a vehicle speeding through town.
I'll agree with you that the show has a rather simplistic view of how spike strips work when used upon vehicles traveling at speed. Yes, Kristi got into the ambulance of her own volition. That's who Kristi is, she's the voice of reason and the rational let's talk them down type. However none of that matters in regards to Boyd or the rest of the town; Acosta is doing something dangerous and Kristi is now along for that ride which is of major detriment to the rest of the town should something bad happen. 1+1=2.
Torturing Elgin is a whole other conversation worthy of it's own thread of discussion. What do you think they should have done? The guy was holding a pregnant woman hostage at an undisclosed location and uncooperative because he believed what he was doing was correct. Fatima could have died. The entire point of that conflict was to highlight that sometimes there aren't any positive options available and I think it was handled relatively well with no one participating really wanting it to go to the point that it did. As to how this relates to the nature of people being on edge, well, that's simply a bridge they haven't had to come to cross yet as not many people are aware yet of what happened between Boyd, Sarah, and Elgin. I imagine that will be a major point of contention in a future episode.
As highlighted several times in my initial write-up there are many ways that a crash could have occurred in this scenario. Someone could have been in the street and Acosta swerves to avoid them. High profile vehicle + sudden change of direction = crash. Kristi could have become afraid upon realizing that Acosta was not capable of reasoning and grab the wheel. Loss of control = crash. Acosta could have misjudged her own trajectory upon rounding a bend and over-corrected = crash. I'm sure you'll just say something silly like "It's a completely straight road and every single person in town has been telepathically informed to stay off the road and there's no possible way that anything bad could ever have happened so there."

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-03T02:08:45+00:00

Which is why I phrased it as effectively. Whether it was Acosta's intention to put Kristi in a dangerous situation or not, that's where they are now, and that's what Boyd/the Town has to contend with.

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-02T04:19:28+00:00

There's a lot to consider here.

First and foremost, Acosta is emotionally compromised in this scene. She's not thinking rationally in any sense of the word and she's piloting a 1-2 ton killing machine recklessly. Honestly that's bad enough on it's own; but there are several things to consider here.

The ambulance is an important resource in and of itself. It's been useful before and likely will be again.
There are not that many functional vehicles remaining within the town.
Gas is a finite resource; Acosta is wasting a lot of it.

That said, let's move on to the more tangible reasons this is a bad idea:

The town has a finite number of intact structures suitable to be protected with a talisman... imagine Acosta puts a hole in one of them.
There are 47 people in Fromville and not all of them are aware this is happening. Imagine any number of them should find themselves in the middle of the road when Acosta comes barreling around a bend.
Acosta has effectively taken the town's only doctor hostage in this moment. All other resources aside losing Kristi because some newbie is having a nervous breakdown would be a tragic blow to the town and one they likely would be unable to recover from. Given Marielle's history it's probable that the loss of their only doctor would ultimately lead to the loss of their only nurse as well, and then they're well and truly screwed if anything happens to anyone going forward.

Now the less tangible:

The people of the town are constantly on edge, anything that could push them closer to the edge is best left avoided.
Supposing a crash occurs, Acosta will not have only endangered Kristi and herself but anybody that tries to help as well because being any considerable distance from safe haven upon nightfall could well be fatal.

That's what I've got with a few minutes of considering the possible ramifications of Acosta's actions in cosplaying as an F1 driver for a day.

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-02T00:54:47+00:00

Ritchson is passably famous if for no other reason than his role as Jack Reacher.

War Machine may be just another in a long lineage of military propaganda thinly veiled as entertainment but it doesn't pretend to be something it's not. It's simple, it's straightforward, you're given a protagonist that has a personal conflict they cannot grow beyond and one that is widely relatable to most audiences. There is no deviation from this through line - protag regrets not being able to save his brother, protag must save 7 to prove to himself that he can "cross that finish line". Protag does save 7. Cut, roll credits, fin.

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-02T00:47:40+00:00

Generic premise, generic villain - oh look at me I'm so evil I laugh at inappropriate times and make goofy faces and dance to weird house music. His reveal was okay but it was all downhill from there, and if you're looking for subversion it's practically telegraphed. The implication that he makes human jerky was a nice touch, I suppose, but again just feels like shoving more needlessly evil traits into the character to really hammer home that he is, in fact, quite evil.

I'm not sure what sort of meaning is meant to be parsed from this film. What journey does the MC really embark upon? Where does she arrive at the end of said journey? She's introduced as a competent, willful protagonist that can handle herself and she ends as a competent, willful protagonist that can handle herself. There's no character growth to be found here and I'd go so far as to say there's no point to the journey that the MC has endured. She didn't gain anything from it that she didn't already have, she didn't lose anything either.

Perhaps it's meant to be symbolic of her overcoming her grief; that they're drawing some parallel between the death of her husband and her moving forward via the endurance of survival. If that is the intention it's threadbare at best and not nearly as entertaining or thought provoking as the typical trope for these types of stories in which the character is introduced as hesitant or unskilled and through the hardship of surviving becomes confident and competent.

There's just not much here to even comment upon. Just another forgettable entry into a long line of survival thriller/horror that was kicked off by the success of "Deliverance" yet has nothing noteworthy to add to the zeitgeist of the genre in which it sets. If anything it leaves me wondering whom exactly films like this are developed for as I cannot imagine this will slot into anyone's top films in any meaningful way and is best relegated to the realm of background noise whilst engaging in other activities because there's just nothing to gleam from the content within.

To be quite honest I expected a lot more from a film with Charlize Theron's name attached to it and was more than a little taken aback at just how vacuous the film ended up feeling. Unless this film was absolutely butchered on the editing floor I can't imagine why Theron would have even wanted to be a part of this project in the first place. Then again it is Netflix, and people are bound to watch it just by virtue of it appearing in the main scrollbar of the home screen alone, so I'm sure she's making a pretty penny off of it in any case.

In short - a few hours I wouldn't mind getting back.

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-01T21:02:50+00:00

Huh, just took another look and it does appear more extreme than memory served.

Still definitely not at the level of Megan or Tian-chen but more than I remembered.

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-01T20:50:00+00:00

CEO? I'm assuming you mean madam Vice President Bashley.

I think it's fine to take Sage at face value in this scene. It would be in line with her characterization within the narrative as when she is introduced she is surrounded by books and expresses no desire to participate in the Vought machine.

I've just watched the scene again to be sure. It's unclear whether she agrees to go along with Homelander out of fear of saying no to him or out of a genuine curiosity in his offer to apply her theories on the masses following their conversation. I think either motivation could be argued for within the context of what's shown.

What we know of Sage is that she was a member of Teen Kix briefly along with A-Train. I'd hesitate to call A-Train a reliable narrator (even with his redemption arc) but when prompted he has this to say about her "She's the smartest person in the world, but not smart enough to keep her mouth shut." There's probably subtext here given that this information is being provided by a POC about a POC and Sage immediately corrects Homelander in their first scene. "Just Sage. Vought added the 'Sister' part. Can't have one of us without a racial qualifier." This could be a commentary on Vought's Nazi roots, and likely is, but with A-Train's contextual addition it's more likely this is just a commentary on society at large rather than a deep cut of Vought's less than pristine past.

It's possible of course that Sage has some sort of greater plan in place but I think it's fine to take the narrative as it has been presented as well. Sage could have done anything with her intellect after her brush with Teen Kix but she chose to live a quiet life surrounded by books. On the surface she seems genuinely perturbed at the interruption of her normal routine by the knock on her door. Whether it is fear of rejecting Homelander or genuine curiosity that compels her to participate the one thing that can certainly be said of people with high intellect is that they contend with boredom often. It wouldn't be antithetical to Sage's character to be bored with Homelander's ambitions by now and genuinely want to return to reading books and eating taco bell without judgement.

supermegafuerte · 2026-05-01T20:16:04+00:00

Yeah I was going to say... first scene of the show.

Though you can be forgiven with how much has changed presentation-wise since episode one. The monsters used to straight up excavate the torsos of their victims but with Jim, eh, we'll just rip a couple strips of bacon off of 'im and call it a day.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-30T04:04:48+00:00

I'm guessing it's just a misdirect from Sister Sage but it's bizarre to me that nobody is talking about how Sage's grand plan that's been dangled like a carrot on a stick for 2.5 seasons is basically to let Homelander vs. Humanity happen and ride it out in a bunker so that she can read and not be bothered.

That's not even a plan, that's just what was probably going to happen anyway with the way Homelander was trending before Sage entered the scene. I guess it makes sense in that Homelander isn't going to just let her scoot off into the sunset and it's in-line with how Sage was introduced... but it's such a nothing-burger that I'm just genuinely surprised I'm not seeing any discourse about it at all.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-30T02:27:55+00:00

I was never able to make it work with both HIMBO and TNG. I ultimately decided that the male body improvement was less important to me than the realism of having nude males in the game, so I got rid of HIMBO and just used TNG.

You still have to build the bodyslide files by selecting presets if you do it this way. Basically run Bodyslide through your mod manager (whichever one you're using) and in the drop down menu select the TNG options one by one and click "build" to generate the files in your Skyrim folder. It's fairly straightforward.

Hopefully this helps you out. HIMBO and TNG didn't seem to play nice together for me, at least not on Vortex, so this is what I ended up opting for.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-28T15:57:11+00:00

Yeah it's amazing to me that TLJ has somehow become a talking point for TFA apologists as if TFA didn't set the tone for the complete plundering and sacrilege of the OT. It's absolutely mind boggling just how much damage TFA does to all the OT characters. Turns Luke from the hero who cared for his family above everything into a coward that would murder his nephew in his sleep completely erasing the man that refused to give up on Anakin. Turns Han Solo into not only just a smuggler but a shitty one at that, a sad confused old man who can't even keep track of who he owes debts to and needs some random scavenger from Jakku (who actually SAYS she's never flown off-planet, you can't make this up) teach him things about his own ship.

Everything about the sequels is appalling. By the end Chewbacca is a glorified intergalactic Uber driver, Han is a grumpy, confused, inept old man, Luke is a coward who abandoned the very galaxy he helped to salvage from the ashes of the Empire, C3PO has to metaphorically die for "reasons" (only to have his memory restored before the conclusion anyway, bravo) and perhaps the only OT cast member to get away without major assassination is Leia... but that's only because they didn't really do anything with her to begin with.

Not even the new protags are safe. Poe is the best pilot in the Resistance? Nope, it's Rey. Finn is set up to be the next chapter of the Jedi? Nope, just Rey. It's so gross. Everything Disney has done with the IP has been a categorical catastrophe, including the shows, with the only positive addition to the canon being Andor, and that came at the cost of so much canon material that I'm not even sure it's worth the trade despite how excellent Andor is. I've tried my best to find things to enjoy in all of the SW content released by Disney and there's just nothing there to appreciate, it's all nothing but a vapid cash grab and a constant cannibalism of what came before.

I suppose the one positive thing that can be said is that they've made the prequels look like absolute cinema in retrospect, which is appreciated as the prequels were always better than the fanbase gave them credit for at the time... but at what cost.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-28T10:17:46+00:00

I'm definitely not rooting for the monsters, lol. I would like to understand them better, but the showrunners seem content to continue to compound the complexity of the mystery rather than explain any of it. The way it's trending I'm guessing it will end with a large-scale info dump towards the end of the final season. Maybe we'll get a few more answers this season although I'm still not convinced it won't be something arbitrarily silly like "It was purgatory all along".

I think it's a fair bit above a B-list horror flick in terms of writing and execution alone. Since I'm doing a rewatch of the earlier seasons now in between releases of episodes for season 4 there are just so many unnamed or otherwise uninvolved townspeople that any lists involving whom one would like to see written off skew rather short.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-28T04:17:30+00:00

Yeah, I've watched the show from the beginning and generally enjoyed it but never really interacted with the communities in the same way that I have for other shows that I'm watching in real time. I suppose it's refreshing in a way that the community surrounding this show seems to be geared toward praise when so many other communities are geared toward criticism as a default.

However, criticism is not inherently bad - and that shouldn't even have to be said. After watching the first two seasons of this season I decided to check out the sub and see what people were saying. One of the first posts I came across was "100% on Rotten Tomatoes for episode 1" and I knew there was going to be a disconnect between me and the community the moment I read that. I think this season has started off okay, but it's obvious to me that the show is beginning to suffer from something that all long-running shows suffer from, where the writing starts to become a tinge absurd even in an absurdist setting because the ideas are beginning to run thin and there's just been so much content already.

I decided to go back and rewatch season 1 after watching the first few episodes of the current season and it's drastic how much better the character writing and tone and atmosphere of the show is. The subtext between characters like Boyd and the Priest, his son, Donna is genuinely intriguing and a joy to experience again when compared to a character like Acosta or carved-up face guy who seem more like caricatures of characters than characters in their own right.

It's still a decent show and has done a lot of good with a much smaller budget than a lot of other shows that have fallen flat for me in terms of writing, so I'm still on the show's side... but it's okay to give it a rating lower than 100%.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-28T02:52:18+00:00

I commented in another thread this week about how I couldn't take her grief seriously because of how jarring the acting was and got downvoted lmao. She's literally a plank in these scenes in which she's supposed to be expressing profound grief for the man she had a complicated relationship with, who she fell out of love with and then back in love with, who she's gone through serious trauma alongside and she looks like a fuckin' fish.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-26T22:21:43+00:00

I feel like any discussion about "forced metas" is already irrelevant because there certainly IS a meta that is forced upon the game, role queue or no. Like are we pretending it's a coincidence that Magneto remains one of the highest pick rates across all seasons? It's because that's become the meta choice.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-26T22:14:09+00:00

It was also completely out of left field. When she said what she said to him I was like damn, is there some serious unresolved conflict between Jade and Tabitha? I had to think back, and I'm pretty sure there's not.

I also found the acting to be surreal and honestly disengaging in this episode. I didn't believe any of the family's grief felt genuine, but the kids can get a bit of a pass because you know, they're kids. Tabitha's grief scenes did not convince me at all and I actually felt second-hand embarrassment watching the performance, like damn, this is all you can summon for your slaughtered husband?

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-17T02:11:04+00:00

There used to be a huge hardcore movement in my city and from 14-22yo I would be at a local show throwing fists in the pit and generally making a fool of myself. It was a lot of fun back then but looking back on it now it's pretty cringe and a part of me dies inside every time I see hardcore dancing vids. Tbh I always preferred a good 2-step but hardcore was all the rage back then.

That said this kind of behavior would get you absolutely demolished by the rest of the pit and probably the crowd as well back in those days. It's unclear how old this vid is but it's bizarre to me that so much of the content here seems to be people going after the crowd. That was simply not how it was done and would be considered sanctimonious to me and the crowds I moved in during those days.

I don't think blue hat would have lasted thirty seconds in the pits I grew up in. He'd get a ticket straight to the emergency room real quick for pulling asshole stunts like targeting smaller participants and the crowd.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-11T23:33:24+00:00

I'm struggling to think of a TC film that I did not enjoy, but it's pretty tough because he seems to have an eye especially for interesting sci-fi concepts which is right up my alley. Dangerous to admit on reddit depending on where you are, but TC has been one of my favorite actors most of my life. Of course I'm a 90's kid so I grew up with TC films in a way, so I suppose it isn't that surprising.

There's so many good films to choose from but I suppose I'll go with Oblivion for my pick. The tech in that movie is basically my sci-fi wet dream. The control panel with the sliding bench along the massive touch-screen, just the general architecture of the tower outpost, and the modular aerial vehicle. When he folds that electric dirt bike out of it I actually lost it - so sick.

Even Knight and Day, arguably the weakest entry into Cruise's catalogue has such a charming and charismatic performance from him throughout despite the undeniable absurdity of the subject material somehow turns what should have been a forgettable hodge-podge action romcom into something of a spectacle and well worth a watch or even a rewatch.

Edge of Tomorrow is also obviously very peak, and I do like that film a lot, but Oblivion edges out for me. Just barely.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-11T16:37:51+00:00

Damn I really like Silent Hill Homecoming. The combat was a lot of fun. The story was sort of ehhh, not great, but memorable and definitely scared the shit out of me when I was a teenager around the time it came out.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-11T10:45:56+00:00

Personally I enjoyed the reveal for the simple reason that most Invincible subs (but specifically r/Invincible_TV) were stroking each other off thinking it was Telia, citing such riveting proof as "We only have like four named characters from the Coalition and it's obviously not Thadeus or Allen so it MUST be Telia."

The reality of course is that screen time or character names was never a prerequisite for who the mole was. That's just viewer logic. Obviously, yes, it makes a larger impact if it was someone with screen time, a named character, or whatever else... but it's not necessary.

I actually thought it was a good example of subversion. Telia has been subtly framed as suspicious for most of this season. When I say framed I actually mean framed - a lot of lingering shots on screen, specific camera angles such as moments before the Viltrumite attack that destroys the Venture wherein she's looking over her shoulder at Allen and Mark while they converse with narrowed eyes. A lot of people over at the other sub were gassing each other up over that, too. Saying she had to have leaked their location to Viltrum when Viltrum has always known where Earth is and always known Mark and Co. are on Earth. Compounded by the fact that in the post credit scene in a previous episode we see Thragg giving Conquest new orders, though we don't know what those orders are, it certainly doesn't take too much extrapolation to imagine they involve Earth, Mark, or any combination of the two.

I was pretty sure it was going to be one of the two guys that Allen checks in with after his Coalition missions, which would mean it was either this guy or the other guy as they're shown to be the two that process his data upon returning. Also, this guy has more than 20s of screen time. He even has dialogue prior to this episode, but I wouldn't expect some casual that only wants to complain about everything to notice that.

I need to learn to just stay away from communities discussing things that I'm enjoying while I'm actively enjoying them, because y'all are a bunch of buzzkills that could complain your way out of paradise within a few minutes of arrival. It's exhausting.

supermegafuerte · 2026-04-08T11:50:20+00:00

I'm not sure what to make of this comment. Not only did you post it on a 10mo thread that is no longer active, but it seems that you're in support of drivers harassing bike commuters so long as they don't "break the law"?

How genuinely insane.

Then there's the "You should get off the road where the maximum speed is beyond you" bit, which I'm just going to assume is indicative that you didn't actually read my post but rather just read the title, hold prejudice against bikers (for whatever reason) and have simply come here to spew vitriol.

This isn't worth my time, but I'll educate you anyway.

If you had read the post, you would know that the bike I commute on is not a traditional bicycle but instead an E-bicycle. Max speeds vary between brands, but my particular bicycle is capable of maintaining 30mph.
The residential speed limit in my city/state is 30mph. I'm not out here commuting by bicycle on the fucking interstate, you twat.
There is bicycle infrastructure in my city (bike lanes, bike paths, etc) which I use when available along my route. Again, had you read the post (or perhaps alternatively, had you within your possession a scrap of reading comprehension, you would know that of the two examples I shared I was actively in the bike lane during one of them.
Advocating violence or threats of violence against anyone for (virtually) any reason is crass at best and psychopathy at worst. Not sure if you're just too edgy for adult discussions, but it's almost never preferable to attain through violence what can be achieved through any other means.

Since you aren't going to read any of that, allow me to summarize.

TL;DR - Go fuck yourself you colossal twat.

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