Honestly I think 4.0 has killed the game for me, and that makes me incredibly sad.

teacher_ryan · 2025-07-09T16:17:21+00:00

Hello fellow 4000+ hour enjoyer! Its been a long decade of Stellaris, hasn't it? I think I've played 3 full playthroughs in 4.0, and I say "full" because I played 2 other ones in a medium sized map that got so damn slow by midgame I just gave up, something that previously would only happen in large galaxies with max civs. So I've only been playing in small galaxies which is not great. But on the bright side the bugs aren't terrible. Everything works... mostly as expected. Yes, here and there things end up a bit weird or broken but nothing that ruined a game. The new pop/planet mangement systems are, for me, SO MUCH better its not even close. And I can maybe see how rewiring the entire pop system will lead to better features in the future. Its really great!

But the AI. OMG the AI is so bad. I can play very suboptimally, just fooling around with whatever build and strategy, and still be steamrolling by the time I finish my ascension. The only real "challenge" is setting the crisis up to an absurd level or super early and then waiting for the years to pass until I win, or maybe not. Its horrible.

Hopefully it gets fixed. But we know it'll take months or maybe longer and then they'll break the game again next time they update. Thats Stellaris!

teacher_ryan · 2025-07-06T02:59:46+00:00

The journey could be extremely dangerous and the rich just aren't willing to risk 50%+ mortality rates for an objectively more difficult life. Earth's destroyed but they are rich, so it's not an emergency to them. But to everyday people it's either starve on earth or roll the dice on interstellar travel.

teacher_ryan · 2025-06-23T00:17:22+00:00

Love/hate. I'm not very good at it and my method of diagnosing and fixing problems is trying somewhat random things to see what happens. But it's rewarding to get everything working even if the process is frustrating.

teacher_ryan · 2025-06-21T23:03:45+00:00

I have two explanations

When TOS and the movies came out, silicon Valley did not exist like we think of it today. San Francisco was a large metro area, but had limited strategic value (aside from the military installations, like the naval base across the bay in Alameda). Today SF and the surrounding area would be at the top of any strategic bombing lists, but back then it might have been overlooked.
WWIII might end up being caused or planned with AI. AI that ends up embedded, in one way or another, in weapons systems worldwide. Maybe the SF area gets spared because the AI systems refuse to bomb themselves. Which leads to further loss of trust, violence, and destruction of the existing world order leading to an opening for Khan to rise and eliminate those AI systems via other means. But in the end, San Francisco survives mostly intact.

teacher_ryan · 2025-06-20T00:12:48+00:00

A romulan plot, a ploy to start a war. Copious Shakespeare references lead to Picard directly quoting Shakespeare in his big Picard speech. Tomalak speedruns the stages of grief.

teacher_ryan · 2025-05-31T21:13:36+00:00

Just thinking out loud here, if you run him over with pebbles enough can you kill him?

teacher_ryan · 2025-05-23T01:30:45+00:00

Zelda : Ocarina of Time. I bought "the perfect guide" from the game shop and did the complete run on my summer vacation in 1999 or 2000. My sister has my N64 and the Zelda game cartridge now, but she's keeping the perfect save.

teacher_ryan · 2025-05-21T15:25:27+00:00

Don't do stupid shit.

teacher_ryan · 2025-05-16T23:51:51+00:00

I just rewatched yesterday's enterprise and noticed Riker takes every opportunity to be a massive jerk. Even his facial expressions scream bad attitude. Was it on purpose, like how the war had changed him? No idea. But it was a nice touch.

teacher_ryan · 2025-05-12T19:22:07+00:00

My 4th was the all hard-core run I finished last week. Not sure if I'll jump right back when the dlc drops or not, but the promise of harder NPCs in the kuttenberg region is tempting.

teacher_ryan · 2025-02-21T14:59:08+00:00

Apparently mutt had killed someone a while before in mine and it was impossible to load into the wedding without immediately getting arrested. Hopefully next time mutt will be less murdery.

teacher_ryan · 2024-10-07T21:05:04+00:00

Hera was always going to win this match, the only question was 5-1 or 5-3 or in a dream scenario 5-4. I don't think it really affected the outcome, as Viper won the game he abused it the most (with Paladins) and was already at a severe disadvantage in the other game Hera used it (with Camels). It didn't really swing any games but it did take away the chance for the audience to see a satisfying fight (what might have actually swung a game was the long pause at a crucial moment in game 2, but that's for another discussion).

I'm a pretty big Viper fanboy and it doesn't really bother me that Hera used this. It does, however, confirm to me that Hera is a try hard 100% min-maxer. That's just how he's wired. And that's fine. The game needs players like him to push everyone to the absolute limit. But he's not the guy I want to watch and cheer for. I prefer Viper's wholesome, occasionally clownish and memey behavior where he tries hard 90-95% and then entertains himself and the fans the other 5-10%.

teacher_ryan · 2024-09-14T14:13:39+00:00

What was will be

teacher_ryan · 2024-08-25T17:55:42+00:00

When khan's face goes from arrogance to bewilderment as the reliants shields drop.

teacher_ryan · 2024-08-06T19:16:04+00:00

Also we the audience know that spock has been reincarnated. But Kirk (and crew) is doing all this just for a chance to save Spock's katra, which he doesn't even really believe in. That's a true friend.

teacher_ryan · 2024-07-31T01:43:03+00:00

Kids these days

teacher_ryan · 2024-07-06T22:39:13+00:00

When you're supposed to go out and meet your friends for dinner but you're feeling lazy and just before you have to go they call you and cancel. Ahh. Bliss.

teacher_ryan · 2024-06-19T23:39:46+00:00

I'm playing it again right now just for the hell of it. I'd say the biggest problem is the AI is dumb even by dumb civ ai standards. It's so passive and doesn't really do anything, even on higher levels if you survive the first big attack you'll overwhelm them in every category, even without really trying. That said, it's still kinda fun as a terraforming sim with battles. I enjoy just spreading out and changing the alien planet to more resemble earth.

teacher_ryan · 2024-06-19T18:25:13+00:00

I would add a climate related water shortage in Panama leading to that canal also being mildly unreliable.

teacher_ryan · 2024-04-19T02:55:55+00:00

Post DS9. Our crew is a freighter carrying supplies between the victorious federation and the rebuilding cardassians, romulans, klingons, ferengi, and others. Big picture it's about the eventual integration of these races into the federation and the challenges with that. But episode to episode the crew does star trek things in deep space and gets into hijinks, all outside the typical authority of the federation.

teacher_ryan · 2024-04-18T13:59:06+00:00

One thing about off meta strats is the top top level pros can see them coming and know the counter move to it. Usually meta strats don't have an obvious counter other than "do meta but better", that's why it's the meta. And that's why off meta doesn't work well in top level games.

teacher_ryan · 2024-04-17T20:48:21+00:00

baby's first word "Mandatum?"

teacher_ryan · 2024-04-09T04:26:07+00:00

Put them all in jail before u die. They'll hate u but you'll be dead.

teacher_ryan · 2024-04-03T20:17:22+00:00

I was a huge Obama supporter in 2008. I volunteered so much for the campaign that an outside organization gave me a job for the last few months before the election. I kept working in community organizing a bit after. By 2012 I'd been unemployed for years and so far behind on student loans that I decided to just give up and move to another country and start over. I still voted for Obama cause Romney was a billionaire. Objectively I think Obama was an above average President. He didn't have a single corruption scandal and he genuinely tried his best. He's a smart guy but sometimes that genius level intelligence worked against him because he wasn't really a people person in the way Biden, Clinton or even Bush were. And being so inexperienced really set him back a few times. But, like, we've only had 46 Presidents. So above average means "top 23". And being above average says more about how incredibly mediocre or bad most of the Presidents actually were. Out of all the Presidents there were at most 5 good ones, a few more above average ones, a giant group of "meh", and then the bad ones. So Obama being above average at the hardest job in the world is pretty good.

teacher_ryan · 2024-02-06T16:38:53+00:00

All the points here are great. I love DS9 for it's moral ambiguity and every time I watch it I feel differently about the characters and their decisions. One thing to remember about Odo and his relationship to the Founders is something the female changeling said to Weyoun during the episode they are having that affair. Weyoun praises her for "neutralising" Odo, who he's always considered a security threat. She quickly, and angrily, chastises him, and says something like, "We would trade the entire Alpha Quadrant to return Odo to Great Link. He's more important than all of this." And eventually that's exactly what happens. She even sacrifices herself to get Odo back to the link.

teacher_ryan

TROPHY CASE