OT 19/3: COVID-19 Isolation Chamber/Panic Room

[Major4Boarding]

Mighty Ducks Star Shaun Weiss Arrested For Burglary And Being Under The Influence Of Meth

Well I guess he wont be coming back anytime soon. FFS Goldberg

JFC - Those pics should be posted side by side and posted at every Clinic, Health Dept, and School Anti-Drug meeting nationwide. He be looking rough. Sad...

Don't. Do. Meth.

 

[LightningStrikes]

Small indie company fooling its customers once again.

 

[TheFurryPickle]

.

 

[Felonious Python]

Problem with Avast Free Anti-Virus
The Cost of Avast's Free Antivirus: Companies Can Spy on Your Clicks

Avast also owns AVG and CCleanerhttps://www.pcmag.com/news/the-cost-of-avasts-free-antivirus-companies-can-spy-on-your-clicks

Windows Defender (the program that's default with Windows 10) seems to have become quite a competitive free anti-virus right now, so maybe just use that if you're going the free route.
Test antivirus software for Windows 10 - December 2019

VIPRE is located in Clearwater, FL. They got a top product of Dec 2019 as well. I have no experience or connection with their products, but the local connection is interesting.

 

[Major4Boarding]

I'm running VIPRE on my new laptop. No complaints here. Scans are quick

 

[Felonious Python]

I think I've put enough hours into Europa Universalis IV to give a bit of an assessment. I've only played as Castile (the Iberian Wedding event did not fire for me), and as I've learned to do with Paradox grand strategy games, I put the game on easy difficulty to start, as there's a ton of new mechanics that takes a few hours to learn. France or England don't need to declare war on me while I'm still learning where to find things.

In terms of quality, it's very similar to CK2. At least in my experience, I like CK2 better. The problem with EU4 is that once I started colonizing, that was all I was looking at. Europe became an afterthought, and there's so much available land to colonize, that I never really felt like I needed to bother any of the major powers over their claims. I understand that there's a way to play a generated map, which could be interesting.

In CK2, you have your titles, and you're trying to move up in the world. Claiming more land doesn't come free, and you can either use a CB, or play the strategic marriage game.

You could play EU4 as a conqueror, but you're letting rivals get stronger because they're the ones colonizing, and you generally want to go wide instead of tall in these games and just blob as much land as you can.

 

[Felonious Python]

What if Tom Brady announced his retirement in a Super Bowl commercial? People would be talking about Arby's for weeks.

 

[LightningStrikes]

The disappointing, completely bugged and (now) obvious quick cash crab rework of the all-time classic and genre-defining "WarCraft III", WC3:Reforged, has a stunning 0.5 user critic on Metacritic. Even Fallout 76 had 2.8 afaik.

 

[Felonious Python]

I enjoy how the death of Mr. Peanut was kind of embraced as a meme, but now people hate Baby Nut.

edit: yo, you guys think that they made Mr. Peanut a baby partially to appeal to kids? To undo the trend of lifelong peanut allergies?

 

[Major4Boarding]

I enjoy how the death of Mr. Peanut was kind of embraced as a meme, but now people hate Baby Nut.

edit: yo, you guys think that they made Mr. Peanut a baby partially to appeal to kids? To undo the trend of lifelong peanut allergies?

I got the sense its a fail-filled, hitching their wagon to the Baby Yoda train. These are the Mondays (post SB) where some Execs are:

 

[Major4Boarding]

And others...

 

[The Macho King]

I enjoy how the death of Mr. Peanut was kind of embraced as a meme, but now people hate Baby Nut.

edit: yo, you guys think that they made Mr. Peanut a baby partially to appeal to kids? To undo the trend of lifelong peanut allergies?

Felt like a way to try and grab some of that Baby Yoda love.

 

[The Macho King]

I think I've put enough hours into Europa Universalis IV to give a bit of an assessment. I've only played as Castile (the Iberian Wedding event did not fire for me), and as I've learned to do with Paradox grand strategy games, I put the game on easy difficulty to start, as there's a ton of new mechanics that takes a few hours to learn. France or England don't need to declare war on me while I'm still learning where to find things.

In terms of quality, it's very similar to CK2. At least in my experience, I like CK2 better. The problem with EU4 is that once I started colonizing, that was all I was looking at. Europe became an afterthought, and there's so much available land to colonize, that I never really felt like I needed to bother any of the major powers over their claims. I understand that there's a way to play a generated map, which could be interesting.

In CK2, you have your titles, and you're trying to move up in the world. Claiming more land doesn't come free, and you can either use a CB, or play the strategic marriage game.

You could play EU4 as a conqueror, but you're letting rivals get stronger because they're the ones colonizing, and you generally want to go wide instead of tall in these games and just blob as much land as you can.

EUIV is absolutely a map painting simulator that generally gets less interesting ~1600 (whenever you are able to just.... not lose any wars). Some of the more interesting challenges are taking crap nations and making them good, or taking nations in a challenging area and turning them into powerhouses. A good entry-level small to badass nation is Brandenburg - their troops are insanely high quality (basically the best in the game - Prussian Space Marines are a bit of a meme), so despite their small size, if you can survive the first ~50 years you get to roflstomp Austria over and over in the HRE.

 

[Felonious Python]

Felt like a way to try and grab some of that Baby Yoda love.

Baby Yoda, Baby Sonic, Baby Peanut, Baby Shark, DaBaby.

Get infant or get out.

 

[Felonious Python]

EUIV is absolutely a map painting simulator that generally gets less interesting ~1600 (whenever you are able to just.... not lose any wars). Some of the more interesting challenges are taking crap nations and making them good, or taking nations in a challenging area and turning them into powerhouses. A good entry-level small to badass nation is Brandenburg - their troops are insanely high quality (basically the best in the game - Prussian Space Marines are a bit of a meme), so despite their small size, if you can survive the first ~50 years you get to roflstomp Austria over and over in the HRE.

Something I figured out from the Total War games, particularly Empire and Napoleon is that it generally becomes 'replace the major power', instead of becoming a new power. It's an interesting way to play, but it sort of ends the same.

 

[The Macho King]

Something I figured out from the Total War games, particularly Empire and Napoleon is that it generally becomes 'replace the major power', instead of becoming a new power. It's an interesting way to play, but it sort of ends the same.

I think that's just history though - there are only so many big dogs that can coexist in the yard.

Victoria 2 had an interesting way of dealing with this - basically "great powers" were a game mechanic, and you had to be one of the 8 to have vassals/countries in your sphere, as well as a precondition for a few major events (for instance, Prussia can't form Germany without certain countries in its sphere and being a GP). And you spent influence to get those countries in your sphere - it was a great mechanic.

Vicky 2 was so good and I don't know why they didn't continue to support it.

 

[Felonious Python]

I think that's just history though - there are only so many big dogs that can coexist in the yard.

Victoria 2 had an interesting way of dealing with this - basically "great powers" were a game mechanic, and you had to be one of the 8 to have vassals/countries in your sphere, as well as a precondition for a few major events (for instance, Prussia can't form Germany without certain countries in its sphere and being a GP). And you spent influence to get those countries in your sphere - it was a great mechanic.

Vicky 2 was so good and I don't know why they didn't continue to support it.

I see it more as a casualty of the size of the map. Everyone swallows up the weak territories, and the big boys have to fight between each other. If you knock off the weakest power, you're basically now that power.

CK2 allows you a bit more latitude to mess with countries like befriending a neighboring country to get some strategic marriages, pull off some assassinations, and maybe get a future heir to inherit your titles plus that entire kingdom.

Or you get that kingdom claim through inheritance, ally with the HRE (hope they don't dip), and take it that way.

 

[The Macho King]

I see it more as a casualty of the size of the map. Everyone swallows up the weak territories, and the big boys have to fight between each other. If you knock off the weakest power, you're basically now that power.

CK2 allows you a bit more latitude to mess with countries like befriending a neighboring country to get some strategic marriages, pull off some assassinations, and maybe get a future heir to inherit your titles plus that entire kingdom.

So... I'll just say, EUIV is deep as shit and you're scratching the surface. While it's not dynastic in focus, you can absolutely marry/ally/inherit kingdoms. Iberian Wedding is one scripted way to do it (Austria/Hungary and England/Scotland have scripted ways as well, and if you win the 100 Years War as England you get a PU over France to boot, in which case fire up the World Conquest machine), but it's also possible to manufacture personal unions/get your dynasty on thrones. It's more of a luck of the draw and you can't exactly... manufacture it as directly as you can in CK2, but a large part of that is the change in focus from kingdoms to nation states that EUIV represents.

 

[Felonious Python]

So... I'll just say, EUIV is deep as **** and you're scratching the surface. While it's not dynastic in focus, you can absolutely marry/ally/inherit kingdoms. Iberian Wedding is one scripted way to do it (Austria/Hungary and England/Scotland have scripted ways as well, and if you win the 100 Years War as England you get a PU over France to boot, in which case fire up the World Conquest machine), but it's also possible to manufacture personal unions/get your dynasty on thrones. It's more of a luck of the draw and you can't exactly... manufacture it as directly as you can in CK2, but a large part of that is the change in focus from kingdoms to nation states that EUIV represents.

Yeah, I'm not really sure how PUs work in EU4. The Iberian Wedding didn't fire for me, so I waited for Aragon to get into a war (with the Papal States as it turned out) and then I invaded myself.

I likewise did the same with Portugal when the stars were aligned (either France and England are fighting, or France was available to do so. I had allied with France, and Portugal had allied with England, so they'd focus on each other.)

 

[The Macho King]

Yeah, I'm not really sure how PUs work in EU4. The Iberian Wedding didn't fire for me, so I waited for Aragon to get into a war (with the Papal States as it turned out) and then I invaded myself. I likewise did the same with Portugal when the stars were aligned (either France and England are fighting, or France was available to do so. I had allied with France, and Portugal had allied with England, so they'd focus on each other.)

There's a ton under the hood with getting PUs to fire. EU4 wasn't my favorite so I didn't dive into it as deeply as I did with Vicky 2 or HOI3 (I used to do some simple modding to Vicky 2 to better balance some of the mechanics - that game has such amazing bones). I think "first order" EU thinking is viewing it as a war game, though, or at least a simple "build stack, move stack into other stack" war game. There's a lot more depth in there, both with quality of troops but also in the political arena.

 

[Felonious Python]

There's a ton under the hood with getting PUs to fire. EU4 wasn't my favorite so I didn't dive into it as deeply as I did with Vicky 2 or HOI3 (I used to do some simple modding to Vicky 2 to better balance some of the mechanics - that game has such amazing bones). I think "first order" EU thinking is viewing it as a war game, though, or at least a simple "build stack, move stack into other stack" war game. There's a lot more depth in there, both with quality of troops but also in the political arena.

EUIV is very eager to give CBs (at least as Castile), so I sort of was led down a colonization/conquest route, which I was fine with. I was also eager to play a colonization/trade type game.

If I can get half a country or more in one brief war, getting provinces of my choosing, and they're tossing CBs in my face to do it, it seems like I should use them. In CK2 they take patience to get, and you might only get a duchy at a time (that you've got to figure out who to give to, with political ramifications).

 

[The Macho King]

EUIV is very eager to give CBs (at least as Castile), so I sort of was led down a colonization/conquest route, which I was fine with. I was also eager to play a colonization/trade type game.

If I can get half a country or more in one brief war, getting provinces of my choosing, and they're tossing CBs in my face to do it, it seems like I should use them. In CK2 they take patience to get, and you might only get a duchy at a time (that you've got to figure out who to give to, with political ramifications).

I don't know which expansions you got, but yeah - the game guides you to a path with some of the missions + CBs. Castile is going to finish the reconquista ASAP (unless Granada allies Ottos), and get CBs on Portugal and Aragon. The thing is - and this is where experience comes in - with a few exceptions, taking territories via war is costly in both diplo points and admin points, so you're often better off not taking as much territory as you have CB for. This is especially true of the territories in North Africa which Castile gets driven too, as I think they have double coring costs from the Islamic occupants national ideas/culture.

Generally the preferred method is either PU or Vassal feeding (as in you go to war bringing along your PUs and vassals, and then you feed them the territories you want and then peacefully annex them to avoid the overextension and admin costs).

 

[Felonious Python]

I don't know which expansions you got, but yeah - the game guides you to a path with some of the missions + CBs. Castile is going to finish the reconquista ASAP (unless Granada allies Ottos), and get CBs on Portugal and Aragon. The thing is - and this is where experience comes in - with a few exceptions, taking territories via war is costly in both diplo points and admin points, so you're often better off not taking as much territory as you have CB for. This is especially true of the territories in North Africa which Castile gets driven too, as I think they have double coring costs from the Islamic occupants national ideas/culture.

Generally the preferred method is either PU or Vassal feeding (as in you go to war bringing along your PUs and vassals, and then you feed them the territories you want and then peacefully annex them to avoid the overextension and admin costs).

I felt that Morocco was too costly to fight and convert at that point of my game and focused on Portugal instead, who I didn't finish off completely (because I didn't understand how to make them a vassal yet) and they became a colonial rival. I don't really recall any African missions in my tree. It was mostly New World stuff.

I definitely fed my New World vassals, establishing provinces for them even after they were autonomous.

 

[The Macho King]

I felt that Morocco was too costly to fight and convert at that point of my game and focused on Portugal instead, who I didn't finish off completely (because I didn't understand how to make them a vassal yet) and they became a colonial rival. I don't really recall any African missions in my tree. It was mostly New World stuff.

I definitely fed my New World vassals, establishing provinces for them even after they were autonomous.

Might be confusing them with Portugal. I normally let Portugal colonize and then force a PU on them later - much easier to get their colonies that way, plus they'll do a lot of your colonizing for you.

 

[LightningStrikes]