Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li
@sjshancoxli.bsky.social
i mean more like what the fuck are the allies doing
the front has looked more or less exactly like this for months
that said it would really help me out here when moustache man number one finally gets round to declaring war on moustache man number two
france has also made it to 1941 and honestly what even the hell is going on in there
revolutionary poland update: we're not winning, exactly... but we're also not losing, and we've made it to 1941. maybe there's a way out of this
update: we here in revolutionary poland are not so proud as to refuse help when offered by non-demonic powers. today we are proud to join the allies [pic of wanda wasilewska shaking hands very awkwardly with neville chamberlain]
the peace deal system is broke as fuck, i always use player-led peace conferences
there's a 1936 start and a 1939 start; mostly people play 1936. the civil war stuff is a hard-coded event chain, so it's pretty easy to get democratic germany under adenauer and play from there, fighting against soviet expansion
oh yeah for sure, every country has all kinds of bizarre alt-history paths
i already tried communist poland where we join the comintern, and it was pretty easy to stand off hitler and then start advancing bit by bit
breaking both hitler and stalin at the same time is going to be a much tougher row to hoe
strap in girls we're defeating the molotov-ribbentrop pact
yeah the game really does not press upon you as clearly as it could just how desperate the straits were of... most of the world's population circa 1836
--he's still compromised his principles in pursuit of power pretty relentlessly imo, but it seems like he actually has principles, as opposed to the rest of those spineless fucks
if you had told me in 2012 that there was going to be one principled republican in the senate and it would be mitt fucking romney i would have spat out my coffee
genuinely has changed a lot of my undertanding when it became clear that the neocons were, as a group, far and away the most principled and sincere members of the republican party
it's cool and good actually when all the people with the guns and the people who make the guns and the people who make the machines that make the guns believe in law and rights and justice, because the alternative is that they don't
people talk endless shit about pinkwashing capitalism and like okay
would you prefer the situation where raytheon was flying thin blue line flags all over the place? appeal to heaven flags? no? then shut the fuck up
again it cannot actually be taken for granted that the military is going to side with the liberals and the constitution; traditionally in other countries the military is one of the most dangerous and powerful forces for reaction. in america the chairman of the joint chiefs writes stuff like this:
really cannot be emphasized enough that libs winning control over the military is actually very cool and good from a "survival of the republic" perspective
If you know which predicts to look at from 2018-2022 in Virginia, it's pretty clear The Pentagon officer corps is switching parties en masse
and frankly if you ever do need to go "hm actually i don't know, let me think, let me get back to you"--your players will understand and take it in stride! that is part of their trust in you!
i mean i'm all for having some understanding of the setting, some Ideas about the world ahead, but i really emphasize just... trusting yourself? to be able to make up good answers to specific questions from those general principles as the game proceeds
khoresh karafs and a bit of romaine/cheese/garlic salad
i assume you know this from that time you and the boys decided to see if ma deuce would fire and feed an m1 rodent, chipmunk adult male
i suspect this three arrows predates that ideogram, but i'm not actually sure!
and part of this isn't even a result just of natural shocks but of "governments doing macroeconomic policy very badly" because no one had actually figured out how to run a modern economy yet
on some level the game's fundamental economic engine runs *too smoothly* as a baseline
"if a former president can be convicted for breaking the law then so can anyone"
“If a former president can be convicted for breaking the law then so can anyone” seems to me the entire ever-fucking point
banking crises, financial crises, specie crises, commodity crises, you name it
but the game's financial system is *extremely* weird under the hood, and commodity shocks are likewise not well-simulated either
so :\
one thing i was struck by in v3 is that what makes (or made, it's changed a lot since) it very satisfying as a *game* is getting your economy humming super smooth and perfectly, but then this period of *history* is characterized by... constant economic shocks and turbulence
sweden joined the allies and so its getting simultaneously conquered by like three different people, including one of the italy factions for some fucking reason
i played v3 several updates ago and it had famines it's just that they were hard-coded event chains and therefore completely insane
"disaster! the famine in papua new guinea has spread to neighboring state kansas!" meanwhile the american market as a whole is producing infinity grain at low cost
yeah I'm thinking I'm getting towards the end of the road in hoi4. next up i think is going to be trying to conquer both germany and the soviet union as poland and if i can pull that off then i'm not sure if there's much more for me to do here
yeah food is not a resource, it kind of makes a mess of the strategic imperatives
you know you've got terminal paradox brain when you find yourself unironically thinking "you know what this game really needs? mechanics that model food and starvation"
the iron law of being a gm is that you don't need to be as prepped as you think you do