The Bridge

badp

12:08

@fredley The video for this Android game of yours apparently doesn't exist.

fredley

@badp Not surprised, that game is old

I probably got rid of the video in an over-zealous channel tidy up

badp

booooo

fredley

@badp Game is pretty crap anyway

Sconibulus

@fredley! Be nice to past @fredley.

fredley

@Sconibulus No, past @fredley was a dick

2

badp

12:18

he was a dick, or 1.0 british non-maritime Dicks. That's imperial units for a very measly 769 milliHitlers

I can definitely see how today's fredley would disavow such a low Hitler rating

Grace Note

So at some point over the weekend, my game of Brick Breaker ended. I have no idea if I actually cleared those two bricks or not.

badp

@GraceNote I'll go with "no."

Grace Note

If I didn't, I'm going to hold past @fredley responsible for any losses.

fredley

@GraceNote Time well spent for your processor.

Sconibulus

@badp does that mean hitler was only ~1.5 dicks?

fredley

12:22

@GraceNote Past @fredley is to blame for a hell of a lot of things

For one, he wrote so many god damn bugs in everything

badp

@Sconibulus It's not often that you tell somebody "you're a dick, no - wait, you're a dick and a half!", now, is it?

(I can get the grammar and commas right in the next fifteen minutes! I CAN DO IT!)

Sconibulus

no, not that often, occasionally someone will be a double- or treble-dick though

usually when they do many dickish things in succession

badp

@Sconibulus That's why we're pushing for the milliHitler.

fredley

@badp Is it comparable to the milliHelen?

badp

@fredley I don't quite think so.

fredley

12:27

> MilliHelen (n) - The amount of beauty required to launch a single ship.

Grumpy Lazers

0

Q: If Mojang removes a scroll from the game that you own, do they give you something once it's removed?

While perusing the Scrolls Wiki, I noticed that there are a few cards that have been marked as having been removed from the game. Scrolls has been released for public beta for only about a week now, and I don't believe they've removed any scrolls from the game since I started playing. With that...

scrolls

badp

@fredley I think you're missing three orders of magnitude there? or were there 1,000 ships?

fredley

@badp Yeah, she launched 1000

It actually has a wiktionary entry:

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/millihelen

> A unit of measure of pulchritude, corresponding to the amount of beauty required to launch one ship.

Pulchritude

badp

Tsk

> Now Maria seems to me to be a wonder in every respect that I have had the pleasure of examining, and her clothes are plainly not meant to conceal defects. So what do we say? I'd say 850 millihelens for Maria. anybody bid higher?

Where are the 850 ships?

I'm afaid the microHelen might be a better unit of measure

fredley

@badp What is this?

badp

12:31

@fredley Click on "quotations" from the wiktionary page

fredley

@badp A Helen is like a Tesla, you need a fuckton of whatever to get to 1

Grace Note

Pulchritude is a word I haven't heard in ages.

badp

Latinism, likely, eh?

yeah

pulchritudinous

Grace Note

Quite

fredley

@GraceNote I love how the measure of beauty has such an ugly word

badp

12:32

@fredley You're ugly

fredley

@badp Can you have negative milliHelens?

Mad Scientist

@fredley Values >1 Tesla are not so uncommon

badp

@fredley Was rather thinking inverse milliHelens

fredley

@MadScientist ...in MRI scanners etc.

@badp A face that can launch 1/10 of a ship? Not that handy

badp

or MegaHelens⁻¹

fredley

12:34

@badp Lol

badp

@fredley Well if you're only 1/10 as pulchritudinous as somebody else...

fredley

@badp Don't you comment on my pulchrituninisity!

badp

Honestly, consider this

How many people are in one ship nowadays?

Thousands?

Make it 10,000

fredley

@badp It's not the people that are in it

badp

If somebody boards a ship for you, that's 1e-5 milliHelens

fredley

12:35

It's the beauty that inspired its launch in the first place

badp

or 1e-2 microHelens

or 10 nanoHelens

fredley

The Helens aren't consumed every time the ship sets sail

badp

I... I think this isn't an okay unit of measure.

fredley

Only at it's initial launch

@badp You're wrong, about everything

And you're apulchritudinous!

badp

Your unpulchritudinous misuse of words may be caused by the unpulchritudinousity of your face!

OrigamiRobot

12:37

Who @badp, we don't use that kind of language here. Go sit in the corner and think about your life.

fredley

The amount of beauty in the World is pretty limited

List of ship launches in 2012

The list of ship launches in 2012 includes a chronological list of ships launched in 2012. __NOTOC__ {| Class="wikitable" |- !width="100" | Date !width="130" | Country ! Builder ! Location ! Ship ! Class / type ! Notes |- ! 8 January | | Meyer Werft | Papenburg | Disney Fantasy | Cruise ship | For Disney Cruise Line |- ! 12 January | | Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft | Flensburg | | Ro-ro ferry | For Seatruck Ferries |- ! 27 January | | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries | Nagasaki | | Ro-ro ferry | For Shin Nihonkai |- ! 27 January | | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries | Nagasaki | | Ro-ro fe...

badp

room topic changed to The Bridge: General Chat Room for Arqade.com. The main quarters of Arqade's SEI AskQuestion Mothership, now with a restored amount of small city-states. [arq] [-fun] [-games] [jin-fanclub] [lazers] [mod-abuse] [unpulchritudinousity]*

fredley

That's only 23 milliHelens of beauty to go around in 2012

badp

Now we do

Sconibulus

point of interest, the thousand ships Helen launched is due to rounding

badp

12:38

@fredley Told you it was a poor unit of measure

fredley

@Sconibulus shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Sconibulus

If I recall, the actual number was 1100-some

fredley

@Sconibulus SHHHHHHHHHH!

Sconibulus

possibly 1178, but I'm not sure

fine...

fredley

@Sconibulus SHHHHHHUTUPHHHHHHHH!

You show me a better way of measuring beauty!

badp

12:39

milliVenuses

fredley

And you're not allowed to use swimsuits!

@badp Define a way of measuring a Venus

badp

as beautiful as Venus: 1

fredley

@badp Not scientific

badp

Usually used in decibels, however, because some things are just logarithmic in nature

Grace Note

@badp You mean decibelles?

badp

12:40

so for example your face is -60 dB Venus

fredley

@GraceNote Nice

@badp I'll give you 60 dB from my face

Because 60 dB is about the volume of normal conversation

badp

...-60 dB Venus is 1 milliVenus right?

or 1 microVenus? I forget. I think 1 milliVenus.

fredley

@badp Your science is stupid

badp

@fredley Your face is -2 MegadB Einsteins.

checks if anybody ever used the megadecibel

Grace Note

Wouldn't a Megadecibel be just a hundred kilobels?

Sconibulus

12:43

I fear at some point we may have veered into the silly

4

badp

@GraceNote Not sure, I think the "deci" in Bel is only because it's base-10 bels?

nope, you are correct. A decibel is the base 10 logarithm (bel) times 10.

fredley

@badp Hexabels?

badp

@Sconibulus The real question is if beauty is power or amplitude.

Sconibulus

@fredley Oh god! That sound is ear-shattering! At least DEAF hexabels

fredley

@Sconibulus Slow clap

badp

12:46

What's √Venus?

fredley

@Sconibulus 57k dB would be quite loud

@badp I don't care

Sconibulus

@badp Mercury?

OrigamiRobot

TIL There is an actual medical condition called Megacolon

Martin Sojka

@fredley That's why I prefer the logarithmic definition of the unit.

badp

Yeah, the Hellen is definitely pretty impractical.

fredley

12:49

@MartinSojka How does that work?

badp

It's rather obviously a derivative measure of Beauty

Hellen (ships moved by beauty) = Venus (pulchritude) × Bieber (famousness) × Wrights⁻³ (amount of people who'd use a boat in the first place)

OrigamiRobot

Why is Hellen a measure of beauty?

Martin Sojka

@fredley There were 50 million women on the planet at the time Helen of Troy was alive, and she was the one with the most pulchritude (who could think the Bridge could expand your vocabulary?).

badp

@OrigamiRobot It isn't.

fredley

@MartinSojka Right ok

Martin Sojka

12:52

@fredley Now you add some factor to it: The most beautiful of 100 million women would be 1 + x Helen, the most beautiful out of 200 million would be 1 + 2x Helen and so on.

OrigamiRobot

@badp I think you fail at pronouns.

fredley

@MartinSojka But we also have to control for the number of ships launched

Martin Sojka

The way it's defined on the Wikipedia (at least) is that the most beautiful woman who has ever lived has 1.34 Helen.

Sconibulus

@MartinSojka Is that Buttercup?

Martin Sojka

On the other hand, if you randomly pick 12 (out of any non-trivial amount of them, for example several thousand), the most beautiful out of them will be on average at 0.14 Helen.

fredley

12:55

I think measurement in terms of water displacement works well:

goines.net/Writing/HELEN_of_TROY.html

> If an average-size woman were to do no more than launch herself--by getting into the bathtub, say-- she would automatically get credit for about .3 hundredths of a ship launching. Larger women would do a little better.

Martin Sojka

In other words, 0.04 Helen more = double the amount of people.

badp

@fredley then how much water is required for trains and airplanes and cars to operate?

we might remove the Wrights⁻³ factor from the unit by using Standard Boats.

fredley

@badp Depends if they are steam powered

badp

Hmmm, I like this.

MOAR UNITS.

fredley

> Decihelen (dh) 10-1 helens: Torch the Central Business District of Oakland, California, & Launch the Clipper Ship "Flying Cloud" (1783 tons)

badp

12:57

How shall we dub the Standard Boat?

fredley

> Dekahelen (dah) 10 helens: Oversee the Incendiary Bombing of Ten Cities and Launch the Aircraft Carriers "Theodore Roosevelt" (91,487 tons) and "Dwight D. Eisenhower (91,487 tons)

Maybe NanoHelens is a more human scale:

> Nanohelen (nh) 10-9 helens: Send the Old Man on a Canoe Trip & Build a Good Roaring Blaze in the Fireplace

badp

@fredley TOLD YA.

22 mins ago, by badp

or 10 nanoHelens

fredley

> Gigahelen (Gh) 109 helens: Launch the Equivalent of One Trillion Greek Warships & Destroy the Solar System

badp

FRIKKIN' TOLD YA.

fredley

@badp OK FINE BADP WIN

badp

12:59

You just had to trust a random page on the internet more than me!

fredley

@badp Yes. I trust almost anywhere else on the internet more than this chat room

badp

You're 8,821 milliHitlers

I don't even know

my reader's going off the scale again

LessPop_MoreFizz

Best GoT .gif

badp

meanwhile

Sconibulus

your scale doesn't go over 9,000?

LessPop_MoreFizz

13:02

Best GoT .gif of all time.

badp

@Sconibulus common milliHitler measurement systems lose in linearity above certain tresholds

fredley

@badp Nice

badp

@fredley Not so nice. balpha uses outlook :(

fredley

@badp But the answer can't be submitted right?

badp

@fredley It's been fixed anyway.

fredley

13:04

Wow. The revenue for one week of Scrolls in open beta now covers the entire development cost. The game is profitable!

Tweeted by carlmanneh on June 10, 2013 at 10:07 AM

badp

(I wonder how many of these people bought the game because OMFG MOJANG)

do we have questions about it on the site?

LessPop_MoreFizz

@badp All of them.

@badp Yes.

fredley

@LessPop_MoreFizz Yup, everyone

Ronan Forman

@badp Isn't that how games work? How many people buy the next call of duty because it's call of duty?

badp

@RonanForman Once you're big enough, yeah.

fredley

13:06

Oooh, Tomorrow's Harvest is out

Ben Brocka

@badp According to Bethseda all of them bought it because SCROLLS OMG ORIGINAL NAME DO NOT STEAL

fredley

£5 on Google Play

Wow, buying music on Google is fast. Product page to listening in what, 10 seconds?

badp

@fredley you're streaming anyway

fredley

@badp I know. From a user experience point of view it's crazy good though

Martin Sojka

@badp I didn't (reason being, I didn't buy the game).

fbueckert

13:13

Good morning, Bridge

fredley

Was going to buy on Amazon, but was cheaper on GP

OrigamiRobot

@badp I still don't even know what Scrolls is. I've been told, but I can't remember.

Sconibulus

@OrigamiRobot It's a card game

badp

@OrigamiRobot Two players have a 5×3 board each, side by side. You can put units on each, which attack every n turns, mostly straight ahead.

Martin Sojka

@LessPop_MoreFizz Ah, Ramsay Snow. I so hope he'll get a painful and humiliating death.

badp

13:16

At the end of each line, there are totems.

OrigamiRobot

I plan to promptly forget all this.

badp

You have 5 totems. You lose 3 and it's game over.

@OrigamiRobot Too late.

OrigamiRobot

Too late for what?

badp

That thing you've forgotten about.

OrigamiRobot

Why is it too late?

badp

13:18

You goldfish.

Martin Sojka

@badp Time to start calling him Wanda, then?

LessPop_MoreFizz

fredley

@LessPop_MoreFizz ...

RedRiderX

@LessPop_MoreFizz That, is a true GoT gif.

Sconibulus

Kill it with fire.

where's @kalina when you need her

LessPop_MoreFizz

13:24

fbueckert

@Sconibulus I can always set stuff on fire.

Wipqozn

@LessPop_MoreFizz That's beautiful.

Martin Sojka

2

fredley

@MartinSojka Your input is not appreciated

Your own army of cyborgs, now being Kickstarted

Grumpy Lazers

13:43

0

Q: How exactly does the Diamond Skin skill scale in Diablo 3?

What is the exact formula for the damage absorption value of the skill? I can see how much it absorbs at level 60, but I'm interested in the formula. Is it something like: absorption = baseValue + gainPerLevelValue * characterLevel or what?

diablo-3

fbueckert

@GrumpyLazers Dupe.

badp

So

Microsoft in ~2h30

Apple in ~3h

Sony at shitty o' clock

fbueckert

@badp MS backed out of most of their press interviews.

Sounds like they really have no idea what they're doing.

badp

@fbueckert They're still going to present stuff

I hope they're packing the important stuff in the first 30 minutes

fbueckert

@badp Just not explain it at all.

badp

13:50

@BenBrocka For us, it's going to be a sequence of blurry 360p streams of 1080p "mind blowing" gameplay and "new engine releases" and whatnot

with at most 15 seconds total of actual gameplay

between all the CGIs and in-engine-rendered stuff that isn't in the game anyway

followed by a couple hours of tedious liveblogging action

fbueckert

@badp With a new Halo to show everyone how awesome the system is.

badp

@fbueckert Aye, aye. "xbox on, xbox watch halo"

"Buy episode 1? $2.99/1 person, $4.99 family pack, $9.99 unlimited viewers"

OrigamiRobot

@fbueckert No, he added "exactly". It's a different question.

badp

wild applauses from the crowd

Ben Brocka

@badp Yeah but that means they're unwilling to talk about the DRM stuff so the event will probably just be "here's some cutscenes of games. Xbox one what's that? GAMES LOOK OVER THERE runs"

fbueckert

13:53

@OrigamiRobot Still a dupe.

And yes, I know you're playing the pedant.

OrigamiRobot

@badp I'll just download it out of spite.

badp

@OrigamiRobot which edition? 1 person, family pack, unlimited viewers or ARRRRRRRRRRRR?

Ben Brocka

@fbueckert If they had a new real Halo I really think they would have announced it with the console, not just the TV show

fbueckert

@BenBrocka You'd think.

MS's marketing strategy seems more akin to a chicken without a head than anything coherent, though.

Ben Brocka

Plus they just released some Windows 8 halo spin off didn't they? Would be surprising to see two releases (even if one's a side game) so close

badp

13:57

@BenBrocka Don't worry, there's going to be a new Halo: Halo Spohrts

with all-time-favourites events like Catch the Jeep and Tea With Friends

(I haven't actually ever played Halo)

Ben Brocka

Catch The Jeep could be pretty fun with Half Life 2 supercharged gravity guns

Jez

playing europa universalis 3. wanting to form Italian nation as Naples, and Tuscany just accepted vassalization, even though my infamy was like 30. YES!

in a few decades Italy will be formed

Ben Brocka

14:16

Pft Italy's for weirdos and pixel ninjas

Jez

have to take on Austria in short order though.

they have massive manpower being head of the HRE

weirdly, they were fighting a war with like 130,000 troops, and they have gone down to about 40,000 now once the war finished

i need to suddenly declare on them at 40k and i'll walk over them

Martin Sojka

@Jez Head of HRE gets all kinds of manpower bonuses (and troops on loan) from member states during wars - especially on defence.

Jez

yeah... but if i can blitz them and occupy their provinces in a couple of months they're screwed

Martin Sojka

Better to catch them in an offensive war with alliances where you're technically defending someone else.

Jez

but taking them on when they already have 130k troops, impossible

Martin Sojka

14:22

If they have 120k of those 130k troops in Nowherestan, southern Anatolia - no problem.

Jez

@MartinSojka thing is they trash everyone else. they took on Novgorod, Sweden, Muscovy, France, etc. easily beat them

Grumpy Lazers

0

Q: Need for Speed 2012 Alternate Keyboard Controls

How to change the alternate controls in Need for Speed: Most Wanted 2012 ? for example I want to make the WASD (accelerate - steer left - brake - steer right) and in the same time I want to use the arrow keys ?

keyboard nfs-most-wanted-2012

0

Q: How do gadgets work in Vector?

There are two gadgets available in the store: Slow Time and Force Blaster. I bought Slow Time and equipped it, but I don't see it available while playing. How do I use a gadget after I bought it? Are they single use? Are there more gadgets to unlock?

ouya vector

Jez

so you're looking at 130k troops where they have most of them to train on you vs 40k troops

the AI is mad to go down to 40k, i'm keeping at 100k even during peace

then again i have revolt risks, i took out Castille and now i own the iberian peninsula :-)

most of it anyway

Martin Sojka

Which year is it?

Jez

erm, about 1570?

Martin Sojka

14:24

Still rather early. Why not ignore Austria, work to get your infamy down and focus on colonisation?

Jez

early? feels like i've been playing it for ages

if i don't deal with Austria, i think they will basically take over Europe

they've been laying claims to thrones, launching wars of aggression

and they have been leader of the HRE forever, they have support of 3 states so will remain leaders of the HRE getting way too powerful;

Martin Sojka

Spies. Lots and lots of spies. When you're rich from colonisation, you can destabilise their empire anyway you want.

Jez

well it's my first proper game so i'm still not sure quite how to get rich from colonization

Martin Sojka

Of course, if you feel you can deal with the HRE ... just call yourself Napoleon and go at it. ;)

Jez

i have a bunch of colonies that became self-sustaining, but being overseas they only give me tariffs

tariffs are a low percentage of my overall income

even though i have enough ships for them, they're just plain low

in fact the thing i'm really having trouble with is income and tech

i'm barely keeping up with the other western nations on tech

kalina

14:27

oh bollocks

Jez

i'm just about keeping above orange, i'm kind of dark yellow

kalina

I just blew my cover by bursting out into laughter in the middle of the office

OrigamiRobot

cover for what?

kalina

watching Chuck all day

OrigamiRobot

Just say you remembered a funny joke you heard.

On Chuck

Minutes ago.

Martin Sojka

14:28

Problems with tech - as Italy? Nah, you should be fine. You'll just have to deal with the fact that as a big nation, you can't tech all that fast. Keeping a few weak OPMs around (and inside your borders) so you can get good neighbourship bonuses from them might help.

Jez

oh there are some crazy OPMs

like Olm is on tech level 21 on everything

i'm on about 18

Martin Sojka

Ulm

Jez

yeah

Martin Sojka

Glory for Ulm!

Jez

Ulm must be programmed to stay as 1 province - i think Bavaria DoW'd on them and Ulm occupied all their provinces, but they settled for some ducats to end the war or something

i'm doing quite nicely with trading - with my 30 infamy, my merchants don't stand a chance outside my CoTs. however I own Venice, Alicante, and Andalicua. and Lisbon disappeared :-)

Martin Sojka

14:32

With a big empire in general, it's a good idea to go fully mercantile and just trade in your own CoTs. Well, it was in HTTT, not sure how it looks in newer versions.

Jez

i had almost all of south Iberia, except for algarve. and i just got a 'border dispute' event that gave me a core on algarve. so now i'm at war with portugal and Britain - big enough navy to give Britain some serious trouble and I beat the crap out of them on land

so i'm gonna take algarve for 0 infamy

i have actually already done a bunch of colonization, but again as it's my first proper game, i didnt realize that you don't wanna take poor provinces

i've been strategically vassalizing the crappy areas, so i have tunisia and algiers as vassals

i made a 'wall' out of Mali between me and the other african tribes and vassalized them

north-west africa is mine apart from Morocco, which i need to vassalize at some stage

fredley

@kalina Chuck made you laugh?

Martin Sojka

@Jez It's ok, later in the game they still won't be good, but they won't be a drain on resources either.

kalina

yeah when Chuck was impersonating the assassin in season 3

Jez

but i think the higher priority is to form italy and get cores on all those northern Italian privnces

fredley

14:35

@kalina Sounds hilarious

kalina

caught me off guard

fredley

</sarcasticees>

Martin Sojka

Yep, forming Italy if you're close to it is a good idea.

Jez

no doubt some of those northern italian provinces are currently Austrian so i will get a CB on austria

fbueckert

@kalina Yeah, that part is funny.

He's so horrified about what he has to do to Casey.

kalina

14:36

I must have a Canadian sense of humour

3

Martin Sojka

Those darned inbred Habsburgs won't give up South Tyrol easily for sure.

Jez

@MartinSojka well at the moment they are a serious drain on tech. i didn't realize how important land tech level 18 is :-) i got whipped by a Normandy force 1/4 my size because they had muskets and i had spears

i had to research like crazy to get to land level 18, fortunately i'm there now

Ronan Forman

@kalina Or maybe fredley's broken.

Jez

but Austria actually DoW'd on me when i was at level 17 and they were at 18 because of a succession war. they had 130,000 troops with muskets coming for me. i was seriously lucky to get out of the war with a small peace offering

i was kinda waiting to be occupied like happened to Novgorod, sweden, etc.

fredley

@RonanForman You find Chuck funny?

Martin Sojka

14:38

@Jez It helps if you keep a bit of land (annexed or vassalised) you don't care about as potential "war concessions" around.

badp

Welp, that was fast

Jez

@MartinSojka yeah but the war has to be going for a while before they will accept ANY offer

OrigamiRobot

Did anyone say hi to @AnnaLear? You guys know we have to keep her appeased or we will meet the same fate as her human.

fbueckert

@kalina This is a good thing.

Chuck is funny.

Jez

i mean i was willing to concede defeat pretty much immediately :-)

fredley

14:39

@fbueckert Chuck is not funny

badp

original picture

Ronan Forman

@fredley Yeah. I was here earlier, I said so then too.

badp

fbueckert

@fredley You are dead to me.

badp

"half life 3 confirmed"

fredley

14:39

You all have a terrible sense of humour

OrigamiRobot

@fredley I know a guy named chuck and he is definitely not funny.

Anna Lear

@OrigamiRobot Takes more than that to appease me, but it's a good start.

badp

@AnnaLear I have some ham.

OrigamiRobot

@AnnaLear We're working on the shrine as fast as we can!

@kalina never wants to work.

Martin Sojka

@OrigamiRobot Wait, AnnaLear is an incarnation of Armok? I had no idea ...

OrigamiRobot

14:41

You should smite her and set an example.

Jez

hard to know what do with some poor colonial provinces though. i mean, you want your country to be big on the map, but if you actually own them they are a tech drag

sell them (give them usually) to a vassal and it just doesn't look as impressive on the map :-)

Martin Sojka

@Jez You'll probably want to keep the ones on the coast. Inland, just make sure no-one else can get to them, and you can take your time. Also milk the South and Central American nations for all their money as peace offerings (those don't increase your inflation!) before taking them out.

kalina

@OrigamiRobot what are you suggesting?

fredley

@badp 'shop

OrigamiRobot

5 mins ago, by OrigamiRobot

You should smite her and set an example.

Jez

14:47

@MartinSojka my inflation isnt an issue - it's at zero

fbueckert

Hah! Trendy Entertainment's CEO will no longer be overseeing game development.

Jez

i'm running a deficit to max out my tech research just to remotely keep up

i'm sure i'm doing something wrong with tech

starting to build manufactories now for tech investments but still it's really hard

from time to time i've started a colonial war with a distant tribe just so i could raise war taxes :-)

150% tax is pretty nice

Sconibulus

150%?

Jez

yeah war taxes give you an extra 50%

Sconibulus

That means you're better off not producing anything...

Jez

14:48

?

Sconibulus

Your citizens should all shut down their production

as anything they produce costs them much much more than they get from it

Jez

why

Martin Sojka

@Jez Some of them, especially the Incas (and I think the Mali in Africa) are filthy rich with nothing to spend their money on. Milk them.

Sconibulus

oh, wait, do you mean 150% of the normal tax rate, rather than a 150% tax rate?

Jez

@MartinSojka even so, you can still set your minting to zero (as i do) and you will STILL fall behind in tech

Sconibulus

14:50

Maybe I should shut up

Martin Sojka

@Sconibulus It's 150% of "normal taxation", not 150% of income.

Jez

there's only so much you can invest into tech

i guess you can do the "spend 200 to get 100 immediately" but the fundamental problem is that my tech costs are sky high

like 8000 to get from land tech 17 to 18

from memory

maybe it was 4000

something like that

Martin Sojka

@Jez Or you can mint a bit for the first 100-150 years, use the money to fund good research (and build markets and so on), then take the NIs to reduce inflation.

Jez

use the money to fund good research? how do you mean?

SaintWacko

What are you guys playing?

Morning, Bridge

Martin Sojka

14:52

The way you already do, fabrics and universities (though as Italy, you already have a nice set) and so on.

fbueckert

@SaintWacko Good morning.

Jez

@MartinSojka but even so, each one is like +5 a month. we're talking thousands of ducats for one tech level

fredley

@SaintWacko identify-this-game

Jez

feels like a drop in the ocean

SaintWacko

@fredley -.-

Jez

14:53

the main investment is me pumping 100/month in

and you're still talking several years for one tech level. no wonder i'm behind

just when i think i'm catching up as i got one or two techs, i check France or England or something and they've gotten ahead again

Martin Sojka

Later on, tech levels go by fast. You can afford being a level (or even three) behind the "tops", since the top ones are usually OPMs.

Jez

yeah, i'm not comparing myself with the OPMs

badp

@SaintWacko Europa Universalis ~~Half Life~~ 3

SaintWacko

@badp Ah, okay

Sconibulus

oh, I have that game

haven't played it yet

Jez

14:57

don't install patch 5.2

play with 5.1. 5.2 screws the game up

Sconibulus

do I have an option if it's through Steam?

I thought they did updates automagically

Jez

also i recommend setting random lucky nations. it makes it more fun as things are less predictable

I specifically avoided buying it through steam, i have the Chronicles CD

Sconibulus

I think I won it somehow?

Jez

maybe thru that forum giveaway

i don't like how they're wanting to make EUIV "more historically accurate" though

Martin Sojka

Yeah, the beauty of Paradox Interactive patches. You're better off not playing the latest one usually, unless it's for an old game. Also, some good mods don't work with the newest patch levels. On the other hand, you can easily maintain multiple installations with different patch levels, since it's all DRM-free and all you have to do is to copy the game's folder around.

Jez

14:59

for me, the fun is in how things differ from real history

EUIII is probably the last DRM-free offering from them. luckily it's good enough to last a lifetime

Sconibulus

I think it'd be cool if the Civ series had more Future Tech before you got to Future Tech

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