Posts from High self-esteem. Auto-translated

Elf in Sneakers (first page here)

Author: Naya

Issues to date: 113

Status: updating (rarely)

A plotless comic about everyday situations constantly encountered by a guest from another world. Or just random people inhabiting our strange Universe... Well, it's quite amusing. People have long complained that this comic is entirely plotless, so the author suddenly decided to add a plot, but she has only just started and isn't doing it very quickly yet. The comic updates rather irregularly in general. Still, the pleasant art and good humor make every page... what word should I use? Yes, long-awaited ) Anyway, give it a read.

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The next one is without images: the author asked not to rip them. Since I don't know why—maybe it's about search engine indexing or something else, and I don't want to message the author over such a minor matter—then you'll do without I'll do without.


Gifts of Wandering Ice (first page here)

Author: Makarova O.

Issues to date: 222

Status: updating (regularly, with average frequency)

Here it's the opposite—a comic entirely centered around a plot, a rather curious post-apocalypse. Many good ideas from my point of view, and the story itself is essentially only just beginning after more than 200 issues... It seems quite promising and is already captivating. The art is pencil (well, rather digital versions as alternatives to pencil and other shades of gray ;) ). On one hand, it's probably an acquired taste, but I like the visuals very much; they look decent and quite lively.

I visited the Geek Picnic festival. I have an extremely vague memory of what I was doing all that time, but I'm not going to turn down a gold brick.
No, seriously. The crowd, in principle, is quite fun, but under other circumstances, I wouldn't even glance in the direction of this kind of fun. But like this, in a small company, it's decent. Oh, and they played music for us there using large Tesla transformers.

Another plus, which is why I went—was Jamie Hyneman. Briefly about the interview with him:
(Question asked): Jamie, you worked on the "MythBusters" show for 14 years, that's a long time. What drove you, why did you do it? What were you striving for and what was the source of your inspiration? (blah-blah-blah)
(Jamie, answering in Russian): Money!
Anyway yes, it was a good interview.

Caution, traffic!

Well, basically, just a small report, since I've kept the HoMM players in the loop about my wars.
I start playing as the "Commonwealth". A military dictatorship, xenophobic militarists—in short, it's fun. First and second contact happened quite quickly. Then several empires opened up far to the (?) South of the Galaxy. And then—the Klaggians appeared. The very ones I created a poll about. For a long time they were right under my nose, but remained "invisible," marked as an "unknown empire."
The Klaggians were in the Southeast, while the West and South were practically clear—an excellent field for peaceful expansion. Initial expansion was so successful that I began to doubt the choice of government form, and militarism seemed unnecessary... Not to mention xenophobia; I still don't understand what the profits are from it. The form of government turned out to be meaningful, but never really manifested itself much. However, militarism came in very handy. But that's all for later, way later; for now, it looked something like this: After a relatively short time—it evolved into Meanwhile—a very interesting planet. Huge size, huge gravity, and titanic life forms to boot. I fought the Klaggians well, though I've already mentioned that. They turned out to be quite compliant; I easily solved a few separatism problems by granting them a sector.
The remaining planet was "liberated" by my insect allies (the Ibrakis). It would have been better if they had just captured it, because there will be more problems with it later. It was loyal at first... Expansion continues. According to tradition, I try to name planets and systems in a way that sounds similar to the auto-names (this doesn't apply to occupied planets). So sometimes various appear. And this one really amused me: Various space whales roam the galaxy. Out of scientific interest, I decided to attack one of the specimens. Oh, it had regenerating hull and all those perks... As it turned out later, these bastards had mastered some fantastic intergalactic means of communication, and the fallen squad of whales successfully notified all their brethren that I needed to be punished. No, usually their strength 98 doesn't cause problems... if you move a fleet there. But it was annoying, especially at first when I had few ships. And the whales spawned with enviable regularity, and their wrath fell upon my wormhole stations and mining stations that were unlucky enough to be close to gas giants... But I learned regenerating hull.
Meanwhile, I got carried away and started studying every special project in sight. Heh, I've already encountered this particular specimen on the same internet. Eh, why didn't I remember it in time and spent a bunch of time on it (like a whole year)? Now it was the Foffosans' turn. These birds in the Northwest had been annoying me for a long time, regularly hurling insults and such. As usual, due to a strange limitation called "military score," I failed to completely destroy their empire. In the end, a funny situation even arose where both my planet and theirs are in one system simultaneously. It's just like... GDR and FRG! Only without the Berlin Wall... Races that haven't reached space are a treat. It turned out that scientifically developing various medievalists and renaissancists is quite expensive and indecently long, so I steal cows from them; the profit in sociological research is huge. But more developed ones, I assimilate. It's funny when humans infiltrate the government of reptilians and eventually seize their planet... Meanwhile, Arcondia turned out to be a very The feathered ones in this game are surprisingly arrogant and vile. All the better when Another funny planet: titans + giant pre-sentient cockroaches. As an experiment, I settled it; turned out to be a mistake. There's too little territory, and as for these guys, I still didn't figure out how to make them sentient... even though after some time I learned the technology to boost pre-sentient intelligence. I should have boosted my own intelligence... Meanwhile, Foffosan separatists are causing problems. Even at zero support level, for some reason they manage to carry out sabotage. Good thing it's not me fixing it, but the sector governor. Decided to fight the guys in the Northwest. Got a bit bogged down and then realized everything was bad... No, there are no problems with them, their alliance is mediocre. But my reputation took a hit, and eventually those vile birds in an alliance with someone else in the South declare war. So, here's the layout:
- my armies are stuck far to the Northeast
- in their alliance are the leftover Foffosans (not a problem), leftover Klaggians whom I missed at some point and who joined another alliance (also not really a problem), plus two other large empires
- those remaining two empires are brutal. Initially, they have larger fleets (fleet capacity and technologies are equal), each of them. Meaning I scrape together... say 3k strength. Maybe 4k. They have 5500 strength each from two countries. Cute.
- my insect-mice allies won't provide more than 1k reinforcements
- military score... How did they manage to grab so many of my planets? Why can't I do that? Brutal. Alright, I was already prepared for them to punish me quite harshly. So, this whole armada arrived and rushed... I never found out. They just took off and flew through my systems somewhere to the North, ignoring buildings, planets, and fleets in their path, even though they could have easily crushed absolutely anything.
In the end, I successfully sent my much smaller fleets South to them and started bombing a bunch of planets, messed with the infrastructure, and had a blast. Their corvettes with hyperdrives took quite a while to return back to their home systems to kick out the invaders. But when they returned... it turned out that my little corvettes hanging in orbit around their planets could never be caught by them with their cruisers. They tried to drive away one of my little corvettes... drove it away... and then I immediately brought it back. In the end, I won without ever entering a normal battle, with a much smaller fleet, simply through audacity. I felt like I was on the edge the whole time, made a bunch of saves (hoping that if anything happened, I could just settle for peace without conditions). But in the end, the saves weren't needed, so I even took some planets (though only Klaggian and Foffosan ones). Alright, fine. My empire is huge, a third of the galaxy. I alternate between peaceful and military expansion, everything's cool. Built up the army so that no more birds from the South bother me. Pushing my colonization ships into every crack. And here's the joke—Paradox released a patch.
The AI changed immediately. There were a bunch of alliances—suddenly they all fell apart. In place of some, mutual defense pacts formed, though...
The insect-mice abandoned me; relations plummeted. Those bastards, I'm planning an occupation as soon as the time after leaving the alliance allows.
And... a knife in the back. Now colonizing a planet requires influence! Moreover, 30 even on my own territory, and hundreds of units in neutral ones. And I've already multiplied my ships... Vile.
There's always something to spend influence on. A bunch of separatists that need suppressing. Building outposts. Building planetary administrations. To do this in a sector, you have to spend extra influence on temporarily disbanding the sector. Leaders die. I wanted to change the government to something more adequate... In the end, everything is bad; thanks, Paradox, another influence-eating rule, while there's no normal way to mine said influence. Not sure if I'll continue the game.

Something like that. Overall it was quite fun and interesting. Although toward the end I started getting confused—too much is required of the player if the empire is large. Good thing there are sectors, at least. But overall a positive impression, both of the game in general and of this particular run. Something like that.

Military dictatorship, militaristic xenophobes

Humans

It's just like in my comic.

Menty, is this a single-player game? I'm kind of in the mood to play it.

You can play alone.

Well, that’s exactly what I was doing. It probably wasn’t that easy with real players, though, haha.

It's more fun to play with real players, as my friends told me. They even role-played as their respective factions. Unfortunately, I couldn't participate due to computer issues.

Awesome. I'll keep that in mind for when I get tired of playing Skyrim.

Military dictatorship, militaristic xenophobes

Humans

It's just like in my comic.
You could have played as the UN, which are xenophile democrats, but Mentu enjoys committing genocide and massacres, I suppose.

To be honest, yes... I can't imagine what I would do if I were a pacifist. Would I form federations around myself? Well, maybe that's also a valid way to win, but I'm not sure...
Although, in the end, I came to the conclusion that these qualities don't really suit my play style. I think I've already said something about this, but here's a more detailed explanation:
1. Xenophobia. It's not suitable because migration is generally a useful thing. In a multi-racial empire, minorities inevitably migrate (although you can create a law that prohibits this, but what are the benefits?). Population diversity is quite useful. And here – xenophobia. That is, happiness suffers from this. That's not cool.
Only representatives of your race hold leading positions. Also not cool, because some other races may have useful bonuses. Well, hypothetically, I haven't tested how this works in practice.
2. Militarism. Well, happiness from war is fine with me. At first, it seemed useless, but then, when the number of free star systems became limited... In general, expansion at the expense of neighbors is becoming an increasingly reasonable option; soon it may become the only possible one.
3. Military dictatorship. Increasing the maximum fleet size? Heh, I never accumulated more than 3/4 of the maximum number of ships. In the end, it's even too expensive to maintain. Most often, my fleet is ~= half of the possible capacity. Changing the leader only upon the death of the old one? Well, I don't even know... Let's just say, I would try a different structure; there were more interesting bonuses there. A corporatocracy with increased resource income looks pretty good. Democracy also seems good (although frequent changes of leader can become another not-so-convenient extreme compared to lifelong rule).
4. The "nomadic" trait. I don't know, for some reason it seems to me that if my humans migrated from planet to planet a little slower, I wouldn't lose anything.
In the end, if I were starting from scratch, I would choose corporatocrats, xenophiles, and militarists. Perhaps also skilled sociologists. Sociology has proven to be a rather useful science, especially at the beginning of the game. Although, maybe it's better to take engineers, as engineering starts to become quite important somewhere in the middle, which is where I am now. Physics, strangely enough, has not shown itself to be very effective, except for improving wormhole and shield technology; I wouldn't say it has brought me anything particularly useful.

Sociology is learned very quickly. Engineering is a bit slower, but there's less benefit to it. Physics, on the other hand, provides both shields, research speed, and good weapons. As for racial bonuses, I would recommend choosing those that give bonuses to leaders. The others have very little impact. +10% research? That's just one extra research lab on the planet. As a penalty, you can safely take slow migration. Among the ethics, I advise choosing materialists, due to their useful unique technology and the fact that they don't have mood penalties from equal rights with synthetics. Synthetics are far superior to any organic species, except for specifically modified, non-sentient species designed for a specific role. However, the latter will only perform well in one task, while synthetics can handle everything. Furthermore, this unlocks the Directorate for the game, providing greater flexibility in choosing technologies for research.

good weapon

All sorts of lasers and plasma guns... Rockets are better in every way, in my opinion. Besides, in engineering, there are various technologies with crystal organics, something like that. All of this is expensive, but it looks promising.

no mood penalties from equal rights with synthetics

Hmm, yes... I didn't get to the synthetics, so I didn't know about this feature.
Thanks for the advice, Ples.

Rockets are generally the worst weapon option, in my opinion. Lasers won't shoot you down in flight. And there are options against shields. Crystal technologies are easily unlocked by studying the remains of neutral monsters. Engineering has some useful technologies, but not all of them, as half of the branch consists of useless stations and not the best weapons. But physics and sociology are different. Well, at least that's how it was before the patch.

Crystal technologies are easily unlocked by studying the remains of neutral monsters.

If there are enough of them. Otherwise, it will remain at 10-20%...

Lasers won't shoot you down in flight.

I don't quite understand what you're talking about...
Lasers don't have a 100% chance of hitting (unlike torpedoes), they have useless armor penetration (although plasma guns seem to penetrate shields, like rockets, but still), and their damage is lower. The only advantage is that the projectile hits the enemy immediately, and the reload seems to be faster. But I don't know, it doesn't really matter to me.

The point is that the only must-have weapon technology in engineering is turrets for destroying rockets, torpedoes, and fighters. And lasers can't be shot down with such turrets. Besides, you're looking at lasers, not energy spears.