domain:freddiedeboer.substack.com
netstack
Texas is freedom land
2m ago
I was really tempted to play this after reading this logistics guide. It just seemed so crunchy! But when I read more about the metagame, I got the impression that it led to some weird strategy. I’d been hoping the model would result in something closer to the historical strategy.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
5m ago
So…did you play Hearts of Iron IV? Same engine as Stellaris, but much more focus on war and war production.
The smallest thing you’ll control will be air wings with dozens of planes. Troops are organized at the division, army, or theater level rather than as squads. That means strategic maneuvers like rolling over the entirety of Belgium to get at Paris. You’re also responsible for equipping them, which means asking questions like “can I afford to switch my production lines to this new tank design?” or “why the hell are there no rifles in all of France?”
It does a bunch of stuff that really sells the scale. The simulation isn’t nearly as sophisticated as War in the East or Shadow Empire, but in return you get something which just feels enormous.
freemcflurry
6m ago
The Battle Barista.
Bleep
7m ago
It's telling your standard for an alternative for this terrible bill, which you continue to essentially ignore any specifics of and vaguely handwave that it would reduce immigration or even if it doesn't under a hostile administration it would arm a friendly one to do more than is currently possible without making a specific argument for how it would ever do that, is that:
The only two things that would do “more” than this bill would be a meaningful end to most illegal inflows
it has to "meaningful end to most illegal inflows"? This bill doesn't do any of that. It doesn't get close to that. It doesn't remotely address birth-right citizenship or any of that. It's even easier to legally (even if we assume a hostile admin would follow the law which they have demonstrably not for over 3 decades) release migrants into the US interior and it provides billions in public dollars to help them do it in addition to providing billions to the web of NGOs which facilitate the migrant inflow straight to the US border. It provides money to finish the Border wall, something which Trump made meaningful progress with, but the bill allows border migrants to knock on the door of the wall and be let in the US legally and doesn't even require a hostile admin to build the wall anyway. The bill may as well be called "Pay Democrats to Import Foreigners Act of 2023."
this bill doesn't even sniff the standard you have set out for what Trump? or whoever must deliver for you to even consider it "a plan," and in doing so you're just revealing this is some isolated demand for rigor for Trump, who is like evil and the worst or whatever, or other plans for reasons we're just left to speculate about
as if the GOP for the last 50 years has been even equal let alone better in addressing this issue; the problem was Democrats figured out Republicans are absolute clowns, called their bluff when they realized the GOP isn't actually going to do anything, and so they illegally imported 15m people in <4 years and the GOP couldn't even muster the fortitude to stop funding it; immigration and a wall wouldn't have even been a serious topic of the 2016 election if Trump didn't make it that way
for those who want to reduce immigration, if this bill is "the plan," then they may as well just admit total defeat and slam the acceleration pedal to the floor because this bill is terrible
cjet79
15m ago
Game looks kinda interesting, but I doubt I'll make it over the steep learning curve.
Lewis2
17m ago
a substantial number or people on the right who believe that Biden is a Mao or Stalin
Does anyone on the right actually believe that? I only ever hear complaints that Biden is old, senile, and obviously being puppeted around by various other figures in his administration. In other words, he is personally weak and pathetic, something even their worst detractors can’t say about Stalin and Mao.
zeke5123a
19m ago
What about the fraud case? Or the Rico case?
And have you read some of the unredacted statements coming up in the Florida case? It suggests some degree of set up (and typical Trump stupidity)
cjet79
23m ago
I maybe should go back and play some old Total War games. The Warhammer ones have been leaving me unfulfilled. I don't think I like the magic spells that were added for battles, and the single units that are powerhouses.
I have no particular interest in WWII, but it does seem like the genre of games I'm interested in are all set in that time period.
WhiningCoil
24m ago
I may have to add that to my list.
I'm still slowly making my way through Crime & Punishment. I'm some way through Part II. I am enjoying it, but I just haven't felt a lot of motivation to read lately. Was on a huge gaming kick playing through Unicorn Overlord, which I highly recommend. But that's over, so I've been getting back to it a bit.
Sometimes my wife and I have conversations about the human condition, and I use that exact phrase a lot, the "human condition". I don't know when that specific phrase was coined, but it's a subject matter that's been at the core of nearly every enduring work. And Crime & Punishment is rich with it. Although the author has a funny habit of crafting each chapter as a pseudo monologue. Perhaps with a bit of brief narrative to move a character from point A to point B, and once there, we enjoy another 10 to 20 page monologue. Not that it bothers me. These monologues serve as interesting, if unsubtle, character studies. The one a few chapters in where Raskolnikov encounters an alcoholic that opines how he ruined his wife and daughter's lives for love of drink is fairly on the nose.
But it's supposed to be one of the greatest novels ever written, so if you are a Crime & Punishment stan, you can ignore my ignorant impressions of such a great and unimpeachable work.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
30m ago
dsfewr
31m ago
You seem to be describing the Total War series.
What about other Paradox games?
Wargames from Matrix/Slitherine might also scratch that itch. I would recommend Strategic Command or War Plan, if you're into WW2.
Hoffmeister25
American Bukelismo Enthusiast
35m ago
Yes, there’s a bit in Stephen Sondheim’s musical Assassins where people sing a patriotic campaign song calling him “Bill McKinley”.
I’ve tried to find out if during McKinley’s life, people actually did refer to him familiarly as “Bill”. The only concrete example I’ve found is that during the Battle of Antietam, McKinley drove a supply wagon carrying, among other things, coffee, and that this led to political opponents later in his career derisively referring to him as “Coffee Bill”.
cjet79
42m ago
I'm looking for a strategy game that is BIG. Stellaris kinda scratches the itch, but I've played the hell out of it too many times. I want the sense of massive armies movies, and not just fighting battles, but fighting wars.
There seems to be a glut of strategy games lately that are on a small scale with a few dozen people or a hundred or so people fighting. I'm not entirely opposed to a game like this, but they often just feel so tiny. I don't like having to care about individual units, but so many games seem to make that a selling point. They Are Billions is a "smaller" scale game that I still find enjoyable, because at least the scale of your enemies feels massive. I'd be happy playing that game again if there were maps that were five to ten times larger, as it currently is you are failing on the harder maps if you don't cover the entire thing with defenses by the end.
Recursive_Enlightenment
1hr ago
The real games the powers-that-be care about are foreign policy and the distribution of money. The Supreme Court mainly handles the cultural wars kayfabe stuff that keeps the masses entertained.
Bartender_Venator
1hr ago
It's a beautiful book. I recommend Joseph Roth, if you haven't read him, for similar treatment of that subject matter (from a slightly different class position, less elite than Zweig).
Recursive_Enlightenment
1hr ago
sliders1234
1hr ago
Is Tiberius Gracchus someone we are expected to know here as common knowledge? I’ve actually read Gibbons huge book and can’t place him a long time ago. I assume I am just expected to be smart enough to google and hit Wikipedia.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1hr ago
Right, and it’s possible he would have stalked Garfield even if the VP wasn’t from his preferred party. But he specifically said "I am a Stalwart, and want Arthur for President." So he definitely counts for this question.
HighResolutionSleep
1hr ago
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1hr ago
“Have you stopped beating your wife?”
I’d say the Stormy Daniels prosecution is probably unjust in that it wouldn’t be happening but for Trump’s political status. Low confidence.
The classified documents, on the other hand? Nothing I’ve seen suggests that Trump was innocent, or that a random citizen could get away with doing the same thing. While I was surprised that it escalated to a trial, I don’t think it’s unjust.
raakaa
1hr ago
For convenience’s sake, here’s a direct archive.is link: https://archive.is/wIt8h.
Amadan
"I would put a screwdriver through your eyeballs if I could"
1hr ago
If you don't like the commentary, yes, go do something else. And I did not read the OP as suggesting or advocating for assassination, which makes your pot-shot seem disingenuous and contrived.
Your constant low-effort sneers and pointless posts (and self-admitted drunkposting) are becoming very annoying, and if you don't stop, you're going to get banned.
DelendaEst
1hr ago
I don't think Trump will get assassinated. If I were ranking potential assassination risks my top would be that if Biden is elected and has a Senate majority (even 50/50 with VP as tie breaker) the value of killing a right leaning SCJ would be very high in certain eyes.
He’s a solid 300 years before anything discussed in detail by Gibbon.
More options
Context Copy link