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If olive oil and hair grease production count, I'm going to include Portugal, Spain and Italy too. Yes, I realize Greece produces actual crude oil.

So after 1000+ hours in this game and futilely trying to trigger Xoti/Maia romance by raising their relationship with one another across many, man runs... I finally made it happen. It is insanely unintuitive and difficult to pull off, and last I checked there is no explanation on the internet for how to do this. The steps are: 1. Get Maia and Xoti to mutually like each other (at least +1 relationship mutually) 2. Get Eder and Xoti to like each other 3. Xoti will initiate a conversation with you where she talks about romancing Eder. If you fulfill the first condition, you can now suggest that she romance Maia instead. Caution, this is hidden behind a dialogue option to suggest to Xoti to not romance Eder, and if you miss it, Xoti/Maia romance does not happen. One tricky part is to not get 3 to happen before 1 happens (and 3 happens quite quickly after you fulfill 2), and the other tricky part is to get 2 to happen at all. Basically Eder does not have a lot of lines tagged as jokes. I've found it absolutely necessary to bring Eder and Xoti on two occasions: 1. While speaking with Serafen before going to Fort Deadlight, propose a head on assault. Serafen will joke about it being suicide, and Eder will chip in with his own joke. 2. While visiting Fort Deadlight, have both Eder and Xoti in the party when talking with Syri the Siren with Serafen in tow. Comment that Serafen made his bed, and now has to lie in it, rather than lying on his behalf. Eder will chip in with another joke. AFAIK these are both mandatory for triggering step 2, otherwise it is near impossible to get Xoti to have +1 relationship with Eder. You then need to kick Eder out of the party ASAP (there are a few random conversations which will cause Xoti to hit the +1 threshold with Eder, and you don't want 3 triggering prematurely), go get Maia, and get Xoti and Maia to like each other. Careful where you bring Xoti, as she does not like Maia lying. Anyhow I've attached screenshots of the beginning of the romance and a conversation that seems to confirm it, as I've never seen it on any previous playthrough.

I hate to be that guy (that's a lie ) but there's only 1 Great Pyramid of Giza aka Pyramid of Khufu. The other 2 are the Pyramid of Khafre and the Pyramid of Menkaure.

That is very incomplete. It is missing Norway, Iran, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Brazil, almost the entirety of Africa.

On the potential for Putin using tac nukes, I am absolutely certain he will escalate to their use if pushed beyond his personal red lines. Putin views nukes as neither illogical nor immoral to use in the pursuit of his country's perceived interests. For him nukes are just another tool in his toolbox, no different than any other tool in his posession. And, the purpose for the existence of tools is to be used. That's why his warfighting doctrine explicitly lays out how Russia would ever use tac nukes. Furthermore, the use of Russian nukes on Eastern European countries, followed by hesitance on the part of the three nuclear weapons possessing NATO countries to retaliate in kind because they don't want Russian retribution on their territory, will shatter Western unity and the alliance. Definitely something the Russians would like to see, no? This is why I and some other scholars have advised that the West should find a way to give Putin an off-ramp from tit-for-tat escalation. This doesn't mean letting him off the hook for all the suffering he's needlessly unleashed upon Ukrainians. Russia must pay for that atrocity, perhaps through war reparations. But a reasonable accommodation of Russia is justified. My recommendation would be for the West to convince Zelenskiy to agree to forego NATO membership ever for Ukraine, perhaps through some constitutional mechanism similar to what exists with Finland. That way the West can still say the principle of not excluding any European country from pursuing NATO membership remains intact, but in reality Ukraine stays out of NATO. But in return Ukraine needs to get an explicit treaty from Russia guaranteeing its borders and territorial integrity and no future interference in Ukraine's internal affairs, a treaty that is also enjoined by the major Western powers and by the UN. And, Ukraine, like Finland, would be free to pursue other memberships, such as the EU, and also buy arms from whoever they want. This is what US diplomacy should be pursuing, but sadly Secretary Blinken just doesn't have the chops to go toe-to-toe with Lavrov, who is a master diplomat. Blinken is waaaay over his head in this crisis. If Biden were wise, this would be the perfect opportunity for him to prove his inaugural speech words wanting to have bipartisanship and call on the services of our own master diplomats, namely Republicans like James Baker or Condi Rice.

I think once oby got promoted to forums that actually matter, Comrade was assigned to us.

This war of mine from GOG. To support red cross of course. Also Slipways also from GOG, it should go for Red Cross, unfortunetly it last only till 3rd march

Multiplayer support for XCOM 2 is being disabled. I am certain somewhere someone cares.

I'm not, because when did they not play the blame game? "It's Ukraine's fault we invaded them because they were going to attack us so it was all self-defense!", "We are threatening to nuke the globe because some American official said mean things about us!" Like, of course this justifies everything you did, Russian warship, and port of Fornicate-Yourself is that a way.

I would do it differently. If you combine a reloading weapon like a firearm or a crossbow/arbalest with Gunner and Sure-Handed-Ila you'll have a shooter who is reloading VERY quickly. This can be extremely useful because the modals of crossbows/arbalests do interrupt - but they slow you down. With enough shooting speed like from gunner + SHI you can lock down a single enemy all by yourself nonetheless. The reason why this is so fast is that Sure-Handed Ila applies both the recovery bonus AND the reload bonus to reloading weapons, making it twice as good for them in comparison to normal recovery weapons like bows and wands etc. Also Driving Flights allows you lock down two enemies at once. I like Spearcaster for a crossbow build because first of all it comes so early - and secondly with max Arcana it has insane accuracy. The lashing enchantment is great as well. Add Myth Fir chant for more lashes (for your party, too) and even get very good DPS from your shots, not only CC and interrupts. SHI + Mith Fyr is also very, very nice for companions such as Maia as Scout with the Red Hand and such builds. In combination with Spearcaster I always pick Arcane Archer - because I want to max Arcana anyway. The acc bonus of Arcana for Spearcaster and the one for the imbue shots do stack, giving imbue shots extremely high accuracy because they will have a bonus of 2*Arcana that stack with alle other ACC bonuses (Marksman, Stalker's Link, Marker for the Hunt and whatnot). Even late in the game this combo is great because you can combine Imbue:Web and Imbue:Eora with the "Their Champion" invocation. Since you accuracy is so high and since you can dish out four AoEs of pulsing CC in seconds from stealth (driving flight procs the Web and Pull oE twice with each shot) you will interrupt in an AoE with the help of the energized inspiration all the time - while also disabling most enemy groups on the spot by simply immobilizing and pulling them together. Using Web and Eora and not Missiles and Fireball as imbue shots is not only the superior choice imo - it also makes PEN issues with the Arcane Archer non-relevant. On top you can have summons + animal companion = multiple additional bodies on the field which is always very impactful. In the beginning to the mid game summoning Wurms and boosting them with SureHI + Mith Fyr is incredible ranged dmg imo, especially if you focus the Wurms on one enemy and just blast them to pieces one by one. Because the Wurms scale badly you might want to retrain out of them in the later game though. So: Troubadour/Arcane Archer with maxed Arcana and Spearcaster is a top combo imo. Superb single target dmg and CC, superb AoE CC, lots of additional bodies and also nice support for the party.

The Wagner Group isn't officially part of the Russian military but it is very much an extension of the Russian government. They are a "private" contractor in name only. They were created by Putin and directly work for Putin as an instrument he can wield in foreign countries, doing dirty and often illegal work such as assassinations, while giving Putin deniability as to his/Russia's involvement. The US, French and other governments correctly consider them to be a Russian government group rather than a private entity.

Lmao, their faces are making a vicious mockery of the scene just by themselves. I like to use the "thanks" emoticon sarcastically on a rare occasion - guess this is kind of what I'm envisioning when I do so, . JoJo: Yeah, it doesn't take much...and as I and majestic have said, Sailor Moon in the 90s shockingly still does it better than the vast majority of current Western crap, and Sailor Moon doesn't even do it that well - the standard is just so abysmally low that it looks pretty good in comparison to what we've seen elsewhere, particularly with respect to when it was released. Present them in a variety of ways with different kinds of personalities and traits and appearances (and not just the same annoying tropey garbage over and over) just like you would any other character. Professional, outrageous, selfless, narcissistic, quiet, over-expressive, loving, cold, comedic, serious, flamboyant, understated, rational, impulsive...do anything and everything as is appropriate to make interesting, fun, and varied characters. Not all behaviorisms or personality traits show up in every situation, either - Pearl is super omega mondo gay, but you definitely do not know that right off the bat because Steven Universe wasn't written by a bunch of hack frauds trying to show how woke they are; and she has plenty of both traditionally motherly as well as warrior-like traits, and those manifest themselves very differently depending upon the occasion. Normalize and treat them like real characters, and more people will like instead of being annoyed by them. Excerpt from the article: If actual non-binary folks dislike the shameful displays in Western media e.g. as above, I think they really need to start being very vocal about it if they want it to change, because right now, the most vocal voices against it are people that despise the non-binary, and that sucks. Problem is, it seems like a lot of pro-tolerance Western folks love this kind of pathetic virtue signalling, no matter how badly it comes across to anyone with a lick of sense or taste.

There's Nazis in every virtually every military. Or fascists, (ethno)nationalists, and other assorted reactionaries if you insist on reading Nazi as specific to Germany or wanna quibble on it. They go into the military for training and access to weapons, it's pretty damn scary when you think about it, and no country wants to do a damn thing about it. The existence of the Azov Battalion does not exuse the Russian invasion, denazification of Ukraine is as absurd as decommunization of Ukraine as a justification for the invasion.

You got a thumbs up emoji because there's no middle finger reaction. Real talk, no memes. NuTrek ****ing sucks. The writers seemingly have no idea how people who ain't straight cis white dudes talks and it painfully shows. I mean come on, if yalls diversity ain't going to penetrate behind the camera the least you could do is 10 minutes of research to write a character who doesn't feel fake. This is only a small step above the live action Najimi in Komi. I feel sorry for the actors subjected to this. I need a thousand David Lynch saying what the hell clips combined with ten thousand DIO screaming WRRRRYYYYYYYYYYYYY! clips to illustrate my contempt. Anyways, here's something about anime: http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/jojos-bizarre-adventure-and-nonbinary-joy/ Tl:dr: JoJo does better than western media on queer representation because it's colorful and fun instead of dumb **** like the NuTrek clip. Now I will retreat back into my fantasy of NuTrek being a ficiton.

I have one great example that doesn't feel phoney or ham fisted or forced at all, don't worry, it's time coded to link directly to the good parts. I like to call this one "Two gays talk about a non-binary person", and it's wonderful: The actors almost bursting out in laugther at the dialogue they're having to say really helps selling the point. *snort*

I like me some social commentary, but ham-fisted is too rough.

I used US presidents as an example because it's easy to find both their heights and horrible things they did. Perhaps as someone an inch below average height at average height it's a sore spot for me. Regardless, limiting what power such folks would have is a net benefit because it seems the ****iest people find themselves in such positions regularly.

it's a rough comparison. the discount is mostly useful for tier 1 and 2 offensive chants, which merely puts it on par (in terms of time) with a troubadour during brisk recitation. sure, the troubadour in this situation loses linger, but there are a whole host of other possible benefits from rapidly going through chants that it's not really a trade-off. that means the skald can only really come out well in the comparison if you are also getting some bonus phrases from melee crits, which a bow-user would not get. chanter/ranger would be fine. i'm guessing you'd want to stay in range of your pet, so that your pet also gets chants, at which point it seems like a stalker is a natural ranger subclass, which will give your pet important survivability boosts when you're at 4m or closer. you lose a bit of the benefit of the bow, but you're still avoiding melee combat, and protective companion on your companion will help keep enemies at bay. come come soft winds of death (or the dragon thrashed) chants function like DoTs, which will activate Predator's Sense for your pet, for a little bit of extra damage. like @dgray62says, if you actually want to use your bow, you'd probably stay away from priest since eventually you'll spend a lot of time just casting buffs and debuffs. with chanter/ranger you still have some buffs and debuffs but you can also invest in making your auto attack very good.

Whiffs of whataboutism are a bit in odds with your usual analytical approach, Zooraptor. Also, I think the situation when countries care much more about what happens right next to their border than what's going on across a continent and a half can be explained in different terms than "racism", which nowadays gets applied so broadly it starts to approach generic and therefore weightless Internet insult territory.

The fact that (at least in America) the discussion of salary has been discouraged also leads to things like pay gaps based on race and gender. You don't know you're being paid 20% less than your coworker, unless you talk to that co-worker about how much everyone is getting paid. Lotta stuff has changed since I've been on this. Still in Minnesota, Single again (that was.... an unpleasant relationship) And trying to be more social.

I'd be very concerned about what any company that forbade conversations about salaries between non-managerial employees might be wanting to hide. Its one thing to forbid a manager from telling their direct reports what each of them make and another to forbid colleagues from discussing their own salaries with each other.

I'm loving it, thanks!

For sure. The Billy Idol impersonator is equal parts bad and perfect.

I don't think this will end until he gets guaranties that no NATO military will be present in Ukraine.

Hades. It's a lot of fun and I love the aesthetic. I think this is going to replace Grim Dawn as my go to hack n slash for when I'm in the mood for that sort of thing.

Energy chaos, developing. https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/chaos-erupts-energy-markets-european-gas-jumps-60 Meanwhile, Bidens admin growing to reality of having forego environmental rhetoric? https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/white-house-quietly-calls-us-oil-companies-increase-production https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/oil-surges-super-backwardation-after-opec-sticks-production-plan-shuns-bidens-demands

My communist upbringing is intrigued by this. True rpg level-scaling and thus equality can only be achieved by the complete abolition of levels. NPCs, monsters and critters of the gaming world unite and cease the means of your oppression: the over-leveledness of the player character.

Let me guess, you don't want to criticize him for lying through his teeth about... well just about everything he says? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/14/deceit-boris-johnson-liar-prime-minister-joke-mendacity "he prime minister’s unhappy relationship with the truth is longstanding and embedded in his character. Veracity is trumped by ego. Most of his recent catalogue of woes – Brexit promises, dodgy peerages, sleazy colleagues, flat decorations, lockdown parties – could have been soothed had Johnson simply come clean early on, appeared frank and apologised. He seems psychologically unable to disentangle falsity from half-truth. A life spent in bland denials and upmarket jokes has lent him a high-risk belief in his invulnerability. From each laughable lie he could, in one bound, leap free." No, he's still not as bad as our own beloved, glorious and inspirational leader here down under, but he also had a professional career in playing loose and fast with the truth, before he turned politician. It's not for nothing he's known as "Scott from Marketing"

It would be strange if they changed that now. "Due to the way COVID restrictions affected development, Elex 2 has level scaling" would be a funny announcement though.

Make Eder a Swashbuckler at least. Such a wasted opportunity with vanilla fighter...

I am glad you posted this because I agree with almost everything they say and the reality of Russias technical default is guaranteed. I must apologize and take back what I said when I suggested " zerohedge cant be trusted " because these articles confirm they can with certain views and predictions Tyler makes I would disagree that the oil price is definitely going to get to $150-$200 but its possible but we cant say its certain I hope you accept my apology and I hope we still getting married when I come to Poland for a visit

A couple interesting economic related links, if you can read without a bias. https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/oil-hits-110-biden-begins-sotu-address-goldman-says-emergency-oil-release-wont-do-jack https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/game-over-russia-be-technical-default-within-hours https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/big-oil-turning-its-back-russia

https://www.bloombergquint.com/markets/russia-bonds-now-junk-set-to-reel-from-central-bank-sanctions And this financial article says the war chest is $1 Trillion and $300 billion is stored in foreign exchanges So we dont know for certain its true size and how much is in $ But we do know for sure the Russian economy is crashing and the $ sanctions on the Russian central bank means it cant trade in $ which has additional unprecedented and deep long term consequence. To quote from the link He estimated that about $300 billion is held in foreign-exchange swaps and deposits in foreign banks, and could be potentially trapped by sanctions. That may further restrict the country’s ability to access funds. Sanctioning central bank reserves can turn a surplus agent into a deficit agent overnight,” Pozsar wrote in a separate note Sunday. “The Bank of Russia has neither Treasuries to repo with the new FIMA repo facility, nor dollar swap lines with the Fed, and if its assets are frozen, it can’t raise dollars to provide for its domestic banks.”

I expect RPGs to have long playtime. Otherwise dialogues and choices would be greatly diminished. It would boil down to movie sliced by combat sequences.

That party sounds like a lot of fun. I'm currently trying a mage slayer/troubadour howler as Constentin Lévine suggested. I think I am going to run two chants, most likely Soft Winds (for healing, interrupts and some damage) as well as Thick Grew Their Tongues (to facilitate the interrupts). I'll have two other chanters in my party to sing other chants like Long Night's Drink, etc. Also, I'm going to use the Hylea background to get Hylea's Bounty. It's too bad that you can't drink potions as a MS, and I'll miss access to Luminous Adra Potion, but Hylea's Bounty will help make up the gap in skill points.

Got promoted to Dollar Tree DevOps. Basically I do shoddy work of people earning 50% more than me

this looks interesting to me: https://www.farthestfrontier.com/ I will keep an eye on this one

I think you guys are over-analyzing DA:O and being unfair....but your criticism is funny Remember end of the day its a fantasy game where you fight dragons and cast spells. We must be careful not to assume it must too believable because its not suppose to be

"Bonus"? What is this "Bonus" that you speak of...?

I usually share their viewpoint. Proud Patreon supporter too

I hope E3 2022 is when we finally see gameplay. After playing Pillars of Eternity this became my most anticipated game from XGS. Can't wait to play Obsidian's next masterpiece.

Mass Effect 1 had the strongest main villain and the most stat, skill, and equipment finagling, but the shooter mechanics were super garbage and the classes all felt really similar. 2 had much of the stat and equipment finagling stripped out but ironically allowed for much more variety in playstyle because the classes actually felt distinct. Also, the shooter mechanics were improved from super garbage to acceptable. Also also, while the game lacked a strong main villain, the overall story about assembling a rag tag group of misfits to save the galaxy was duper duper fun. 3 was a mostly joyless slog and it had Kai Leng, so it can **** off. The astonishing stupidity of the Strachild multicolored explosion endings was simplty the flies circling the pile of $#!+. Andromeda... We don't talk about Andromeda. Beyond the memes, what is there to talk about? P.S. I like Kevin Sorbo.