Rostere

I don't know if it's a bug or a feature, but the Prestige earned from winning civil wars when you already have a lot of territory (where the opposing side has a claim on your title) covers that loss of Prestige very easily.

I think Obsidian must have felt some pressure to portray D&D stereotypes as the stereotypes they use to be. If they felt they had completely free reins, I'm entirely convinced they would have made the companions more nuanced.

Haha, typical Obsidian. The parts crucial to understanding characters are cut from the game.

Grabbing titles is far too easy in CK1. I've also found that mechanics for handing out Prestige after peace deals are completely broken. With the exception of Intrigue, CK2 might not be much more complex than CK1, but they've certainly fixed a lot of issues. Maintaining a large empire in CK1 was trivial, it just took a lot of time to bribe all your vassals once a new king was on the throne. Republics in CK2 are very different from kingdoms/duchies/counties. You can afford anything that can be bought directly, but your holdings typically have negligible static defenses.

I just think that the possibilities of digitally reselling and digitally lending games are very interesting. Especially if the developers sets the constraints for digital lending. There were some really awful stuff about XBox One but I get the feeling the people complaining are the same ones who raged to no end over Steam some 10 years ago.

Egypt has historically been a leader in the pan-Arab movement, but you really need a reality check regarding the power of the different countries in the ME. Turkey is rougly equal to 2-3 Egypts by any measure. Saudi Arabia comes closer to Turkey, but I think that country is regarded as too undemocratic in the ME as well. You can't appoint a leader among nations who lacks the authority through power needed to rule. Let me remind you that this current movement of "Islamism" might prove to be a sideshow in the long perspective. Only 30 years ago it was a pretty irrelevant ideology, globally speaking. In 1967 pan-Arab nationalism was at it's peak, but that movement is all but gone now. You're right about Turkey's NATO membership. In my opinion, it does not only entail military support, but also political constraints. The Muslim Brotherhood is obviously not about to have nuclear weapons itself, but if you're talking about the government of Egypt they're far better than Saudi Arabia or Iran. The voice of the Islamist parties is not the voice of some militant modern Middle East, it is the voice of the traditional and conservative countryside. Among urban youth, liberal parties have much higher support. You've got to reflect over the fact that democracy is a new thing in many of these countries, and the are not at all as modern as ours. I also don't understand what you mean by "returning" Islamist parties to power. In 1960, there was institutionalized racial segregation in the US. That's definitely not pluralist but it does not mean you should consider the entire country irredeemable. Democracy is not a "default state of affairs", but historical economical and political developments lead to democracy. Democracy is simply an inherently very stable form of government. I am also not convinced Iran is seeking nuclear arms. To problem is that they are building the entire enrichment chain needed for both nuclear power plants, experimental and medical purposes. With that, they could build nuclear weapons very fast even if their original intent was not to do so. To put things into perspective, far from all countries who have nuclear power have the entire refinement industry whithin their own borders, only the most powerful countries have that arrangement. So the core issue is really how to give Iran peaceful nuclear power without having them build an industry which can also create the material needed for weapons, as correctly identified by Turkey and Brazil in 2010.

Yes apparently. Every day. All day. There are several internet sites dedicated only to that. And reading it you will either cry of laughter or cry out of dispar for the future of mankind. Hehe, look at the "power grid" on the right side: http://marvel.com/universe/Captain_America_(Steve_Rogers) Well apparently some people take comic book universes seriously enough to try to classify such things :S

Don't talk **** about Hodor, man.

Hm. I think I might have been slightly interested in those kinds of discussions when I was around six years old. Are you seriously telling me adult men are sitting on comic book forums and debating about this?

I've seen the name, but I don't know him in person.

You underline the issues with the current status quo. Africa/Middle East lack their own nuclear armed state to protect the interests of the region. Therefore, since the area is in effect outside the "sphere of interest" of any of the world powers, in the absence of a stronger UN it becomes a lawless playing ground for said world powers and strong local powers. Iran is a bad choice of country to have nuclear arms for several reasons, firstly it's a theocracy (and I think we all agree the world tends towards democracy, meaning Iran will eventually go through a revolution), with the exception of Iraq they have no reliable long-term allies (Syria is ruled by a sympathetic minority and Lebanon is a shakeup) - giving nuclear arms to Iran would indeed be very short-sighted. Since they are only a minor regional power, all of Iran's enemies would suddenly need nuclear arms as well. Turkey and Saudi Arabia especially, because they are the ones who stand to lose. And to no surprise, these countries are also opponents to Iran having nuclear weapons, while Turkey supports a peaceful nuclear Iranian technology, perfectly in line with their aspirations to be a just major power in the region. Instability is caused by upsetting the balance of power, stability is made by maintaining it. Any change to the status quo is preferrably cleared through diplomatical agreement - that is, through the UN. By giving nuclear arms to a weaker nation (in any region), you are potentially upsetting the balance in that region. Turkey is by far a more viable candidate for nuclear armament than Iran when it comes to that part of the world. Iran is indeed a "have-not" when compared to the US, but you are forgetting the crucial part of all the other countries in that neighbourhood. Already, Israel has nuclear arms, which is a catastrophe with regards to geopolitical considerations. Giving Iran nukes as well would only serve to increase the tension. Two wrongs do not make a right. Turkey is today the natural leader of the region and catalyst for solving that conflict, the further you arm smaller countries, the further you risk anarchy and chaos. It is hypocritical to not allow Iran to have peaceful nuclear technology, but it's not hypocritical to disallow them to have nukes. It's not hypocritical to disallow me to have nukes, it's not hypocritical to disallow the Tea Party to have nukes, and it's not hypocritical to disallow the Newtownabbey Borough Council or whatever to have nukes. The UN is clear on the matter: it does not want Iran to have nuclear weapons. It is not the inherent "right" of any nation to have nuclear arms, and the democratic procedure of handling those questions is best left to the global community in the form of the UN. The interesting question here is really why this diplomatic effort (if anyone can remember...) was prevented by the US. Essentially, it would mean Iran could trade all the enriched fuels needed for peaceful purposes with Brazil and Turkey, in exchange for handing over their own materials and dismantling their own enrichment facilities.

In the case of the Darcozzi Paladini, that would never make sense in any of the source romance languages because it's exhibiting characteristics of a cased language. Vailian, unlike Italian, French, or Occitan, is cased. If we used prepositions and articles to represent those relationships (especially to the extent that Italian does), it actually comes across as too Earth-like, IMO. Consuagli asegia seems "Romance-y", but consiglio dell'assedio looks unmistakably Italian. So did it occur to you to change these propositions and articles to fictional ones?

I'm honestly more interested in SP than I was in DS3, regarding the future. As for the past 10 years, I'm convinced Obsidian is the most able game developer in the world. I'm just anxious to see them do more stuff like NWN2 and KotOR2, and less stuff like AP and DS3. Unlike DS3, which was not entirely wasted time but without any real redeeming aspects AP had a great way of handling the narrative, so I really prefer AP out of those two.

The key here is leaving a a large enough part of the "metaphysics" unexplained in the game world so that there can be actual disagreement on it. In fantasy games, usually metaphysics is overly explained and reduced to a mundane level and the room for actual metaphysical discussion becomes zero. I would like religious beliefs to be thoroughly motivated (WHY do people believe certain things), and for more concrete specific practices to be either clearly based on shamanic tradition (for analphabetic religions), or motivated by religious scriptures whose content is roughly outlined. In the FR universe, lots of superficial stuff about religions are explained, but the concrete basis for it (which is the element which increases believability) is left entirely missing. We are are left with the questions: WHY does a god want their followers to perform rituals in a specific way and on specific dates, WHAT is the motivation behind gods wanting more followers (supposedly this increases their "power"... But over what exactly?), WHY the hell do gods have "favoured weapons" and how is that important, WHY does the organization of the clergy look the way it does? These are immensely important questions, yet the inhabitants of the FR barely seem to reflect over them. It's OK if any of these questions are left unexplained, but at least then you would see people discussing and arguing about them. The early Christian church had very diverse views on matters most Christians today would consider entirely philosophical and unneccessary to discuss, se for example Gnosticism, Arianism and Nestorianism - and of course also the schism between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity. These kinds of heresies and a diversity within any given faith seems notoriously absent from most fantasy worlds. There isn't a persecuted heretic as far as the eye can read. I think the various differences within Islam also confirms this fundamentally "heterogenuous" view of religions (Especially religions with a central organization - persecuted Hindi heretics are harder to find). Later on, the heresies focused less on technical aspects of Christ's divinity and more on social issues and the organization of the church itself. Waldensians and Cathars in the 12th century, Hussites in the early 15th century, those known as the Lollards, and radical elements originally of the Franciscan order who are known by many names. Ultimately this dissent erupted with the Protestant Reformation in the early 16th century, which broke the power of the Pope and the centralized church organization. Since this is more closer to the level of civilization PE wants to depict, it would be interesting to see similar movements within the game, supposing there is a strong organized religion revolt against to begin with.

You asked for my opinion. In my opinion, a global balance of power through nuclear deterrence creates stability. Thus, first, the strongest state has nuclear arms (by definition...). Secondly, in order to maintain the balance, we must give nuclear arms to any other single nation which could through it's own military might initiate a world war. Today, these nations with "legitimate" nuclear weapons include Russia, China, the US and the EU, not surprisingly all NPT signatory countries. Other countries like India, Japan and Brazil are runners-up to this status (in my opinion). Through this distribution of arms, the world is guaranteed no world war will occur. So why don't I think it's a good idea to extend this to including every country? Theoretically, this would deter every war if you extend the above argument. It's simple. First, you want to give nuclear arms to as few countries as possible because of the risk of an unwanted catastrophe. This argment is entirely based on probability. Second, this choice becomes a question of the military might of a single nation versus that of the UN. Liechtenstein, Slovakia or Iran does not need nuclear weapons because if these countries were to aggressively invade another country, the UN could intervene and handle that conflict sufficiently well. What if China or Russia would invade a neighbouring country, then the intervention required would be of such massive scale it would eventually drag the entire world with it in the conflict, and the eventual retribution would upset the geopolitical balance so much that other major powers might be compelled to join in on the weaker side just to keep it in place. So these states are de facto world powers, and are the actual interests you must balance in global politics, therefore the legitimate holders of nuclear arms. So in short, it's a "might makes right" argument. Notice that I have a global perspective here, and not the perspective of any specific nation. It's in the global interest to have stability. North Korea does not meet any necessary criterion. Any aggression from their side would be met by universal condemnation from the UN. They would have no allies in an aggressive war. Not surprisingly, the UNSC has already condemned their alleged acquisition of nuclear arms (yes, that includes China). Iran is also not important enough. The presence of nuclear arms in Israel is a huge destabilizing factor in the region, but Israel has only a defensive interest regarding Iran. You might hear a lot of angry words but that's just because some Israeli politicians are afraid that Iran might either attack Israel aggressively with their nuclear weapons (which is unlikely in the short term, but a valid complaint in the long term), or because they are afraid this would shift the power balance in the region in the favour of the native Muslim community (which is not a valid complaint). I don't want Iran to have nuclear arms, I don't want Israel to have nuclear arms. I don't want any country in the Middle East to have nuclear arms, not even if Israel has them, but Iran is an especially poor choice since I think there are countries such as Egypt or Turkey which have far more long-term stable political systems. The current issues of this theory of mine is largely regions such as Africa or South America, which entirely lack a major nuclear-armed power, or a permanent member of the UNSC. Without any such guarantor of stability, they would lack a voice in the global community. Also, Israel is no way allied with the nations you mention. They are simply separately involved in a conflict against the same actor.

I'm very interested in linguistics. A while ago I made a program in Java to analyze languages as Markov chains (of any order). One use of this is the ability to identify languages based on their transition matrices - the "reverse" is of course generating probabilistic strings of text from an already computed transition matrix, essentially creating probabilistic conlang words. Among other more unrelated theoretical interesting stuff was the possibility to calculate "entropy" of the language (in the information theory sense).

The best strategy game of 2012? The BEST GAME of 2012.

Making a primitive nuclear weapon if you have the raw material is actually shockingly simple. Making a reliable one is harder, and making a modern delivery system is by far the hardest part. The most important part is which parts of the enrichment process you control. If you have raw materials in a mine, and the appropriate enrichment facilities, it's likely enrichment is going to be the bottleneck. If you lack facilities for enrichment, it's going to take a good while to build those. And obviously it's impossible to start if you lack the raw materials to begin with. I suspect Japan has a compele "chain" in this regard and that is why you consider them close to being a nuclear power. If you have all the prerequisites, it would take a maximum of a couple of months to have an "ugly thing in the back of a truck" nuclear bomb. If you want a reliable bomb stored safely with a modern delivery system, now that would take loads of money and years of research for a nation who has yet to even launch astronauts into space.

What's your position on nuclear proliferation then? Seems hypocritical not to allow Iran to have a nuclear program when Israel has one. Same applies to North Korea naturally. NK is a minor actor, they don't need nuclear weapons when China has them. The Middle East does definitely need to be stabilized but I'd much rather Turkey or Egypt sat with the nukes than Iran.

The brutal human rights abuses the Kurdish people suffer in Turkey don't count then? Why doesn't the rest of NATO intervene to free the Kurds from Turkish oppression? Actually, that situation seems to have started to solve itself recently. I heard the PKK's leader was going to be set free and also, their armed forces was withdrawing from Turkey.

Here's one of my favourite Tuvan songs.

What I can't be bothered to read are your apocalypse fantasies. I understood quite clearly that you're arguing an economic downturn will cripple the military capability of the US. Your argument is - again - a fantasy. The USA has an immense economy and military. Cuts to US military spending could be absorbed on an enormous scale and it might just reduce their crisis response to only two World crises at once, rather than three. Even if spending cuts reduced the regular US military to the level of China it would be at least one or two generations before anyone else caught up. The US economy can't possibly stay down for that long. The country has a strong economy built into its _geography_. You may be stuck in your attic dreaming of rivers of blood for a wee while yet. I can't speak for others, but I'm talking about a historical downturn which has been continuously ongoing since about 1950. This has nothing to do with debt, or the possibility of another crushing financial crisis. Classifying something as "immense" is meaningless without introducing a relative measure. Nonetheless, comparing military spending directly is only relevant for very short time scales. If we're not doing that, then industrial capacity gives a more realistic measure of power. I think you're overestimating the US' technological advantage as well. An aggressive rearmament of any of the other major powers would put them rather close to the US in only a handful of years. Supposedly China already knows everything about American high-tech defense through hacking anyway (!?). If we must compare individual countries, the US is definitely on top today. But it's on a slow but steady decline and that's nothing new, it's been that way for some 60 years. Remeber we're talking RELATIVE power. So if you see that the US economy has grown 3% and the Chinese economy has grown 8%, that means the US has lost power to China. There is no need for the US economy to crash or ever go into a recession for this change to happen. As long as other parts of the world keeps growing faster, the power will shift. Ironically the rise of China is funded by Western venture capitalists, outsourcing companies, and at times our own pension funds. Make no mistake, this is economically sound and gives huge profits to the West. However who ultimately controls the means of production will have a significant advantage in war. Thus China and the West grow increasingly interdependent, and even though this leads to a decline in Western power, it is my opinion that it minimizes the risk of war. Also I disagree with the critics of the UN. The UN is a great forum for precisely the reason that it hands over important global decisions to the global community. Of course the UN is never going to reach a consensus over Syria, but in this process and in many others we avoid the risk of unilateral action, one of the consequences of which can be a world war. A powerful UN in 1914 or in the late thirties could have prevented both those wars. The UN and the atomic bomb are the greatest inventions for peace of the 20th century.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsHOrqswQ1c So it's settled then, Prussia had the best march music.

There are also lots of truly unique other cultures to draw inspiration from. Here is a UNESCO video of Georgian traditional singing which could be an inspiration, for example. With the "siberian" influenced dwarves, we might also make use of some khomus thrown into the soundtrack.