Zoraptor

KSA's casualty numbers are rubbish. So is the 150k troops though, at least as combat troops. They may well have lost 81 soldiers but Saudi has a pretty byzantine organisation of its armed forces- a holdover from the times they had things like the army ordering SAMs with the explicit purpose of shooting down their own air force because two rival princes ran the two branches- where you have lots of little armies like the National Guard (better than regular army) and Border Guards (armed with Abrams and Bradleys...) as well as the regular army. The Border Guard in particular has taken a lot of casualties, fair bit more than 81 documented by itself, and been spectacularly incompetent. Their aim in Syria would be to establish a safe zone for the rebels from where they could continue the war without getting spanked by air power, using an anti ISIS stance as an excuse. Ultimately they want a compliant leader in Damascus (seems unlikely at this point) or at least a 'sunnistan' of eastern Syria and western Iraq. If there's any good news it is that it may well only be Saudi, Turkey and the UAE involved with perhaps some transit via Jordan and they may back down if they don't get enough support. They've been shelling government forces in Latakia the last two days as well, which really is about as far from ISIS as it's possible to get. Should be said that the Turks at least claim to be responding to fire, though it's pretty laughable that the Kurds and gov would both start randomly shelling Turkey on the same day- it's just a provocation to try and get article 5 activation for any retaliation.

As above, I think there's not any dislike of Turkey itself especially in NATO (not so much EU, who will never let them in), just its leadership. And when Erdogan is gone Turkey will remain, in its strategic position, and that will be the determining factor in any response. There's already been a war fought over that concern, it was just 150 years ago. As for the second I hope you are right, but they seem tied to the Saudis who certainly give the impression- and indeed outright stated via their FM- that they are all in against Assad up to and including direct military intervention to remove him. Since there are now Saudi planes and troops in Turkey if it is a bluff it's a very, very believable bluff.

They haven't acted very likable way in last decade. Like for example censoring and blocking social media platforms and apps. Using violent methods to stop protests Jailing political opposition Instigate violence against their minority population Questionable actions when it comes to ISIS etc. Okay I suppose that makes sense....but if you exclude the last reason all those points apply to countries like Russia and China who seem to very popular on these forums to some members ? I would guess that is because they work as opposition for western politics and criticizes western leadership therefore they score points from those who don't like current western politics and decisions by western leaders for one reason or another. Where Turkey is seen as western puppet that just behaves badly, so they just score those negative points. Does anyone support China? Can't recall anyone regularly doing that. There isn't much dislike of Turkey, it's dislike of Erdogan/ AKP who happens to be its leader. That's different from, for example, the generalised dislike of Russia which is seated in old Anglo/ Euro orientalist stereotypes developed and actively nurtured since the time of Ivan the Righteous; that's a healthy dose of paranoia and propaganda leavened by hatred of anyone baulking strategic interests. Those were all in evidence even when that sot Yeltsin was in charge, and the west loved him. The view of Turkey has changed mostly over the past decade, up until then it was largely seen as a model for 'westernised' secular muslim nations- with problems such as an over powerful military (seen by some as a plus), bad relations with Greece/ Kurds and the Cyprus situation. The only one of those to go has been the powerful military, sadly replaced by monomaniacal neo-Ottomanism and religious conservatism; and those last two are far more dangerous to the outside than a military that might decide to coup. Kind of ironic, but Erdogan clearly models himself on/ admires Putin.

Turks are formally attacking the SDF (Kurds&Friends) with artillery now, with no previous provocation (or 'provocation') as there was with the previous incidents. Probably the start of their anti ISIS operation by, er, attacking the people who have done most of the fighting against ISIS recently. ronpaul_its_happening.gif

Nothing wrong with getting methanol from wood byproducts, theoretically it's a very good idea much as getting methane from rubbish dumps is as well. It's probably a lot more sensible than the US getting ethanol from corn and certainly more than us getting methanol from natural gas which are both previous/ ongoing projects elsewhere. Something like the Brazilian ethanol project have been very successful though.

The truce is likely to try and make sure they don't have to make that particular decision. Saudi invading and getting their nose bloodied could be shrugged off with some Stern Words about Russia and Assad- nobody cares about dead Colombians and Pakistanis mercenaries, after all, and nobody likes Saudi (well, except Bruce) plus Obama has far more leeway for ignoring them given he's late 2nd term- but Turkey could easily lead to big escalation, there would be no article 5 protection theoretically but any Turkish attack on the airbase at Hmeimem and Russia would have to hit Turkey proper and at that point article 5 and who started it would go out the window and all bets are off. So long as it stays in Syria I doubt it would escalate whatever happens, but neither Saudi nor Erdogan like being baulked at all, Erdogan in particular may make the above calculation and instead decide that he can safely escalate from behind NATO.

Saudis have been at least handing out stones since the beginning- right near the start they demanded Assad release a bunch of islamist political prisoners (though given what happened they were probably legit preventative detentions) as part of reforms and a show of good faith then used them to foment the rebellion; ironically that was then used as evidence by many to 'prove' that Assad deliberately turned the rebels islamist. And the TOW anti tank missiles and much of the other supplies the rebels get are direct from Saudi stocks. I still find it very hard to believe they'd actually invade, though that's assuming they're acting logically. Saudi leadership literally believes they're appointed by God Himself and the new king has been particularly unpredictable. If they aren't going to do it then they've put a decent effort into the bluff.

Enslaving nations with necromancy is actually a pretty cool idea, I ain't knocking it. And if it's BG3 as a 'real' BG3 (yeah, unlikely) it'd probably be a good guess for one of the things you would expect to be able to do.

That's always been the way though- it's collective responsibility when convenient for the government; or individual responsibility when that is convenient. Nothing new except the specific situation it's applied to.

Seems likely, except the starving to death part. The pattern has been rapid advance followed by consolidation while pulverising rebel counter attacks since the russian intervention, by that measure there should be another advance coming within the next week. I'm sure they'd far prefer rebel surrender/ truce or withdrawal from east Aleppo rather than surrounding them, the SAA is not good at urban fighting and they already could stop most supplies getting into east Aleppo anyway- the supply route along the Castilo Highway is only about 2 km wide and has been for more than a year, easily hit by mortar or artillery let alone easily bombed. Truce talk is also to try and short circuit any thought of direct intervention from the other side due to 'government intransigence'. It looks like Saudi Arabia at least is actually going to go through with intervention though; Al Arabiya is Saudi version of Qatar's Al Jazeera so that comes direct from government. It would at least explain why the rebels were so keen to withdraw from the peace talks despite losing badly on the ground. Another potentially big development is a government attack towards Tabqa, which is at the bottom end of a hydroelectric lake on the Euphrates, half way between Aleppo and Raqqa. If taken it would cut all of ISIS's territory in Aleppo off from its rump holdings, and Raqqa off from the Turkish border. Not going to hold my breath over that happening though it would be very bold if it did.

Awakening was fine. In retrospect the resources would almost certainly have been better put towards DA2 instead, but that is with retrospect and the expansion itself was pretty good. In any case I'm pencilling 'enslave nations with necromancy' into the putative feature list for BG3/ suffix.

Erdogan throws a wobbley because the US won't call the PYD/ YPG (Syrian Kurds) terrorists. Not exactly news since he's done it regularly except that the US finally explicitly said yesterday that they don't consider them terrorists, hence the wobbley complete with gross hyperbole like them being the cause of a 'sea of blood'. For that you can blame the government, you can blame the rebels and/or their backers, or ISIS; but you really can't blame the PYD. There are also a bunch of rumours that Saudi Arabia is actually going to intervene via Jordan using some scheduled war games as a smokescreen instead of just posturing impotently as everyone presumed, and perhaps in concert with Turkey from the north. Though I'd be very surprised if either happened Erdogan and an absolute monarch with rumoured dementia are not exactly rational and the options for propping up the rebels are very limited so long as the Russians are bombing everything. It's probably just an attempt to shore up rebel morale* as several pretty major towns held by rebels have been negotiating truces/ surrender and their situation in north Aleppo is dire. *while Russia proposing a March 1 truce is probably the reverse, trying to encourage individual surrenders/ truces when Al Nusra and pals inevitably reject it.

Probably minimal fault for the 'how the story is told'/ technical aspects of story telling, that was pretty consistent across all of Bioware's games whether Gaider was working on them or not, and will probably stay much the same now he has left.

Yeah, I said that Hasbro/ WotC made the Planescape setting available, not that InXile decided to use it. InXile had previously asked if it was available and was told no, hence going with Numenera, and that illustrates that WotC/ Hasbro has changed their policy along with other stuff like allowing a new 2e game.

That has to be the plan. There isn't much else for them to do which would get anywhere near the exposure and potential sales that a BG3 would; NWN3 is impractical as it would require a new engine (albeit there may well be be one for BG3 anyway), new rule set, construction/ DM stuff plus the name is already (mostly) in use for another current product and IWD/ Gold Box are less well known. Not any more. They also (eventually) explicitly made Planescape available for T:ToN as well, so their policy has changed pretty much wholesale over the past three years. While it was an understandable policy to get people buying the latest stuff and they likely prefer it still it was also short sighted and contributed to the dearth of credible D&D products on computer over the past decade. They acted like D&D was still a premier product that it was a privilege to be able to work on for far too long after it wasn't, and were far too precious.

Are you really that naive or I am that cynical? It might look like they want to look 'good' by these 'free giveaways' when reality is that they dont give you anything you cant have for free using google for 5 minutes. They just force you to get into their 'origin' machine That's true of literally every software deal in existence- you can almost always pirate instead. GOG gives away games as well, and it isn't because they're just awesome guys and it isn't like you couldn't just download Giants: CK or Duke3d or Lands of Lore or whatever 'for free' in that case either, if you felt so inclined. And, of course and as always, I'd be a lot more sympathetic to people who hate on Origin if they also hated on Steam, which has considerably worse terms in their SSA than EA has in their licensing, a lot more power and a distinct tendency to nickel and dime from said position of power. It's also the BSA doing the study. There's literally no chance of them saying that piracy is in any way OK, even if it were. The only difference between them and pirates doing a study is that the pirates will do it for free while the MBAs will hire a seven figure consultant to tell them what they want to hear. To lend credence to your argument, can you produce a valid study demonstrating the opposite is true? I don't need to, as it isn't really an argument, just an observation. The BSA is the Business Software Alliance, they have as much chance of saying that piracy isn't evil, wrong and thoroughly naughty as British American Tobacco would have of saying that smoking should be banned or as the US or Russian militaries would have of saying that they deliberately target civilians and laugh as they do it. They aren't going to say things that go against their interests, whatever the truth is.

I'd say that's the problem with being the 'establishment' candidate rather than being experienced as Rubio has much the same problem and he's certainly a lot less experienced than Hillary. There's a whole lot of baggage being the anointed one, not least that that position usually requires a lot of overt pandering to vested interests. The funny thing is that being prepared (or experienced) is hardly a sin, indeed it's genuinely a trait you'd want in a leader and there are ways in which to deal with criticism for being over prepared- which Rubio failed epically at last night- if you are able to vary the script on the fly when necessary. But, what might broadly be called 'likeability' was also the problem Hillary had last time and the comparison to Obama in that regard probably cost her the nomination then.

It's also the BSA doing the study. There's literally no chance of them saying that piracy is in any way OK, even if it were. The only difference between them and pirates doing a study is that the pirates will do it for free while the MBAs will hire a seven figure consultant to tell them what they want to hear.

I've seen a lot of those type of articles, I do wonder if it's reciprocal and Hillary supporters won't be there for Sanders if he wins. Good thing that's Bloomberg View otherwise I'd suspect that Mike was definitely going to run in order to save the US from Socialism and The Tea Party.

The why is pretty easy- being reasonable and fair tends to make for poor sound bites and is... boring, I guess would be closest. While people like to say that they vote for the sensible option that doesn't do dirty politics and has a positive message they're very prone to vote for those that use dirty tactics and just rationalise them away. For Presidents or Secretaries of whatever it very much tends towards the old adage of familiarity breeding contempt. Good decisions tend to be forgotten or put in the 'should have been better' category while every bad decision is remembered and dissected with a chorus of rivals and pundits saying how it could obviously have been avoided had they been in charge. OTOH he does strike me as a gigantic egotist. That would readily explain going for the most important job in the world.

It's definitely not oil, as kgambit says there simply isn't enough of it. The question of why would take literally pages of analysis. Though it might have something to do with the putative blocked gas pipeline from the gulf to Turkey via Syria even that is distinctly questionable as a major factor. From the west's perspective the three major factors were probably 1) Arab Spring made it doable and the narrative from it was... unfortunate, since the casualties were distinctly pro western dictators like Ben Ali (and Mubarak). Idea was to co opt it to get rid of leaders they disliked 2) The west's messiah complex, and the damage Iraq did to it 3) Their Gulf allies so very, very desperately wanted Assad gone and have lots of money (3) would be the biggest one by far, owing to the obsession KSA has with Iran and its shia crescent of influence, radicalising sunnis and (at best) marginalising those they don't see as proper muslims with Qatar and Bahrain not far behind there. Compared to the west they've expended vast amounts of money and political capital supporting the rebels, the west has largely just given lip service with no practical help. That's also why you have the west consistently describing Al Qaeda allied militia- literally the exact same relationship as the Taleban in Afghanistan has to Al Qaeda- as being 'moderate rebels'; those groups are the ones their allies primarily support. Now you can add a fourth reason too, butthurt that the Russian intervention is working, though again that is entirely lip service/ hand waving with no practical support and is more about PR than anything else. At this point they'll probably try for a 'sunnistan' solution of breaking up Iraq and Syria along- coincidentally, I'm sure- pretty much the exact boundaries of the current ISIS 'state'. Hence the talk of KSA contributing soldiers to an 'anti ISIS' ground force. They almost literally could not make a worse job of it than the west has made with their pet projects in Iraq and Libya unless they did so deliberately, Bruciekins.

US military sources are always rather blinkered. Losing Aleppo city would only be a symptom, losing the rural areas around it is the real blow and that's been happening slowly and steadily since October, with that article impying it isn't significant. Aleppo city has never been pro rebel to any significant extent, the rebels there are primarily rural people from rif (provincial) Aleppo, not natives of the city. Which is why there are so many refugees moving at the moment, they just aren't coming from Aleppo city as tends to be implied but rif Aleppo especially the area around Azaz where the rebels have managed to systematically antagonise the ISIS, the government and even the Kurds and are unlikely to be looked at kindly by any of those three groups- the rebel held areas of Aleppo city are massively underpopulated already and only have a single road out a narrow gap between the (albeit neutral) Kurdish enclave and gov lines which leads to the 'wrong' border crossing, not the one that is getting the refugees. Aleppo city is important to the rebels because of their ability to deny it to the government and because it is fundamentally defensible, to most of the rebel fighters their homes in those little towns and villages of a few thousand or a few hundred are more important. If Aleppo city's rebel areas fall quickly it will be because its defenders have packed up and gone to defend their homes and there aren't enough foreign jihadis there. The government nearly recaptured Aleppo city in 2014, ironically for all the talk of the government not fighting ISIS it was withdrawal of troops to fight them that may well have saved the rebels there two years ago. One thing is for sure, we haven't heard anything about the Russian intervention being 'ineffective' or 'another Afghanistan' for months.

It's the amnesia. Burdens of life weighting him down. But yeah, I didn't find the swamp too bad either, in fact it has some of the most memorable game's moments for me. Weird. I'd suspect those who hated the swamp were going back and forth a lot. While it's possible to only visit the swamp 3 (?) times in the whole game and do not that much criss crossing/ combat slog it's also easy to end up visiting it a dozen times with multiple criss crosses per visit and have hours of 1xp per kill drowner combat. It also has one easy to trigger potentially obnoxious quest at the start- Gramps' one with the multiple sets of multiple Echinopses when you may be at a level at which even killing one by itself is difficult. Having said that while personally I wouldn't call it a favourite area, it was pretty good.

Maybe that was a change to the EE though, not sure I played before its release.

What is it with all the articles saying that the rebels in Aleppo city are surrounded? The one above isn't even internally consistent since while it says at the top their last supply route is cut it later says (correctly) they have another supply line through Idlib to Turkey. Al Jazeera said they were surrounded as well- and they really ought to know better- citing a military source also.