Rosbjerg

That's not leftist, that's corporatism .. You'd have full support from socialist here to shut that down too. In fact we're suffering under some of the same problems here and everyone hates it. The problem is that money is getting in the way, not politics.

It was more that I thought it was interesting if they did, perhaps there's some crossover references etc. Anyway, dabbling with Distant Worlds: Universe. It's a spiritual successor to Master's of Orion II that's for sure. Although it's much more complex in most areas (and much less others) Graphics are pretty late 1990s though. My mighty Republic so far. Spanning 2 dozen systems or so, but only 5 habitable planet, 2 which are subjugated races. There are a 700 stars in this medium map, the big maps can have a load of races and up to 1500 star systems. The blue dots are freighters and construction ships moving around and the triangles are combat vessels. The rest are systems, planets and bases. The AI acts pretty smart actually and judging from the forums, act in accordance with their personality too (so aggressive and stupid aliens will rush you with little regards to tactics). My enemy here is a primate and pretty intelligent. They generally try to build up defenses and probe mine - I'm stronger though, so here they are monitoring my defenses (the green dot) with a monitoring station just outside of my sensor radius (a scout ship spotted it) - so I'm moving a task force to take it out. Here my taskforce moves in for the kill. The AI advisers will help you all they can, making sure you're using your resources properly. Which is a pretty nifty feature. The cool thing is that there is a private sector in your empire, that will build bases, freighters etc etc, so the galaxy really feels alive pretty quickly. The AI will also control everything you want it to, even as far as moving your fleets and handling negotiations with other races. You decide exactly what you want to focus on. It helps with learning (the curve is pretty steep). You know it's an interesting game when it's suddenly 2am and you only feel you started a few hours ago.

It's a lib/soc party with a heavy anti-immigration policy. Their primary voters are from rural areas and with a short education, but they always manage to take a good portion of the swing votes due to their broad sprectrum and "here and now" issue politics. They want to limit the EU to basically trade only, which is most likely why they got such a massive backing in the election. They are however experts at manipulating public opinion, I'll give them that - and were clever enough to stay out of the government, but stay in the coalition. That way they could influence decisions and still criticize anything they didn't agree with (which is basically what they do). It's fiendishly clever, cause you get to capitalize on every winning and deflect every loss.. and voters are eating it up.

I'm always amazed at how quick those twitch skills come back when you play for a while.. A mutator is a change to core mechanics, it can be everyone has bobbleheads, or that you heal when you give damage etc. Something that "mutates" the gameplay.

Season 2 - Episode 3.. so not quite there yet

Hmm she looks a lot like a character that was introduced in Walking Dead.. The silent survivor girl. Also a bit of psychopat.

I the NPCs lie to you though if you have negative influence, I don't really remember it that well (only did one play through as evil and negative inf.) but I know you can turn certain NPCs into jedi's with negative influence (like Bao-Dur), so playing evil doesn't mean you won't be able to do that. You kinda bully him if I remember right, instead of convincing him. I do remember that extreme negative or positive influence opens up dialouges, where you for instance bully/annoy instead of trust/convince etc, but the exact content .. not so much

Also, companions will have the opposite alignment of you, if you have low influence with them. Here's a good guide on the forum. If you want to be a bit gamey you can go for turning all of them, by switching them in and out of situations and then keeping them on the ship until you have found/reached the jedi activation point. I had a good playthrough where I turned all of my companions. I kept them around lvl 8-10 (depending on various bonuses etc) in their starter classes in order to get more Jedi ones. They were all very powerful in the end and blasted through their solo bits no problems. Be adviced though that the Exhange/Mira section will be a pain in the *** with this approach,

In much the same way more conservative countries use Socialism yeah, it's an easy "demonizer". Ironically a lot of these "fascist / right wing" parties are basically modern worker parties with a conglomerate of opposing opinions patches together into some horrific (to the educated voter) "fit all, please none" hybrid. In fact I often noticed - Paternal Dictatorship/Oligarchy is the upper classes' go-to tyranny, Communism is the lower class' and Liberal Socialism with a strong blend of nationalism (ie budding Fascism) is the middle class'.

Sentinel will net you almost all of the speech and skill requirements outside of demolition etc I think. So that's pretty safe completionist approach, but doing a negative influence playthrough can be very interesting too.. And what not to miss? hmm, no - I'll no only say, play as you please and stick to your character even if the game "punishes" you (it doesn't).. It makes for a better game. In short 1 play through will not give you all content, you need at least 2-3 for that.

Give a review after a few hours in will ya? I'd be interested in first impressions.

The only one you really need is the restored content mod.

I wish more would see the similarities of how post 2008 mirrors the development of post 1929. Prolonged financial inequality and instability is really really bad.. It may be turned to something good, but often it will fester a wound in the public's political psyche. The 'Danish People's Party' (Dansk Folkeparty) has been on a steady rise since 1995 and it's predecessors since the early 70s. Denmark (and Scandinavia in general) suddenly realized there was an entire world out there and one that didn't have the same level of communal coherence and "moral fiber" (or so the conservatives would have us believe). With the influx of immigrants Scandinavian culture began to shift towards multiculturalism and the rise of nationalistic socialist parties are simply a response to the introduction of foreign culture. Much like allergic reactions can develop if a healthy body has lived too sterile for too long, so can political ideals be corrupted by disproportionate fear and distortion of reality. Swedes will try to sell themselves as the progressive and open minded among us, Danes as the realists and Norwegians as the eccentric, but pragmatic isolationist.. This is not true for any of us (but what we are is a much longer discussion) we simply all reflect the same fundamental mindset: Scandinavia is in it's essence not a worldly place, we are local, communal and very narrow minded (luckily in a fairly straight forward and progressive way) - in some ways as Germany was at the dawn of the 20th century.. so these kind of political tendencies have a very rich foundation of fear of the unknown to grow in. And hatred of all things Un-Scandivaian, which we perceive as nondemocratic, noncommunal and nonopenminded - which I'm sure some of the American conservative elements on these boards have noticed .. It's easy to sell a platform that combats these things, as they believed to be very universally bad (for us), but it's a gross simplification and populist stereotype.

Distant Worlds: Universe. A complex 4x space strategy, I need a game that helps me concentrate, by actually stimulating the brain instead being mindless fun. This seems to be a good choice - but I'm trying to find it for under 40€

The economy and most likely not (at least in regards to the continuation of the union). I do worry a little about the rise of nationalistic socialistic and Lib/Soc parties (not to be confused with 1930 style nationalsozialismus .. just yet) - Extremism is almost always a direct consequences of a perceived lack of resources... but this political movement under way, is so populist that it's not entirely healthy. These parties try to compass extreme conservative notions like nationalism, immigrations issues. Liberal notions like tax cuts for the rich and "transperancy" while being unequivocally Top-Down in their own management.. and left wing politics in the style of elder care, welfare issues and healthcare. The problem is their policies become completely polluted with "here and now" issues - meaning a lot of the actual needed political management, that needs to be a lot more farsighted, is completely overlooked - which is basically paving the way for the next huge crisis down the road. This mirrors the political development of Europe in the 1930s, except the union and the peaceful atmosphere towards fellow member states fuels the anger outwards. Europe won't go to war again, but it might shut itself in and look inwards. Which is also bad for the development of Europe.

Sometimes the body just reacts..

The Walking Dead Season 2, Episode 1-3.. First game ended un a pretty emotionally and dark note and season 2 starts off a little slow, but holy moly.. By the end of episode 2 your already cringing at the violence. Episode 3 goes down as some of the most gruesome **** I've seen on my screen outside of pure horror/gore games..

Made me remember how in the 90s you basically had to buy gaming magazines which had these CDs with patches, demos etc because the web was too slow. Most games had to be patched because of issues of course, but I do agree that there are a lot more release issues today.

Blew through the NBC series "Hannibal" season 1 on Dk Netflix.. Wow, what a mindblowingly good show. I've always been a bit ambivalent towards Mads Mikkelsen in Danish television, but he's really becoming a great great actor on the international stage. He makes Hannibal seem so extremely dangerous - in the words of one reviewer; "He's almost like an alien predator, or a velociraptor in human form. When he smiles, you're probably about to die. Mikkelsen is chilling, funny, and blazingly brilliant." And yet at the same time he's so inviting, charming and interesting.. Like a true sociopath should be. Seriously, if you love dark, violent and gritty shows - this is a must see.

As Calax pointed out to me, there are a *biip*ton of games on sale on Amazon at the moment. ~70% off on most titles. http://www.amazon.com/b/?node=7266959011

Found this crazy little short on Imgur.

Just finished a round of Space Station 13, the station went from mildly boring to bat **** crazy apocalypse in about 10 minutes.. When a virus caused explosive diarrhea and the cure caused people to vomit spiders, who quickly grew into giant spiders that murdered everyone.. So the station got flooded in feces and spiders.. I was the lone survivor of 70 players. Crazy game..

Woke up, have to study must of the day today - with some gaming breakes thrown in. I agree, but here's mine..

aaaanyway.. I see no way in which this could possibly go wrong!