Gorth

I thought we were all Eldars alts? Otherwise I would say Raithe nailed it pretty well. Friendliness towards newcomers is found wanting at times, but It's very hard to avoid in an "old boys club" which Way Off Topic has turned into. Skepsis runs deep and is a hurdle that needs to be overcome, so sometimes ego's will be bruised, spears broken, shields shattered... and sometimes people decide that a a few scars and sore spots is trivial compared to mingling and participating in a new community. It shouldn't be so, but it's hard to avoid without holding a community in an iron grip of restrictions and supervision.

Well, my Nordic ancestors would qualify as a civilation then. Besides growing a bit of crop and writing runs on stuff, they had a secondary economy in raiding, raping and pillaging They weren't ruled by clergy men though, but by kings and strength of arms. Gods weren't someone you "worshipped", but someone you beseeched for help or cursed depending on your situation. @Numbers: Social Darwinism would be a good fit for what you describe I think? I.e. civilisations and societies change, evolve and become extinct when you lose your edge.

This is all based on the assumption that the civilisation has a religious foundation... wouldn't it be possible to happen the other way around, a civilisation developes or adapts religion to suit its values? Not quite a chicken and egg question, but it's the only comparison i can think of from top of my head. I.e. which one came first. I can't think of any civilisations that spawned in isolation, nor religions. More like both evolved and morphed over time (and both seems to have existed since people decided to live in the vicinity of each other).

Moved to Pillars of Eternity section

FIFA got nothing on the EU when it comes to being rotten to the core. It is in serious need of a complete restructuring and in particular trimming of the number of parliamentarians, institutions, committees, areas of jurisdiction, you name it. -- Proud Maastricht treaty "No!" voter....

Ungrateful louts. They were even reclassified as humans in what, 1967? (before that, they were considered part of the flora and fauna of Australia, no kidding)

I'm no Tolkien scholar, but wasn't it the sort of the other way around, he was a linguist looking for something use his skills on and came up with settings where he could use those languages?

Inclusiveness... iirc Bioware also offered a Goat in 'The Peal' Yeah, I remember those collectible cards. I haven't completed a Witcher game since the first one. Wonder why?

I think the level 60 token characters are mostly something for gold sellers. Instant level 60 sent off to high level planets for credit farming.

Welcome to the dark side...

...and . Lets see if that was the last time that was necessary.

How many pages of circular logic and inconclusive bickering?... (rhetorical question, don't answer). Time to give it a break

Not sure if anyone besides me still plays this game, and I think I mostly do it because 1) I found a bunch of nice guys in a guild (pub side) on TRE and there are still a bunch of missing achievements Only completed the latest chapter before today on 2 alts (out of 12 who started the expansion). Only 1 alt got the unknown and completely irrelevant and unasked for Dashade (whose name i can't remember). Completed all 6 star fortresses on 2 of the 12 and can't be bothered to ever see the inside of a star fortress again. Not sure if any of the 10 still needing to do so will ever make it past the Firebrand chapter (for me the absolute low after the Asylum bit, which held the previous record of being mindnubingly boring grindy). If there had been any *noticeable* differences between classes or choices that had actually mattered, I might have felt differently. As it is, it's mostly just the fun of doing the occasional ops runs, sometimes in the guild, sometimes pugging it. Even that is wearing very thin now, as there is no middle ground. SM ops is way too easy and HM is too far removed from SM. It's like the difference between doing Esseles at level 14 and HM Battle for Rishi at level 65. None of the experiences of the former prepares players for how you need to up your game for the latter. Ah well, when servers comes online again, I guess 1 of my 2 alts making it this far will try out the latest chapter...

I think Hiro hit the nail on the head. As far as online communities goes, this is a small one and many of the members (the regulars anyway) have been around for a substantial amount of time. People can predict the course of a discussion with an uncanny accuracy and when the end result is already known, why even bother? Occasionally we get a new troll or someone with an outlandish position on a subject and the old ones stirs form their slumber and observes something to the effect of, "someone's been sitting in my chair"???

Moved to tech section

Obama on retirement from the elected office... Wasn't really sure if it belongs here or in the general funny stuff thread. He isn't up for election after all, on the contrary.

The same betting markets that offered 5000:1 for Leicester winning the Premiere League

That was the first thing that sprang to mind when reading this thread

Vote for Gorth! (insert long list of election promises that are obviously not intended to be honoured post-election)

“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.” ― John Adams In any case, blame Hamilton and Jefferson for the US having two parties

I've always thought relying on "armour" (passive defenses) was inferiour to active defenses. A lesson that battleships learnt the hard way.

Didn't vote... since I'm not eligible for the real vote anyway (something I haven't been for close to 15 years, not being a 'citizen' where i live). From a foreign cynics perspective, it looks like a choice between 4 options, the moronic Dan Quayle wannabe, the power hungry megalomaniac that will cling to power at all costs, the militaristic expansionist with no clue what to do with power or the affluent socialist with no clue about economics. I'll leave it to people to assign those labels on the candidates. Regardless of who wins, I feel sorry for the Americans

I haven't played EU4 as much as I wanted to, something always seems to get in the way. Memorable countries that I played in EU3 were Denmark (being from there Originally), Muscowy (recreating most of the later Czar's empire) and besides being a big challenge, also very rewarding, having played the Timurids and transitioning to more stable goverment forms and founding the Mughal empire was very different from always playing powerful European countries. Having luck on my side didn't hurt either, as you are initially very vulnerable every time your leader dies (internal power struggles and rebellions), so neighbours already locked in war with each other at the right time definitely helped.

A Tale with no happy ending? Not the kind of stories I need to hear being the driver of a newly leased car...

The game looks interesting and I was about to put it in my cart at one time, until I read the review saying "Reinvents the 4X genre, mirroring what XCOM did for tactical turn-based games" and then it promptly flew out of my cart again. Would love to see some impressions of the game