Gorth

You know "Democracy" was a result of political science and philosophy, not carpentry, right? (not dissing carpenters, Jesus might get angry with me). Good thing not everybody listens to your advice 😇 Edit: Otherwise we would just all end up in some kind of Ayn Rand'sque hell 😖

I cheated a bit and read up on the mythic paths in the game (to see what they were about and what is required). None of them look like a good fit for a CN Barbarian, I guess I'll just aim for the legend route (if I make it that far) and get another 20 levels of some class (because your level cap then increases to 40, so fill it up with 20 levels of bloodrager or whatever) Lich looks like fun, but I would start a game as an evil character then (and since it replaces all your current companions, at a time where you're tired of them anyway). I just don't see myself ever playing as an angel... too much role playing required 😂😇 Edit: In my current game, I made it to some market and found Aerie Ember. Not sure what to make of her. In the party for now, as I don't mind a straight up spell caster. Also got the dual dagger wielding thief. Found out he doubles as a vendor once you make him happy.

Coming from a "classless" society, I noticed how stark the differences were for Australian youths. Universities are expensive and it has two effects. It creates very much a tiered society, where education and wealth is a feudal thing. It stays in the families that can afford it. The rest... can go picking grapes (and compete with the backpackers for the cheap labour jobs) or sleep in the streets. I.e. a self reinforcing inequality in society. The conservatives down here are all for that biblical quote "to him who has will be given more" (and the context be damned). Up there with tax breaks for the top 5% in poor governance 🙄 Personally, I firmly believe an educated (at least the bulk of the) population is a national asset and therefore a task for the government to ensure happens. Not the task of wealthy parents. Ironically, my free University degree (minor in electronics and major on computer science) is of effectively no use today. It wasn't even what got me my first job (I worked as a cleaner, as a untrained carer in a hospice and a few other jobs, including as a removal guy, before landing my first developer job). It was networking, a friend who knew somebody who needed someone badly, like yesterday. With that on my CV it was a small step to New Zealand and the rest is history. 25 years as developer, almost 20 of those overseas. My biggest challenge is to trim my CV and leave out most stuff that is more than 10 years old to keep it shorter than three A4 pages. Nobody cares about a university degree from the 90's when presented with my CV (a few token reference checks to satisfy due diligence, did I really work for the company that I claimed working for in the position I claimed to have worked in). Doesn't change my perception, that an educated population is a requirement for well functioning (and affluent) society as a whole. Edit: Hospices didn't officially exist in Denmark back then, but they had de-factor places where they created as comfortable environments as possible for terminally ill people, both old and young.

I suspect a few people here are very skeptical, if not outright afraid of academics, as they tend to be left leaning politically. Better to close the universities and open up more workshops 😛

Is it just me or does Camellia come across as a bit untrustworthy? 🤔 She's useful alright, but there is just something fishy about her...

Thanks Gromnir. I'll ask away if I either get stuck or suspect I'm going to head into deep trouble soon. Yes, my barbarian is mostly focused on dishing out damage (at low levels at least). I put some points in dex too, as I wasn't really convinced dressing up in the heaviest platemail possible was really "the barbarian" way to go. Figured I would use light(er) armour and compensate with higher dex. (hidden by pop up window, it's 15). As for the uneven numbers, I seem to remember you get an ability point every few levels to add and it made more sense in the beginning not to use all points in the diminishing return sink. Sure, it may come back to bit me 😁 But for now, it's just fun. Learning to use charge and rage (I took the defensive rage feat or whatever it's called, that doesn't leave me completely exposed to incoming attacks when raging as well as dodge) Edit: As mentioned previously, not going to fret if I can't complete my first run. I could have picked easy mode, but prefer to meet a bit of resistance and get an idea what you have to prepare for. I'm wondering what "Mystic Path" is 🤔

Let's see how far it goes. Gorth the Barbarian is now level 3 and made it to the tavern. I feel a bit like I just finished Irenicus' dungeon again 😝 Nothing difficult so far... except that "mini boss" at the garrison. I had a suspicion the game was rigged when I used the Inspect function and saw she had 32HD 😖

I hope that was a joke? Send wave after wave after wave of young men through no-mans land, mowing those down who didn't get taken out by barbed wire and artillery fire, with machine guns in entrenched positions. The only thing Ypres, Somme and Verdun accomplished, tactically and strategically was... nothing. Sure, it killed and maimed hundreds of thousands, but that just made it a war of attrition. Which side would first run out of a generation to sacrifice in battles like that. So, take my 500.000 man, tell them to take objective. Enemy player takes his 500.000 man and digs in on objective. After both sides have lost 250.000 man each and six months have passed, lets call it a draw. WWI in a nutshell. No, I don't really find the land battles particularly interesting, because nothing was shown when it comes to things like strategic brilliance or tactical nous. Even the introduction of radical new forms of warfare, like airplanes, chemical warfare and tanks had little to no effect, because the generals were trying to outdo each other in cluelessness on how to break the stalemate. it's as bad as the old "battle line" doctrine for naval warfare, where captains and admirals were prohibited on the pain of being court marshalled from showing any initiative and breaking with conventions and existing doctrines. The latter lasted until Nelson decided to break all the rules and got away with it, because a) he won and b) he died before he made any slip ups. The same can not be said for land warfare until Guderian decided that WWI sucked and all out tank warfare with airplane support was a better idea than killing off another generation in the trenches. I know, he didn't invent it, but he made "Blitzkrieg" famous.

The naval battles of wwi were way more interesting than the land battles imnsho What was the Serbian contribution to wwi? A single bullet to the head of an Austrian? Got to hand it to him though, he got a lot of consequences out of that assassination (I don’t remember the details anymore, a long time since I read up on the events in Sarajevo, could’ve been more than one bullet)

Congestion... finding parking spots in urban areas just gets harder and harder

Considering how dirt cheap Russian tanks are to manufacture, I wouldn't be surprised if the handful of expensive high tech missiles (they had a few, emphasis on few) fired at the beginning of the war makes up most of the war expenditure. The Russian state also offers economic incentive to people to have more babies, so you never know, they may be in it for the long war... (only serious about the first part in case there was any doubt)

Yeah, I noticed the very familiar system of picking a class (any class you qualify for) level when leveling up. I did get a second barbarian level though for level 2. Later I might go Rogue for a bit, just for the role playing fun (I need to practice my Austrian accent). That being said, I consider this character "expendable" and it's more of a testing the waters run, to see what to expect later. I.e. how badly is min/maxing needed etc. and how much wiggle room is there for at least some limited experimentation. Once I get the hang of it, I might try what looks like more challenging classes (more "stars"). Maybe even something just for the sake of later gaining those classes you can't get at character creation (like Assassin). But, for now, just left the Mongrel "village" and exploring a maze. Edit: Playing "Normal" difficulty. While I'm a noob at this game, I don't consider myself completely clueless to the mechanics. Also, categorically using turn based combat (I could probably have roflstomped all opposition so far in RTWP, but I think I learn stuff better by taking it one turn at a time and consider what my characters are doing)

So... I put Tyranny on hold for a bit (The Scarlett Chorus can wait a few weeks). Started up a game of Pathfinder. I didn't want one of the pre-created characters, so looked long and hard at the classes to select from. In the end, I figured simplicity might be good for a start. I can always go back and start a new game with a different character after all. Went for "Gorth the Barbarian" with a bit of stealth and other potentially useful thievery skills. Very much based on Conan the Barbarian as he's portrayed in the 80's movie (sans the great music). Nothing like sneaking up on your enemies and backstab them with your greatsword!!! Did the intro town and getting towards what I think is the end of the first underground map (the tunnels). Met the tieflings, read all the basic game tutorials etc. Swearing and cursing at the Options screen because it completely ignores my choice of keys for rotating camera left and right (I wanted to swap Q and E, because the default reversing of the X axis is just too confusing to me). But, despite swapping the the keys in the keybinding options, Q is still right and E left 😠 Other than that, lots of fun so far (which is like less than 30 minutes in). Edit: The movie version of Conan was sort of a Barbarian/Thief multiclass, but that might be an option in this game (I don't know yet)

Ok... hopefully it will either have been patched or some Goty edition released before I get to that. I also remember the warning about difficulty/complexity, but being an old veteran of the old Infinity Engine games (BG&IWD) as well as the two Neverwinter Nights and Temple of Elemental Evil, I hope it won't seem all alien to me 👍

Tyranny. Siding with The Scarlet Chorus (I think, I might change my mind later). My second most favourite Obsidian game after Fallout New Vegas

https://www.gog.com/en/game/pathfinder_wrath_of_the_righteous 50% off at the moment

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous was on a 45% sale on GOG. Got that and some Ashes DLC (which was on a less impressive sale, but nevermind). Now I just need to find the time to play it (since I got myself into a game of Tyranny the other day) Edit: Core game was 50% off, DLC was 20something% off, somehow the total was calculated as 45% as some kind of average

JuiceMedia normally deal with Australian politics with a rare guest appearance of US politics. This time... it's their take on UK politics. Just for you @BruceVC 😝

I wouldn't call it a wave... but most of my friends and colleagues have caught covid the last 6 months. Since nobody dies from it anymore, nobody makes a fuss about it. I still have great respect for Long Covid though. I can think of a lot of interesting and hilarious ways to die, several of them worthy of jokes, anecdotes and song. Your brain withering away, coughing up your longs doesn't fit the bill. So far, I've stayed clear of Covid through a combination of vaccine and good practices. I would like to keep it that way for a while yet.

That reminds me I should get myself booked for am appointment for a booster shot... it's already been 5 months since the last booster shot 🤔

Which is exactly why it wouldn't surprise if it was Putin's way of expressing "dissatisfaction" with the advice he had been give.

I don't think the guy was speaking against Putin... on the contrary. Many consider him the brain behind Putin and the invasion of Ukraine https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28229785 (This article is/was from 2014) "Alexander Dugin is the founder of Russia's Eurasian movement. His views are believed to be popular among the hawkish Russian elite. Until recently, he was also a professor at Moscow State University, but he says his current status with the university is unclear. His views have not changed, he says, but attitudes towards his views among those in power may be shifting. The centrepiece of his geopolitical theory is that Russia's mission is to challenge US domination of the world, with the help of Iran, as well as Eurosceptic parties, which are currently on the rise in Europe. He has been labelled the brains behind President Putin's wildly popular annexation of Crimea." The whole Ukraine thing may be his brainchild. The bomb may have been intended as revenge from Ukraine sympathizers in Russia Edit: It could of course also be a message from Putin, that he is unhappy with the results of listening to Dugin and considering how well Russian assassinations have worked the last 15 years, it would be par for the course (i.e. botched)

*sniff*... Darwin would've been so proud! 🥲 Edit: Actions like not removing critical intelligence info from photos... I can hear Ricky Gervais listing the nominees for this years Darwin award.

In AU, NZ, UK, Denmark and Germany, I've never seen a wall plug *without* a switch 🤔 Edit: The hotels in Spain, Greece, France, Sweden, Singapore and Hong Kong were the same (can't speak for residences and work places in those countries)

Went shopping yesterday... my favourite gin (aka the only gin I can drink "as is") and an unknown rum, imported from Cuba. Got to break the blockade and support Cuban industry, right? 😝