kanisatha

No I haven't served in the military. I'm an immigrant to the US, so my situation didn't allow for it. I came to the US on a student visa, although In truth I was fleeing an oppressive home country. Had I grown up in the US I surely would've ended up in the navy or air force. I've long had an interest in political and military history, and WW2 history is especially interesting to me (as is Cold War history btw). I have a doctorate in international relations and my areas of research and teaching are international security and conflict, military affairs, and foreign policy. My overall professional interest is on international rivalries, from the ancient world to today. In the past my research was focused on the India-Pakistan rivalry including especially its nuclear weapons proliferation dimension, but in recent years I've swung over to the Iran-Israel, Iran-Saudi, and emerging US-China rivalries.

Yes that one is based on the Guadalcanal campaign, although when I checked it out it turned out to be about the story of a couple of AWOL soldiers. And I tend to not like those kinds of WW2 movies, focusing on the personal story of some individual. Feels like a soap opera that's just set in a war setting.

I agree. 'The Longest Day' and 'Big Red One' are both better.

Yup. This is the counter article to the ones I was citing. Sucks if this is correct.

Again, this is just not true. Targeting and use of US nukes in Europe, which are officially considered NATO nukes, is under the control of the North Atlantic Council. Furthermore, the US cannot unilaterally decide on using those nukes, and must get host country permission first. So host countries do have a lot of say. And ultimately, the most important 'say' of the host countries is to agree to host those weapons in the first place. So clearly there is a rationale for it. But we are obviously not going to agree here, so I've had my say and am done. Russia and China have invested heavily in intermediate range nuclear systems, and so they obviously see great value in those systems. I believe very strongly that the US also would gain significant value from similar systems, and am very glad to see that the DoD agrees and is moving forward on developing such systems.

Seems like Xbox is going to have a major presence at E3. According to rumors Obsidian will show something from not only Avowed (which apparently is in very good shape production-wise) but also another unannounced game (with speculation being on whether this will be TOW2 or something else). And Bethesda is rumored to be ready to show Starfield.

Yes sea-based systems are certainly an option today. Thirty years ago they were more iffy because their accuracy was nowhere near as good as land-based systems. But today's sea-based missiles are just as accurate as their land-based counterparts. However, the point still is that they are intermediate (or short) ranged systems and as such considered to be fundamentally different from long-range strategic systems. This is why Russia has not been that upset about the US pursuing new intermediate range systems, but was adamentaly opposed to the US trying to declare some of its SSBN-launched D5 missiles/warheads as "sub-strategic" rather than strategic, because for Russia if it comes off one of our SSBNs then it is strategic and will automatically set off a full-scale Russian counterattack. As for whether IRBMs stationed on foreign soil make those countries more of a target, yes that is likely so. But the counterpoint to that is exactly what I had already made in talking about France/de Gaulle. If you are a non-nuclear country counting on someone else to provide extended nuclear deterrence for you, is it really credible that they will risk their own country's cities to defend or avenge your cities? Not likely. So that's why logic dictates those extended deterrence systems ought to be located on your soil. Yes that makes you more of a target for an enemy state, but no differently than if you possessed nukes of your own. It's a strategic choice you have to make: no nukes at all; extended deterrence provided by someone else's nukes; deterrence provided by your own nukes. All three options have their pros and cons. As for the Poland example, yes tactically there may not be a need for Russia to use nukes against Poland. But I was merely using them as an example. You can substitute any state out there that receives US extended nuclear deterrence. And furthermore, I am not speaking of the use of nukes in a tactical or battlefield situation. I am actually speaking of situations where cities are targetted, usually for political reasons rather than military reasons. So a Russian nuclear attack on a NATO city (Warsaw, or Berlin, or Prague, or Rome, it doesn't matter) will result in a US nuclear counterattack. But for this counterattack to have deterrence value, it has to be against a Russian city, and preferably Moscow itself as Poland will consider Warsaw to be equal to Moscow whether the Russians agree or not, and not just a US nuclear counterattack against a Russian military target. And only US IRBMs will have any realistic chance at being able to penetrate Russian defenses and strike Moscow. I would not place much faith in the ability of tactical aircraft carrying the B61 gravity bomb successfully penetrating Russian airspace all the way to Moscow.

Not so. They serve to separate the use of nuclear weapons at the strategic and tactical/intermediate levels. This is not important if your country possesses nukes only for its own deterrence. But if you use your nukes for extended deterrence (or you actually plan on using your nukes as 'first strike' weapons, which seems to be Russia's calculation in possessing IRBMs), then it matters, and matters greatly. For example, if Russia were to use a nuke against NATO-member Poland, as part of its extended deterrence umbrella policy the US would retaliate with a nuke against Russia. But if the US used one of its ICBMs, launched from US soil/US SSBN, then Russia would see that as strategic escalation by the US and retaliate in kind against the US homeland resulting in a full-scale nuclear exchange. If instead the US retaliation was with an IRBM based in Europe, then that could not be perceived as strategic escalation because it is at the same level as the nuke Russia used against Poland. Same issue for the US vis-a-vis China in the Asia-Pacific region. It is also why the US not possessing IRBMs raises serious questions about the credibility of the US's extended deterrence policy. As de Gaulle famously rhetorically asked Kennedy in 1961, when the US was trying to persuade France to not pursue an independent nuclear deterrent, "Will you sacrifice New York to avenge Paris?"

SOLASTA: Crown of the Magister is now out: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096530/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister/

The one I would consider the closest comparable great power to the US is Pax Romana. Pax Britannia also comes close. And yeah, I totally agree that (a) a new great power war is coming soon, bringing an end to the Long Peace, and (b) it will make WW2 look like a picnic by comparison. Not just robotics technology but also nanotech, biotech and genetics weapons, space warfare, cyber warfare, HE lasers and other directed-energy weapons, etc.

It's inevitable to sit on your ass, pat yourself on the back, and take things for granted when you are at the top. It's nature's way of making sure there are no permanent winners or losers. It's this way with individuals, families, groups, corporations, universities, and yes countries/empires.

Don't you dare give up on the flying car dream!!!

As opposed to Russian and Soviet imperialism, I imagine.

At one time one of these individuals long associated with the The Witcher series (may be one of those who's now left) posted on social media asking fans what they thought of the game being about Ciri's post-TW3 life. And yes, it could also be about some other witcher. But I believe CDP has stated that when it comes to the game's title, they see "THE Witcher" as Geralt, whose story is done.

To be fair, CDP has very clearly and explicitly said they are NOT doing Witcher 4 and that Geralt's story is over and done. What they are doing is a fourth game using the Witcher franchise (and presumably the Witcher setting). We (and others) are simply calling it Witcher 4 as a kind of shorthand. But it's not really Witcher 4, and (again going by CDP's public statements) won't even be titled "Witcher" anything.

I agree. Note that I was talking about refreshing the creative side of the game, i.e., things like story and characters, and maybe a little bit on the gameplay side. But the overall type of game that we know and love should not change.

I don't find that director's departure particular;y troubling for the next Witcher game. If anything I think it is a good thing. The same people working on a franchise game after game is what turns a franchise into something stale and boring. For creativity to flourish, there needs to be some refreshing and turnover of the creative talent from time to time. And in the case of Witcher, that game 4 will not have anything to do with Geralt's story is the perfect point at which to have some creative refreshing.

Fans of TB combat are always trying to claim that is what drove D:OS2 sales, but I have never bought that argument. ^This here is, in my view, the true reason for D:OS2's sales success: co-op play. And this reason, then, also says the quality of the game, in those ways we've thought of quality in cRPGs in the past such as story, writing, characters, branching dialogue, etc., don't matter that much because they don't matter that much when playing co-op. What matter in co-op games is fun action-y things you can do within the game such as push walls down, set the ground on fire, tag-team up on your enemies, etc., which are exactly the kinds of things the D:OS games give to players.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grapeocean/black-geyser-couriers-of-darkness/posts/3181089

Excellent review article on P:WotR including Q&A: https://www.rpgwatch.com/articles/pathfinder--wrath-of-the-righteous-presentation-and-qa-510.html

Hehe. It's exactly why I did not buy D:OS2 at all, and won't even at a bargain price, because then I contribute to it being lauded based on its sales numbers. But BG3 has me very torn. On the one hand I think the game sucks and I don't want to contribute to its success even in a tiny way. On the other hand it is a BG game, and I love that franchise. It's a good thing the game is spending so much time in EA, because as a principle I won't buy an EA game and by the time it gets fully released I may be over my feelings of it being a BG game.

Yeah I use story mode a lot for my repeat playthroughs, and a big part of why I love the PoE games and P:Km is that I can switch to story mode whenever and wherever and don't get locked into my difficulty level at the beginning of the game. Even the IE games I now tend to use story mode if I replay them.

In PoE2 I did not do any of the megabosses even in my first time playing with that DLC. The very idea of a boss fight, let alone a "mega" boss fight, without the story element was completely uninteresting to me. As I've said before, combat in RPGs is something I tolerate for the sake of enjoying everything else that I love in the game. I for one am perfectly happy with easy fights.

I have tremendous nostalgia for BG1, but have never ever written anywhere a wall-of-text post on any subject (and my posts counts are pretty low in all forums too). And, at 53, I am definitely on the older side (though still gen X and not a boomer). So a lot of assumptions here don't quite add up, at least with me. Edit: Oh, and forgot to add, I love both PoE games and have played them multiple times.

A great question indeed. And I've found everyone's range of views and approaches a very interesting read. I too am very story-focused, and as such do find it very difficult to fully enjoy a cRPG after I've played it once. However, I am able to appreciate repeat-plays of these games up to a point. Typically it is for any content I may have missed or not been able to access in my previous plays because of choices I made. I also like the idea of playing with different party compositions than what I previously used, as well as different class builds for my PC. But at the same time, I avoid any and all parts of the game that are a slog, and especially those really brutal and aggravating boss-fights, so I hardly ever finish the game after that first time.