He / They

  • 21 Posts
  • 510 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 16th, 2023

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  • I think it would probably become “2X” in that case, given the “exploit” and “exterminate” parts. :P

    Against the Storm is sort of a citybuilder/ 4X hybrid, that’s all about a bunch of fantasy species (humans, beavers, lizards, foxes, and harpies) working together to reclaim the world from this (un)natural blight.

    The Bustling World is an RPG/ Citybuilder/ 4X hybrid that looks pretty interesting, but is not out yet.

    I can’t really think of a 4X that leans towards the Grand Strategy side, that isn’t pretty combat-heavy. Distant Worlds: Universe can be played without focusing on combat, but it’s definitely still there.




  • Little side-tangent, but @trslim@pawb.social if you like base-building RTSes, you should check out Earth 2150 if you have not already. It’s old, but it’s imo one of the best out there.

    • There are 3 factions, each with their own campaign, and very different styles of units, and during the campaign you have a home base that you build, and from which you can build and send out units to your in-progress missions (i.e. build a tank in your homebase, load it into a helicopter, send the helicopter to your in-mission base’s landing zone, and unload tank for use… and vice-versa for keeping units that you build in the mission zone, etc).
    • Eurasian Dynasty is very traditional tanks and helicopters, and ballistic weapons
    • United Civil States is bipedal walkers and sleek hovering aircraft, and uses energy weapons
    • Lunar Corporation is space-y hovercraft with arcing, electric weapons and AOE pulse weapons
    • There’s tunnel-building and tunnel warfare, which is so damn cool…
    • There’s unit customization, like choosing the types of weapons for the tanks, building giant bipedal walkers with 3 different weapon systems, etc
    • There are aircraft and boats, not just ground units
    • You are using the resources you farm in the mission locations to construct a giant colony ship to escape from Earth, which is a great mechanic to give you a reason to actually extract resources other than just to build more units

    Now I have to go reinstall it… xD

    There are also Earth 2140 and Earth 2160, but I never fell in love with those 2 (Earth 2160 isn’t bad, and has a cool alien faction that is basically a roaming mothership that builds units, rather than a traditional ‘base’).



  • Honestly, I’d love to see a month-long pause on discussing the presidential race itself.

    State-level stuff, ballot measures, etc, no problem, but IMO there’s not going to be any productive discussion of the presidential race right now; there’s still too little information, too many emotions, etc.

    That aside, (because that’s not the kind of thing that should happen without the community agreeing to it) I know that I’m probably part of the problem because Politics is where I tend to comment the most, and I’m going to stick to discussions of what to do next rather than wasting any more energy on litigating what went wrong at this point.

    I have my suspicions about what happened, but that’s all they are as of right now, same as anyone else. But I do know for sure that I’m pissed off, and I know that I’m not going to be able to keep it from affecting how I engage with people if we get into an argument.

    I’m just glad we all have this community, because it’s definitely an anchor-point for me right now (and thank you, mods, for all your work maintaining it).


  • So until failed neoliberalism stops failing, we have to keep supporting it? Seems a little backwards. If mediocre neoliberalism was beating fascism, I’d be more okay with getting behind it.

    Why keep supporting the losers and thinking they’ll miraculously turn into winners?

    After Biden dropped out, I was cheerleading for Harris. I didn’t like her policies, but she had much better chances than Biden, and it seemed like she understood what pitfalls to avoid.

    Didn’t matter. The DNC doesn’t understand what is needed to win. They’re still running a playbook from 1996. They think the undecideds are in between them and the GOP, when in actuality they’re to the Left.

    Instead, the DNC has now absorbed a bunch of “never Trumper” repubs who clearly aren’t willing to vote for a woman, but will let a geriatric white guy eke out a win if you promise not to do the social justice.

    I think the DNC being a “big tent” party has allowed it to accept a large number of very questionable supporters, who for instance won’t vote for women, and who think that Cop City and broken windows policing is totally fine akshually, and whose jaws don’t drop when someone says to “send social workers into the homes” of black parents…

    Ultimately, we probably will never know exactly which demo(s) sat out, and everyone will end up just interpreting their own side as the right path forwards. Depressing stuff.




  • My nephew is trans, with an openly hostile anti-trans father (my POS Trumper brother, who luckily does not live with his kids), and lives in a swing state that went red last night. Very worried for him and every other trans person in this shit hole.

    I’m also pissed off that, based on the numbers we’re seeing, this is the second time that Democrat voters across the country have sat out rather than elect a woman. Honestly, I shouldn’t even be surprised anymore.

    Stay strong, everyone, things are gonna get rough.




  • Not friendly enough when talking to customers? Bad employee.

    Too friendly when talking to customers? Bad employee.

    This is just about 1) creating an algorithmic justification for the racial profiling that managers already do, and 2) keeping employees in fear of termination so they put up with bullshit.

    Side story about how shitty retail management is:

    When I was working retail years ago (big box electronics store), our management employed a system of getting every new employee to 3 write-ups as fast as they could (I’m talking, within a month of starting), using literally any excuse they could, so they could hold the “one more write-up and you’re fired” over their head.

    “AI” is definitely going to become a new tool for employee suppression.




  • Nah, and I say this as an ansoc who would love for the US to break up, but there’s just no appetite for that at any scale large enough to actually cause this.

    Even at the time of the Civil War, it was only when state governments decided to secede that things kicked off, and no states now- no matter how “blue” they are- are going to try that. It would be up to individuals, and there’s just no organizational capability for that at the scale needed to force a civil war. The closest we might ever get is a bunch of individual attacks or small-scale violent mobs.