ping

I assume the polite thing is to not mention it. RE: Ashnard - I think his ideology is still consistent, albeit obviously inane. He thinks that the "strong" should rise and the "strongest" should rule, but he doesn't have any reservations about how to become strong. He became stronger by aquiring an impenetrable armour and a big fuck-you dragon. If you can't overcome those things, well, sucks to be you. I can't hear your complaints up here riding my big fuck-you dragon. The other strength-obsessed characters - BK, the Laguz, Ike to a degree - all seem to have some addtional code of honour in place which would prevent them from looking for cheap auto-wins, but Ashnard doesn't seem to give a damn about 'fairness' or other concepts of the sorts. I don't think that this diminishes the point, to be honest. Ike carrying Ragnell is presented as happenstance, or as something that came from the BK's decision to leave it with Greil's body, presumably in the hope that Ike would prove to grow to be his father's equal. But Ike doesn't have any divine spark or noble blood or whatnot that lets only him wield it - he just called dibs, basically. Yes, mechanically it's the same as Falchion being Marth's personal weapon, but the narrative justification is very different.

Fire Emblem's 2RN is probably among the most egregious examples (ffs, 10 displayed hit is only 2% true hit), but it's interesting how many video games lie with their probabilities. Even Darkest Dungeon has a hidden +5% hit chance for every player attack. I think Sid Meier said in his autobiography that when he first put displayed chances of success in his games (must've been back in the 90s), everybody told him that while they liked the game, the odds were clearly rigged against them!!!

Oh hey, I got that shortly after release. Didn't replay it later, so my experience is pretty old and outdated, but I believe it was smooth sailing until it wasn't The disasters can really screw one over if they hit at an unopportune time. ...come to think of it, I don't think I remember which mystery I rolled. Do you already know what you got?

In Ashnard's case, I suspect that he's (more or less) a 1v1 boss in order to make him more challenging. If he'd be dogpile-able, he'd be a complete joke. For Radiant Dawn, they then managed to come up with a way to make a bossfight that's interesting while allowing everybody to contribute... but they also made that bee-yootiful cutscene of Ike dealing the final blow, so obviously that has to be reflected in gameplay. (I should note that I don't particularly like either of those things. Ike doesn't really have any personal motivation to fight Ashnard that goes beyond everybody elses, so there's really no narrative pay-off for the solo fight. And for RD, I always thought it was blatant that the cutscene probably predated and certainly dictated that detail of the boss fight. Anyway - I don't think that Ike being special needs to be a point of contention. He is - he's a more talented fighter than anybody else in Tellius, and he's quite likeable in his Shonen Protagonist ways. I think that comparison has been made some time ago in this forum and I think it's a fairly good abbreviation of Ike's social skills However, nothing suggests that any of Ike's specialness is caused by some "noble bloodline" or anything of the sort. What privileges he has had over your average Boyd have been deliberately given to him by Greil: combat training from a very young age, and a direct path to leadership after Greil's death. That second thing is probably the most undeserved boon Ike receives throughout the two games, since even if Greil saw leadership talent in Ike, at that point in time Ike hasn't done anything to deserve preference over Titania or even over Oscar. But what follows from there does stem from Ike's own merits. He succeeds in his challenges because he is a very talented fighter (and helped by Titania in particular, of course), and his Shonenness (very blunt, not a deceitful bone in his body, free of any prejudice) endears him to powerful people (Mufasa, Elinicia, Sanaki) who presumably have to deal with passive-aggressive, lying, bigoted people on a daily basis. His father's status, or rather previous actions, give him some extra credit in Gallia, but when he's officially elated to a general and noble, it's because he's the best man for the job, and out of political concern, respectively. -- I do think that this contrasts him with many of his predecessors in the series, in particular those written by Kaga. I don't think the GBA games go out of their way to attribute any abilities or personal weapons to their protagonists' bloodlines - it's "just" their social status - but Marth, Alm, and everybody of note in Jugdral explicitly (and not merely as a game mechanic) has access to certain weapons because of their special bloodline or (in Jugral in particular) are innately more powerful than the peasant rabble. Ike's very talented at fighting and fairly charismatic, but that's just him and not a "noble trait" and I feel like I keep repeating myself at this point

I mean, I've heard that Kaga did everything first, so... I wouldn't rule that out.

I'm just realising that I seem to have a precursor of this one installed that's about 50 years old. In that old randomizer, I really didn't like the "randomise growths" options because it seemed to create incredibly lopsided growths (a lot of 0-10% on the one end, and 80+% on the other), but it seems that this one has more options to keep the randomness in check.

Back in the olden days, there was THAC0 - To Hit Armor Class Zero, as in "you have to roll this high to hit AC 0". If you have 15 Thac0, you have to roll 15 vs AC 0, 14 vs. AC 1, 13 vs. AC 2 etc, or [Thac0-AC] in general, which means that both AC and Thac0 follow the rule "the lower the better". In Baldur's Gate, which generally tries to reproduce the PnP rules, a +1 weapon will give a +1 bonus to Thac0 (which means that it will reduce Thac0 by one) and a standard shield will give a +1 bonus to your AC (which means that it will reduce AC by one). The maths isn't actually any more difficult than the "modern" To Hit bonuses, unless you struggle with the concept of subtracting negative numbers, but you get the impression that there's an attempt to make it look much more complicated than it really is. The part where "+x" means "-x" honestly is the worst part. Today's standard, I'm pretty sure, is to roll D20 and add your To Hit bonus, and compare that number with the target's AC. If you match or exceed it, you hit; if your result is below the AC; you miss. I obviously have no idea if there's some exceptions to the rule, I was just assuming that the newer rulebooks try to be consistent about the general "more = better" rule.

We can ban them Just for one day We could be BANNED Just for one day Ground Control to Major Wraith Your account's banned, there's something wrong Can you hear me, Major Wraith?

Banned for not mentioning YGOTAS. In America. Ooooooooo, Wraithyboyyyy~

It's only real AC if small numbers are better! *yells at cloud* Ignore that my only actual P&P roleplay experience was with a system that was only developed because a big German boardgame publisher didn't want to cough up the licencing fees for DnD

"Armour Class", I believe. Didn't know that the Observer was an oldschool DnD player.

While ðe idea seems very good, ðe usage of ðis accursed symbol of oppreshin makes me wonder how serious ðe faiþfulness is regarding ðe cause.

What hypocrisy: By banning for mentioning Cold Steel, he mentioned Cold Steel himself, yet he refused to follow up with a self-ban! How despicable! BANNED!

In Civilization V, there's a fair number of ways to boost a city's food output, which directly translates into population growth. Most percentage-based boosts apply to the food surplus, i.e. food produced minus food eaten by the already existing population, with only two sources applying their bonus to the entire food production: The Temple of Artemis, a world wonder, and the Aztec's unique building, the Floating Gardens. Interestingly, the Gardens are actually stronger than the Temple - +15% instead of +10%. This technicality in itself isn't particularly interesting, but it leads to an unexpected "best playstyle" for the Aztecs, who in the hands of the AI are one of the most aggressive civs around. Because in Civ5, additional cities reduce how large you can grow each individual city, going around conquering your neighbors directly strangles the Aztec's biggest strength, the ability to have their cities grow faster than any other civ. A 15% bonus might not sound that impressive, but it has a great impact on the "produced minus consumed" difference dictating population growth. In an ideal Aztec game, you happily sit on your four core cities, teching up and winning the game that way. Now, they do get something out of warfare - namely, killing enemy units provides them with a bit of culture gain - but the prudent way to go about warfare is to sit back, kill whatever the enemy sends at you, and not to bother capturing any cities.

Yeah, Poland is great fun for that precise reason. Tourism game? Getting through Aesthetics without sacrificing tech, great. You got a (good) own religion? Full piety is pretty neat. Full Commerce is also very nice to have. The ability to always open Rationalism the turn you reach Renaissance isn't too shabby either. Huh, interesting. I don't think I've ever heard about the possible Crowley connotation.

Yeah, but the Inca in such a mountainous environment are just not fair Nevermind that this is the Inca in such a mountainous environment with the Temple of Artemis, which is an ungodly amount of growth. A 40-pop capital is really great; the same 40-pop cap plus four expands that are all as big as the AI's capitals is insane. ...have I mentioned that I really like the Inca? Poland's seven free world wonders (an admittedly slightly overly dramatic way of describing their free policies, but the Oracle is a fairly decent wonder to build) or NebuCHADnezzar's super early free Great Scientist are great and all, but there's something about the food and production yields that an Incan city in a good neighborhood can get. Hmmm... wasn't "Safer Sephiroth" a mistranslation (gee whiz, a translation error in FF7? What are the odds!) that should've been "Seraphim Sephiroth"? If so, we need a silly distortion of "Devil Sephiroth". "Debile Sephiroth"? "Defo Sephiroth"? "Deffi Sephi"?

Since I've been reading up on Baldur's Gate stuff over the last couple weeks or months, here's a selection of BG2 quotes that most likely won't come up in my LP even if I carry on to the sequel... [It probably won't surprise you that (a) most of those are just short snippets of much, much longer dialogues, and (b) Jan is a fairly love-him-or-hate-him character]

As a small addition to support this, Shinon and Gatrie leaving the company, and the former being reported to "explode" at the news, also shows that Ike inheriting Greil's leadership position wasn't taken for granted by everybody. Titania was informed beforehand, Soren seems to have assumed it (although he might be rather biased in favour of Ike), the bros accept it because they consider the group family. One could argue that Greil thinks that Ike is incredibly talented at this whole "leadership" thingie and that he didn't set up Titania as a (at least) transitory leader because he didn't expect to bite the bullet so soon, I guess. But the point still stands that Ike becomes the group's leader because his dad wills it so, and wills it so without Ike having done anything to deserve that merit. -- I think it should be mentioned that the idea that the main lord is "of special blood" has been established in the series since the very first game. Marthipan is the only person capable of wielding Falchion. Plus, only his sister (extended to some additional princesses in the remakes) can use the Aum staff, reinforcing the point that there's something innately exceptional about any royal. I have no reason to doubt OP that Alm has only really gained his super-mega-specialness in Echoes, but then Geneology comes and brings back the "nobles are of special blood" trope back with force.

Finally a win on Immortal Although "Inca on Highlands map script" might count as cheating. I was also kinda lucky that my second-closest neighbor, China (the green civ) ended up in a perma-war against Venice - not entirely sure why, although I'd speculate that China didn't want to peace out because they were at a massive army advantage, but couldn't use it because I didn't let them through my lands, which means that Venice was pretty darn impossible to reach. In any case, that allowed me to be fairly greedy with not building a ton of military without getting murdered like I usually get on this difficulty. Lategame timings weren't perfect I guess...? Could've started bulbing Great Scientists a bit earlier (had 3 or 4 left after getting the last necessary tech; can't remember how the cost to faith-buy them increases exactly), could've started a permanent golden age earlier (22 "wasted" turns, considering that I still have a Great Artist left). Money worked out pretty well though, allowing me to buy the last remaining spaceship parts immediately after researching Particle Physics. Still, quite happy with this game.

Well, oðer languages are plain silly. For example, German somehow made ðe "V" pronunciantion (see? Anoðer alleged "T" which is half of a "SH" sound) ambiguous wiþ boþ being covered already: by ðe "F" or by ðe "W". Answer me ðis: would you listen (ANOÐER "T" which is unpronounced) when ðis kind of language offers advice?

Ðis is very easily proven wiþ 2 obvious pieces of evidence: 'Muricans revel in making fun of ðe "Bri'ish" (clearly, ðere is only one manner of speaking in ðe whole UK. Ðey do so while calling ðem "ðe Briddish" ðemselves. Easily, one can deduce: ðere is akshually no "T" on eiðer side of ðe ocean. Auþors of reading primers came up wiþ all ðis wiþ one goal: Make ðe English language more complex (by a miniscule margin), and even more weird. I hereby call upon every Englishman and 'Murican: Rise up versus ðis Tyranny!

The German word for a hammock, 'Hängematte', is a funny little piece of etymology. The word can easily be read as "hanging mat", but it has the same origin as the English term: Hamáka, which is what Caribbean natives called it. The vile slaver Christopher Columbus initially brought the word to Europe, and as early as 1529, it had migrated to Germany as 'Hamaco' or 'Hamach' (ch as in Loch Ness). But because those words sounded unfamiliar to German ears, it then shifted to the coincidentally very fitting compound word.

Maybe the most successful pirate of all time was Zheng Yi Sao, a Chinese woman who effectively commanded the Guangdong Pirate Confederation between 1807 and 1810. The confederation was forged by her husband Zheng Yi in 1805, and after his death in 1807, Zheng Yi's adoptive son Zhang Bao ('adopted' in a Garon-esque sense, although the kid was already 15 years old at the time) officially took over, while factually deferring to Zheng Yi Sao. According to Wikipedia, the Confederation in 1805 numbered 40-60k pirates and 400 ships in total, with Zheng Yi Sao commanding 1433 pirates and 24 ships personally (although that number is from 1810). In 1810, the pirates negotiated a surrender to the Qing rulers, but from a sufficiently powerful position that allowed them not only to achieve a total amnesty, but also a payment in pork, wine, and money for the grunts, as well as a lieutenant rank in the Chinese military and personal command over a small fleet for Zhang Bao. It also allowed Zheng Yi Sao and Zhang Bao to officially marry - they had been in a relationship since Zheng Yi's death, but as Zheng Yi's wife, Zheng Yi Sao was legally considered to be Zhang Bao's adoptive mother, which was annulled after these events. The whole affair isn't quite as gross as it probably seems, by the way - Zhang Bao had already been 18 years old when Zheng Yi Sao and Zheng Yi had married. Anyway - Zhang Bao died twelve years later, after which Zheng Yi Sao lived a peaceful life as the owner of a gambling house.