Serenes Forest's Teehee Thread

[Saint Rubenio]

The two generics I have on the team are two of my best units.

Rev, you're such a funny game.

[Lightchao42]

I tried to be clever and headed to the Lost Woods after the Wind Temple to see if anything interesting is there, but it appears to be locked off by plot progress. It's a shame that you can't go straight to the final boss this time, the game is ruined! You can't activate the tower either, I assume it'll be available after finishing every dungeon.

18 hours ago, Armagon said:

I named it TriHorse 💀

So that's where the Triforce went, no wonder it wasn't in Breath of the Wild...

8 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I wonder how a meeting between her and Garon would go. Would he try to concubine her?

No, she would try to concubine him first. It's a match made in Heaven, truly.

7 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

I guess they wanted to have the possibility of four Little Timmies playing together in baby mode. But at that point, you might as well have a toggle and let whoever play as whoever. As you said, options.

But hey, they're getting there. It took them until the Switch re-release of New Mario U to realize that, hey, players appreciate not being forced to be Mario if they're playing solo. Nintendo learns in intervals of 20 years, let's give them some time.

In the case of Nabbit and the Yoshis not taking damage, I think it's partially to balance them being unable to use powerups.

Reminds me of when my friends all wanted to play as someone other than Mario, so they had him float in a bubble the whole time whenever I wasn't around to play as him.

2 hours ago, GuardianSing said:

I always thought it was funny that Rinkah still gets the baby-face treatment most other female cast members do in Fates but it's in complete contrast with how fucking ripped she is.

That's because Rinkah's abs are painted on, have you seen her strength growth?

55 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

Clearly, it's the current shift on what's permissible to be horny about and what not.

I think we can all agree, fanservice is alright as long as it appeals to Lightchao42 specifically.

[Codename Shrimp]

3 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

but it appears to be locked off by plot progress.

nope

but well, i won't say more

3 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

You can't activate the tower either, I assume it'll be available after finishing every dungeon

also nope.

[Acacia Sgt]

Okay, time for some more writing.

If I had my laptop back I'd be writing something else, but I suppose I can do that already once I upload the next chapter, at the least.

[GuardianSing]

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

"Jesse what are you talking about?"

That's the response I wanted.

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

True true, but the point still stands that many indigenous cities were for the most part found in Central and South America, with North America being a lot more nomadic.  

True, although that is not to say the majority of tribes in the north were fully nomadic, because even if they didn't build large cities they did have settlements that would cultivate and harvest crops, they were doing a "Civilization" in western terms.

In fact it's theorized that had they not been invaded, many communities in the north could've built larger settlements and communities given the time, and not a very long time either.

Which also reminds me, feudalism within North America was practiced to some degree but different in how it was often handled. In many Northwestern tribes, landowners were seen as being in service to the people and the land rather than to themselves, and the people had every right to remove and replace landowners if they didn't agree with them.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Or, we're hypocrites.

What can I say. The flesh is weak.

[Armagon]

1 hour ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

gotta not gameover got it

Honestly I think the devs knew checkpoints were a necessity because they'd be seeing smashed Switches otherwise.

14 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

Which also reminds me, feudalism within North America was practiced to some degree but different in how it was often handled. In many Northwestern tribes, landowners were seen as being in service to the people and the land rather than to themselves, and the people had every right to remove and replace landowners if they didn't agree with them.

There was just something about the New World that had people living more.... comfortable lives I guess? Cause we look at feudalism through a Western lens but the East was also practicing it's own form of feudalism, complete with people lording over others.

There was just something about the Americas that we're never getting back. And Australia and Oceana too probably. 

[GuardianSing]

Goddammit I didn't mean to post that early.

1 hour ago, Saint Rubenio said:

Or, we're hypocrites.

What can I say. The flesh is weak.

I mean unless you're asexual the horny is within us all.

1 hour ago, gnip said:

Bonus points for following up with Rationalism (admittedly, that's an almost obligatory choice) and then Communism. And even more bonus points for the entire world also going Communists, which I think is unusual - normally, people (and AI) are incentivised to pick an ideology (beween Capitalism, Communism, and Fascism - or Freedom/Order/Autocracy, as the game calls them) that hasn't been picked before.

I don't think I'll ever get over this fact, it's the funniest fucking thing. It's the most neo-liberal American take on ideology.

1 hour ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Why am i still in Zelink mood damn it

Here is thou blessing.

59 minutes ago, Lightchao42 said:

That's because Rinkah's abs are painted on, have you seen her strength growth?

Good point. What they should've done is give the abs to Azura with her 70% Berserker strength growth.

[GuardianSing]

3 minutes ago, Armagon said:

There was just something about the New World that had people living more.... comfortable lives I guess? Cause we look at feudalism through a Western lens but the East was also practicing it's own form of feudalism, complete with people lording over others.

There was just something about the Americas that we're never getting back. And Australia and Oceana too probably. 

It's hard to say when it's a period in history that happened so long ago and so much of it was destroyed and lost. Not unreliable oral histories as many like to assume but actual written records of events that have been lost within the 500 years since Columbus arrived, and the most amount that we have is documents written by white settlers going off of second-hand information and observation, a lot of it is filtered through that lens because of that.

This goes for Oceania as well, while we have a general idea on how specific tribes might have lived and societies operated, the records detailing specific events, people, philosophies, art, music, and mythology, have largely been demolished. This of course helped lead to the racist idea that Native Americans just didn't keep records, or make art, or think complex thoughts before colonization.

So it's true that there was something about the Americas that we're never getting back, and what makes it the most painful is the fact that we may never know fully what that something even is.

 

[null]

 

[Saint Rubenio]

2 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

That's because Rinkah's abs are painted on, have you seen her strength growth?

Here we go again. Her abs are made of steel, she can tank hits for days!

2 hours ago, Lightchao42 said:

I think we can all agree, fanservice is alright as long as it appeals to Lightchao42 specifically.

I... guess I can get behind that?

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

I mean unless you're asexual the horny is within us all.

Fair enough. I am clearly righteous.

[Acacia Sgt]

[Saint Rubenio]

Okay I think Rev just hates me tonight. I keep trying to beat chapter 18 so I can get to Izana and I just can't. When I'm not fumbling about, the game's making me miss 85%s. Off I go, fuck videogames.

[Acacia Sgt]

They took offense of the fanservice talk.

[Armagon]

1 hour ago, GuardianSing said:

It's hard to say when it's a period in history that happened so long ago and so much of it was destroyed and lost. Not unreliable oral histories as many like to assume but actual written records of events that have been lost within the 500 years since Columbus arrived, and the most amount that we have is documents written by white settlers going off of second-hand information and observation, a lot of it is filtered through that lens because of that.

That's true and most of the concrete stuff was really just right before and then after the arrival of Columbus. And, I don't think before then it was all sunshine and rainbows either. But I don't think things ever quite reached the super volatile levels of Europe and Asia. You didn't have Average Jonathan and his entire family being hanged at the town square because they gave the Lord of Forkenburg five apples instead of six (the harvest was poor this year) or Young Noriuske being cut down by a samurai because the latter felt his honor had been sullied by 0.00000001% by the former.

You didn't have this either really

And this is just in the Americas. With the natives in Oceana being so far apart, I'd imagine any major conflicts were always internal.

[Acacia Sgt]

I like how that could easily apply to the HRE when the Habsburgs ruled Spain. XD

[Acacia Sgt]

lol

 

[Codename Shrimp]

of course there's another one lmao

[Armagon]

Super Mario Bros Wonder review:

Yeah this is the best 2D Mario. After years of stagnation with the NSMB series (and i love Wii), Nintendo comes in with this banger of a game. I won't really be stating the obvious here, everyone knows how much of a breath of fresh air this game is, thanks to the new Wonder gimmick and just generally the really appealing artstyle. But in addition to the Wonder effects and the cool new powerups, the level design benefits from simply just removing the time-limit that the previous games had. It's enough of a difference that allows levels to be a little bit more complex than they were before.

If there's one problem with the game, it's the boss fights. For a game as creative as this one, the boss fights are lacking even by Mario standards. The exception is the final Bowser fight but that's it. Actually, there's a second problem: badges. Outside of the specific Badge Challenge levels, badges in this game are wildly unbalanced. The tierlist is Grapple Vine > Glide Cap > literally everything else. Great idea but the normal level design doesn't make enough use of them.

All of that said though, at the end of the day....it's still 2D Mario. Levels are fun and creative but even with the Wonder effects, they still don't reach the heights of Donkey Kong Country. The Wonder helps set them apart and there's enough variety, even when certain gimmicks are reused, but some levels do inevitably.....blend in. Difficulty is fairly easy (Special World good challenge though).

9/10

[Acacia Sgt]

I just remembered. At some point I once mentioned that Cherrygrove City of Johto was meant to be based on Nagoya, but someone (I think it was Interdimensioal) pointed out the city is too small to be based on Nagoya. Well...

Turns out, Cherrygrove indeed used to be MUCH larger. It does make it look like a proper Viridian City equivalent there.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Acacia Sgt

[GuardianSing]

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

That's true and most of the concrete stuff was really just right before and then after the arrival of Columbus. And, I don't think before then it was all sunshine and rainbows either. But I don't think things ever quite reached the super volatile levels of Europe and Asia. You didn't have Average Jonathan and his entire family being hanged at the town square because they gave the Lord of Forkenburg five apples instead of six (the harvest was poor this year) or Young Noriuske being cut down by a samurai because the latter felt his honor had been sullied by 0.00000001% by the former.

You didn't have this either really

And this is just in the Americas. With the natives in Oceana being so far apart, I'd imagine any major conflicts were always internal.

You definitely would have stuff like that the more you get into Mesoamerica but it is true that due to lack of surviving sources in the north, we just don't have records of specific actions the "high ranking members of society" might've done. But we can theorize on how it might've been like based on what we do know.

Of course it would depend on the tribe and individual, but generally there is an understanding among Native scholars and historians that the cultural ideas surrounding government and social structures were a lot different compared to the rest of the world. As mentioned before in the Northwest we know that it was believed to be the right of people living in the land to overthrow and replace any landowner they didn't like because the "elites" of society were considered to be in benefit to the community at large, and if they weren't contributing to that overall collective and cruelly driving lower classes to their own benefit then the people were allowed to kill and replace them.

And this makes sense because when you're in a small tribe that may only have a few thousand people or less, the average person probably met the chief and their managers personally, maybe even be on first name basis if you were in the community capital, and a "serf's" word would be just as valued as a landowner's during council meetings.

Especially since many of those council meetings would've likely been about stuff concerning the workers, how the fishers, farmers, hunters, and so on may carry out their duties in service to not just the community but also the land. Depending on the seasons and migration periods of certain animals and fish, there would be meetings discussing when to increase or decrease land harvesting, to make sure that they weren't over hunting and killing the ecosystem.

In the western Christian perspective of things, it's believed that the land is in service to humanity, that God specifically created Earth for humans to exploit and do with as they please, but the Indigenous perspective is the opposite, that humanity is in service to the land and to take care of the land is in our best interest. Many tribes would do their best to think about how any major decision may effect the next 7 generations.

But as you say, it wasn't all peachy. Slavery was practiced in many tribes as during war any prisoners caught from enemy tribes would become slaves. They were usually kept as hostages to trade back to the enemy tribe for goods or land. And any person can still become an asshole if their life was hard enough so you would get the occasional war mongering chief, usually in the bigger tribes, who would be fine killing your entire family if you looked at him wrong.

Uh, I don't know as much about Oceania but major conflicts wouldn't always be internal. There was a period of Polynesian history where people would sail all over across Oceania, meeting other people and settling new communities on new islands, those new communities maybe even splitting off from their home island and become independent. They probably never had like big ocean naval warfare since we have no record of ships designed for that kind of thing (Though who knows, maybe they all were sunk) And there might not have been much reason for conflict when resources and land are an ocean apart but I imagine there had to be some warmongering leaders who wanted to conquer the other islands.

Which to be fair, there was. The Kingdom of Hawaii was once multiple kingdoms on each island before it was brought under one dynasty by Kamehameha I in a military campaign with the help of western weapons traded with by the European colonizers. Though this in the 19th century long after the great wayfinding era of Polynesia.

Also there's the Maori in New Zealand who had multiple tribes and kingdoms on that island who would compete with other, so that's interesting.

I don't know as much about the social hierarchies or values that existed within Oceanic countries before Colonization but I figure that in general across all human societies that smaller communities tend to have not as strict class boundary lines because it's hard to oppress people you personally met and are friends with, and exploiting the land is hard because doing so may kill like half of your people with the other half wanting to kill you.

I did not expect to write a mini-essay on the topic, I am so sorry. It must be the adderall.

[Codename Shrimp]

Teehee

58 minutes ago, Armagon said:

ctually, there's a second problem: badges. Outside of the specific Badge Challenge levels, badges in this game are wildly unbalanced. The tierlist is Grapple Vine > Glide Cap > literally everything else.

another thing about badges is that they made some normal mario things into them

Like Triple Jump. Whay is that a badge?

[Interdimensional Observer]

7 hours ago, gnip said:

Whoops  Cyrus in Civ6 and both in Civ4, if I remember correctly. I'm pretty ignorant about Iranian history, beyond "they traded blows with the Romans a lot, but were very quickly annexed by the Arabs after the birth of Islam", so I don't really have a picture of either in my head.

I'm not too good with Iran either.

Achaemenid > Alexander's Conquest > Seleucid (founded by a general of Alex)> Parthian > Sassanid/Sasanian > Islamic Conquest (IDK on the actual rulers during this) > the Ilkhanate (Mongols) > Safavid > Qajar > Reza Shah Pahlavi & Almost Same Name Son > 1979 Iranian Revolution.

With regards to Rome, it's the Parthians who they initially fought against. Then the Sassanids take over the job, just a few decades before Diocletian splits Rome in two. And yes, the fighting was exhaustive for both sides, which is partly why the Arabs were so successful. -And yes, the Romaioi and the Iranians knew about the Arabs, even hired tribes to fight with them, but they simply couldn't have expected what would come their way.

While Civilization likes making Zoroastrianism the default religion choice of Persia b/c of the Achaemenid leaders, the record doesn't suggest they were staunch Zoroastrians. The Sasanians were the explicit devotees of Ahura Mazda.

As for the Safavids much later, they were contemporaries with the Ottomans and Mughals. The three Early Modern Islamic "Gunpowder Empires". And the thing is, Persia's cultural prominence was such that the Persian/Iranian language aka Farsi was employed at the courts of the Ottomans and Mughals. The Safavids won the Cultural Victory there.

7 hours ago, gnip said:

I think that's the standard way of playing, tbh. I think Soren Johnson (the civ4 lead designer) gave an estimate of the percentage of civ runs that actually go to the victory screen, but I can't find it right now. Definitely well below 50% though, I'm pretty sure.

I did do two more complete runs over the past two days though.

The first was an Immortal Korean Fractal where I just barely was able to fit in three cities, with a sub-300 Science Victory, and a capital that had both salt and Lake Victoria. I never declared war on, despite having Genghis and Gustavus Adolphus as neighbors, although I did keep them mostly docile for much of the much game via converting them to my religion. No AI war fun either, Atilla, Genghis, and Suleiman all did nothing, Pachacuti eventually eradicated Sweden though.

Since I technically won by Culture with the rigged Spain All Wonders map, and I won via Science with Korea, I decided to do one more game today. Germany, which after a bazillion rolls, got me a riverine salt start.

The power of the Hanse!😄 (I won all three international projects by enormous margins.)

Plus Religious Community, gotta have Production. Spain and Rome took the Colossus and Petra, so no theoretical 50% bonus unfortunately. Tradition-Patronage-Freedom (with a very late slide into Rationalism). No Honor nor Autocracy for me, the Hanse is what I wanted, and the Hanse pairs well with the Freedom Tier 3 Treaty Organization tenet (+4 Influence per turn with a City-State to whom you have a Trade Route with). A nice alternative to Autocracy. I could make Mechanized Infantry in 2-3 turns in every city.

I had a completely isolated continent on an Immortal Continents Plus map. Since almost all the City-States end up on islands on this map type, I had room for four cities, a rarity. Was really hurting for Gold and Happiness initially, but I eventually slingshotted into the lead. Nobody ever attacked me. Although India got conquered by Denmark very early on and the Aztecs likewise killed Ethiopia, only for Denmark to resurrect it, only to soon be killed again.

I did get into a tiny bit of warfare though. The first being a bloodless skirmish which I started b/c Spain converted one of my cities and had four Great Prophets running aimlessly around my lands. Which turned out to actually be SIX Great Prophets, how'd she get the Faith for that + one to found + the one to enhance (and I was the one who built Hagia Sophia)? Two had a full four charges and became Holy Sites.

As for the other war. Well, I failed by two votes to win as World Leader on the first vote. The result of three City-States having been conquered much earlier, and having been denied the Forbidden Palace. I had the spare money and production, sooooo....

That is you get for stealing the Palace from me!🚀☢️😁 *Cough*Maybe not the best timeline for German history after all.*Cough*

...That is the second nuke I nailed Babylon with (so this was a 49 Pop capital), the first was a weaker Atomic Bomb. Cities are too dang durable in Civ 5, and uranium is the only solution. I also accidentally incinerated that Tyre Privateer with this shot, so 2000 Gold had to be spent as compensation to get Tyre back into my good suzerainty.😅

In addition to the Forbidden Palace...

...Taj Mahal, Temple of Artemis, and Uffizi.🤩

Babylon had founded only two cities, but darned Nebuchadnezzar was in a Wonderful mood (his Wonder value is 7, which like all values is randomly +/-2, so he must've rolled a . By the time he had decided to build a third, Spain had occupied its little northern peninsula with three cities, and Rome had gone very wide and owned the rest. It seems Nebby eventually found an open patch on the Danes-Aztec continent, which caused Harald to get annoyed, which resulted in Babylon's northern companion city Akkad being taken away (impressive amphibious assault Harald) and leaving me with a near-harmless foe to devour.

On the very last turn, since it bordered Babylon, I sent Geneva a long-awaited liberation nuke. And then conventionally bombed the city enough for a Mechanized Infantry to free them. Also crippled another Roman city, two for the price of one. If I had continued, I suppose I could've picked up Petra and liberated Wellington.

...I think the Civ bug is thoroughly out of me for now.😆

7 hours ago, gnip said:

Bonus points for following up with Rationalism (admittedly, that's an almost obligatory choice)

It gets sooooo boring if you don't. The lategame techs take too long to research. -Yet at the same time the lategame units feel so irrelevant b/c the game is so close to being over.

 

45 minutes ago, Acacia Sgt said:

I just remembered. At some point I once mentioned that Cherrygrove City of Johto was meant to be based on Nagoya, but someone (I think it was Interdimensioal) pointed out the city is too small to be based on Nagoya. Well...

Turns out, Cherrygrove indeed used to be MUCH larger. It does make it look like a proper Viridian City equivalent there.

Indeed. I suppose Cherrygrove's size was siphoned off and given to Violet City instead.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Interdimensional Observer

[Armagon]

24 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

Uh, I don't know as much about Oceania but major conflicts wouldn't always be internal. There was a period of Polynesian history where people would sail all over across Oceania, meeting other people and settling new communities on new islands, those new communities maybe even splitting off from their home island and become independent. They probably never had like big ocean naval warfare since we have no record of ships designed for that kind of thing (Though who knows, maybe they all were sunk) And there might not have been much reason for conflict when resources and land are an ocean apart but I imagine there had to be some warmongering leaders who wanted to conquer the other islands.

That's the main thing. Maybe if it's when the islands are close enough. But like, a warmongering native of New Zealand just does not have the resources to wage war with the Kingdom of Hawaii.

25 minutes ago, GuardianSing said:

Which to be fair, there was. The Kingdom of Hawaii was once multiple kingdoms on each island before it was brought under one dynasty by Kamehameha I in a military campaign with the help of western weapons traded with by the European colonizers. Though this in the 19th century long after the great wayfinding era of Polynesia.

Also there's the Maori in New Zealand who had multiple tribes and kingdoms on that island who would compete with other, so that's interesting.

Of course, Hawaii and New Zealand are the biggest pieces of land in Oceana. So it makes sense for there to be multiple kingdoms.

14 minutes ago, Shrimpy -Limited Edition- said:

Like Triple Jump. Whay is that a badge?

This is legit the only action badge not featured in the final gauntlet, nor does it even have a Badge Challenge of it's own so i'm genuinely questioning why they made it a badge.

[Acacia Sgt]

5 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Indeed. I suppose Cherrygrove's size was siphoned off and given to Violet City instead.

Well, size-wise, Violet didn't got much changes.

Found lots of beta maps here, if interested:

https://daily.pokecommunity.com/2020/05/30/a-tale-of-three-johtos-the-evolution-of-the-gen-ii-maps/

[Acacia Sgt]

Oh, a silent night, huh...