Gormongous

thestalkinghead, I'm having a lot of difficulty engaging with your arguments, even beyond the formatting issues. You post something perfectly fine like that, but then your examples of "fair" representation in games are pretty stereotypical and sexist. Not to mention, when people say as much, your responses tend to argue right past their point. My last post was about pigeonholing people into stereotypes, but you answered with a bunch of platitudes about "embracing differences." Maybe you need to stop posting and just read for a bit. That might help you with the whole "typing things you apparently don't mean" thing that somehow warrants insulting BigJKO twice out of nowhere.

Then you're wrong. It is a totally sexist thing to expect. In fact, the whole idea that, because differences between genders exist, that we should make games that pander to the most stereotyped behaviors of those genders in the culture today is an incredibly regressive notion that I'm honestly having a lot of trouble getting over. People should make games that they want to play, that show the change they want to see in the world, and be smart about it. They shouldn't kowtow to the received knowledge of demographics, like women's preference for chocolate, which has pathetically scant consensus for being a "fact." Sarkeesian actually addresses the exact things you're talking about in her clip. Video games are part of the culture and therefore shape the culture. If we're going to use video games to pigeonhole the genders into these narrow, ugly confines, sexism will continue to be a huge force in the culture, which would be a shame, because people learn about and change their sexual and gender identities all the time, from childhood through old age. Otherwise, we'd have no trans people, no queers, no nothing. Everyone would be what they were raised, which is clearly not the case, so why not just make games rather than making gross "man-games" and "woman-games?" Honestly, I think it would be better if you just got over yourself and learned how to identify with a female protagonist. Three and a half billion women have to do the reverse every single time they interact with just about any piece of media ever.

Well, I have no interest in a beer-drinking, arm-wrestling games, so it looks like I'm stuck playing the chocolate-eating, hugging games. Or, you know, we could just make some games where the woman saves the man and more games where nobody needs saving.

Juuust found out that "creep-shaming" is a thing. Thanks for nothing, shammack. Seriously, what is it with Men's Rights activists trying to appropriate feminist rhetoric to use against women? It's the most reactionary thing since white flight. I guess I should head back over to the Feminism thread.

Yes! I just saw it this weekend at a children's film festival, along with A Letter to Momo. Both were the new generation of anime auteurs each doing their own My Neighbor Totoro, but Wolf Children won me over so completely with its restraint, sympathy, and beauty. After Summer Wars, I knew Mamoru Hosoda was a director to watch, but now I know his works will always be worth my time.

You're kinda sending mixed messages here, man.

Glad you're digging it! And yeah, the crown indicates the heir for your primary title alone. The game just calls him your heir, which isn't strictly true.

It's really not that hard. Top title claims last two generations, so the easiest way to gain control of a kingdom is: 1) Marry your son to the daughter of target king 2) Son inherits your kingdom when you die, wife inherits claim to target's kingdom when he dies 3) Grandson inherits both your kingdom and her claim when son and wife die 4) Kill everyone in target kingdom until a child or a woman is on the throne 5) Press grandson's claim The thing is, it takes a long time to pull off and the Thumbs more like to let things just happen. The game supports both playstyles, of course, but Nick was losing his mind waiting ten years for a claim to be fabricated in Wales, I can't imagine him waiting fifty for his grandson to have a chance at Scotland. EDIT: Oh god, I just finished the stream. For some petty revenge on a video game character, Nick threw away a chance to rebuild his kingdom from the ground up after the revolt. And he became a kinslayer to boot! This game is the best/worst.

Ben, the official insult is "XBoner" or "SUXBone." Please, stay on message.

Congratulations, Syn! You give me an excuse to post my favorite YouTube vid:

This is honestly the best part of rewatching Yu-Gi-Oh!, whether in full or abridged form. Duel Monsters seems to be a card game exclusively won by cheating, which is even more awesome when you realized that the anime at least was made to promote an actual card game with a fairly extensive set of rules. It's like everyone in the show is ten years old and derives their self-worth from winning at a children's card game, no matter how.

Assassins are a tool of desperation. If you're not too old yet, just nominate your son, bribe the relevant electors, and wait for the vote to change. Even if you die before the winds change, children all get claims on their parent's titles, so if your son holds onto some land, you'll be able to start a war to dispute the succession anyway.

You can mouse over the shield of any landed (or titular) title to see the succession law and first three heirs in order, in addition to the Laws screen. The culture and diplomacy of the target heir also help, too.

I'm enjoying Wargame: AirLand Battle a lot, but... Okay, so it's got this chat window that you get signed into when you start the game and, as far as I can tell, the only conversation it's been host to since the game launched two months ago is one massive nonstop slapfight over whether the USA or the USSR would have won World War III. You can even check it while playing by pulling up the Esc menu, so I know for sure that at least one skirmish lasted for six hours straight, with dozens of people coming and going and keeping up the fight. It's just way too easy to forget how many kinds of crazy, weird, fascinating people there are, hidden in every corner of the internet. I'd almost rather watch the fight than play the game, but it only takes one asshole bursting at the seams with toxic Czech or Swede nationalism to remind me why I don't.

Since Gavelkind has restrictions to keep you from doing exactly that, I'd say that Paradox thinks it's fair in any other situation. Whether it feels appropriate to you is another matter. As soon as possible, I say. Grand Tournaments have AI flags that discourage internal revolt while they're going on, not to mention that the +10 opinion matters a lot more when you've got the "short reign" malus than when you have the "long reign" bonus. Barring a possessed heir or feudal levies & taxes at max, a tourney followed by a feast will smooth over just about any succession.

If you think Twig is the worst the internet has to offer, I think you're better off someplace other than here.

Ah, you're right, just checked it myself. The bride browser filters out lowborns and women over forty. I guess that's just them trying to be user-friendly? Nappi, I have no clue why you can't elect your son to be king of Wales. It makes me curious enough that I'd ask for your save. Except for Byzantium, with its "born in the purple" mechanic, there's no situation where a child could be eligible for one title and not the other, if their succession laws are the same.

Bandai Entertainment was the international distribution arm for visual media from Bandai Visual. They had a weird parent/child relationship with each other that boiled down to a very Japanese way of doing business. Bandai Visual let other companies bid on distribution licenses for their anime titles, but then forced Bandai Entertainment to bid whatever it took to beat them all, because Bandai Visual wanted to make money from licensing deals but didn't want any licenses to go out-of-house. This made them big bucks with Gundam in the eighties, but they took a bath with every other anime ever. When Bandai Entertainment had to put in an insane bid for K-On! that pretty much guaranteed they would never make a profit (and they didn't), Bandai Visual got all huffy and had them pull out of the North American market entirely. All production stopped, all licenses lapsed, and a lot of the best anime of the nineties and noughties are in short supply until FUNimation or Sentai picks them up. It's a real tragedy, but we survived pretty much the same thing with Geneon, so I don't know. I'd guess that you're seeing a lot of no-name shows because, after the anime bubble, there's a common practice of selling "packages" of less desirable anime in the hopes that the distribution of risk over multiple titles will tempt licensers to bite. Haruhi Suzumiya is KyoAni and a huge hit, so it's expensive and hence risky to buy it alone, especially because it's fairly smart seinen and a lot of companies are always worried that the popularity won't translate. Which leads me to... Dennou Coil is not licensed. Dennou Coil will never be licensed. The system is broken.

Do you know the licensing situation in Spain? It might just be that there aren't many companies there licensing anime series, so Crunchyroll can't stream them. If so, that sucks. The Bandai blowout still has me so damn nervous about a lot of my favorite shows, I can't imagine not being able to watch the majority of anime legally. EDIT: It's extra weird that Lucky Star isn't available in your country. That's the third-biggest KyoAni property, surely it's worth someone's time to pick it up.

I'll weigh in, then. Arakawa Under the Bridge: Silly Shaft show about a rich boy being indebted to a homeless girl. Chi's Sweet Home: Two-minute comedy shorts about a curious kitten. Heartbreakingly cute. Gintama: Absurdist period comedy about a former samurai handyman. I can't give my full recommendation because I haven't finished it, it's so long. Lucky Star: Cute high school girls doing cute high school things. Pretty funny, despite. Seitokai no Ichizon: Parody anime about a guy who wants to make the all-girl student council his harem. A hard sell for most, but I like it. Squid Girl: A squid becomes a little girl to take revenge on humanity, gets distracted in funny ways. Wagnaria!!: A guy starts working at a restaurant to get with a girl, meets another instead. God, the characters are annoying, but the show's a good time. I'm an awful person, Tanukitsune. I couldn't remember if you'd seen Gurren Lagann. I also left off stuff like Fist of the North Star which is nominally serious but hard to take seriously.

Sproings.

I thought about that, but Hitler wouldn't have happened without World War I, which wouldn't have happened without Bismarck, and it felt a bit indulgent to name them both.

You have no idea of the temptation.

Also, just a quick note, but if you have all the DLC now, you'll want to disable Sunset Invasion in the launcher. The way it's coded, you're able to add it to a game in progress. There's a check in the first decade of the 1200s that locks it in, I think.

These lists are always a little bit ugly because they show how much "world history" is just the history of western Europe, but I'll add a few anyway. Alexander the Great: Conquers everything between Greece and India. More importantly, begins Hellenizing it, giving the eastern Mediterranean a single, unified culture from which almost every social and intellectual force of the next thousand years comes. Paul of Tarsus: Takes a insular Jewish sect and turns it into an aggressive, expansionist religion that spreads throughout the Hellenistic world. No small feat. Constantine: Legitimizes Christianity and brings it into the mainstream with his conversion, making it a world religion. Also, founds what will be the bastion of Christianity for the next thousand years. Charlemagne: Unifies Western Europe under a single cultural identity, more or less creating "Christendom." Provides Christian rulers with a model to follow that leads directly to the Renaissance and Reformation. Napoleon Bonaparte: Upsets the old colonialist order, changes the face of Europe forever, and writes pretty much everyone's law codes for them. Big fucking deal, I say. Otto von Bismarck: Created a powerful new state in Europe that upset the balance of power over the long term, pretty much forcing both World Wars, which in turn would kick-start scientific and social developments for the next half-century. Martin Luther and Muhammad should probably be in there too, but they both felt counter to the spirit of how my list was shaping up.