u/InAWorldTV

Battering rams and siege towers are support units. They can help you take a city, but you need to pair them with other units for success.

Cities have the HP pool of multiple units, and if they have walls, they can fire on your units with a ranged attack (like a ranged unit). They start with the power of a civ's most powerful built ground unit and can scale up from there.

The most important starting point I've found is that you do a LOT more damage if you have a higher combat strength than the city. If it's around 10, it takes a fair chunk off each time. If it's around 20, you should mow down the defenses in short order. If you can't get a damage advantage (and you can't keep that damage up through the many turns it takes to siege a city), it's almost impossible to take a city. If you don't have a good tech advantage, you can try one of the heroes in the extra heroes mode as they often have higher power than most units of the era they are built. Cities with lots of districts get stronger (+3 combat strength per district I think), so pillage districts if you need to get a city center's health down.

Walls can fire each turn and have 2 range. Look for the blue bar on city centers as well as encampments. Take down a wall quickly (or take the city quickly) or your units will suffer a LOT of damage. If a city or encampment is garrisoned with a unit, that unit can also attack. You can lose a unit before you know it especially to a well defended city.

You need a collection of at least 4/5 units of various compositions. Siege units can bombard the city, but they can be weak by themselves and mostly can't move and shoot at the same time. Cavalry can run around and pillage/harass (as well as attack the city center if need be). Melee usually is your bread and butter unit, but they do significantly less damage to walls. The city will also heal each turn if not under siege (surrounded - it will display a heart with a line through it if it's surrounded). You can pillage farms for 50 health if your units get low, and some support units (medic, supply convoy, apostles with the medic promotion, etc) can heal your units each turn. Swap out your units if your health gets too low. Select the city-specific upgrades for your units that you expect to be your primary attacking army (urban warfare on melee units, charge and marauding for heavy cavalry).

If the city is accessible by ocean, naval ranged and naval melee units can attack from the sea.

Once the modern era rolls around (if you see city strengths near 100), you'll probably need air units or a GDR to damage a city.

If you want to see faster damage in action, try Byzantium with crusade. Their cavalry will ignore city walls and if you convert a city to your religion (easy to do with combat nearby, since combat victories spread your religion), it should make for an easy combat difference. Hippodromes will give a free heavy cavalry when built and with each building, making it easy to print a quick army of cavalry. This showed me the value of strength differences and how quickly a high difference can wreck a city's defenses.

The loyalty system is meant to discourage forward settling. A -20 is a STRONG disincentive - it’s best to forget any place more negative than around 10 for settling. When conquering, it’s best to try to take multiple cities in quick succession. Victor with the extra +4 loyalty upgrade to nearby cities also helps to shore up loyalty. You also get a large garrison bonus (I think it’s +8) when you fortify a unit in an occupied city center. Converting a city to your religion removes a small penalty (I think its +/- 3).

All governors give +8 loyalty, one policy card give +2 for garrisoned unit, one gives +2 for governors. Monuments give +1 loyalty (or +2 depending on ruleset, I think). All of the above can help for a city with negative loyalty. When declaring peace, warmonger penalties can translate into negative loyalty (up to around 10 or so in my experience). The government complex gives +8 loyalty per turn to a city. Bread and circuses (from the entertainment complex) can spread loyalty to cities close by as well.

Population is also important - higher population means more pressure. If you can get your city growing quickly, it will take some pressure off. The golden/dark ages from R&F give each citizen more or less loyalty pressure, as well - something to consider especially with high population cities.

Portugal is indeed very map dependent. I consider them "Mali on the sea," as they can be slow to start but they really really ramp up around the midgame.

I played my first Portugal game on a water map (Island plates or Archipelago or something like that) with barbarian clans and secret societies (Owls of Minerva). I was making a ridiculous amount of gold by the Renaissance era, which allowed me to settle pretty much any/every small island, buy a lighthouse once the harbor was up, and continue making tons of gold per turn.

Even if you don't have trading partners, you can use maritime schools in the midgame to generate tons of science in your coastal cities, and you can trade internally if you don't have great foreign trade targets.

Trade Routes gain yields from districts in the receiving city. I generally build initial trade routes to build out a road network. Around Medieval Faires, I usually send the routes out to the foreign city with the most gold. This works great with a trade city state or a well developed nearby foreign city. You should get +20 gold per turn in the Middle Ages, and +40 near the end of the game.

I just about always plug in the trader cards when possible (Caravanserai/Triangular Trade/E-commerce), while keeping a few traders to get my late-game cities up to speed. Don’t forget Harbors/Commercial districts, as they add a trade route when you build their first building. After a certain point, you can just buy their buildings with the money you are making per turn and have a runaway economy.

Some cards/bonuses already mentioned (Wisselbank, Democracy) work great with alliances, so cultivate those as well, especially with amenable nearby civilizations. This tends to be moot if one is warmongering, but the benefit of that is that if you make war successfully, you have a large group of cities you can trade with internally. Communism generally goes well with the large empire if you find yourself with few allies.

I'd almost prefer to make the Byzantines an alternative leader for the Romans. They considered themselves Roman, and the name Byzantine was only created later to refer to the Eastern Roman empire, especially into the Middle Ages.

Spitballing some ideas here:

Theodosian Walls - +15 Outer defense strength per level of walls. Units in walled cities/districts receive +5 ranged strength and +7 combat strength.

Hippodrome - Replaces Arena. Additional amenity from entertainment with horses (and maybe one or two other strategic resources?). Cavalry units trained in this city gain 25% combat experience.

Cataphract - Courser replacement. Perhaps unlocked a little earlier than the courser? +10 combat strength when adjacent to a ranged unit.

Continental crossroads - Trade routes receive +3 gold when travelling to a foreign city on a different continent. Luxury resources on continents other than the continent of the original capital grant 6 copies instead of 4. Luxury resources outside of home continent grant +2 gold per resource in the capital.

Each unit consumed in the power plant would likely add those yields.

For cities with lots of renewable sources, reyna’s renewable subsidizer will help - all renewable sources will get +2 power and +2 gold each.

Power plants provide their power to all cities within 6 tiles, so they work best in an area where they touch the most number of unpowered/underpowered cities.

I got an email this morning, applied, and was accepted.

My first attempt to use it wasn’t successful - the card reader gave an error like “card type not supported.” I will try again later tonight.

Reform Germanic as Erik af Munso.

Play a randomized world animal realm. Eat prisoners as a bear or something.

To the devious Regent LaTueur,

Tales of your memes are told from Ireland to Cathay. I will join your crusade for Jerusalem.

Sincerely,

Petty King InAWorldTV

I have played ETS2 and ATS with both an Xbox 360 controller and a Steam controller.

The XBox controller is adequate, it did the job for the time that I used it. The triggers work well for acceleration/braking, and there are enough buttons for most tasks.

I have and prefer the Steam controller due to two main enhancements - the tilt functionality and the extra paddles on the back. I have my controller set to allow tilt steering when not accelerating - essentially, if I'm going slowly or am on cruise control, I can tilt the controller to steer. After a short time, I found this allowed more fine-grained control than the analog stick.

I also like the paddles - I have them set to turn signals, and that coupled with the rest of the buttons means I rarely need to use the keyboard unless I'm changing the radio or some such thing.

I like the Pitathi archers. I didn't use them to roll over anyone (not really my playstyle), but they were very powerful and felt like a quality UU. The full game ranged unit bonus is welcome, especially since I prefer having my army composed of primarily ranged units.

The gold bonuses on resources meant plenty of gold output. I think I ended the game (though a loss) with about 15k (including Big Ben), and around a hundred a turn. More than enough to support a nice big army.

I was underwhelmed by the Nubian Pyramids. The 20% added bonus for districts doesn't seem that significant when it only covers the district, and not the buildings inside it you need to get them running productively. The restriction to desert-only was a detriment in my game, as there were maybe 15 desert tiles on my starting continent (on a continents map). The bonuses for adjacent districts also seems small. I might consider expanding the UI to include plains, and buffing the bonuses to +1.5 or +2 to make it more powerful. When you compare it to something like a +2 science Ziggarut you can put anywhere with flat land, I find Nubian Pyramids underwhelming.

I have a GPD XD, and I can recommend it for all the systems you mentioned besides the Gamecube. The form factor is great, the controls are integrated, and there is comparatively less finicky to get things working compared to homebrew Vita software or to a separate Android + controller setup.

GPD Win is intriguing since it is more or less a full Windows system (with more power and more mature emulation programs), however, I don't know how comfortable the controls are since they are squished into the upper half of the pad. If I had waited about a year, I think I would have gotten this for handheld emulation instead of an XD.

Deliveries to 10 different cities in any combination across both games.

Can confirm. Just tried it, it works.

It's a very deep, complicated, involved, but rewarding game.

I don't think I really got the hang of it until about 20+ hours in. There are a lot of moving parts.

At its core, the game is about people. Your true base resource isn't armies or vespene gas or cities, but people. Relationships are the lifeblood of the game. Think about your ruler, his/her strengths, and how you can capitalize on them.

Don't bite off too much. You don't have to be noble. Ned Stark from Game of Thrones shows where nobility often leads. Take opportunities. Take high-percentage chances. If you are outmatched, bide your time. Machiavelli and Sun Tzu are good guides for how to play. Try to beat your enemy without fighting. Beat your enemy before you raise your armies.

For Ireland, I find it's best to take on one prince/petty king at a time. Maybe one or two provinces. Make the land your advantage - it's perilous to fight an enemy after crossing a river or to fight defenders on a hill. Sometimes troop numbers can be misleading. Skilled generals can give even small armies large advantages.

I'd also recommend the Game of Thrones mod to help get the hang of the game. I got CK2 mainly for AGoT, and almost half my time has been spent in it. It has a more concrete and firm war system, allowing you to focus on war in wartime and intrigue in peacetime. It's especially rewarding to play if you are a fan of the books and/or the TV series.

Don't get too overwhelmed. Try to set simple, easily achievable goals for each play-through. King of Ireland is a great start. It can take a few games to get to King of Ireland, but it is a fantastic learning tool to teach you about the mechanics of the game. It becomes IMMENSELY rewarding and satisfying once you have done so.

The stock market can be very intoxicating. The ups and downs of the market have made many men rich, and many men poor.

It is good to try (as much as possible) to take a dispassionate view of the market and your finances. Emotion can seep into your investment decisions, and many people have lost incredible sums of money when emotion takes over their judgement.

The stock market is, in some ways, like a casino. In the short term, stock movements can swing wildly, and have no relation to the overall health of a company. A wise man said "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

Do you know the fundamentals of your stock picks? What is the P/E ratio? Growth rate? Are the projections realistic? What are the prospects of the industries of the stocks you are investing in? Are your stocks overvalued or undervalued compared to historical averages? What is your exit price? Do you have a stop loss order in case your stocks drop below where you bought them? Are the stocks paying dividends, or are you simply relying on the capital gains of the stock itself? Is there a competitive long-term advantage for your stocks compared to the market at large? How would you feel if your stock picks lost over half of their value in a day? Can you afford to lose all 10k that you invest? What do you know about the stock that the market at large doesn't?

I do not mean to be overly negative. I hope I'm getting you to think critically about the market. The stock market and the industry itself is very slanted towards attracting investment no matter what the environment. Most networks, publications, and people involved in the market are essentially representing only the 'buy' side of the equation. Their vested interests are served much more when you buy. Asking most people for market advice is akin to asking a car salesman if he thinks you should buy a car.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NOT INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. Stocks have no memory. Stocks have no emotion. In the short term, a stock can go up or down for any number of reasons completely unrelated to the underlying company. In the longer term (think years), stocks tend to settle back towards something more reflective of the fundamentals the stock represents. The market represents a powerful mix of both emotional and unemotional forces. It is much much more powerful than many realize. It can take away your money in an instant.

As for gains, the rates depend on how long a stock is held and your tax bracket (and the laws where you live). Capital gains as well as fees such as brokerage fees should be calculated. As far as I know, these are only taken out when the gain is realized - for example, when the stock is sold or when dividends post to your account. Assuming you are an American, the rates are lower once a stock is held over a year. I highly recommend familiarizing yourself with the relevant considerations before you invest any significant amount.

GPD has a Windows handheld in development, the GPD Win. The chip (8570, I believe) may let you play some basic steam games, and could be used for in home streaming.

If you are primarily going to play Nintendo games, the 3ds/2ds is probably preferable. The Virtual console will let you play certain game boy games, and flash carts can be used for a more traditional emulation experience.

Yes. Often times, the port is poorer and/or has fewer features than most emulators.

Emulators have save states, letting you save at any time. They have filters to change the look of games, letting you sharpen the original image, mimic classic CRT screens. Resolutions can be increased, which can make the game look better than the original (or the port).

Its usually worth at least trying the emulated version, so you can see for yourself.

I'm not sure of the price range, but I'd recommend the GPD XD as an emulation handheld. It's around $150.

GPD and JXD seem to be the companies with the best current reputation when it comes to handheld emulation machines.

The aimtrak appears to run as a mouse in most operating systems, at least according to the product page. I don't own one, so I'll take the word of owners.

If the Aimtrak were to work, it would require an emulator that can accept a mouse as a controller. I know that Dolphin and Mame (arcade emulator) both do. It appears that PCSX2 had a plugin that worked with mice as well as the gun controllers, but it's old and I don't have any personal experience with it.

As a possible alternative, I would suggest Wiimotes with a Dolphin Bar. It has a mouse mode, as well as support for Dolphin games using the sensor bar. My recollection is that the mouse mode is a bit jittery in HD resolutions (720+). The bar will work with practically any monitor. The infared lights in the bar itself serve to orient and calibrate the Wiimote.

My initial thought is to call bullshit. They seem to be promising everything. I do not see how they could possibly meet all the promises.

The specs are higher than a GPD Win. GPD has released handhelds before (like the XL), and the GPD Win is single screen, 720p. This device claims they will release 720p and 1440p, with a similar chipset. How on earth can they ADD a second screen to the bottom portion and expect to power it? How can they have 1440p AND the second screen on the same chipset as the other? I don't expect a mobile Intel chip coupled with the non-discreet GPU to handle any kind of serious (PS2 or newer) emulation. Intel HD graphics is, AFAIK, on the same chip as the CPU, and is not particularly fast.

Staying on the topic of that second screen - I don't see how you can add the internal real estate needed for one of those without affecting the internals compared to something like a GPD XD. They are talking about putting a laptop/ultrabook grade processor in it, PLUS the second screen, PLUS a surround sound audio chip, PLUS more RAM, PLUS a camera, PLUS telescoping analog sticks on a slider style phone (that appears from the page can both slide up/down PSP go style AND open/close on a hinge like a 3DS). All this from a company without a prior product, and without a video of the system on its own. All I have seen is a mockup of something that appears tablet-sized, with gameplay that doesn't quite appear to sync up with the button presses.

I've seen this type of hype before. The handheld Steam console had a similar amount of hype, it got cancelled. I don't see anything about it since they cancelled it last year.

Truthfully, I hope this is real. If it delivers on almost all of the things it is promising, it would be my handheld of choice. As it stands, I think this is, at best; a group of enthusiasts over their head. At worst, it is an outright sham money grab on the scale of Coleco Chameleon. While I hope this is real, I do not expect a group of people, however well-meaning, to be able to engineer something that powerful in that form factor in the next year or two.

A valid point.

I don't really think there's anything that checks all the boxes without some setup needed on your part. I'll try to run through a few options, though.

For something no-muss that checks all boxes except 2, I'd recommend the Retron 5. It has ports for NES and SNES controllers (no adapters needed), and can run the games directly from cartridge slots on the top of the system. It can't run games as ROMs by default - SD cards can be used for save states, but not for ROMs/games. If she's okay having the cartridge collection at her house, I'd consider this an option.

Second option requires some tinkering by you to get it ready - a Raspberry Pi 3 with RetroPi/Lakka, or an Atom-based mini PC with either RetroPi, Lakka, or Windows 10. Raspberry Pi 3 costs around $35 for just the board, and the Atom based mini PCs cost from $100-150 pre-assembled. Lakka and RetroPi are Linux based, which means you will want to know your way around a Linux initial install, and have everything set up and ready to go for your mother before she starts using it. Like many inexpensive do-it-yourself options, you trade time for money here, ESPECIALLY if you are inexperienced with fresh installations, and inexperienced with Linux. Expect this option to take 2-8 hours or more for you to set up.

A Windows 10 is a bit easier to set up. Add a couple of emulators (or RetroPie, which is a single program encompassing many emulators), set a frontend to boot automatically, set up the frontend, and you are good to go. NES/SNES to USB adapters will allow your mother to use original controllers (SNES and NES) on either Windows or Linux. I am not aware of any box which lets you hook up NES/SNES controllers without needing an adapter. An added bonus of Windows 10 is that you can set up remote desktop programs such as Splashtop and/or TeamViewer on your mother's computer to help her if she runs into any problems. I am not very experienced with the Pi/Linux/Lakka/RetroPi side of remote desktop, so I can't comment on remote tech support for them.

Frontends (or single-program, multi-system emulators like RetroPie) will give a single, easily navigable interface for your mother to select games from. I would suggest going for simplicity - the fewer the games, the better. When you give her the gift, spend an hour or two helping her with the system. A good setup should be mom-proof. If she turns it off and back on, it should be able to go right back to the frontend/multiemulator.

Regarding 'blurriness' and resolution - I would suggest using HDMI for the system. RCA is 640x480. Any modern TV she displays it on will likely process the RCA signal to HDMI 1920x1080 anyways, and this can introduce a lag into the game - the game will slow down slightly before it's on the screen. HDMI is, broadly, 1920x1080. Most TVs are at this resolution, so no processing is needed before sending the image to the TV. HDMI will also make the non-game parts easier to read and navigate. As far as blurriness goes - the concept is generally a result of filters. NES resolution is roughly 1/4 of 1080p resolution. SNES is 1/4 to 1/2. In order to show these on a HDMI/1080 TV, the system 'blows up' the pixels to fit the screen. All systems above do this - some will simply blow them up without any changes - unfiltered. This is like what they do on crime investigation drama shows, MINUS THE PART WHERE THEY 'ENHANCE.' The blown up image gets blocky if it's just magnified/blown up. There are filters on most emulators, on pretty much everything I mentioned above. These can be turned on or off. For a reference, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hqx gives a good guide. The left is the non-filtered, the right is filtered. This is totally a personal preference. I prefer my NES/SNES games on hq4x or x4BZ filtered. Some people like non-filtered. Some people like filters that make the game look like it's on a retro CRT screen. Try it with your mom and see which one she likes. There is no right or wrong answer - it's totally a preference thing.

Original controllers - If you have a RetroPi or Atom PC, you will need an adapter to adapt the NES and SNES connectors to USB, so they can plug in. I'd recommend a 2 port SNES to 1 port USB adapter. The SNES controller can play NES games using the same B and A buttons that the NES uses. It is very intuitive and means your mother won't have to switch controllers after plugging them in. SNES games will use all the buttons. If you have leftover SNES controllers, you should be able to use them with either the adapters, or directly to the Retron. Controllers (especially first-party ones manufactured by Nintendo) are very VERY durable. If you do not have them, they should not be hard to find second hand.

I hope this helps, and I hope you find a great solution for your mother!

It's more or less a matter of preference. The virtual console is, at its core, an emulator. It is legal, and the money goes to support Nintendo and (to some extent) the developers of the game and/or the rights holders of the game you use. It's .

The benefit to using the Wii U is that it's pretty much plug and play. No setup, just purchase and go.

Emulators give more flexibility, but can require more setup. You more or less have to set up each system with an emulator, you have to obtain files representing the games, you may need to obtain the BIOS for the system, etc. With this setup comes the flexibility of savestates (letting you save wherever you want), graphics filters to sharpen the game or simulate the look of a classic CRT, and the ability to choose the resolution. Since emulators are just collections of files that are on your computer, you are also more free to transfer them to another computer, and are at a much lower risk of them being taken away.

I would encourage you to try both and find which one you prefer.