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Does that guy still post? It never fails to make one lol. I hope he has regained his ability to feel human.
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Apr 14, 2022 08:13
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Rynoto posted:There was definitely a point where dlc/release quality collapsed but it wouldn't be until a few years later. Agree And in CK3 we barely have the mongol invasion, cause they are so ineffective and will explode after a bit anyway
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Apr 14, 2022 12:00
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Drone posted:I've wanted an alien invasion DLC for HOI4 for ages. Isn't there some alt history book of some lizard alien species who first visited in the medieval age, and then came back to invade in WW2 only to be stunned by the tech advancement speed of humans?
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Apr 14, 2022 13:28
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OperaMouse posted:Isn't there some alt history book of some lizard alien species who first visited in the medieval age, and then came back to invade in WW2 only to be stunned by the tech advancement speed of humans? Yeah, it's a whole Harry Turtledove series. The quality is as you would expect it to be, between the concept and the fact that it's Turtledove.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:28
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Humanity wins because the lizards get horny IIRC?
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Apr 14, 2022 15:33
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If it's the one I'm thinking about they get stomped on the landing pad because they have a bunch of black powder muskets basically, and the humans have tanks and assault rifles.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:43
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:If it's the one I'm thinking about they get stomped on the landing pad because they have a bunch of black powder muskets basically, and the humans have tanks and assault rifles. Here's a PDF of it https://www.reddit.com/r/scifi/comments/2vip1r/the_road_not_taken_a_short_story_by_harry/
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Apr 14, 2022 15:48
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PittTheElder posted:If it's the one I'm thinking about they get stomped on the landing pad because they have a bunch of black powder muskets basically, and the humans have tanks and assault rifles. I remember that one but it was a short story, I'm thinking of the extended novel series set during WW2 (and I think there was a sequel trilogy set during the Cold War or something too?) where ginger makes the aliens too horny for imperialism.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:51
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PittTheElder posted:If it's the one I'm thinking about they get stomped on the landing pad because they have a bunch of black powder muskets basically, and the humans have tanks and assault rifles. You're thinking of the short story with the teddy bears, and that one doesn't involve them showing up a few hundred years ago and then coming back now. Turtledove also has an entirely separate series involving lizard people doing the attempted invading.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:51
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Crazycryodude posted:Humanity wins because the lizards get horny IIRC? Ginger, its a hell of a drug. Though thats about 1/3rd of the reason why yes. Though win is.. generous for the initial series. As no-ones explicitly stated, It's the Worldwar series, starts with "In the Balance". Westminster System fucked around with this message at 15:59 on Apr 14, 2022 |
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Apr 14, 2022 15:53
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I particularly enjoyed the aliens being so arrogant that they let the Germans sneak a Schwerer Gustav up within range of an arsenal ship, which they promptly used to bushwack said ship, scattering a whole bunch of fissile material around since oops, it was carrying a goodly chunk of the aliens nuclear weapons. Naturally this jumpstarted everyone's nuclear programs and before long everyone is flinging them at the aliens, who are retaliating tit for tat.
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Apr 14, 2022 16:37
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Crazycryodude posted:Humanity wins because the lizards get horny IIRC? no they get addicted to HERB
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Apr 14, 2022 18:58
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IIRC the aliens had this weirdo tech level where it was roughly "things from between 1950 and 1999 but only at their simplest points." Like they had CD players but they were only 1x speed and they got confused when humans decided to make 2x, 4x, etc CD players. They had their planet and a few other planets, as well as like two or three other species under their control which had also been at medieval tech when they encountered (and then invaded) them so they were really loving startled. Also it took them the entirety of the war to figure out that humans transported things via water because their planet was a desert and didn't use naval logistics. There was a sequel series set up after the peace established. The aliens are just now getting messages back from their homeworld giving them advice on how to handle the humans and it was all loving useless. The colony ships that were supposed to arrive after the military conquered Earth show up, a few get nuked, and the ones who survive are absolutely pissed at the military. I think eventually America builds a spaceship that can go to their home planet and the sudden arrival shatters their society. I read it like 20+ years ago when I was a preteen and don't remember much. That's all that stood out. That and there was a ton of baseball talk for some reason. And yeah, they became addicted to ginger which has a side effect of sending them into their mating season early.
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Apr 14, 2022 19:02
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instead of reading the turtledove books you should just read that one fic where earth circa (2015) gets invaded by those guys and the elephants from larry niven's footfall simultaneously https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/worldfall-worldwar-footfall-invasion-in-modern-times-completed.40569/reader/
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Apr 14, 2022 19:19
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IIRC the aliens also liberate some concentration camps at some point and the holocaust survivors end up on the side of the lizard people.
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Apr 14, 2022 19:25
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Stairmaster posted:instead of reading the turtledove books you should just read that one fic where earth circa (2015) gets invaded by those guys and the elephants from larry niven's footfall simultaneously I am not familiar with the elephant aliens but they sound hella cute
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Apr 14, 2022 19:41
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TTBF posted:IIRC the aliens had this weirdo tech level where it was roughly "things from between 1950 and 1999 but only at their simplest points." Like they had CD players but they were only 1x speed and they got confused when humans decided to make 2x, 4x, etc CD players. They had their planet and a few other planets, as well as like two or three other species under their control which had also been at medieval tech when they encountered (and then invaded) them so they were really loving startled. It was the same basic idea that Europe's complex geography gave it a long-term technological advantage over easily unified China. If an imperial court can say "we don't need to bother with oceanic exploration," then ocean going ships stop being a thing, while in Europe some little country on the periphery is always going to be trying to exploit what they can. As a child when I read those books I thought that was a really interesting premise to extrapolate to interplanetary conflict.
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Apr 14, 2022 20:20
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Just in case anyone's thinking about reading these books, you should know that Turtledove is way more of an interesting premise guy than a good or even decent writer. I read a ton of his stuff in my 20's when I'd read pretty much any garbage, but you're better off reading a summary or something unless you're truly desperate for something to kill time with. Worldwar aside, a lot of his alternate history stuff ends up just recreating a different historical event somewhere else.
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Apr 14, 2022 20:46
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I dunno, I remember really enjoying the Timeline-191 books in my late teens (I only started with Blood & Iron and onward). I went back and read How Few Remain and the Great War trilogy in that series a few years ago and... my opinion is pretty mixed. How Few Remain is hot trash, the others in the Great War series I barely remember reading for the most part. The interwar stuff in the American Empire I remember being really entertaining, but that's also an entertaining period of time in the actual timeline, so  It's airport fiction either way. quote:Worldwar aside, a lot of his alternate history stuff ends up just recreating a different historical event somewhere else. My favorite will always be his very original character
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Apr 14, 2022 20:58
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In the Timeline-191 series he pretty much just puts European battles in the US. For instance Pittsburgh is the stand in for Stalingrad. Turtledove almost always puts in at least one awkward sex scene into his books to so be forewarned so you don't just stumble into Robert E Lee having sex with his disabled wife. RocknRollaAyatollah fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Apr 14, 2022 |
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Apr 14, 2022 21:54
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So the Victoria equivalent would be War of the Worlds, right?
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Apr 14, 2022 22:27
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i think the worldwar series is pretty enjoyable schlock fwiw, and influential enough paradox still calls tanks "barrels" in vicky which is kinda funny.
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Apr 15, 2022 04:26
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the major caveat i'd put on worldwar is that you need to be prepared for just a shocking level of antisemitism casually slung around by the characters. there's like, even more than you would expect from a series set during ww2
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Apr 15, 2022 04:44
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Lady Radia posted:i think the worldwar series is pretty enjoyable schlock fwiw, and influential enough paradox still calls tanks "barrels" in vicky which is kinda funny. Also, decades after losing the Civil War, a disgraced elderly Lincoln founded the Socialist Party, which became one of the two major parties in the US. The concepts in those books always sound more interesting than the books themselves ended up being. Unless we're talking about the really hosed up concepts- like when the CSA decided to do the holocaust on their black population (because it's literally just the events of WWII with some names changed), the American version of gas chambers are trucks with the exhaust piped inside them. In short I don't actually recommend anyone read anything by Turtledove, regardless of how intriguing some bits of his work may sound.
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Apr 15, 2022 05:00
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Stairmaster posted:instead of reading the turtledove books you should just read that one fic where earth circa (2015) gets invaded by those guys and the elephants from larry niven's footfall simultaneously For some reason I read all of this! It was cute. The only thing that got me upset was the author thinks tank autoloaders are good despite all the research they put into the writing. Oh and the whole bit about how the red army was only a tornado of mass rape and war in WWII and you'd never see that sort of behavior from russia again.
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Apr 15, 2022 07:52
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Baronjutter posted:For some reason I read all of this! It was cute. The only thing that got me upset was the author thinks tank autoloaders are good despite all the research they put into the writing. Oh and the whole bit about how the red army was only a tornado of mass rape and war in WWII and you'd never see that sort of behavior from russia again. I've only read half of it but I agree, pretty cute. The bit where the Israelis help liberate Mecca was wholesome. Also the elephants are funny but I suppose Niven gets the credit for that idea, not this author
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Apr 15, 2022 08:54
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Randallteal posted:IIRC the aliens also liberate some concentration camps at some point and the holocaust survivors end up on the side of the lizard people. did no one tell turtledove about the, uh, implications of the jews siding with the lizard people?
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Apr 15, 2022 09:27
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Elias_Maluco posted:Agree Just FYI after the recent patches Mongols are much more effective. In my recent game in Central Europe they've managed to capture Byzantine Empire, Middle East and Russia and declared war on me on their own.
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Apr 15, 2022 09:33
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Eiba posted:Unless we're talking about the really hosed up concepts- like when the CSA decided to do the holocaust on their black population (because it's literally just the events of WWII with some names changed), the American version of gas chambers are trucks with the exhaust piped inside them. Pretty sure the Nazis experimented with similar techniques before settling on cyanide gas.
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Apr 15, 2022 10:06
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Mantis42 posted:did no one tell turtledove about the, uh, implications of the jews siding with the lizard people? Pretty sure Turtledove is of Jewish family himself.
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Apr 15, 2022 10:14
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This lizard war 2 stuff sounds fun and all, but it has nothing on "time-travelling racists give kalashnikovs to the CSA"
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Apr 15, 2022 12:28
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Part of me expects some time-travel stuff for Stellaris using save states. Send a chunk of your military back in time, stupid poo poo like that.
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Apr 19, 2022 05:20
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Baronjutter posted:Part of me expects some time-travel stuff for Stellaris using save states. Send a chunk of your military back in time, stupid poo poo like that. Stellaris random event where you get a fleet from the future, which then turns into a mission to build it by X date or your future selves will kick your own asses
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Apr 19, 2022 12:24
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CK3 event where a character shows up claiming to be from the future but really it's just a ruse to gently caress your wife.
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Apr 19, 2022 15:23
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Mantis42 posted:CK3 event where a character shows up claiming to be from the future but really it's just a ruse to gently caress your wife. Or he really is from the future and bangs your wife but the plot twist is that he is your son
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Apr 19, 2022 15:48
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Mantis42 posted:CK3 event where a character shows up claiming to be from the future but really it's just a ruse to gently caress your wife. quote:"Are you sure?" I ask.
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Apr 20, 2022 12:44
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Eiba posted:It was the same basic idea that Europe's complex geography gave it a long-term technological advantage over easily unified China. Not coming down on you specifically, because I know this is a really common assumption, but the notion that bodies of water are the only meaningful barriers is really a pretty flawed one; China’s geography is really not any more suited towards unification than Europe’s is — there are huge changes in climate even in the traditionally Han regions, mountain ranges criss-crossing major chunks of the landscape, and while there are navigable ones too, there are large stretches of river that are very difficult to navigate. Chinese unification was a long, slow process largely in spite of all of that, and even its heartlands are like 4-5 separate geographical regions.
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Apr 20, 2022 16:13
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For what it's worth, bodies of water do make things pretty intriguing with how they can pull the double duty of both being a barrier and a source of faster-than-land transportation, often at the same time.
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Apr 20, 2022 17:13
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ThaumPenguin posted:For what it's worth, bodies of water do make things pretty intriguing with how they can pull the double duty of both being a barrier and a source of faster-than-land transportation, often at the same time. I was thinking just that: rivers and the sea are both obstacles and venues for much faster and easier (for large amounts of cargo) transport
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Apr 20, 2022 17:16
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Koramei posted:Not coming down on you specifically, because I know this is a really common assumption, but the notion that bodies of water are the only meaningful barriers is really a pretty flawed one; China’s geography is really not any more suited towards unification than Europe’s is — there are huge changes in climate even in the traditionally Han regions, mountain ranges criss-crossing major chunks of the landscape, and while there are navigable ones too, there are large stretches of river that are very difficult to navigate. Chinese unification was a long, slow process largely in spite of all of that, and even its heartlands are like 4-5 separate geographical regions. again fwiw (i cant believe im defending harry turtledove in 2022) he doesnt raise that idea as the sole explanation, it's one of the things many of the scholars in the books consider as a potential contributor. the series never explicitly states why humans are so hosed Up compared to the lizzies
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Apr 20, 2022 17:36
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