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#1
Off the Record / Re: The Shooting Gallery: Poli...
Last post by Richard Hakluyt - Today at 03:13:31 AMI agree with bogh, strong SA vibes with this shower.
#2
Gaming HQ / Re: The Miscellaneous PC & vid...
Last post by Syt - Today at 02:46:48 AMI picked up Railway Empires ages ago on a sale with its DLC.
If you've played Railroad Tycoon you know what it is - build railroads, connect cities, production of goods, buy out your competitors, upgrade trains, plot your routes to both by fast but also cost effective (cheaper to go through the Appalachian valleys than through the mountains), buy businesses, build warehouses to create distribution centers etc.
It adds a few things, like a research tree (plus auctions for some techs), hiring agents who can rob trains, steal technology, boost your passenger traffic for a time etc.
The maps seem a bit weird. The East Coast US map has Baltimore, Washington, NYC, Pittsburgh, Norfolk (VA) ... but no Philadelphia
German map looks ok-ish.
Generally a decent time, except for a few things:
- hiring of train personnel and being able to assign them to trains (up to four per train ...) is a bit silly
- the game has more of a cartoony feel which screams late 90s to early 00s German business sim
- creating railroad tracks can be a bit finicky - getting four tracks to leave a station and not getting complaints about "the bend being too tight" is a bit much
- supply stops you need to build supply stops (water towers/coal) along tracks ... thematically nice, but I feel this could be automatically included when building a track
But most of all: the UI. You have a list of trains, but you can see only 8 at a time. If you have, say, 20 (which I had in the 2nd campaign mission yesterday) you are constantly scrolling. What's worse - managing your trains. Say you want to upgrade the engine on a line. Select the train line. Click "manage train". Click "buy train". Buy the train. Similar when assigning personnel - click manage train, click engineer position, select engineer, go back to previous screen, click stoker position, select stoker, realize he has a bad working relationship with your engineer, so you want a different engineer ... etc.
Railway Empire 2 came out a few years ago, and while the graphics look a bit prettier it has a lower review score on Steam than the original (which seems mostly based on it not improving enough over the previous title).
I will stick with it a bit longer - I tried Railroad Tycoon 2 & 3 again on the weekend, and I have to say RE2 has a better UI than those
(and the early 3D engine of RT3 is a bit hard to look at for me). If nothing else there's a freeform sandbox mode where you can choose to play without competitors, or simplify the track rules (i.e. you don't have to bother with signals to make sure trains block each other).
If you've played Railroad Tycoon you know what it is - build railroads, connect cities, production of goods, buy out your competitors, upgrade trains, plot your routes to both by fast but also cost effective (cheaper to go through the Appalachian valleys than through the mountains), buy businesses, build warehouses to create distribution centers etc.
It adds a few things, like a research tree (plus auctions for some techs), hiring agents who can rob trains, steal technology, boost your passenger traffic for a time etc.
The maps seem a bit weird. The East Coast US map has Baltimore, Washington, NYC, Pittsburgh, Norfolk (VA) ... but no Philadelphia
German map looks ok-ish.Generally a decent time, except for a few things:
- hiring of train personnel and being able to assign them to trains (up to four per train ...) is a bit silly
- the game has more of a cartoony feel which screams late 90s to early 00s German business sim
- creating railroad tracks can be a bit finicky - getting four tracks to leave a station and not getting complaints about "the bend being too tight" is a bit much
- supply stops you need to build supply stops (water towers/coal) along tracks ... thematically nice, but I feel this could be automatically included when building a track
But most of all: the UI. You have a list of trains, but you can see only 8 at a time. If you have, say, 20 (which I had in the 2nd campaign mission yesterday) you are constantly scrolling. What's worse - managing your trains. Say you want to upgrade the engine on a line. Select the train line. Click "manage train". Click "buy train". Buy the train. Similar when assigning personnel - click manage train, click engineer position, select engineer, go back to previous screen, click stoker position, select stoker, realize he has a bad working relationship with your engineer, so you want a different engineer ... etc.
Railway Empire 2 came out a few years ago, and while the graphics look a bit prettier it has a lower review score on Steam than the original (which seems mostly based on it not improving enough over the previous title).
I will stick with it a bit longer - I tried Railroad Tycoon 2 & 3 again on the weekend, and I have to say RE2 has a better UI than those
(and the early 3D engine of RT3 is a bit hard to look at for me). If nothing else there's a freeform sandbox mode where you can choose to play without competitors, or simplify the track rules (i.e. you don't have to bother with signals to make sure trains block each other). #3
Off the Record / Re: The Shooting Gallery: Poli...
Last post by Syt - Today at 02:18:30 AMAfter the Legal Eagle video YT recommended me a video by Pod Save America (I haven't watched them in a while since they don't really add much to the discussion IMO) that I watched a bit of. It had a video from a guy in a car Minneapolis getting shouted at by an ICE officer to stop following them and that he's impeding their law enforecement. He counters that he lives in the area. The officer keeps yelling at him to go home to his children while another officer stands with drawn gun on the passenger side.
Another clip showed a couple people filming ICE agents (as you do) when one of the ICE agents starts throwing hands at one of the guys. The other agents quickly join (what are they gonna do? they see one of theirs in a fight), take the guy into custody but apparently he was released later.
Another showed a guy in a car, surrounded by armed agents, with one ordering him to drive away and counting down for him to do so. Considering what happened the other day, I would shit my pants in such a situation and probably get shot because I'm confused as to what's expected.
Another clip showed a couple people filming ICE agents (as you do) when one of the ICE agents starts throwing hands at one of the guys. The other agents quickly join (what are they gonna do? they see one of theirs in a fight), take the guy into custody but apparently he was released later.
Another showed a guy in a car, surrounded by armed agents, with one ordering him to drive away and counting down for him to do so. Considering what happened the other day, I would shit my pants in such a situation and probably get shot because I'm confused as to what's expected.
#4
Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic
Last post by Crazy_Ivan80 - Today at 01:50:35 AMQuote from: Jacob on Today at 12:08:47 AMPrivate equity has bought up more than 500 autism centers in the US, apparently concentrated in states where insurance payout schemes are more lucrative: https://www.brown.edu/news/2026-01-07/private-equity-autism-centersAh, Private equity 'learing' centers. Probably won't get the same traction as the other one
#5
Off the Record / Re: US - Greenland Crisis Thre...
Last post by Legbiter - Today at 12:33:32 AMSidenote, if the US invades Greenland we Nordics will have to form our own military Kalmar Union with a Swedish nuclear deterrent to secure our own freedom.
#6
Off the Record / Re: US - Greenland Crisis Thre...
Last post by Legbiter - Today at 12:25:57 AMBritain and Germany seem to be cooking up a quick troop deployment to Greenland. Thinking about it, Trump likes quick photogenic military operations. He could fly 10.000 US troops into Thule tomorrow and declare it conquered (if the Canadians would let him) and Danish special forces stationed in Greenland would mortar the generators and otherwise harry the garrison.
The US would ideally seize the airport in the capital Nuuk, raise the the flag, mission accomplished and fly in extra troops immediately once the airport was secured. Easiest way to do that would be to trickle in soldiers via commercial flights disguised as whatever. 200 special forces to seize the airport and hold off the Nuuk police department would do it. So the focus has to be on forcing the Americans to concentrate forces off of Greenland if they want to invade it. Also to resist the enormous psychological warfare Finnish-style, that would accompany this action.
The US would ideally seize the airport in the capital Nuuk, raise the the flag, mission accomplished and fly in extra troops immediately once the airport was secured. Easiest way to do that would be to trickle in soldiers via commercial flights disguised as whatever. 200 special forces to seize the airport and hold off the Nuuk police department would do it. So the focus has to be on forcing the Americans to concentrate forces off of Greenland if they want to invade it. Also to resist the enormous psychological warfare Finnish-style, that would accompany this action.
#7
Off the Record / Re: The Off Topic Topic
Last post by Jacob - Today at 12:08:47 AMPrivate equity has bought up more than 500 autism centers in the US, apparently concentrated in states where insurance payout schemes are more lucrative: https://www.brown.edu/news/2026-01-07/private-equity-autism-centers
#8
Off the Record / Re: (Great Power) War in Our T...
Last post by DGuller - January 12, 2026, 11:39:00 PMQuote from: mongers on January 12, 2026, 06:56:03 PMIt doesn't have to be the US that miscalculates, it could be another great power with regard to how the US would respond.Quote from: DGuller on January 12, 2026, 03:48:06 PMI voted the most pessimistic option for a couple of reasons. One reason is that I think wars are like forest fires: the longer you go without one, the more likely things are to ignite, and once they do, everything that can ignite does ignite at once. Another reason for pessimism is that erratic nature of the US for the foreseeable future makes miscalculations more likely in the geopolitical game of poker.
This presumes someone or anyone of some significance is trying to calculate Anything.
#9
Off the Record / Re: What does a TRUMP presiden...
Last post by mongers - January 12, 2026, 10:58:09 PMQuote from: Jacob on January 12, 2026, 07:40:20 PMQuote from: crazy canuck on January 12, 2026, 07:38:28 PMMilitary drones are going to be deployed within the US?
No no. Just DHS and ICE drones.
With similar functionality, most likely. But you know...
Yes Border patrol have had Reaper drones for some tine.
#10
Computer Affairs / Re: Alternative search engines
Last post by Sophie Scholl - January 12, 2026, 09:33:35 PMIf you look up certain topics (like suicide methods), Google will instead return therapy options and anti-suicide messaging. Or, at least, it used to.