The natives are getting restless

From: Drew (X3N0PH0N)11 Sep 2014 23:11
To: Kenny J (WINGNUTKJ) 16 of 189
Interesting times ahead (hopefully)!
From: CHYRON (DSMITHHFX)12 Sep 2014 00:59
To: ALL17 of 189
..
Attachments:
From: Drew (X3N0PH0N)12 Sep 2014 02:37
To: ALL18 of 189
Decided to test the viability of an independent Scotland in EUIV.

Going pretty well so far :Y
From: milko12 Sep 2014 09:34
To: Drew (X3N0PH0N) 19 of 189
haha, good work!

I think No are probably going to scrape a win here, but I hope that the closeness of it and the large engagement of people means some improvements come along with it.
From: koswix12 Sep 2014 10:12
To: Drew (X3N0PH0N) 20 of 189
What is that game, and why are you showing it to me when I go back to uni on Monday? :@
From: koswix12 Sep 2014 10:12
To: Drew (X3N0PH0N) 21 of 189
What is that game, and why are you showing it to me when I go back to uni on Monday? :@
From: Drew (X3N0PH0N)12 Sep 2014 17:04
To: koswix 22 of 189
Hah. It's a far worse time vampire than Civ could ever dream of. Days just disappear. I have to ration myself heavily.
From: Drew (X3N0PH0N)12 Sep 2014 17:35
To: milko 23 of 189
*/FWIW/* I think/hope it'll be a narrow Yes. I think the No campaign have pissed enough people off with their negative approach in the last few weeks to swing what was pretty much in the bag for them.

But it really depends on which side actually gets out and votes and I'm hoping that the Yeses feel more strongly than the Nos. Enough to outweigh the usual thing where people vote more conservatively than they poll.

It's exciting (dance)
From: Drew (X3N0PH0N)12 Sep 2014 17:58
To: koswix 24 of 189
Playing as Scotland is hard at the best of times. You've got to go through England to really get anywhere and England are always going to have at least a 3-5x bigger army than you and their navy simply can't be beaten.

As Scotland you really have to make sensible allies and take advantage of English weaknesses. And, during my game, pretty much everything went wrong. Firstly Leinster allied with me and together we annexed the independent Irish provinces. This went well and was a good situation for both of us - we could work together to repel the dirty English.

Inexplicably though, when the wars ended Leinster (who controlled the southern half of Ireland) dissolved our alliance. Which is pretty bad, you don't want an unpredictable nation with a land border when you're far more concerned with a bigger neighbour. So I had to fabricate a claim and annex them which was frustrating but fine, I got more land, raising the size of the army I could support a bit.

Ok, so, as Scotland, as I say, you rely on powerful overseas allies and English weakness. Those allies are usually France and the Scandinavian countries, those are the ones that make sense. And English weakness means poaching territories off them while they're engaged in stupid wars with France and/or Spain or, even better, if the War of the Roses happens (conditions have to be right for it to occur) just marching in and taking a nice big chunk of England while they're fighting with themselves.

Colonialism isn't really viable as Scotland (though I'd really like to play an all-out colonial Scotland one day).

I'd allied with France but they won the 100 years war and took back all English territory in France ridiculously early and were embroiled in useless (for me) wars with Holy Roman Empire member states making them pretty worthless as a military ally. They just weren't interested enough in helping me invade England and were too constantly war weary from fighting with the HRE.

So I took as much of North Sea trade as I could without pissing off the Scandinavians or leaving myself exposed and looked to Norway and Sweden - they are usually very good allies for Scotland as the relationship tends to work extremely well for both sides.

Unfortunately both Norway and Sweden had somehow got into a personal union with Denmark (with Denmark as the senior partner) so all diplomatic interactions had to go through the Danes whom, at the start of the game, I had chosen as my rivals in order to get a stronger position in North Sea trade. The whole of Scandinavia was useless to me.

Denmark eventually got both Norway and Sweden when their monarchs died and became a new political entity, which I quickly allied with, but they're so fucking huge now that they're not really interested in looking west, they've got Lithuania and Muscovy to worry about.

So I'm sitting here as Scotland building up my economy and tech, supporting any English rebels that pop up and hoping that the War of the Roses kicks off sometime soon.
From: ANT_THOMAS12 Sep 2014 18:15
To: Drew (X3N0PH0N) 25 of 189
That sounds like a game I might enjoy.
From: Drew (X3N0PH0N)12 Sep 2014 18:24
To: ANT_THOMAS 26 of 189
It is kinda amazing. Every time I play I come up with new ideas as to how I want to play it next (like my current one is playing as a Chinese faction and seeing if it's possibly to colonise America via the Pacific before the Europeans get there. Also I want to have a successful game as a Native American tribe, which is hard). I've got a huge backlog of ideas for games I want to do.

It has a bit of a learning curve but I've talked friends through the UI and they're up and running in 5-10 minutes, it's really about learning which buttons do what, there's little to no real micromanagement despite the complexity of the simulation.

It's a hell of a timesink though.
From: koswix12 Sep 2014 18:31
To: Drew (X3N0PH0N) 27 of 189
I'd avoid setting up a colony in Panama.

Also: shut up shut up shut up shut up.
From: 99% of gargoyles look like (MR_BASTARD)12 Sep 2014 18:31
To: Drew (X3N0PH0N) 28 of 189
quote: X3N0PH0N
the No campaign ... with their negative approach 

But 'no' is negative! LOLZ

From: Drew (X3N0PH0N)12 Sep 2014 18:50
To: koswix 29 of 189
BUY IT BENJI THE YES CAMPAIGN DEPENDS ON IT!

(I assume you're a 'Yes'. Though obviously there's a valid, anti-nationalist lefty reason for supporting 'No').
From: koswix12 Sep 2014 19:42
To: Drew (X3N0PH0N) 30 of 189
The way the Tories are stacking the system in favour of big business there's really no valid lefty reason to vote No.

Unfortunately I'm about to out my flat on the market and I need a tory economy to get the best price. So a quandary. Where ever did I leave my morales and convictions?
Message 41190.31 was deleted
From: koswix13 Sep 2014 00:04
To: Al JunioR (53NORTH) 32 of 189
In the poll or the referendum?
From: Kenny J (WINGNUTKJ)13 Sep 2014 00:44
To: Drew (X3N0PH0N) 33 of 189
I saw some "Vote No for social justice" campaigners on Sauchiehall street the other day. Turned out they were the communist party or something similar. I felt bad, because pretty much everyone up here who is voting for social justice, rather than voting out of fear, is voting Yes.
From: Kenny J (WINGNUTKJ)13 Sep 2014 00:49
To: koswix 34 of 189
Meh - property prices in Edinburgh will always do OK. Bear in mind that if the economy crashes, it'll suddenly become cheaper to do all the stuff which got outsourced to India, and you could find yourself back out at the Gyle, clearing laundered money for Mexican cartels or whatever it is that the banks do these days. Also - vote Yes so that you can look your son in the eye and tell him that you didn't succumb to Project Fear.
From: Drew (X3N0PH0N)13 Sep 2014 00:53
To: Kenny J (WINGNUTKJ) 35 of 189
Aye, I think if your goal is to do the most potential good for the most people 'Yes' makes far more sense. Though I do appreciate the ideological point of the hard left.