#what's the price of a mile?

[a-mole-of-iron]

Now back, with a mini-review of an RTS - The Great War: Western Front

After a month-long interruption (sometimes, life just refuses to get back on track), I am back to posting. Today, what I’ve got is a recommendation for an RTS game, but not for the reasons most people might think... because this RTS is The Great War: Western Front, the first RTS about World War 1 that I can remember seeing, and a very well-made one at that.

Content warning: descriptions of how abysmal the World War 1 tactics were, and how pointlessly these tactics wasted the lives of WW1 soldiers.

On the technical side, the game is made by Petroglyph - the studio built on the remnants of Westwood, the original devs of Command & Conquer - and it’s more similar in quality to Star Wars: Empire at War (one of their best outings) than Grey Goo or Forged Battalion (which are comparatively more meh). The gameplay itself is surprisingly addictive, in that “just one more turn“ manner - the game combines real-time and turn-based modes, like Total War - and because this is WW1, there is an interesting trench-building mechanic and asymmetry between attacker and defender. If that was the biggest noteworthy thing in the game, though, it would be a footnote and that’d be it; the reason to actually make a post about it is that it really gets across the sheer horror of World War 1 trench warfare, much more successfully than even other pop-WW1 games with an infusion of historical authenticity (e.g. Battlefield 1).

Let me give you the most blatant example. For the attacking force, the only way to approach enemy trenches safely is to constantly bombard them with artillery, suppressing machine gunners and riflemen so that they can’t fire back, while also destroying as much of the enemy line as possible and dodging enemy defensive artillery. But the realities of limited supply mean that even if you do that, and even if you flank the enemy trenches in early war (when fortification is not ubiquitous), a lot of soldiers on your side are still going to die. But the real horror begins when the computer player (in my case, on the standard difficulty, which affords advantages to neither the player nor the computer) attacks your side without doing those kinds of preparatory barrages, even when it’s got artillery superiority, and instead just repeats what the biggest names in WW1 failure - like Conrad von Hötzendorf and Luigi Cadorna - did, sending masses of infantry to overwhelm the defense and letting the infantrymen die in droves. Regardless of whether you defend well or not (the AI is actually quite good at probing for weaknesses in your line, which makes its behavior even more damning of real-life WW1 tactics), it’s easy to end up with a ceasefire after the AI side exhausts its resources, then see your losses at 3000 soldiers (which would be horrific enough), and enemy losses at 15000 soldiers with nothing gained (which is just atrocious). And, very conspicuously, the game is rated T for Teen; it doesn’t even need any graphic depictions of deaths or injuries to show how horrific - and wasteful - World War 1 was.

As a summary, I would recommend this game to any RTS fans who want to challenge themselves with limiting the damages of WW1 and ending it faster than the real-life incompetent commanders and stuck-in-the-past militaries of the time did... or to anyone who has the skills to play RTS games and wants to see for themselves how bad WW1 actually got.

[posletsvet]

It's only just now clicked for me that all the despicable horrors Sukuna drags Yuuji through time and again, all the feats of grand, unseen violence he puts up just for Yuuji, all the heinous atrocities and pain he inflicts on Yuuji -- they actually carry an inkling of something strategical, coldly calculated. Don't get me wrong, doing all that Sukuna clearly enjoys himself, his rampage in Shibuya sizzling with euphoria of finally getting to move freely, unshackled, and in the end that is the very nature of a curse -- cause suffering for the sake of suffering and feast upon it. But Sukuna, perhaps rather oddly, doesn't strike me as someone who would hold petty grudges and act upon them spitefully. Especially in regard to someone like Yuuji, who Sukuna considers little different from the filth beneath his feet and doesn't hesitate to make it known. So why even bother hating something so insignificant, miniscule? Why spare an effort to make this particular life miserable when suffering is already inherent to human condition? And while I'm at it, here's one more question, perhaps more on point with what I'm trying to say: why retreat of your own free will to the state of entrapment and give up the reins of control so soon after they fell into your hands?

Back to the point I started this rambling with, it seems to me that in the chaos Sukuna causes there is calculation. I think he's trying to do to Yuuji what he did in the end to Megumi -- crash this boy's beating heart and drown his soul. Sukuna's actions appear pointed, aware of the effect they make, targeted directly at that very thing which would hurt Yuuji the most, thus pushing him to the breaking point. Countless casualties, pointless bloodshed and utter devastation -- all to crack Yuuji's resistance, to eliminate the ability to fight back in a boy who was careless enough to wear his heart out on his sleeve in a world that grinds the kind down and spits out their bones.

But the darker the weather, the better the man. Where every other human being would break, Yuuji stands unyielding. The more is taken away from him, the more reasons he has to keep fighting. When the only sacrifice he could ever accept was his own, he lost too much. So he ploughs on -- because that's the only way he can pay the unfathomably high cost of him being alive. And for all his experience and cunning wit, Sukuna's miscalculated with this one: he cannot destroy Yuuji's heart for it was never Yuuji's to keep. He gave it away a long time ago. It beats with other people's pulse.

[b4kuch1n]

you’re created with hands circling your wrists. there’s never any offense meant, you must understand - it’s simply that you’re a story, and someone’s come by this desperate need to learn how to let the hell go.

[pebblezone]

I don’t want a manga reprint I want him

[fellhellion]

tbh i don’t even think miguel’s breakdown rant about miles’ existence as “anomaly” spiderman causing the death of 1610 peter is even about peter, or even quite abt miles. it’s about the idea that somehow 1610 peter could’ve shut down the collider if it weren’t for miles, even though miles’ presence didn’t actually affect peter’s death in any way. it’s about the idea that peter could’ve prevented a reality - that is, anomalies getting slingshotted throughout the multiverse - that miguel feels like he’s buckling under the emotional burden of (”And all this time, I have been the only one holding it all together!”). But even that’s not quite it, it’s about the fact that Miguel has been sitting on the resentment of feeling like he’s utterly alone in this burden, when in reality he’s not. When he created a structure designed to help share that burden between people who should understand it the most. But he won’t - can’t - ask for help bearing the emotional burden because it’s not even quite about the anomalies, it’s about Gabriella. But you deserve to suffer for it, you deserve to hurt. You dwell and grieve her and a mistake you won’t forgive youself for over and over again, all while hiding away and refusing to confide in the people who care about you how badly you’re spiraling, all while a part of you resents them for not knowing, even as they couldn’t know. 

[iamnotimmunetocod]

I see your “Ghost is an awful driver” headcanons and raise you:

The man has two pilot’s licenses and is STILL the worst driver any of the 141 has ever had the horror of being in a vehicle with.

[seventh-district]

laying here in bed at 5pm on the 4th of July listening to the storm outside and seriously debating bulk-buying 90 coffee cakes. as one does

[leonardalphachurch]

ε-gamma is so funny. gary is all like, oh i’m going to be gay and evil and torture the alpha again and try to take over the galaxy and fall in love with a man with a mustache and ε-gamma is literally like bro i am just s i am just sitting here

[fabricatedtears]

y’all i am *so* done

i might sound like a prick but i honestly don’t care rn

there needs to be more representation in fanfics. no, my long straight hair is not flowing down my back. my hair is in box braids. no, the tips of my ears did not turn red. i can’t blush. i’m black. no, i did not eat a light salad for lunch. i ate two tacos and a burrito from taco bell.

i know there’s people that might think i’m being bitchy, but no one is the same. y’all should know that by now

no hate to anyone, i understand the struggle of being a writer and i know it’s hard to get everything right. i just felt like i should get this out there 🤷🏾‍♀️

here’s my honest reaction 🕺🕺

[errantgoat]

IT'S DONE. I'M DONE.

535 hours across 5 complete playthroughs, dear BG3 you are going on the shelf until I can look at you again. xDD

the last run was super fun, the tactician difficulty definitely made me more involved/finally got me using scrolls and various potions and elixirs instead of hoarding them till (and past) the very end

i even managed to accomplish the most difficult thing in the whole game and saved all the gondians (if you know, you know)

maybe I'll attempt an honor run one day, but this is not the day

[casquecest]

Oh, shit, I didn't realise Nick Cave was back in town tonight.

Well, I am mighty tempted.

[ghoul-haunted]

hate

[shummthechumm]

car shopping while everything is inflated to hell is torture actually. do i drop 5k on a well-used car and risk getting shackled to a bad vehicle; or do i take several more months to save up 10k (at minimum) to get a less-well-used car but also restricting my university progression because my campus is 40+ minutes away + im not paying for a dorm

[angelnumber27]

Most comfy best shoes ever in the world

[redhead-reporter]

"You can lie to Miguel and YOURSELF as much as you want, Tiger. But I know you - you let him get away." MJ insisted, quickly saving her work and closing her laptop. Clearly tonight's little 'report' about his time with the spider strike force wasn't going to be as UNEVENTFUL as the others he'd given her in the past. Not when he seemed so wholly UNAWARE of the choice he'd clearly made, the role he had played in how this whole circus was going to devolve.

"I dunno about these other spider folks, but you're the BEST at chasing people down. NO ONE gets away from you if you actually want to catch them. So the fact that this other Miles did? Means you let him go ... and you should start asking yourself WHY."

º ✧ 。a (mostly) spoiler-free SPIDERVERSE starter for @webdget !

[milimeters-morales]

Wade: can i commission you

Miles, trying to instantly cope with the sight of Wade’s guts literally spilling out: hh,