u/NicWester

A friend pointed out that 11th edition doesn't actually require a unit to start embarked in a Dedicated Transport anymore. I didn't believe it, so I checked the Chapter Approved game sequence because in 10th the Declare Battle Formation step explicitly said if you don't have a unit in a Dedicated Transport it's considered destroyed. Doesn't say that in the current Chapter Approved deck, checked the App and couldn't find it there, then I flipped through each page of the Core Rules and found nothing there, either. So it looks like you really can do it.

So this got me wondering--For less than 700 points you could run six Immolators. Don't need anything in them, just spam them forward to be a problem while the rest of your units are advancing on foot.

At 75 points maybe even just bring a Rhino along to Tank Shock and be a jerk. Put a Hunter-Killer on it, be a distraction.

So:

1. Is the Dedicated Transport rule written somewhere and I just missed it?
2. What kind of shenanigans can we pull with this?

You see questions about the best for a new player or the hardest or the most interesting, but what's just plain the easiest?

The USA is pretty easy, but you have to get the west coast in a war and the civil war has been made more challenging. I'm playing Russia for the first time right now and even considering some of the hella backwards-ass laws it's probably the easiest game I ever played. Once you get off Traditionalism you have an overabundance of resources and a massive private investment pool that was built up before the switch.

The only challenge I've had is that when you build ships the game seems to randomly distribute what shipyard they spawn from and since your Black and Baltic Seas fleets can't get out of their respective straits you wind up with whatever ship wherever. Otherwise it's been far simpler than any USA game.

Just did my first Civil War after the patch and it was harder than it used to be, but possible now that the Confederacy doesn't have infinite manpower thanks to freed enslaved people enlisting en masse.

But now it looks like Reconstruction has a bug... Finished the war with a law mid-enactment and waited for that to finish. I looked at my Cultural Communities out of curiosity and saw that Afro-Americans had no penalty. Switched to Cultural Exclusion and then there was a -50 acceptance malus that takes 16 years to clear.

This makes getting to 60 acceptance impossible within the 11 year window even with Emperor Norton cheese.

At the end of the day, though, I don't know how much good patching this will do. I actually like the idea of a massive Acceptance penalty after the war ends to represent unredeemed intransigence, but 16 years to clear (a little--but not enough!--less if you get enough state level events) is too high. I say I don't know how much good it'll do because I just feel like at launch the USA had a good amount of meat on its bone, but the quality of meat other countries have gotten on their bone since then has left Reconstruction feeling really hollow. There's a ton of potential to force players to make difficult and impactful choices and introduce unique mechanics, but as is the system, even when not bugged, doesn't lead to interesting gameplay.

I'm a little unclear on how to optimally naval invade now. I have 20 ships with a carrying capacity of 8 regular units and 4 Marines. Do I want to build a single army with 8 regulars and 4 Marines and select the Naval Invasion mission for them with the 20 ships, or do I want to station the 4 Marines on that 20 ship fleet and then Naval Invade with a separate army of 8 regular units?

It feels like the first case (one army of 8+4) makes the most sense, but sometimes the game can do weird things! 😂

Three weeks in a row, here we go! This week's session was dominated by two major issues, the doubling of parking meter rates downtown (and lengthening the paid window from 6:00pm to 9:00pm) and the addition of Ranked Choice Voting to the city council toolbox for special elections.

But first my favorite nerd part--the ceremonial items! This session of City Council was dedicated to Chris Bertucelli, the owner of a deli in Willow Glen who--not living in Willow Glen--I wasn't aware of but he seemed like a nice person, died at 47. The winners of 2026 Climate Smart Champion Awards were named and given their awards, but unfortunately we didn't get to hear what they did to win these awards so I'm going to just go ahead and assume that they've all solved climate change and everything is going to be okay and we will not be burnt to a cinder! Tomorrow, 24 June was declared Dia de San Juan which, despite being on 24 June, has nothing to do with my birthday weirdly--instead it celebrates Puerto Rico and honored a community member that gave a very emotional speech thanking the city for the honor. How nice! Before all that, but presented last because it was the most moving to me, is the invocation delivered by Drew Lloyd of the Bay Area Municipal Elections Committee, San Jose's oldest LBGTQIA+ association (there may be some nuance to that, but that was my read on what they said when introducing Drew Lloyd). It being June he spoke about Pride weekend and how while it's a party now it was originally a call to action which he then parlayed into talking about the importance of local elections saying, "Democracy doesn't only exist in Washington, DC." He expressed gratitude for being born in California, in Santa Clara County, and in San Jose and gave thanks for our values of inclusivity before wrapping up exhorting our responsibility to reject hatred.

Councilmember Ortiz was absent, so we theoretically had 10 voters for motions, though due to recusals the actual number was less when voting actually took place.

Finally, in the Closed Session Report the council announced that it had voted to oppose construction of the ICE facility near Gilroy with the city attorney filing an amicus brief alongside the state' and county's litigation efforts. Gilroy isn't in San Jose, so we aren't legally an affected party--that's why the state and county are leading the way. But the city council here can assist and file briefs. Is it much? No, but it's the extent to which a neighboring city can go.

The first and slightly anti-climactic Big Issue of the day: Parking meters. As you may have seen yesterday there was a flier going around saying that parking meters within a certain distance of a parking garage downtown were going to be increased from $2 an hour to $4 an hour and the window you need to pay for would be extended from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. The council was set to pass this item in the Consent Calendar without further discussion until residents began passing around the flier and managed to have it separated from the Consent Calendar for public comment. (As a reminder if you have forgotten--the Consent Calendar is all the business the various departments have worked on in the week since the previous session, it's voted on en bloc with no discussion because it's all considered routine business. However any councilmember can request to have an item in the Consent Calendar split off for a separate vote and discussion, as in this case.) The expectation, if passed, is that 900 meters downtown would have their rate double and would bring in $1.5m per year in revenue that would mostly go into a fund for free parking downtown (The Convention Center was mentioned here, I don't know enough about this and would have to look into it further, but it sounds like the intent is to make parking at the Convention Center free and have that subsidized by parking fees elsewhere) with some going into the General Fund.

Department of Transportation said that the proposal was made as part of the budget process over the past few months and that, as a result, outreach was left to the budget instead of directly to affected businesses. If this was something they had brought up on their own volition as a "Hey, wouldn't this be a good idea?" sort of thing, then they'd have gone out to businesses directly but, as it stands, they thought that with all the talk of the budget and the many, many sessions that it wasn't their job. I'm paraphrasing, mind you, but put yourselves in their shoes and it stands to reason. As a result, just about everything in the budget EXCEPT for this was discussed to death, so it came as a surprise to local businesses. There were plenty of speakers against this motion and not a single speaker in favor of it, the gist of it being that workers downtown pay for street parking and this will more than double the amount they pay, since not only will the per hour increase but also the amount of hours, which will be a massive retrograde tax on them. The City Council decided to table the motion until the first meeting in August to give the city more time to find a better solution. As for me, I'm not knowledgeable enough on this to have an opinion. I go downtown a lot and when I drive I park in a garage, I've never once used a parking meter. I've also been lucky enough for all my jobs--from Vallco to Valley Fair to a Santa Clara office to now a warehouse in Milpitas--to offer free parking on site, so I wasn't aware bartenders have to pay just to go to work. Seems messed up to me. Anyway, DOT made sure to mention that the city has a program downtown workers can take advantage of to get reduced parking rates and encouraged everyone to apply. Given the comments of the councilmembers this feels like it's going to pass, but definitely not in this current form. There were a lot of ideas floated but there's like six weeks before they meet again to discuss it further so who knows which ones will fly. The whole affair took up about an hour of the 3 hour session.

As an amuse bouche we had a couple zoning issues discussed. A parcel of land at 1402 Monterey Rd was rezoned, noteable only because Mayor Mahan recused himself for receiving a contribution from someone in the organization while Councilman Mulcahy recused himself because he owns property next to the parcel. There were no public comments to be made and no one thought it was noteworthy enough to discuss, so it passed unanimously with the remaining members. Sounds shady? Well it's not. It's been rezoned from "Combined Industrial/Comercial (Planned Development)" to "Combined Industrial/Commercial." Slightly more amusing to our bouches is that the Southern Pacific Switching Tower has had its historical landmark status rescinded. The world holds its breath to await the fate of 725 Chestnut St.

The next hour was taken up by the second Big Issue of the night--a tiny, small, iiiitty-bitty step towards Ranked Choice Voting. Before the council was a motion to put onto the November 2026 ballot a measure that would allow the city council to consider using Ranked Choice Voting to fill special elections should the need arise. Note: It would only apply to a special election to fill a vacancy and would only be one tool in the council's toolbox (alongside a full special election, a la 2025's contest between Tordillos and Gabby Chavez-Lopez, and a direct appointment), not a guaranteed thing that would happen. Appropriately enough one of the people to bring the motion was Councilman Tordillos and one of the people who spoke in favor of it was none other than Gabby Chavez-Lopez (Apologies if I get a name wrong, they don't put them on screen and I'm taking notes as I watch so sometimes I'm going to get them wrong). The special election for that seat cost the city $3.4 million because they had to do it as a full 6 month election with a primary and a vote in November when the city otherwise wouldn't have had a vote (2025, after all, not being a bye-year or presidential year). Had they done a single Ranked Choice Vote for this special election the city would have saved an estimated $1 million which, when you consider the city's budget shortfall, is a decent chunk of change. In total there were 19 speakers, of which twelve were in full support, one was in favor but felt that there are better alternatives to RCV, and six were against. As mentioned, Gabby Chavez-Lopez spoke in favor, as did Tordillos during the council's time to talk, which is noteable because their contest is the one that formed the basis for this motion. The people who were against it... Look. There are legitimate reasons to not want RCV, and I'll admit that I'm generally kind of sceptical of it myself (NOTE: I'm not saying I'm against it. I'm saying I think there are better options, I won't be mad if it passes.) but the people who were speaking against it were just nutjobs. Some lady who admitted she doesn't even live her, she's just visiting, spoke against it because it's "communist voting" and "against the constitution" then said the city council was the Chinese Communist Party and we're all just fertilizer to them... In the end, Councilman Casey and Vice Mayor Foley voted against it, Ortiz wasn't there as previously mentioned, and all eight others voted in favor. But don't get too excited just yet--it actually won't be on the ballot until March 2028. This is because while we're having an election this November, it would cost approximately $2 million to put it on the ballot now, but if we wait until the primary of 2028 it will somehow cost a few hundred thousand. Why? Man.... I couldn't even begin to tell you. But considering as how this is being added to the toolbox as a budgetary savings, spending $2 million seems like a bad idea. So look forward to that about the same time the next Fast and the Furious movie comes out.

Three more small items--well, frankly, two small items and one that people are going to be mad about--and then we're done. The two small items:
--Unanimous approval of the Willow-Keyes Corridor upgrades, which will put Willow St from 87 through Graham, then through Keyes until it hits 3rd St on a road diet. That stretch will go down from 4 lanes to 2 lanes, with expanded pedestrian streets and two bike lanes (couldn't tell if they're protected lanes or on the street, sorry) to improve walkability of that neighborhood. VTA is mentioned heavily in the memo for the motion, but I couldn't see anything about expanded service and since I don't live there I don't know if the busses are good or not, but according to the memo this will make non-car traffic in the neighborhood safer and more comfortable. So look forward to that!
--Tax and Fee Waiver for 681 Trimble Rd, a large development with several hundred affordable housing units. The Housing department displayed some charts showing data from San Francisco, Palo Alto, and Santa Clara saying that their rents are going up very slightly but ours are set to go up higher, so waiving the fees for this development will get new housing fast-tracked ahead of that expected rise and eliminate it before it occurs.

The final item is the contentious addition of digital billboards by the airport. No one likes it. Everyone spoke against it. In the end, the city says it's going to bring in a guaranteed minimum of $6 million over the next 10 years and very likely will bring in over $20 million in that timeframe, the $6 million is a guaranteed floor. I can't say I like it, feels tacky to me to be honest. But it's supposed to be 100% renewable energy, and the tree offset is 5:1 so that's a small copse that'll get planted to replace the couple trees it takes to build, and more importantly the billboard offset is 6:1, meaning that because two billboards are going up TWELVE more billboards in the rest of the city will be taken down. Also... Look, we like city services and we all admit we're paying too much in taxes, so what are we going to do? Turn down free money that goes towards services without raising taxes? I don't like digital billboards, they look undignified, but I can live with them if it means a couple million to support the airport.

Lastly, I was getting all excited because I'm off work a few days next week and figured I would go to the next meeting--except the City Council goes into recess through July! Gack! They won't come back until August, so now I have to... I don't know... Go to Santa Cruz or something. Get sand in me and be attacked by draculas if that documentary The Lost Boys was at all accurate... But the point remains, no more updates until August. I started up this hobby just in time for them to tell me to stop!

This week's City Council meeting was significantly shorter than last week's, clocking in at 1:59:16, of which the first 11 minutes was an idle "We'll start shortly" screen. But several very important things were discussed that will be summarized below, BUT FIRST! My favorite parts, the symbolic opening bits--the invocation and proclamations. They ultimately mean nothing, but symbols indicate what the city wants to recognize, fundamentally who we are.

So first the invocation, delivered by Milan Balinton of the African American Community Service Agency. He began by speaking for the need to serve others and offered a non-denominational prayer for the city and its council to live up to the moment. The city then made three proclamations, the first declaring June to be Myositis Awareness Month--a chronic autoimmune disease that sounds pretty f'king bad; it's very rare but that rarity leads it to be misdiagnosed and people aren't aware of it. So now you're aware, go tell a scientist to look into it 👍 . Secondly they commended the San Jose Sports Authority for 35 years of service and bringing us to four professional major league teams and activating downtown and various other community events--as an aside, I went to the San Pedro World Cup watch party on Saturday and holy hell were people having a good time, I highly recommend checking it out. Finally they issued a proclamation recognizing upcoming the Juneteenth holiday and the celebration (also this past Saturday) already held. I'm glad to see Juneteenth keeps gaining momentum! Go treat yourself this Friday!

Two items were pulled from the Consent Calendar for further discussion. The Consent Calendar is a collection of all the reports and rulings that need to be approved, usually it's the minutes of the various subcommittees like parks or board vacancies that are being filled. Unexciting routine stuff, so instead of voting on each one individually it's passed in one bulk vote. Specific items can be pulled from the Consent Calendar to be voted on separately, these are the items that citizens have written their councilmember about to indicate they want it put on the record or otherwise discussed officially.

The first Consent Calendar highlight (actually the second, chronologically, but it was less sexy so let's get it out of the way first!) is a settlement with the Gordon Biersch Brewery which sued the city for over 26 years of being overcharged for sewage processing. SEXY. They sued to recoup the amount of overpay, but the suit was settled out of court for $400,000 on the grounds that Gordon Biersch recognize that the city council wasn't responsible for the error--which makes sense, none of these folks were on the council when the rates were issued, right? $400k is a lot, but likely Biersch is owed a whole lot more and going to court over it would cost both Gordon Biersch and San Jose too much in legal costs that a simple settlement works for everyone. The settlement was pulled from the calendar so that Councilwoman Campos could vote No on it, otherwise it passed 10-1. Unfortunately the councilwoman didn't speak on why she wanted to vote no so your guess is as good as mine.

The second highlight pulled aside is the fate of 26-36 South First St, two buildings (one historic, one not) that were purchased for $9.1 million in 2019 by a company named Urban Catalyst (UC), who own several projects in the area, most notably on Gifford Ave, called the Gifford Apartments because while they may catalyze urban centers they're not great at naming them. UC began early prep work on the two First St buildings but stopped when COVID hit and never started back up. The city intends to buy the property back for $3.6 million and redevelop is into a mixed-use building. That part is non-controversial, everyone likes it. Where public comments flagged the issue is that the land is evaluated at $2.78 million, so why the overpay? The (roughly) $900k extra will be held in escrow, only to be given to UC if they meet benchmarks (that I couldn't find further information on) with the Gifford Apartments that have also been laying incomplete since Covid. Councilman Tordillos said the extra money serves as incentive but also represents site improvements that UC made before the pandemic. Residents were concerned that the incentives are going to force the Gifford Apartments to be rushed into production without proper community input, but the City Housing Director reported the developer is committed to working with locals and, more importantly, will have to make regular appearances before the City Council in order to get the permits needed to get the job done, so the city will have plenty of opportunities to make sure it isn't all just sweet nothings and pillow talk on behalf of UC. The final vote was 8-0, making it quasi-unanimous as Mayor Mahan and Councilmen Cohen and Ortiz recused themselves from the vote due to having received campaign funding from Urban Catalyst.

Third major issue was a pro-forma passage of raises for the Police Dispatchers; Building, Mechanical, and Electrical Inspectors, Legal Professionals, and a few other city departments that were numbered so if "Unit 99" means anything to you congratulations on your raise. This almost wasn't worth mentioning except that the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association spoke against it via Zoom claiming the city's budget was already $5.5 billion (a misrepresentation, as we'll see next) and we need to cut services, not provide raises to those services. Each one passed unanimously.

The final major discussion item was a motion by four Councilmembers to officially declare the city in opposition to the upcoming Prop 25. This proposition (which may change numbers, per the memo for this item) would increase the threshold for raising taxes in California from a 50%+1 vote to a 2/3 majority. More importantly it would apply retroactively to existing taxes, de facto repealing Measure E and a construction tax that has been in effect for decades and funds parks, libraries, etc. Councilman Tordillas, in his remarks, cited a lot of voter disinformation out there and frankly he's probably right... There were six speakers in the room and another six or so via Zoom, all but two were opposed to the city passing this motion for a variety of reasons, but they seemed to not actually understand what the city would do. They were saying by passing this motion the city was going to take the decision out of the hands of the voters, as if them saying "We don't like this" meant that we wouldn't vote on it. Some folks seemed to be confused that this was a referrendum on Prop 13. Notorious crank Mark Hinkle made a Zoom appearance and the Howard Jarvise Taxpayers Association claimed our budget is $5.5 million, which is technically true but a lot of that is fee-based, meaning when you take a flight into or out of Mineta you're charged a fee on your ticket which goes to funding the airport, the actual budget for police and parks an firefighters and other services is closer to $1.8 billion. This proposition is going to be on the state ballot in November and these are just the effects it would have on San Jose, you'd have to ask LA and Oakland and all the others how it would affect them but I'm going to say.... Not very good. Sounds bad, actually! The motion passed 10-2 with Councilmen Casey and Doan voting against it. Councilmembers Cohen, Kamei, and Tordillos actively spoke in favor of the motion saying that the proposed initiative is bad, Mayor Mahan opposed it as well but with the couched terms that he largely opposed the retroactive nature of the proposition and not the idea of a 2/3 threshold, but that this law would have both or neither.

Honestly Prop 25, if that's its final number, sounds really poorly-worded. A retroactive erasure of taxes that have been in place for decades sounds, frankly, infuckingsane. I feel like this is going to go down in flames in November, but don't get lax on it. Talk to your friends and family, even if they like the 2/3rd majority be sure they understand that it will also erase existing taxes that we count on for, you know... Roads. Libraries. Parks. The things that make living in a city actually nice.

It was fun being engaged over the primary, but the primary is over now and I need a new hobby while I build little plastic guys to hit other little plastic guys with chainsaw swords. So today I watched the City Council session on the city's youtube channel. It was 3 hours and 18 minutes, and quite a bit of it was over my head but I acknowledge that the budget process, which took up about half the session, has been ongoing for most of the year and I'm coming in at the very end of that process. It would be like watching the last episode of a season of Game of Thrones. Thankfully, however, the vote in which the budget was approved is effectively the end of that season and the rest of the session was the beginning of a new one.

Couple three ceremonial things headed off the session:

1. A proclamation that it will soon be the 250th birthday of the Declaration of Independence.
2. A proclamation celebrating the 128th Philippine Independence Day.
3. A proclamation that June is to be Portuguese Heritage Month.

These are purely ceremonial, there's a proclamation printed out and mounted on wood and presented to someone who gets to speak for a bit. The head of the local Daughters of the American Revolution accepted the first proclamation, she explained the history and mission of the DAV. A librarian accepted the Philippine Independence Day (12 June) proclamation and spoke briefly about the millions of Filipinos in the country and especially the Bay Area, I liked her she was a nerdy auntie I want to be her friend. The consul-general of the Portuguese embassy in San Francisco didn't accept the Portuguese Heritage proclamation, that honor went to the head of a Portuguese-American society, but he spoke about Portugal and San Jose's shared values of inclusivity. If you aren't aware of local history, the Portuguese began migrating to the US by way of Boston whaling ships that would visit the Azores for sailors, they came here for west coast whaling fleets and for farmland. At one point San Jose had more Azoreans than Azores. There's a Little Portugal neighborhood on the Eastside and another off El Camino near the Target in Santa Clara. Tomorrow, the 10th, is Portugal Day so when you take their national day and our rich history of Portuguese immigrants issuing a proclamation makes a lot more sense.

Following the proclamations (or maybe just before them, look, it was 3 hours ago at this point forgive me) there were speeches by Councilman Mulcahy and a representative of Bay FC about the growth of women's sports in San Jose with Bay FC and the new San Jose PWHL teams in full swing. The city manager reported on preparations for the World Cup including activations downtown that have been talked about in this sub. They discussed security preparations without getting into specifics.

The bulk of the session was taken up with approving an amended budget. As I said, I'm coming into week 20 of a 20 week story arc so I'm missing a lot of context. But the biggest sticking points are a commercial tax which no one is disputing should exist, but concerned citizens from the Eastside explained that the tax burden falls too heavily on small businesses like theirs and they wanted the burden redistributed. They spoke in Spanish so I wasn't able to follow well--there's automatic translation on the youtube channel but it's entirely insufficient and makes it impossible to follow what's being said. Another issue is that the amended budget has $1 million allocated to immigrant services, but how that money will be used is still to be decided. The concerned citizens that spoke were urging the council to disburse it all at once so that immigrant services can prepare now, while the council would like to disburse some but keep the majority in a reserve (which, allegedly, the County is also doing) so that if there is an ICE emergency they have cash on hand to fight it. I'm taken to assume that the passing of the budget means the council's plan will go through and services will only receive some of that million dollars now.

The next big chunk of the session was really interesting to me because it was so arcane that only a few people there understood it and the general consensus was that the city council was going to punt on it a little while in hopes it sorts itself out. Casino Matrix spoke to the council about being over-regulated, apparently San Jose has its own regulatory body for card houses and their regulations are tighter than the state's regulators. The card houses would like the city to scale back our local regulators because they're seen as redundant, but also that they're too strict--their representative said that Casino Matrix was fined for using chips that were the wrong shade of blue, were too heavy, and one game was almost forbidden because they used the wrong felt on the table. The Chief of Police was asked for his input on whether the city's regulators are necessary and if they have policing power, he explained that there's only one cop in that group and that they're not necessary but the state's resources are limited and if they're looking at every card house in the state they're not going to spend anywhere near as much time looking at the San Jose card houses in particular, so having our own body means we can do what the state isn't able to and keep a closer eye. When asked about the seemingly petty violations (which, the Casino Matrix rep said, were all overturned on further review so they never had to pay any of the fines) the Chief of Police introduced the platonic ideal of a policy wonk, just imagine someone whose job is to regulate a casino and go through receipts and you're picturing him, except he also is Russian-American and speaks with a mild accent, he reminded me a lot of Blazinov from Deadwood, except much, much taller. This man explained that his job is to talk to the card houses about the regulations, but that the houses stopped talking to him because they wanted to deal with the city council directly and then go back to talking to the regulators, he further explained that the specific regulations about felt and chips were just a few cherry-picked examples. The councilors couldn't make heads or tails of the he-said/he-said story so wound up urging the two parties to get back to talking to one another and come back later.

Finally there were public comments about whatever hadn't been addressed. A lady asked about senior housing, and an old hippie asked the council to not cut down some heritage trees in a park so they could plant new ones, just leave the old trees there. Things got testy however when a woman came to the microphone and berated Mahan's campaign ads about solving homelessness. As someone who is a critic of the mayor and his ads I applaud her for her intentions, but her execution could use work. If you want to see it, it's within the last 5 minutes or so. It's also worth pointing out that, according to the parliamentary procedure of the body, she was breaking a bunch of rules--Public comments are for discussing city business, not personal business, and you're supposed to address the council as a whole instead of singling out any one person. I feel like she could have gotten away with it if she'd planned her words better, but I get it--she wanted to speak from the heart and she wanted to call him a liar to his face. Rules be damned.

Overall impression is that these are hella long meetings and not for the faint of heart. But they're interesting in that it reminds you that all 11 councilmembers are just people and they don't know everything at all times. Like, when the Casino Matrix kerfuffle was going on they were each just trying to figure out what even was happening in the first place. I don't think many of them even knew that there was a separate city group that enforced the regulations and they had to ask the Chief of Police what that was all about. Aside from that, it was nice to see the face of my councilmember, who occasionally sends me emails explaining what's going on in city hall. It's interesting to see a bunch of civil servants doing the boring muck of government without the grandstanding that you get when you watch clips of congress. This was 11 councilmembers (plus the city attorney, city manager, etc) just doing a big bunch of boring work on a Tuesday afternoon.

Go vote! And, hey, if you want to vote for Matt Mahan for governor then go with God, my friend--I dislike the politician, I've never met the man so I can't say, but if your conscience says he's the best then go for it.

But the rest of us? We're going to have a little party just now, okay?

What's the over/under on his percentage of the vote? 5%? Are you taking the under or over on that?

Since 1.13 came out I've won the Civil War as the Union once out of four tries and, in hindsight, I'm unsure how I even won that first time. This isn't a skill issue--this most recent time I had 150 regulars and conscripts, no shortages, about 50/50 Infantry/Artillery, all led by historical generals with Offensive command traits, plus I called my best friend Great Britain into the fight and they sent another 50 battalions--I didn't check their general's traits, to be fair. The commanders on the other side were two nobodies with terrain and supply traits.

The problem is that when the rebellion breaks out they instantly get ~50 regular battalions and about 100 conscripts and all are instantly filled, meaning they start with 150,000 troops while the player needs time to gain their troops so while I started with 150 battalions on paper, in reality I had about 75-80 total, plus what Britain sent. I saved when the fight phase started and tried first putting everyone on offense, which resulted in lots of dead on my side for limited gains and a rapidly deteriorating War Support, then because I had to wait for more manpower to be raised to replace losses I could never get an offensive going and eventually lost the few bits of land I'd taken then was forced to capitulate. I reloaded to put my guys on defense so that they would be filling up ranks instead of wasting bodies on offense, that worked a little better but still ended with capitulation because I ran into the same buzzsaw when I switched to the offensive and even though I won more battles I wasn't able to take meaningful territory to stop the War Support countdown.

I also blockaded ports but only managed a 20% market reduction because I had 10 heavies and 15 frigates, that minor reduction makes sense but anecdotally even before 1.13 I didn't see much of an impact from blockades except killing hundreds of thousands but not affecting war score much and not making combat easier. Even if my navy had blockaded to the cap I don't think it would have made a difference.

I actually like the changes made so that the war is a challenge--before you would simply waltz in and punch repeatedly until they folded within six months. Now the war actually costs time and effort, that's good! But it's been overtuned--summoning a giant army out of thin air while we need to bake ours in an oven for several months to reach the numbers they have at the start makes the opening months too difficult, meanwhile the free Small Arms that they receive from the.... 1.11 update? Can't remember the one, but you know what I mean, means they can easily supply this inflated army without impacting their economy. The effects of a blockade seem negligible at best.

All in all I just don't see how you're supposed to be able to win this war in this game build. I've never cheesed it by deleting barracks or any of that, but I don't even think you would be able to now even if I wanted--they get far more units right off the jump regardless of barracks.

EDIT: Figured out the problem, it's a bug or an oversight or something--when the Confederacy is created all Afro-American pops are converted from slaves to free labor. Then Slave Trade is enacted and new slaves are imported from Africa, the Afro-American pops are at Acceptance rank 2 so they're discriminated against heavily but they're free labor so they're eligible to enlist in Conscription centers.

As a result my Conscription centers (with Very High Military Wages) are recruiting about 500 soldiers weekly, while the Confederare Conscription centers (with Medium wages and no Enlistment decrees) are recruiting 1300 per week.

South Carolina has one Barracks with 43 officers (all Dixie) and 816 Servicemen (39 Dixie, 777 Afro-American), as well as 24 Conscription centers with a total of 815 Dixie officers, 1.11k Dixie Servicemen, and 11.5k Afro-American Servicemen.

So, in short, the in-game CSA is able to do from day 1 something that, historically, was so controversial they blackballed one of their best division commanders for even daring to suggest it four years into the war and have manumitted all slave labor and recruited them for the war effort 😬. Yeah, you gotta fix that, Paradox, lol!

EDIT 2: Folks, yeah, I know--you can win the war or pre-empt the war if you do this or that or the other thing. But the problem isn't that the war is too hard, the problem is that an ahistorical, unrealistic, and slightly problematic bug is causing tens of thousands of people to forget the previous conditions of their servitude and take up arms to defend enslavement so long as the slaves are Africans that don't speak English. It's nice to know that if I simply pass Secret Police and suppress the slaver movement I can skip the war or that if I simply build 100 Professional Army barracks I can get a military victory, but call me crazy that I think three million enslaved people flocking to defend slavery is something that shouldn't happen in an historical and economic simulator.

I checked my email a couple weeks ago and found one from County Supervisor Susan Ellenberg saying that she would do a town hall at the new Campbell Library on the 27th and since I don't have a life I decided I would go. The fact that she said there would be food was a motivator but I wouldn't say it was the motivator. Pure civic pride, I assure you.

So here's the big top-line summary of Supervisor Ellenberg's presentation about the county budget: It's pretty messed up and it's potentially going to be more messed up soon, but the counties are talking to the legislature to get them to make it less bad.

Why's it bad? Well, she had several slides explaining how the county government works and what it's supposed to do, what it's mandated to do, where it's funding comes from, and how it's spent. I can answer more in-depth if people have questions, but for the purpose of this summary almost 60% of the county's budget comes from state and federal dollars, to the tune of "about $7.9 billion," according to her slide, with "about $5.8 billion" coming from Medicare and Medcaid alone. Well, remember the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill? Remember what it gutted? So a whole bunch of people are about to be kicked off their ACA insurance, and the federal government very often looks at Medicaid claims and simply says "Nah" and leaves counties and municipalities on the hook for the cost. Not all the time, but increasingly. The problem is that people are still going to get sick and still going to get injured and visit the ER and hospitals and they're mandated to care for the patient. If you break a leg the hospital can't tell you to go pound sand because you don't have the money for a cast, you get the cast and then they hound you or the state government until someone pays up. A whopping 53% of the county's budget goes to medical and hospital expenses. Losing the federal dollars means the county is going to be spending a lot more to pay for uninsured people who visit the hospitals in the county. Moreover, the state budget proposed by Governor Newsom is reducing (but not eliminating) funding to a lot of programs that are expensive, but actually save money by preventing people from going to the hospital in the first place. Measure A is working great and the county hospitals would be revenue neutral if federal funding were still guaranteed, but everything is uncertain right now.

Supervisor Ellenberg was very diplomatic in her speech and stopped short of blaming Governor Newsom, but a key criticism of his policies has been that he isn't helping counties--not just Santa Clara, but all of them--and is instead focusing on private sectors. For instance, instead of supporting Santa Clara County's four hospitals, he's been supporting Kaiser and other healthcare agencies. A charitable interpretation would be that by focusing on working with the healthcare providers he's making the job of the various counties easier, but considering as how several million people are set to lose coverage soon that doesn't seem to be working. I wrote down a question I thought was innocent enough but got a big reaction out of the room when it was read, "You said that Governor Newsom isn't working with the counties. Who, if anyone, is he working with?" Big kudos to Supervisor Ellenberg for giving a straight answer (the private sector) while remaining diplomatic--I promise I wasn't going for a gotcha or trying to make anyone look bad, I just figured well if he's not working with the counties he has to be working with someone so who's that?

She touched on homelessness briefly which was interesting because until now I've only seen it from a San Jose perspective and haven't looked at what the county is doing as a whole. My interpretation of her diplomatic answers (3100 shelters countywide, 11% growth in rapid response housing, and 886 units under construction or permitted) is that as a whole the county still embraces Housing First policies; but that Matt Mahan went rogue and built a gazillion shelter units and as much as I dislike the way he hijacked Measure E funds to do so, on the county level it hasn't made much of a difference to the plan--The goal of the county is thousands of temporary shelter units and then also build permanent housing so that the people in shelters don't stay in shelters and have somewhere to go. If the city wants to single-handedly meet the county's target number then that just means county dollars are freed up to build permanent homes instead. She was candid that the scale of the problem and the time it takes to build these things out means it doesn't look like much is happening, but it is. I took notes during this but I never learned shorthand so some of them are vague, at one point under housing I wrote "Getting about half the funding they need" and I'm not sure if that's from the state or from cities, this may have been when I stepped outside to write my question down on an index card.

There was a question about ICE and she answered it succinctly and definitively. The county of Santa Clara is providing lawyers for immigrants and opposes the construction of what I, me, Nick, not her, but me, I am calling a concentration camp outside Gilroy. She has to be diplomatic, I don't--It's a concentration camp and it's wrong, and I'm glad the county is organizing to oppose it. Fuck ICE, go Sharks.

Lastly, for the presentation, Supervisor Ellenberg represents the 4th district, that's Santa Clara, Campbell, and west San Jose, but these problems extend beyond district borders and affect all of the county--and all the counties in California as well to varying degrees. Transparency is key to all of this and people need to be informed. To that end I suggest looking up your state legislator and see if they have a newsletter, mine is Patrick Ahrens and he sends an update of what's going on in Sacramento and some events in the area--it's how I learned I could get my taxes done for me for free by some helpful volunteers and get free tacos in the process. These newsletters are frequent and they keep you informed on the basics of what's going on, they take maybe 10 minutes to read and you'll learn a lot. I mean, hell, that's how I found out about this after all! Can't get more informed than having someone tell you and about 50 other people exactly where money comes from, where it goes, and why we aren't getting enough all of a sudden.

I put a ton of hours into Vicky from launch up through the end of 2025, took a break to play other games (turns out Disco Elysium is good!) and when I was about to come back saw The Great Wave was about a month away, so I only really started playing again a few weeks ago.

I know naval invasions changed but I didn't fundamentally grasp how *much* they changed and need some general advice. What I've been doing is loading up a fleet with as many Marines as it will carry, have them establish the landing, then deploy the rest of my armies to the frontline. Sometimes they move as a whole and sometimes they need to be ferried to the front via another fleet and I can't figure out the difference. For example, my supporting armies walked from southern Japan to Taiwan, but had to be ferried across to Korea. What's up with that?

When my troops land I was butchered by 250,000 Chinese Line Infantry, despite another 750,000 fending off Russia. They had a quarter of a million dudes just chilling in the south to deal with my opportunistic war--since when do they do that?

So the advice I could use is generally how to make a better landing force. That -25% Naval Landing Efficiency penalty is just plain brutal now, and you can't establish multiple beacheads any more. Shore Bombardment seems to just cause devastation, can it be used to supplement an invasion? I just can't find a way into any country larger than East Bumblefug...

It's taken 11 years, but women's hockey is coming to San Jose! Let's gooooooooooo!

I love you Detroit but we're the new Hockeytown USA!

I'm curious how it goes, but I'm going to the Dough Boys show at the Improv tonight. Bought tickets months ago and frankly I'm insulted Steyer didn't take my schedule into account (and because I know what sub I'm in and some of the readers: /s.)

I haven't been impressed with his debate performances so I was hoping to see if he's better in person. If you're going would you mind reporting back?

(Also, out of curiosity, when did they finally tell you where it would be?)