u/papapyro

Hey lads, I'm starting a job in the south city centre next month and am looking at renting a place in Swords (Castleview, to be precise). I'm wondering what the best way to commute in would be if I'm to take it. I've no car so as far as I can tell, the only real options are to either get a bus or to cycle.

If I'm to get the bus, should I do Swords Express or Dublin Bus? I'm guessing the former, since even if the latter is a bit cheaper (especially with a Young Adult Leap Card) I don't think I'd want to be relying on Dublin Bus to be on time! I see a couple of ticket options on the Swords Express website, but I'm not sure what'd be the best way to go: Ten Journey, Monthly, Three Month, Annual...? And what're those "taxsaver tickets"? Are they something your employer has to buy for you? How likely is an employer to do that?

I also saw people mentioning cycling. What's that like? I've done feck all cycling since primary school and don't even own a bike at the moment, but maybe it'd be worth looking into?

I've been sending enquiries to some listings on Daft from Grayling Properties. They always email with a link to a form to fill out on a website called "app.lette.ai", where you have to fill out some details: desired move-in date, budget, number of occupants, and income. I never hear further from them after filling out this form, though.

Does anyone know what the story with this form is? Is it some kind of AI thing they use to screen enquiries? I've a feeling that it might be screening me because my income isn't high enough for the places I'm enquiring about.

Maybe this is a stupid question (I've never had the misfortune of renting privately in Dublin before), but I'm a bit confused by some posts I've seen which say that you shouldn't just say "I have references available" in your Daft enquiry, but that you should actually provide the references immediately. But unless I'm missing something, there's just a message box there, and you're not able to attach anything. So do you copy/paste your references at the bottom of the message or something? Or do people mean to just put your referees' phone/email in it?

Same for when a landlord asks for references on an email/text; do they mean to just send them your referees' phone/email or to actually send them a written reference?

I was somewhat dreading trying to get the 'West by Northwest' achievement, which requires you to

>As Poland, fully realize the Slavic Union by having Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Czechia, and Slovakia as signatories.

I assumed that I could get Czechia and Slovakia in the initial peace deal with the Reichspakt, but that Russia would take Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine in that peace deal, making me have to fight them afterwards. The fight itself would be difficult enough in itself, but I especially didn't fancy fighting a late-game war on my aging laptop. (I have previously given up a campaign where I tried to get the LKMT's 'Revolutionary Export Economy' achievement because it required owning Central Asia, which in turn required beating Germany, which would have taken forever in the late game...)

However, there seems to be a peace-deal quirk which means that you should be able to get all of these nations as puppets without having to fight Russia. I discovered it because, when I was first doing the run, I first capitulated Germany, before turning to Austria; this gave me a peace deal with Germany and various other Reichspakt minors together. This meant that I had a decent amount of points to spend on taking as much of Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine as possible.

https://preview.redd.it/90yfmbqzz0jh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=35964ae4e76985e08f8447a072ae7019386b95ea

Then, when I got a separate peace deal with Austria, I was able to take Czechia and Slovakia.

All was going well, till my game crashed. I loaded up my autosave, but this time, the initial peace deal I got included only the Reichspakt minors, and not Germany themselves. This meant that I didn't have sufficient points to take enough of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. As far as I can tell, this had something to do with Germany's status at the moment when the Reichspakt collapsed; I think that, this time, the Reichspakt collapsed before either of Germany or Austria had capitulated themselves, so they weren't part of the initial peace deal, and only the Reichspakt minors who had already capitulated were included.

So, on my third attempt (or maybe fourth, I think I messed it up another time), I focused on capitulating Germany first, like I did initially, and then turning south to capitulate Austria. This time, I again got the peace deal with Germany and the capitulated Reichspakt minors, letting me again take a sufficient amount of Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine.

https://preview.redd.it/ydye7ise01jh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=61eb87d612f2d4904e7fe70e3f344c8bc63fa3d2

Then I capitulated Austria again, took Czechia and Slovakia in the peace deal again, took the focus to form the Slavic Union, released the puppets, and got the achievement.

https://preview.redd.it/ucteibhr01jh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=d8077c6db6eecc0acda0a5f3f6f3ff3d944d4d7a

I was slightly scared that Russia would declare on me while I was waiting for the decisions to release the puppets to show up, especially after I got an event where Russia demanded my subjugation and a bunch of land from me. But they didn't declare on me, even though a few days passed, and I eventually noticed that they would accept a non-aggression pact with me, so I took that, just to be sure.

I feel like I've cheesed this somewhat, and worry that I haven't really earned the right to my shiny pixels, because I didn't fight Russia like you're supposed to do; the news event even references the 'grueling war against Russia' that I was supposed to fight, but didn't... But it would have taken forever to fight it!

TL;DR: Capitulate Germany before defeating Austria and getting the Reichspakt collapse event in order to get a peace deal with Germany and the Reichspakt minors together, in which you should have enough points to take sufficient amounts of Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine. Then take Czechia and Slovakia in the peace deal with Austria. Enjoy your (cheesed?) achievement.

Appendix: Maybe it would also work to capitulate Austria first, and then turn to Germany to get the Reichspakt collapse event. But I haven't tested that.

I'm just watching DarkViperAU's video on Michael not being in witness protection, and it got me thinking: why is Dave standing behind this building in the Prologue, from where he shoots Brad?

https://preview.redd.it/demyxq04xkeh1.png?width=1200&format=png&auto=webp&s=701562f99a2e099f642f3592ed818109effa0f24

As I understand it, Dave and Michael had a plan to kill Trevor and arrest Brad. So Michael was obviously aiming to lead Trevor and Brad to an ambush. But how exactly was that ambush supposed to work? Trevor and Brad are only on foot here because the train hit them, which was obviously not in the plan. Was Dave planning on shooting Trevor while they were in a moving vehicle? That seems difficult. Or were they going to get out here for some other reason? Is this where the chopper was supposed to be?

This also raises the question: what was the original plan for arresting Brad and faking Michael's death? Suppose that Dave successfully kills Trevor. Then what? Presumably Dave is not going to arrest Brad by himself, and he needs backup. Is the plan to surround Brad and Michael and demand their surrender, or something? Michael's wearing a bulletproof vest, so probably he'll get "badly hit", maybe even "killed", and at that point Brad surrenders. (Though it's not clear to me how good a plan that is, given that Brad is apparently a bit of a loose cannon and may well decide he prefers to go down in a blaze of glory rather than get himself arrested.) But then, isn't the plan to fake Michael's death so that Dave can get the glory for killing Michael? How is that supposed to work if there're other cops around? Dave presumably can't drag Michael away on his own.

And finally: how was Michael's death faked, as things actually happened? In the Prologue, shortly after Dave shoots Brad, loads of cops show up on the scene. Were they coordinating with Dave in advance? If so, then were they in on Dave's plan? If not, then how did Michael's death get faked?