grundomatic's journal

[grundomatic]

The lack of a framework/philosophy for developing a strategy is the exact thing I find frustrating about 4x games and the way they're typically documented in wikipedia style format. "Here are all the rules. Now you figure it out."

Yeah, a few guides like "how to not go broke", "how to use diplomacy effectively", and "how to not get stomped in a war" would have shortened my learning time without ruining the game for me like a guide named "a step by step guide to playing Freisland, forming the Netherlands, and amassing a massive trade empire" would. The fun for me is in the learning and the trying out. So actually, maybe reading those guides would have made it less fun, because even though my Pima empire got stomped eventually, I was doing and learning stuff the whole time. The game will probably be less fun once I have "mastered" most aspects of the game, because at that point it will just be administering stuff I already know how to do.

[grundomatic]

So I've realized the tutoring gig I took is just the parents outsourcing their frustrations in getting their kid to do their HW to me. It's not that the student doesn't understand, they just don't care. Though grades/performance haven't really changed, it seems like everyone is "happier" but me. At only ~5 hours a week, I'm going to keep the job because it fills a few roles in my life--it is an excuse to get out of the house and it provides enough income to sustain a 1J lifestyle. Not like I'm going to hit that spending level anytime soon, but at least I'll have the income part already in-pocket. Also, I think it's a better example. If I'm going to inspire others to a simpler life, "5 hour workweek" demonstrates something very different than "supported spouse", which I think is how some interpret what I'm doing.

Also, get this: the other day DW asked if I would take a job at the school were someone to leave at winter break, and I said I might! WTF!?! Step away for a few months and it's easy to see the practical usefulness of making some money to increase the buffer, and totally forget the daily misery. It also shows that I may be beginning to maybe realize the limits of freedom-from. I'm left with large chunks of my day when DW and most of my friends are working. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have the energy to do anything and everything on evenings and weekends, but I do need to find a worthwhile project, as this re-creational phase won't last forever and I'll eventually need something to create, or at least do. I'm probably also running up against the limits of extraversion, as I prefer collaborative projects, and well, nobody around to do them with, save the piles of "fun stuff" that loads up my weekends. I just really have low interest in staying at home and fixing the vacuum, lifting a ton of weights, or endlessly listing things on ebay.

[Slevin]

So I've realized the tutoring gig I took is just the parents outsourcing their frustrations in getting their kid to do their HW to me. It's not that the student doesn't understand, they just don't care. Though grades/performance haven't really changed, it seems like everyone is "happier" but me. At only ~5 hours a week, I'm going to keep the job because it fills a few roles in my life--it is an excuse to get out of the house and it provides enough income to sustain a 1J lifestyle. Not like I'm going to hit that spending level anytime soon, but at least I'll have the income part already in-pocket. Also, I think it's a better example. If I'm going to inspire others to a simpler life, "5 hour workweek" demonstrates something very different than "supported spouse", which I think is how some interpret what I'm doing.

My partner is currently doing this as well, but has had a different experience where her students are actually just struggling in a subject and really want to fix it (at minimum, don't want to fail their finals). A lot of it is the things that were supposed to be learned in 2020 and 2021 which got missed. She just tutors math (small children through high school level, including the college kids who need help to get the remedial math credits), so it might be a subject thing? Could also maybe be an area thing, as she tutors in one of the top 10 highest income counties in the US.

[AnalyticalEngine]

Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have the energy to do anything and everything on evenings and weekends, but I do need to find a worthwhile project, as this re-creational phase won't last forever and I'll eventually need something to create, or at least do. I'm probably also running up against the limits of extraversion, as I prefer collaborative projects, and well, nobody around to do them with, save the piles of "fun stuff" that loads up my weekends. I just really have low interest in staying at home and fixing the vacuum, lifting a ton of weights, or endlessly listing things on ebay.

I ran into this exact same problem with working from home. I even tried to shift all of my chores and exercise into the traditional 9-5 time slot and then fill my evenings with meetups, but even then, it started to get old because the "go out and have fun with other people"-type activities, while obviously fun and enjoyable, started to feel pointless when they became my dominant form of interaction with others. I think it's because this is typically a pleasure-friend, pleasure/consumption activity, so it's missing on the whole domain of life surrounding building up something or working on a longterm goal with others. Or in Plotkin-terms, I started to feel like I was missing out on the North aspect of my life. I think most people fill their North/intersubjective usefulness (what we might call "Purpose") with work or kids, so lacking either, it's definitely an issue I was running up against.

I personally decided to just keep working (as well as potentially pick up indie game dev with an assortment of friends), but I think something like volunteering or some other Green activity might help fill that need to collaboratively create something.

[berrytwo]

Feel you with the needing enough extraversion time when everyone else is working... Even with DP working very part-time too I still look around on weekdays and am thinking 'where is everybody?!!!' My hypothetical question for you is whether there are projects or job(s) that could satisfy your needs that you actually enjoy/ are super flexible. Some could make money some not. I have been looking into challenge coursework. It sounds like enfx crack + super flexible. It does pay badly most of the time but who cares if there are other capitals/ needs being met.

[7Wannabe5]

She just tutors math (small children through high school level, including the college kids who need help to get the remedial math credits), so it might be a subject thing? Could also maybe be an area thing, as she tutors in one of the top 10 highest income counties in the US.

Interesting. I currently do almost the exact same job, but in an extremely low-income area. Even my private-pay students are largely minority, first generation attempting college, trying to keep grades up to stay on athletic team. So, even when I am frustrated, my tertiary Fe is motivated to help the young, disadvantaged, under-dogs. I would have very little patience dealing with unmotivated, untalented, affluent kids ( I generalize the mother dropping them off as Lori Loughlin who is exactly the sort of female for whom I have least empathy, and just think "Tutor the idiot brats yourself."); although I do enjoy the challenge of keeping up with some of the motivated, talented, affluent kids. Unfortunately, on more than one occasion, just when I get into a groove helping/motivating a disadvantaged kid with some talent in math, the student's mother will get evicted out of the district or the student will get pregnant at age 16 (some asshole in his 30s being the father of her child) and be kicked out of her foster group home. etc. etc. , Here in this great land of seriously unequal opportunity!

[jacob]

Yeah, a few guides like "how to not go broke", "how to use diplomacy effectively", and "how to not get stomped in a war" would have shortened my learning time without ruining the game for me like a guide named "a step by step guide to playing Freisland, forming the Netherlands, and amassing a massive trade empire" would. The fun for me is in the learning and the trying out. So actually, maybe reading those guides would have made it less fun, because even though my Pima empire got stomped eventually, I was doing and learning stuff the whole time. The game will probably be less fun once I have "mastered" most aspects of the game, because at that point it will just be administering stuff I already know how to do.

Paradox's eu3 wiki has those "strategy guides by topic". They might work for eu4 as well... or eu4 might have even have them somewhere in a similar wiki.

What I enjoy most is making a plan followed by the satisfaction of "rolling it up" as it "just works". No "fail and try again" for me thank you very much

Century-scale 4x in particular seems to punish "seat of the pants" decisions. Just like IRL, the success of a country or its economy easily depends on decisions made decades ago. E.g. putting up a building that increases tax revenue by from 16% to 17%. That adds up to make a material difference over 150 years. My main complaint is how many gaming hours it takes to get these insights. Too many for my patience.

I no longer have the stamina for "full time"-gaming, but I did have a more serious go at it with the planning, this time "as an aristocratic close-minded but otherwise free nation of Portugal invading and converting the world to Catholicism". I made a table of ALL the slider impacts and constructed a homoetelic WOG around them, the point being to avoid shooting myself in the foot. I actually had a written policy for my country much like one would write down an investment plan/policy IRL. (In that regard, I'm wondering whether all those "God has made His Will clear: You must conquer Tangiers/Marry off your daughters to Spain/..." are more hurtful/random goose chases than helpful.)

I don't know whether it's using a feedback learning cycle or a plan, but it's working much better than my first game which was basically a constant struggle. That is ... until I fabricated an excuse to conquer Morocco. Clearly still short on some meta-lessons here, like don't invade a desert just because I can.

It is kinda interesting that the ERE strategy also works for 4x... or at least it's better than gut feelings.

PS: Comparable games from the 2010s are Master of Orion 3 and Space Empire V. Both of these come with "ministers" that can be switched on to avoid dealing with the spreadsheet "upkeep". In MOO3 you can even write a colonization policy that can be saved/optimized and used in subsequent games.
PPS: Master of Orion was recently remade. It's interesting that they chose to remake MOO2, which apparently was the most popular. MOO2 (both the original and the remake) has a distinct board game feel too it, whereas MOO3 is one of the few strategic space games that capture the "dark forest" feel.

[grundomatic]

My partner is currently doing this as well, but has had a different experience where her students are actually just struggling in a subject and really want to fix it (at minimum, don't want to fail their finals). A lot of it is the things that were supposed to be learned in 2020 and 2021 which got missed. She just tutors math (small children through high school level, including the college kids who need help to get the remedial math credits), so it might be a subject thing? Could also maybe be an area thing, as she tutors in one of the top 10 highest income counties in the US.

I tutored this student over the summer in that time frame, so it's nice to seem them crush fractions like it's nothing, since that's what I focused on the most that summer. It's also frustrating when they act like they don't know what a polygon is, when they had to know it in my first grade class and at least the two years after that.

I think really it's an individual/family problem here. High-achieving parents perplexed by their less-motivated child struggling at a very achievement-focused school.

I talked to another parent that gave me a different perspective, which was that middle and high school are often terrible times in people's lives, and that maybe trading "regular" adolescent problems for academic problems is a good trade off. Not that this student is going to end up like the examples @7w5 gave just by going to a standard public school, but they will be exposed to many more opportunities to get themselves into much more serious trouble than not making the honor roll.

[7Wannabe5]

I think that is a very valid point the parent offered. My DD32 was a very high academic and social achiever (nature not nurture ) , but the one literal area in which she "traded off" was the state of her bedroom, which was always an amazing mess. I would have to wade in through the piles to help her clean 4x/year. I intuitively decided to let her slide on it, for the reason the parent noted. although I did make sure that she had basic skills in areas like cooking and sewing.

[grundomatic]

...I think something like volunteering or some other Green activity might help fill that need to collaboratively create something.

Before I bought my house I was a part of a water-harvesting co-op that would help members redo their yards. The model was help out on enough such projects, then get a discount to have it done at your house (design and prep work was still done by the professionals). One year I was even volunteer of the year, logging the most hours in the program. I did it to get outside, get some exercise, help the environment, learn, and meet (presumably) like-minded people. When we bought our house and got a quote for our yard, there was some serious sticker shock. I then understood why it was always in fancy neighborhoods or much older homeowners.

Anyhow, I decided I could do it myself, having learned the skills and all, but five years later and not a ton of progress has been made in my yard. Or on my broken vacuum, or on my pile of things to ebay. I have some sort of hang-up, for sure. It's probably that on a co-op workday, my tasks were discrete and the job had been budgeted for completion. At the end, I could stand up, admire the basin I had shaped and the rock work I had done, then look around and see everyone else's work, and the project was "complete". Things go so much slower at home that it's hard to for me to keep momentum. Also, upkeep. "Yard energy" inevitably gets eaten up by chopping and dropping the bermuda grass I haven't removed yet, rather than pushing towards the desired state. Also, no people. I even tried to recreate a co-op situation with friends. "Hey, maybe one weekend I'll help you in your yard, then the next week we do mine." All my introverted friends enjoy their solitary yard time, though.

Anyhow, the co-op no longer exists, as the work we did back then is now mainstream enough that mainstream landscapers are doing it, and the non-profit has gone a different direction with their efforts. I nearly volunteered to give tours at their demonstration lab, but was offput by the level of commitment they wanted from their docents. That was a few months ago, and I was really, really trying not get locked into any commitments. I'd probably do it if the class were starting today, but alas, I'll have to wait another year to be a docent there. In the meantime, look for my erosion control workshop at EREfest 2024.

All this to say, yeah, volunteering is a good idea, I just need to find the right opportunity. Also, my complete unwillingness to do stuff for myself, while being very capable of decent work output for/with others is a real hang-up.

[grundomatic]

Feel you with the needing enough extraversion time when everyone else is working... Even with DP working very part-time too I still look around on weekdays and am thinking 'where is everybody?!!!' My hypothetical question for you is whether there are projects or job(s) that could satisfy your needs that you actually enjoy/ are super flexible. Some could make money some not. I have been looking into challenge coursework. It sounds like enfx crack + super flexible. It does pay badly most of the time but who cares if there are other capitals/ needs being met.

The struggle is real! Hypothetically, yes, I do believe there is some job or project somewhere that I would actually enjoy. Above I mentioned finding the right opportunity, and I'll add here that I want to make sure I'm capable of making the most of the opportunity. I'm trying to let this "relaxing" thing run it's course so that I'm properly ready to pour serious effort into whatever I decide to do. While I worry about my "doing things" muscle atrophying, I worry more about "overdoing" after not properly recovering. See my journal after just a few months of going back to work last year.

[Bicycle7]

@Grundomatic:

I struggle too with getting stuff done on my individual projects. There's something about projects in an organization where tasks are made discrete, there are the necessary resources on hand, other people to collaborate with. I bet there's a way to replicate all of these components.

Also, I'm looking towards your erosion workshop at Fest!

I made a table of ALL the slider impacts and constructed a homoetelic WOG around them,

I'm currently reading "Thinking in Systems" by Donella Meadows and related her description of "harmonizing goals" (that was being applied I believe in a policy context) to a homeotelic WOG.

[grundomatic]

[/quote]

What I enjoy most is making a plan followed by the satisfaction of "rolling it up" as it "just works". No "fail and try again" for me thank you very much

I like making a plan and seeing it work, too. If I didn't devise the plan on my own, though, it ruins the fun for me. It's like cheating. The issue here is that these games are so big and complicated. It's not like learning a new casual-level board game, where I can read the 4 page rulebook, study the components for a bit, and come up with a competitive plan. It's hard for me to make a plan when the mechanics aren't fully understood.

Playing the game until some unknown comes up was a fun enough way for me to learn what things I need to know, but I can see why you wouldn't like it. Indeed, it's very time inefficient if one is wanting to get directly to doing well at the game, because you are absolutely right--muddling through whimsically is punished severely.

E.g. putting up a building that increases tax revenue by from 16% to 17%. That adds up to make a material difference over 150 years.

Oh yeah, it was second nature for me to calculate the payback period when deciding what to build.

I no longer have the stamina for "full time"-gaming, but I did have a more serious go at it with the planning, this time "as an aristocratic close-minded but otherwise free nation of Portugal invading and converting the world to Catholicism". I made a table of ALL the slider impacts and constructed a homoetelic WOG around them, the point being to avoid shooting myself in the foot. I actually had a written policy for my country much like one would write down an investment plan/policy IRL. (In that regard, I'm wondering whether all those "God has made His Will clear: You must conquer Tangiers/Marry off your daughters to Spain/..." are more hurtful/random goose chases than helpful.)

Ok, this sounds similar to how I've approached my last couple runs, but probably not surprisingly more at the "optimize" level rather than the WOG level. I had my country goal, "unite the low countries and form the Netherlands", and my guiding game strategy to accomplish it was "in every decision, conserve monarch points as those will ultimately be the limiting factor in developing the country". The former informed appropriate allies, what opportunities to look for, etc. The latter made all those crazy pop-ups easier to deal with.

In EU4, there are factions (clergy, aristocrats, merchants) in your country and you can summon a diet where all three will make a suggestion as to something you should do, in the case a player wants more crazy pop-up decisions. You pick one and there is reward for achieving it, and a penalty for not. I have found in the early game, at least one of the suggestions is something you want to do anyhow, like build a building, or something easy to do, like improve relations with another country, essentially making the reward free. I made the mistake of hitting that button late in the game, and doing any of the suggestions would have been major derailments to what I was trying to do, like "Take this territory in western Africa. Nevermind the owner is allied with Spain AND Portugal. We want it." Wild goose chase indeed.

I suppose ERE thinking works well because at the core 4x games are about resource management, and some measure of balance is needed. You can have all the money in the world, but if you run out of manpower due to endless fighting, you are in trouble. You can have a giant army, but lose to a smaller force with better technology. You can squeeze more out of your populace, but is the revolt risk worth it? Of course there are the planning and investment aspects mentioned earlier.

There are also analogies in what doesn't work. Being good at quest-taking games will not prepare one for 4x games, just like being good at an order-taking job will not prepare one for ERE. "How do I know what to do?" Maybe summoning the diet is for those players.--just like in real life, if you are lacking direction, there are plenty of groups willing to tell you what they think you should do.

[grundomatic]

Sometime in the recent past I started adding things to my GTD inbox again. Last week I took a day and, not following the system, just knocked 7 or 8 things off the list. After that, I didn't even want to process the remaining things in the inbox. I also vegged out and played video games for the next 2 days straight. This is not the way.

I've been driving nearly twice as much to my 1-1.5hr/day tutoring gig than I did to work (and I usually carpooled when working). This pretty easy gig paid 37% of household expenses in December, so I don't want to ditch it. Noticing that I was tiring of my CD collection, I remembered what I did when commuting was a bigger part of my life, and checked out audiobooks from the library.

I've been contemplating my relationship with reading since at least September.

I wondered aloud at EREfest whether reading a book was beneficial at all if I don't put what I learn to use. @mountainFrugal thought that is was useful to still read books because some small fragment remembered could be useful down the line. The struggle I have is that it seems like every book from the ERE sphere makes me question some major aspect of living, but I'm not skillful or motivated or *something* enough to integrate everything from every book I read, so I'm left with just the 'knowledge' that I'm doing everything wrong and the world is f*cked.

I decided to at least replace some of the reading with writing in the hopes of wrangling my thoughts in order to change my actions. I've decided to focus on a single ERE module--food, the idea being changes there will lead to other changes by focusing on the connections to other parts of my life. I'm writing in a hand held journal to make sure it's for me and not performative in any way. Also, sitting at the computer often leads to other distractions.

[jacob]

If nothing else, reading gets you from unconscious-incompetence to conscious-incompetence. This is a good place to be. Perhaps it inspires some future learning? Reading instruction manuals to learn and move from conscious-incompetence to conscious-competence is not the only reason to read. Indeed, I find that priority disheartening. I reminds me of the students who are only interested in something if it's going to be on the test.

Also, serendipity ... you never know.

[grundomatic]

In that case I'm happy to ignore all these home economics projects laying around in order to free read.

[jacob]

I was too harsh. My point was to avoid adopting the kind of educational policy that is frequently pushed by [a self-serving] industry to restrict studies to that which is useful to the economy. What is the purpose of the humanities? It is to make one a better and more interesting person. Some balance is required. Of course focusing 100% on comics or art history is equally bad. A [renaissance] balance between the two makes it possible to both creative AND constructive. All work and no play ... vis-a-vis all play and no work.

[grundomatic]

I appreciate that, but your response was legitimate, a similar take to what @MountainFrugal had told me. My feelings aren't hurt. Rather than be hurt by the student comment, I took it as advice to loosen up a bit and enjoy reading. Finished a book this morning that had been sitting around for months.

What I was trying to express with my original comment was that too much conscious-incompetence is starting to weigh on me. Read some books and all of a sudden everything about my personal life and the world at large is "wrong", and it's all just too much. My response to that is to try and introspect just a little more and focus up on just one thing that I care about, and do it at an appropriate-to-me level, while trying to keep in mind the connections it has to other things.

Should I expound on the struggle? Is there value in that for anyone? I don't know if I can do it without it sounding like a whiny "I can't" rant. I could try.

[grundomatic]

Somewhat ironically I'm finding answers to my troubles in books. Sincerely, thanks for the encouragement.

[guitarplayer]

Read some books and all of a sudden everything about my personal life and the world at large is "wrong"

Might be at some point you will take this to be your modus operandi. It's uncomfortable but once you get used to it, opens up range of possibilities - at least for me it does!