Page 8 of 19

Crusader Kings II AAR: Part 1

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Time to start another AAR, this time for Crusader Kings II. CK2 is what I’d consider the last truly good Paradox grand strategy game, so it’s good to get back into it. My post about streaming/vod was inspired by this game, specifically Jon’s Many a True Nerd series of CK2 playthroughs. I guess that’s the point of these things – get people interested in playing them.

But I didn’t want to play vanilla. I wanted all the good stuff. So, that meant getting DLC, but the DLC is so expensive for what it is. Fortunately (or not, if you’re my wallet), they went on sale this week. I think it’s worth going over what I got; or rather, what I didn’t get.

Basically I got all the actual expansions, besides the three above (also got the collection of unit packs). “Sunset Invasion” is just a mid/end-game event series where the Aztecs invade Europe for no reason. I don’t like those sort of things, so didn’t get it. “The Reaper’s Due” adds plagues, court physicians, and hospitals…and not much else. It’s essentially just a difficulty boost – most of the mechanics are actively against you, and the ones that aren’t are just there to mitigate those hostile mechanics. I don’t have time for that sort of nonsense, that’s just not fun.

“Conclave” was the hardest for me to leave out. It adds another layer of depth to the council and law voting systems, as well as revamping the child education system. Basically it combines the council with the law voting system, and adds the fact that high vassals will want to be on your council (meaning you can’t just invite the people in the world with the best stats to your council, you have to use what you have available). This at least is not there purely to antagonize the player, as it also adds a favor system, to get people to vote with you; but you have to manage “personalities,” not just bribe people to be more favorable to you. But the thing that made me not get the dlc in the end was the education system: while it adds the ability for children to be less directly influenced by the traits and stats of their tutors, it also adds more rng to that system. That’s just annoying.

For this playthrough I want to try something a bit different from what I’m used to. We’re going to start with a count, in NE Europe, earliest start. That means starting as pagan. I actually wanted to start in Ireland, but they are Catholic, and I’ve already done a Tutorial Island start anyways. Catholic is just so boring. Pagan, and tribal to boot, have some interesting advantages and disadvantages – having unlanded sons is a big hit to your prestige, but you also have a very low vassal limit (because tribes are independent and stuff). As a pagan, you can have three concubines (well, as a male anyways), so that should hopefully help expand the dynasty, and you don’t have to deal with all that Vatican nonsense.

I know I said that we’re going to start as a count (with two counties because why not), but that says “chief”. They’re basically the same thing: count = chief, duke = high chief. What comes next depends on your culture group; where I’m at it’s king (spoilers!), but some other places it’s despot, or something else. So, we’re just going to go with this Chief Alvydas, a Prussian fellow of the Romuva religion, and a vassal of the High Chief of Pruthenia. The counties are Galindia (the capital) and Chelmno, which roughly correspond to modern Mrągowo and Olsztyn respectively.

We see here that this…handsome…fellow comes with a wife and two underage children. He’s 36, which basically means he can drop dead at any time, though it’s less likely than when he’s older. His stats aren’t spectacular, but (besides martial, which is kinda bad news) he’s not too bad either; I think 7 is considered “acceptable” in this game, and being above that in three areas isn’t too shabby at all. He has no parents of note, which makes him lowborn himself, but becoming chief gives him a dynasty. Two war axes for his coat of arms, very nice. But that means this is all there is to the dynasty. The kids are 13 and 12, I believe, which means they’ll probably survive, but this is still a hazardous situation. The wife is in her 30’s as well, which is not a good sign of fertility. So, off to Family focus it is then, since that gives a big boost to fertility, to hopefully get with the baby-makin. I also gave him a Get a Friend ambition, since there was no way I was getting any of the rest.

Now, let’s take a look at the children:

Oh no. Chaste is never a good thing. Especially for the son and heir. Well, presumptive son and heir: this culture has an Elective Elder system, where the various Elders in the court get to vote for the heir. I can live with that: don’t have all the problems of gavelkind, as one person gets all the titles, and you aren’t necessarily going to get stuck with a bad heir, as it seems the elector ai is pretty good about choosing acceptable candidates, for the most part (without the favor system from the Conclave DLC, there’s a lot less skulduggery involved in potentially getting a crappy ruler). But yah, that Chaste is a problem when the dynasty is only three people.

Daughter doesn’t look as bad. She’s only 12 though, still young enough to pick up some more negative traits. Got her matrilinally betrothed to some horse kid from out east, I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Now that we’ve got the children and council sorted, time to get some concubines! While Child of Concubine is a slight malus, it doesn’t really matter much in the scheme of things, and they’re perfectly legitimate parts of the dynasty. And, since mothers don’t influence children that have tutors, their culture and religion doesn’t matter either, so we can just invite young women from all over the place; as long as they’ll come to court, you can do what you want with them. But why search out girls when you have them right here? Apparently the Spymaster is a 16 year old girl, who is single. Eh, why not? Without the Conclave DLC, courtiers will just walk up and demand a position if their stats are even one better than the person who currently holds it, even if they just became an adult. But this girl is 16, which means she has a lot of childbearing years left. (Also, it took me a while to notice she’s not actually present in my court; as she’s out doing her spying job, she can’t do her concubine thing.)

One of the bad things about starting as a primitive tribal is that you essentially start out with nothing as far as your towns go. But on the plus side, you don’t need gold to build most things: you can use prestige or piety to do most improvements. Of course, being a primitive, and a count, starting with nothing means you don’t build up resources very fast. After building that market town, the tax rate for that province went from 1.8 to 3.6, but the monthly gain is .91? I don’t get how all that is calculated. But I’m slowly investing in the territories at any rate. But with this slow gain, I’m going to need to expand to achieve anything.

So, we’ll end with that. Nothing much has happened yet, but this is just the setup. Next time we’ll see how Chief Alvydas becomes not cripplingly poor.

Breath of the Wild: A Review

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Last post I was wondering if I would continue grinding out gear, or just go beat Ganon already. Well, I chose the latter. So now I can give my full thoughts in a review.

This is a great game. An absolute masterpiece. While there isn’t really any other option, it’s definitely worth paying full price for this game. Hell, it almost justifies my purchase of a Switch just by itself. It isn’t perfect, and I can certainly see why it puts off some long-time Zelda fans, but to me, this game is nearly ideal. If I had to give it a score, it’s 10/10.

As I said some posts back, this game perhaps most resembles one of those survival games that were super hot a few years back. I’ve played Conan Exiles, and this is very reminiscent of that style: not really much narrative (especially narrative pressure to keep advancing), but really you just explore and do what you want. Eventually it might be a good idea to advance the story; but if you want to get every seed, comb every inch of land and water, open every chest, that’s definitely a valid option. Or, if you just want to rush the main quest, you can do that too. Personally, I did it halfway: I explored a bunch, did about 100 shrines, got about that number of seeds I think, all the while taking my time in doing the beasts. Even took some time out to take most of the pictures for the compendium.

Personally, I am a big fan of this structure. Some folks aren’t – they want their bounds, they want that narrative push. They want that constant feed of story. This game isn’t that. You pick up bits and pieces of the story as you go. Pretty much all you are forced to learn is that 100 years ago Link and Zelda, along with four champions driving divine beasts (machines from an ancient civilization) failed to defeat Ganon, but the princess somehow managed to delay the final defeat until Link could recover – and now Link can fix things to defeat Ganon. That’s it – that’s the main story. Of course there’s a lot more to it, more to the world, but you actually have to go out and find it. Some people hate this, but I love it.

There is also a decided lack of dungeons. There are the four divine beasts, which are basically each a very small traditional Zelda dungeon. There are the about 120 shrines, which are each basically one or two rooms of a traditional dungeon. Some folks think this is very uninspired, and not particularly Zelda at all. I can see that, and kinda agree. But I don’t see that as a negative, since, honestly, I was never too fond of the dungeons in Zelda games. I really don’t like puzzles. I mostly like the combat and other gameplay of the Zelda games, but the puzzles and dungeons are not my thing. (I’m the type to keep a guide open at all times, to keep the momentum going, not stopped too hard by the puzzles I can’t figure out quickly.)

The biggest problem in this game, to me, is the weapon system – specifically the way the durability system works. For one thing, I could not see any indication of durability, until the thing was almost broken. This sort of opacity really irks me. This goes double when the absolute low durability of basically every item is taken into consideration. You really have no clue how long a weapon will last, and it of course will explode in your hands at the worst moment. And of course you have a very limited inventory, so you can’t just stockpile weapons for all occasions when whatever you’re using breaks. Against minibosses (and even some of the later mobs) you can lose several weapons, even good ones, just going against one enemy. Super annoying. Even the unique weapons will break, though there’s always a (very expensive) way to get them back. My guess is the devs were thinking that they provided the player all these weapons (you can pick up every weapon held by every enemy, with very few exceptions), so they had to give the player a reason to pick up all these weapons. Still the biggest annoyance in the game.

Second-biggest annoyance: white text without outline, so you can’t read it over anything white – the brightness is higher than portrayed in this shot.

The world is also a bit empty, even compared to other open-world games. There are some areas that are well-developed, like the Gerudo or Zora areas, while others are very underdeveloped. The world seems like it should have more than the two hundred or so NPCs that seem to exist outside of those two places. Indeed, the world seems half-finished. The Rito and Goron cities in particular, despite being associated with divine beasts, are like an afterthought compared to the other two “ethnic” towns. The Hylians don’t fare better: Kakkario Village is a proper town, but the rest are just small outposts, and one town so forgotten it isn’t even on the map. It would have been nice for these places to have been fleshed out.

But other than those complaints, I have to say this is one of my most favorite games I’ve ever played. I wasn’t expecting something so great, despite the great reviews (basically no reason to trust professional reviewers, and most people don’t share my taste anyhow), because all the complaints I heard were pretty consistent (which I agree with, if not to the same degree). To be sure, this is my new favorite Zelda game. I’m really surprised that two new additions to my top five Zelda games were on the Switch; if I knew it would be this way, I would have gotten one a long time ago. Neither is a traditional Zelda game, but they are made with the usual Zelda heart and soul (and skill), and that’s what endears them to me.

Gaming Progress This Week

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

I’ve been playing games recently! Shocking, I know. Thought I should write about what I’m actually doing, since I haven’t done that in a while:

Mobile crap: Been doing the events in Dragalia Lost. Thought I wasn’t going to make it with this event’s facility upgrade cap, but it went a lot faster than I’d’ve thought, and was done in an hour or two. Haven’t been able to beat Nightmare Challenge yet, just don’t have the dps. In Princess Connect, there hasn’t been much going on, but they did increase the level cap, annoyingly, so now I can’t get master coins for a while. Granblue Fantasy is pretty much dead to me right now: it’s Guild Wars, and “I have exams; sorry Dancho.”

Breath of the Wild: finished all the divine beasts. Debating whether to just go and beat Ganon tonight, or if I grind out some more armor upgrades. I finished the Sheika armor, and am working on the Ancient armor. Don’t know if I’ll bother with the rest: I don’t like collecting fish.

Great Steam Collection Game: Instead of beating down my backlog, I only add to it. In the last two weeks I’ve purchased: My Time At Portia, The Shrouded Isle, Planetbase, Elite Dangerous, and a bunch of dlc for Crusader Kings II (with witch I’ll be doing another AAR (series?), starting this weekend).

Watching Other People Play Games

TheRoyalFamily 3 Comments

When I grew up, Youtube wasn’t around. Sure, we had the internet, and we even got high-speed internet (DSL) when I was in high school. But of course Youtube wasn’t even a thing yet. Downloading video was a huge hassle at all; streaming anything just wasn’t on the table.

Then, many years later, my youngest brother is growing up. To put this into perspective, he says he has literally no memories of me before [I was in] university. So there’s a bit of a generation gap there. He, unlike me, had Youtube by the time he was caring about video games. And he didn’t have access to a good computer. Nor, it turns out, the inclination to play too much himself.

No; to my infinite frustration, he would watch other people play video games, instead. I would always wonder, why not just play the games himself? Where I would spend hours playing games, he would spend those hours watching someone else play. Now, if he were watching someone play particularly well, or someone otherwise entertaining, that’d be one thing. But he wasn’t: he was watching normal people play normally (or even badly – but not entertainingly badly). There might not even be too much commentary. And the thing that got to me: a lot of those games he was watching were games he had access to, himself. I had those games, he could just ask me. I usually played on PC, but he was mostly watching console games, especially the Zelda series.

So I was turned off to streamers for a long time, because of him. Sure, if there was a situation that I needed a bit of help, I’d look up a guide, and some of those were videos. But I didn’t just watch people play: I have games myself to play.

But then I got a job. A job with potentially a lot of time in the office, not doing a whole lot for decent stretches of time. Where I could multitask. Where I could be way more efficient, apparently, than other people I’ve replaced, but still had the same work to do. But, can’t really play games on the job, either practically or ethically. So I needed things to do. (And, when I’m eating and stuff, it’s hard to play games.)

Eventually, I found some Cities Skylines streamers. At first it was just traffic tips, or which mods to get. But then it expanded to actual gameplay. And Youtube is going to suggest things. I saw other streamers. Most weren’t for me, but I did find a few.

Just for fun, I’ll link some of the ones I watch:

Quick Thoughts: Star Trek Picard

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

This is going to be really short, because I don’t have the time or energy for a full review (which is coming, to be sure), nor the screenshots I thought I had. But, to be quick about it:

This show sucks. Like, seriously, it sucks.

At first I thought it wasn’t too bad. And it wasn’t. Just a bit slow, and nonsensical. But still watchable. But then it got worse.

It was never Star Trek, really. Sure, it had some characters that were in Star Trek, in the past. But the show itself is just some random sci-fi show that they slapped a Trek skin on.

And it’s not even a good random sci-fi show. The plot is so full of holes, it makes swiss cheese envious. The dialog was generally very bad, especially as the show went on. The editing isn’t very good. The effects are passable, barely, and don’t even feel Trek-like. Everything is anachronistic.

Just a sucky show.

Quick Thoughts, April 13th

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment
  • Man, working so hard makes me have less time for blogging! I mean, sure, I have plenty of time before and a bit after, but usually I have time to think about topics, mentally organize, etc. Not today, which is the reason for this post.
  • Daily stuff is annoying in games, almost always. The only thing not annoying is just a plain login bonus. Those are fine. But actually having to do things? What is this, a job? Why not get fun things for no effort?
  • Breath of the Wild continues to be great. I’m ready for it to be over, yet I just want more.
  • I really like when the patch notes say that a problem is fixed, but the problem isn’t actually fixed. Got an afk penalty in STO for the First Contact Day stuff, but I totally did everything. Lame.
  • I really need another vacation. I just took one, but it was great fun, and I want to do it again. These games won’t play themselves!
  • Some of the cool stuff in Breath of the Wild needs amibos. I hate this. Maybe I should actually look them up (prices, availability, etc.) before I start hating. But they don’t look good enough to justify themselves.
  • I hate panty shots. It’s just so low-effort, pleb-tier, lcd fanservice. They totally ruin every good art they’re in, because they are always the focus. So many things I see on twitter are rendered nsfw because of that.
  • Speaking of twitter, I hate how people will retweet porn. Of course you can’t have the image filter, because it blocks pretty much every anime-style image. Such a pickle.

The City of Cannburg: A Cities Skylines Start

TheRoyalFamily 3 Comments

I read a tweet or a post the other day that said they wanted to see more game play posts, and I thought that was a good idea (and idea I’ve already done). So, today we’re going to start up a new city in Cities Skylines.

I have a lot of mods. This game is playable without them, but there are so many quality of life mods out there, and so many good, new assets, that it’s kinda a pain to play without them. And I have so many, I’m not going to list them. If you want to know, just search out any recent “essential mods” list, and I’m sure most will show up. As for DLC, I don’t have the recent “Sunset Harbor,” nor the less-recent “University Life” expansions. And, this is actually my first game after the “Sunset Harbor” update, so we’ll see what we can do without that, but with its ruleset (as Paradox games are wont to do).

I’m going to pick this map, which I’ve never used. Thought I’d try something different. It’s a mod map, as shown by the Steam symbol on the side. And I’m just going to go with the RNG-generated name. It doesn’t really matter to me.

Load it all up…and it’s an awkward start, as shown by the top image. One of my roundabouts isn’t even accessible! Fortunately I have a mod that lets you place certain things outside of the city (as long as they’re not zonable streets), so it’s not too much of a problem. But a bigger problem is that the buildable area is bisected by the highway, and both sides are bounded. And the top part is bisected again by a railroad.

The plan is, then, to put the industry area at top, and the commercial and residential at the bottom. That highway ramp is actually pretty good, and the highway traffic won’t interfere with the traffic between the two sections of the city. I don’t have to worry about unlocking stuff, since I’ve played this before (unlocking stuff is a major bother, so it’s good you only have to do it once – though you can turn it off in the game settings if you want to start completely fresh), so I’m just going to go at it.

I’m just going to be doing efficient grids. There’s not enough room here for anything fancy, so I’m not going to be fancy. You’ll see above that I’m making 4×4 squares: this is to get the biggest building possible to fill the space. If you just fill in the whole area with zoning, you will get random smaller buildings, which won’t fill in the whole space behind it – a waste of space. Once those squares start building up, I’ll zone in the spaces between them. Though you do have to be careful…

It turns out, unlike industrial zones, residential zone squares placed in corners will fill in houses on both streets, so you get a bunch of small houses. If you look in all the squares in the corners there, you’ll see a bunch of houses, and an unoccupied 2×2 area behind all the houses. That’s what I’m trying to avoid (also, bigger houses look better, I think). This can be avoided by not putting in the cross streets, but leaving a space for them, like so:

In the center of the picture, you can see two 4×4 squares separated by a two-width space, which is where the street directly above will connect. (You can see the same gap one block up, on the left, where a left-right street will connect.) Also, you can see that I’m not doing the same thing across from that; you can’t see it, but there’s that mountain coming in at an angle at the bottom of the screen.

You might have noticed that, in the above two pictures, I have a wide street with the side streets branching off; the green (residential) is not on the wide street, but the blue (commercial) is. This is because that wide street is a main street, so the stores and stuff go there. Commercial not only gets citizen traffic from shopping and going to work, but they also get supply trucks; you need a bigger street to handle that traffic. I have the same separation on the industrial side, but this time with nothing on the main street. Industrial zones create a ton of traffic, with supply trucks coming and going, same with workers. The trucks stop at the factories, same as the shops, but much more often; you don’t want those trucks clogging up traffic on the main road, so there are no buildings on the main road. Below, you might also notice that I have one-way roads going in and out of the industrial areas from the main road; this is to spread out the trucks, so they’re not all in the same place at once. (I say “might notice,” because there’s a grain filter in this game that I don’t know how to get rid of.)

There isn’t much else to add to that. Just place essential services around (which includes parks and schools in the residential zones). The “Sunset Harbor” DLC changes the rules for citizens aging, requiring both child care and elder care buildings; fortunately, those buildings are included in the regular game update. The nice thing about grids like this is you can just expand in all directions as needed. Bad thing is it all looks the same, just bigger.

One special thing that I do is separate out the trash area. This is not only because of pollution (so you don’t want it in your residential areas), but because there are a lot of trucks coming and going, so you don’t want them in already high-traffic areas. For this particular city, I bought the left city square to expand the city limits (and get that other roundabout), and stuck the trash stuff off one of the spurs.

Dumps are really small, so you need a bunch of them.

And that’s about it. Like I said, I was just starting a city, just to check out some of the changes. The only major difference I made after the beginning was to add some small commercial areas inside the residential areas, especially near the highways (commercial buildings are loud (sound pollution is almost as bad as actual pollution in this game), but they block the highway sounds). Looks pretty good, I’d say. If I were to give this city a story, it’d be “mining ghost town becomes a small-scale manufacturing center and pit stop on a lonely mountain highway.”

Tired of the Same Old Thing

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

I must be getting burned out. Or something. I just don’t want to play my usual daily games. But events and daily login stuff keeps me coming back:

  • The Jubilee event in Elder Scrolls Online has been going on the past week, and is just ending. Spent several hours doing daily quests to get those prize boxes (which you get for doing daily quests, of course). Totally forgot the whole time that I have two alts that could at least do the daily crafting quests. Oops. The Jester event was immediately before; I did one day, then just gave up; not worth it. Thinking of killing my sub, at least for a while; but then again maybe not.
  • Haven’t been doing much more than logging in then buggering off in Granblue Fantasy. Hurts that I’m drastically undergeared for my experience level, because I can’t into the grind. So basically just read the events and leave it alone.
  • Star Trek Online has the First Contact event going on. Just gather from nodes, get three things, and you’re done. It’s on a timer though, so lots of sitting and waiting. In the past you’ve been able to do nothing and get the reward, but they put on an afk penalty this year (as I learned).
  • I’m basically just gathering crystals and tickets in Dragalia Lost. There’s an event going on there too, an actual new one too. But it’s not exciting. I’m undergeared there too, but it doesn’t matter as much, as it’s a more casual game. And since it’s coop, all those well-geared folks make things really quick. But it’s another game I’m basically just doing for story.
  • I still have no idea why I keep playing Princess Connect. I don’t even benefit from the story, or even the voices (since I don’t bother with downloading them). And there are two rerun events in a row, it looks like. At least the dailies are over fast.

Mostly, I just want to keep playing new games – games that end. Like Breath of the Wild.

Mistakes Were Made

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

Like most people, I buy games I think that I’ll like. Of course, you can never know until you actually sit down and play it. But most people at least can figure out what genres they tend to like and dislike, or certain staple mechanics, story beats, art, etc.; and avoid those things they don’t like.

But apparently I’m not most people. Because I keep buying games I should know I have a low likelihood of liking, but something else is part of it and I get it. I have never liked tactical games, yet I keep getting them, thinking that I will like this one, because of some thing or another. Every other game has done it wrong, but this one will be fine.

Another one of those is fighting games. For some reason I just can’t git gud, and gittin’ gud is pretty much the whole point. But I thought this time it will be different. Granblue Fantasy VS will be the first fighting game I like. I should have known better; but I not only bought it (and on Steam, where there are no codes for the main game), I got the season pass, which is mostly about more characters.

Now, I had reason to think it really would be different this time. There is a single-player/coop “RPG mode,” which tells its own story, in a sort of beat-em-up mode (though it still uses the fighting game inputs and stuff). Speaking of, there is a simplified input mode: the devs wanted players of the main game (an old-school turn-based RPG) to be able to play this too. But that’s no good when playing online, and it’s hardly any better in the RPG mode. And the story doesn’t justify the game (it’s actually kinda bad, even by Granblue Fantasy standards).

I played about 9 hours so far. I paid $80 for it. Talk about buyer’s remorse.

How I’m Losing It

TheRoyalFamily Leave a comment

What if I were to tell you that you can lose weight, without any (additional) exercise, and without giving up most, if any, of the foods you normally eat? You’d probably say I was crazy. But while you might be right, it wouldn’t be for that statement. Because you probably can.

I did.

That’s right, since the beginning of the year I have lost at least 20 lbs, without giving up any foods, and without additional exercise. Now, of course your mileage may vary and all that, but the principle will work, for just about anybody. And that’s because the principle is simple: to lose weight, calories in must be less than calories out. Very simple, yet some people disbelieve. “I’ve tried that!” you exclaim, “But it doesn’t work for me!”

It always works. Unless you’re literally eating undigestable stuff (which of course doesn’t have calories) that stays in your body, you will lose weight by eating fewer calories than you expend. That’s just biology. There are of course variations on the rates of loss one will experience, based on the strict difference in caloric input, fat storage efficiency, and so on, but the fact remains: eat fewer calories, lose weight.

Part of the problem is that most people don’t really know just how many calories they burn. It’s pretty easy to calculate calories consumed: just look at the box (or the internet), figure out your actual portion size, and you’re good.

But figuring out calories burned is a much more difficult thing, partially because it isn’t intuitive. First, heavier people burn more calories. That’s just physics: it takes more force to accelerate a larger mass. Second, just sitting on one’s butt (or even sleeping) burns calories: our bodies need energy to do basic metabolic functions. Just the brains being on needs quite a large amount of energy. Third, the amount of calories burned per activity is a lot less than most people think. (Just for example, it takes hardly more energy to run than to walk, for any distance.)

So, if you’ve tried calorie restrictions before, and it “didn’t work,” you were certainly doing it wrong. That sucks to hear, but it’s the truth. I know, I’ve been in that camp.

But anyways, I hear you saying that you want to know my secret do achieving fewer calories while not giving up foods. And I’ll tell you, after some background about me. For quite some time now, I’ve been more-or-less the same weight: lose a few pounds here, gain a few there. The usual story. But I would go into the doctor sometimes with various ailments, and of course got the advice of “lose some weight, you’ll feel generally better.” This is of course correct, but not something I wanted to hear (especially when I was in there for a nasal infection or something). And recently I was, very slowly, gaining weight. I was hovering between Overweight and Obese on the BMI scale. (I don’t give a lot of credence to BMI on an individual level, but I do give credence to mirrors – and they agreed.)

One day it just I was looking in the mirror, and decided enough was enough. I had to lose this fat. I don’t care much about my appearance (have I mentioned before that I’m single?), but even I was disgusted at what I saw. Trouble is, I’m lazy. And impulsive. I know how to eat healthy, but don’t want to. I like pizza and burgers and bread, not veggies and bird food. I don’t like cooking when I’m hungry, and when I’m not hungry I’d rather be doing other things besides cooking. Same thing with exercise: I don’t like taking the time I could be playing games or posting online, being outside or in a gym.

So, wut do? It would have to be something that a lazy, impulsive, kinda foolish person (me) could figure out. It would have to be simple, easy, and it would have to not take up any extra time. And I like the things I like, so no taking that out either.

Well, it didn’t take long to figure out (because simple and easy!). Since the weight gain was very slow, it meant I was pretty close to balanced on calories in vs. calories out. So it wouldn’t take much at all to actually lose weight. This is what I came up with:

First: no absolute “no”s. If someone offered me something normally off-limits, I would take it. I find that one of the most annoying things about dieting is having to tell everyone about it. Having to reject the kindness of others. So, none of that.

Second: only truly applies at home (or in the office). This way, it only applies to me. If I go out with someone to a restaurant (or their house), the diet is gone. Goes with the first one of not having to tell everyone about my diet, and not making them feel bad or awkward in any way (well, that relates to that – interacting with me is sure to leave people feeling awkward). A more social person could possibly invalidate the entire diet with this rule, but since I rarely even hang out with friends, that’s not a problem for me. It also applies for when I’m eating out alone, but I’d really rather not eat at a place by myself – that’s time wasted that I could be at home on the internets!

Third: no snaking (at home or office). From everything I’ve read and experienced, this is where many diets fail. Even if you’re counting calories, are you really counting the snacks? They are just so easy to overlook. Especially small things like crackers and chips: how much harm is in one…or two…or ten? So, no snacks at home. If I really need to stuff my gullet, I can drink water.

Fourth: only eating out (including take-out) 2-3x per week. When I go out, I tend to go overboard. I eat to taste, and there is so much tasty stuff at the restaurant. I’m talking like two entres, plus sides. An entire large pizza. That sort of situation. While I can’t quite manage anymore, I was able to (and thus did) eat like a teenager for long past when I was a teenager. But I can be satisfied with a normal portion, like what one would get in a microwaved health-food dinner. So that’s what I do: eat out 2-3x per week, then the rest of the meals are something simple, easy, and small.

Fifth: a meal is a meal, no matter what it happens to be. This goes with the third (no snacking), and makes it so I can eat whatever I want. If I really want cake, I can have cake: but that’s it, that’s the meal. Same with cookies, pie, whatever. (I never claimed this diet was healthy, just that it would make one lose weight!)

Sixth (and last): no soda. Soda is so high in calories, it’s ridiculous. It’s basically the enemy of any diet. However, the first two rules still apply: if someone gives it to me, I’ll take it; and if I’m actually eating out, it’s fine. But I won’t get it for myself; and that basically means no soda, if I’m paying: I’m not going to pay the extortionate rates restaurants charge for soda, if I’m not going to be able to drink my fill – and I’m not going to do that sitting at a restaurant – and I can’t take it home, since that counts as both snacking and soda. Now, fizzy no-calorie drinks are fine, since that’s just fizzy flavored water, not real soda.

Bonus: get the “healthy” microwave dinners. These are the Weight Watchers, Healthy Choice stuff. They run 250-400 calories (usually around 300), and are quite cheap (around $2-2.50). They are sufficiently filling, and actually generally taste pretty decent, if not good: long gone are the days when frozen dinners were barely palatable garbage. They are already portioned, of course, so you don’t go overboard and eat like 2-5 servings. And for the most part you just stick it in the microwave, stirring once (you can get some that you don’t even need to bother stirring at all, but those are usually more expensive). This is less useful if there is more than one person eating, but since I never have that problem, it works for me.

That’s it. Very simple and easy, and doesn’t cost me any additional time. Or effort/sweat/etc.! And indeed, it generally saves me money (I used to eat out at least 4x/week), which means more money for games. The weight loss is actually more than I anticipated – I would have been happy with a half-pound per week on average (at least during the winter when I knew I wouldn’t be exercising), but it’s been more than a pound per week. That’s what worked for me, and I’m sure something similar can work for you, too.