nix
For CK and Vic they changed their design philosophy to be more "sandbox with realistic parameters" vs older games' "sandbox with prescripted events" to make historical events happen. It's an ambitious idea but so far the results have been pretty mixed. I'm hopefully they get it right eventually. Stellaris has really only gotten to be as polished as it very recently.
Paradox is just the publisher on this one, Colossal Order is the dev.
The main issue nowadays is anticheat. If you play esports (league of legends,apex legend, fortnite), you will have trouble. Pretty much everything else will be good to go.
This made me feel a longing and sadness I can't quite pin down.
I have the same issue with light, had prescription glasses and prescription sunglasses, and had to switch between the two frequently. Finally got prescription transitions and they're incredible, I no longer have to think about my glasses at all. Just put them on and go.
I think it's fair to say that secure ways to communicate have largely scaled with our social circles. Without writing you can't keep in touch at a distance anyway.
That's true, an instance would be very tempted by that. I was referring more to the day to day, there's no incentive to squeeze users.
Besides all the discussion of nonprofits and donations, fedi server hosts have way less overhead. They're not generally trying to profit, so they only need to break even (or run a deficit small enough to deal with out of pocket). A corporation is trying to give 6 or 7 digit salaries to CEOs and/or shareholders. So they need to extract more than the cost of hosting.
I think some people do this. However, I'm 30, live with my long term partner, and have a bigger friend group than I've ever had before, with weekly events. My partner isn't a stand-in for socialization.
I'll fully admit I have some advantages because I have no kids, and a job that pays decently and isn't too demanding. I've met people through:
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dating apps. This is how I met my partner and also a very good platonic friend
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activist/interest groups. Got involved with a local urbanism group, now I know many of the people there
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house parties. I got lucky here, I met someone that throws monthly house parties, went to those regularly, and made some very good friends that way
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reconnecting with childhood friends. Again, lucky, but a few of my HS and college friends live in the same city as me and we reconnected and hang out.
The one bit of concrete wisdom I think I have here is that if you go to the same social place regularly you'll see the same people and if you put yourself out there you'll get to know some of those people. Activist groups or meetup groups are great because you probably already have some things in common.
This advice definitely fits OP's specifications, but definitely worth stressing that if you only eat fruits and meats for a while you're gonna have a BAD time when you do finally poop.
I mean google's whims as in they're making decisions on their own and everyone else just has to go with it. I'd rather these problems were solved collectively.