Recovering damaged videos with untrunc

This is more for personal reference but I know someone somewhere will need this and I want to have it here as a light house because this was a pain to figure out.

There is an application called untrunc which can help recover a damaged video file as long as you have another file that was produced by the same device, in my case I am recording playthroughs and this is happening because the hard drive is giving out on me for random reasons, I can't ask much from a hard drive that has been in use for more than 8 years.

untrunc can be found here: https://github.com/ponchio/untrunc in its original form and an improved version here: https://github.com/anthwlock/untrunc

The one from anthwlock is the one that worked for me, the one from ponchio would not compile no matter what I did, for reference this was done both in Debian 9 and 10.

Once I followed the steps from anthwlock I had it installed, I added it to /usr/bin and I ran first the following command:

untrunc -v (good video) (bad video) because as it was the thing would not go through, I did not understand why though so -v told me that there was an issue with consistency, because the first video was larger than the second, how did I go around this? By using -a and -s so it looks something like this:

untrunc -a -s (good video) (bad video)

You may get a ton of prompts telling you if it's OK to continue, go ahead and from there you should be able to recover the damn thing, go at it, edit it and have fun!

Crusader Kings II - Holy Fury: Powernexing Ireland (Week 3)

Week 3 of the Powernexing Ireland Campaign for Crusader Kings II, Holy Fury (3.0.1.1)

Battle Report of the Week:

For the third week of the Iron Man Powernexing Campaign we have gone through two Kings, rebellions, vassals coming to power and taking territory outside of our currently controlled domain, the crowns continue to be under the hold of a single Tanist but struggle is evident as voting is contested between different members of the family, our control over the Isles is almost complete as we have almost finished pushing Denmark out of the Isles and we are slowly bringing Pictland into our control.

One important note that I would like to point out for this section of the playthrough is the creation of titles, while this may not be evident here is a little more into this matter as I never went deep into this when I was doing this in the playthrough.

Why divide titles between vassals or why create new titles?

Division of power in Crusader Kings 2 is very important, due to limitations of the Tribal/Feudal Lord system in real history there was only a limited people that one single person could handle, this is the same in game mechanics in which you are limited to the amount of titles you can have as well as territory and vassals, having too many vassals under you means less gold and in the long run means more problems, to go down the line let me exemplify:

We currently control 40 counties, out of those 40 counties we can only rule 8 due to our rank, stewardship and other traits/bonuses, this means that the remaining 32 counties have to be governed by other people be it one each or a couple each, the optimal division of power, in my opinion, is done through very small divisions of land, if out of those 40 counties we can make 10 duchies that means that approximately each 4 counties would need a duchy, we can hold two at most without getting a negative opinion penalty, the remaining 8 duchies are to be assigned to 8 vassals who in turn will have 3 vassals below them, with this division of power it is harder for rebelling vassals to bring against us a large amount of allies into the fray, if they do these allies will be divided in very small sections that in turn produce different amount of money and troops, to us this is an advantage to control internal rebellions but when external threats come we mainly have to relay on our retinues, armies and available vassal armies.

What is coming next:

For the next week here is a sneak peek, we did manage to accomplish two important goals, one, the Empire of Alba was formed before 850 and two, we are now Feudal and have not been grinded to death by our neighbors or our vassals which is quite impressive for me.

What is Powernexing?

Powernexing comes from Diplonexing, I’m not sure if I heard it first from Arumba or Quill18, which in turn means to quickly and without consequence annex territory from your neighbors without getting yourself in the middle of the crosshair, basically this means that we will get territory through border disputes, fabricated claims, intrigues, marriages or any other method that will get us more territory under our belt, but there is more to it than simply saying it, applying it is a whole different story but let me put this into context as we are slightly cheating here by choosing the right scenario.

Setting up the battleground:

As an old tradition I always start as a Count in either Ireland or England, it is not so much that I start as a Feudal or Tribal Count but rather this position allows me to experiment on different techniques and ideas that I have, in one playthrough I decided to start moving south instead of consolidating inside the islands so I eventually ended up with territory in northern France and northern Spain, in another instance I invaded Norway and Sweden then was crushed by the pagans in Finland, a fun playthrough, and as another old tradition we have done a playthrough in Russia and managed to get an Empire so large it was becoming very complicated to govern everything without more than two human players.

Agenda and Objectives for the Playthrough:

I always keep ideas in mind about how and what I want to do for a playthrough, for this particular one I came up with the following agenda:

Agenda:

1) Test new mechanics from the DLCs past Horse Lords, this means using and abusing old mechanics too to accomplish our objectives

2) Iron Man mode only, if I fail I fail, no reloading, no rage quitting, no cheating, nothing, it is what it is and the world keeps moving on with or without my intervention

3) This is a single player campaign and no other players will intervene, for other playthroughs this could be different though

Objectives:

1) Start as a Count and go all the way up to Emperor, this does not mean the title of Emperor must come from being the Emperor of Britania, it can be from any other Empire or forming our own

2) The original culture of the founding character shall remain the same, any characters who do not have this culture will have it pushed into them

3) The same applies for the culture inside Ireland, it shall always remain the same as well as religiously it shall remain Catholic, adjacent territories to Ireland shall eventually become of the same culture

4) Only family shall control the counties, duchies and kingdoms under the main ruler, as the expansion continues everything shall temporarily remain under the hands of others but at a minimum, every mechanic shall be used to bring everything under the rule of the same dynasty

5) Prisoners will be ransomed when possible otherwise released, traitors will be executed when no titles are under their belt otherwise it will be removed from them, this also applies to family

6) The dynasty needs to be at least one hundred members big by the turn of the next century from the start date, in this case 869, through any means possible

7) Council members should only be family when possible and applicable, otherwise other members may be part of the council

8) The ruling member of the family will always have the largest amount of territory possible for the rank it possesses, always, which also means that Centralization shall be performed as soon as possible in order to get more territories under the same ruler, other family members shall have equal amounts of territory to avoid major confrontations between them

9) Peace shall always be enforced inside the realm and as soon as it is possible the vassals shall have all power removed including the council

Here are the links to the videos:

Ireland Pt. 10 – https://youtu.be/olL2IVljkLw

Ireland Pt. 11 – https://youtu.be/9BvmKiGxXQE

Ireland Pt. 12 – https://youtu.be/yNcUXPVcE-g

Ireland Pt. 13 – https://youtu.be/QDjE0DtG6o4

Ireland Pt. 14 – https://youtu.be/uXass7maqZ4

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vicosurge

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicosurgeplays

Crusader Kings II - Holy Fury: Powernexing Ireland (Week 2)

Week 2 of the Powernexing Ireland Campaign for Crusader Kings II, Holy Fury (3.0.1.1)

Battle Report of the Week:

For the second week of the Iron Man Powernexing Campaign we have made considerable progress in expanding our holdings and have doubled the amount of territory under our belt, the entirety of the island of Ireland is now under our control and we have taken over the crown of Wales as well and managed to keep it under one ruler in what could have potentially been a succession crisis.

Currently from our position we are bound to become the sole rulers of Britannia in a matter of decades if not potentially years, below is a sneak peak at what is to come the following week regarding the current path of expansion.

This is how we ended this week, the north of the Isles will be ours by inheritance through our bloodline, some other members of our family are also in France, Germany and the southern side of the Isles, at this rate we will have family helping us from the continent in case we needed so.

The screenshot above is a sneak peak of what has transpired during one of the sessions of next week, while expansion was considerable so was our threat and now, we have an eye upon us, have we failed to keep our cool and will we get the wrath of our neighbors on top of us, maybe another planned invasion? Find out next week on this thrilling playthrough of Powernexing Ireland/The Isles!

What is Powernexing?

Powernexing comes from Diplonexing, I’m not sure if I heard it first from Arumba or Quill18, which in turn means to quickly and without consequence annex territory from your neighbors without getting yourself in the middle of the crosshair, basically this means that we will get territory through border disputes, fabricated claims, intrigues, marriages or any other method that will get us more territory under our belt, but there is more to it than simply saying it, applying it is a whole different story but let me put this into context as we are slightly cheating here by choosing the right scenario.

Setting up the battleground:

As an old tradition I always start as a Count in either Ireland or England, it is not so much that I start as a Feudal or Tribal Count but rather this position allows me to experiment on different techniques and ideas that I have, in one playthrough I decided to start moving south instead of consolidating inside the islands so I eventually ended up with territory in northern France and northern Spain, in another instance I invaded Norway and Sweden then was crushed by the pagans in Finland, a fun playthrough, and as another old tradition we have done a playthrough in Russia and managed to get an Empire so large it was becoming very complicated to govern everything without more than two human players.

Agenda and Objectives for the Playthrough:

I always keep ideas in mind about how and what I want to do for a playthrough, for this particular one I came up with the following agenda:

Agenda:

1)      Test new mechanics from the DLCs past Horse Lords, this means using and abusing old mechanics too to accomplish our objectives

2)      Iron Man mode only, if I fail I fail, no reloading, no rage quitting, no cheating, nothing, it is what it is and the world keeps moving on with or without my intervention

3)      This is a single player campaign and no other players will intervene, for other playthroughs this could be different though

Objectives:

1)      Start as a Count and go all the way up to Emperor, this does not mean the title of Emperor must come from being the Emperor of Britania, it can be from any other Empire or forming our own

2)      The original culture of the founding character shall remain the same, any characters who do not have this culture will have it pushed into them

3)      The same applies for the culture inside Ireland, it shall always remain the same as well as religiously it shall remain Catholic, adjacent territories to Ireland shall eventually become of the same culture

4)      Only family shall control the counties, duchies and kingdoms under the main ruler, as the expansion continues everything shall temporarily remain under the hands of others but at a minimum, every mechanic shall be used to bring everything under the rule of the same dynasty

5)      Prisoners will be ransomed when possible otherwise released, traitors will be executed when no titles are under their belt otherwise it will be removed from them, this also applies to family

6)      The dynasty needs to be at least one hundred members big by the turn of the next century from the start date, in this case 869, through any means possible

7)      Council members should only be family when possible and applicable, otherwise other members may be part of the council

8)      The ruling member of the family will always have the largest amount of territory possible for the rank it possesses, always, which also means that Centralization shall be performed as soon as possible in order to get more territories under the same ruler, other family members shall have equal amounts of territory to avoid major confrontations between them

9)      Peace shall always be enforced inside the realm and as soon as it is possible the vassals shall have all power removed including the council

Here are the links to the videos:

Ireland Pt. 5 – https://youtu.be/4-3Pf-p4S6M

Ireland Pt. 6 – https://youtu.be/poS7ar-xWag

Ireland Pt. 7 – https://youtu.be/32gEjBlZQ78

Ireland Pt. 8 – https://youtu.be/eJqX1Y4XfqM

Ireland Pt. 9 – https://youtu.be/9sYDpupQBm8

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vicosurge

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicosurgeplays

Imperator: Rome, a sequel to Europa Universalis: Rome

At last, after so many years Paradox Interactive has decided to push out a new Grand Strategy game in the Roman Era, their previous development was called Europa Universalis: Rome and the expansion, Rome – Vae Victis, sure added something to the game but at the time I felt it lacking, needing much love and a revamp of some of the awkward mechanics inherited, from my own perspective, from an earlier version of Europa Universalis III and a limited engine, if memory does not fail me there was this great improvement on the Europa Universalis III engine that made it look fantastic from the original blob it presented itself like.

Something that stroke me as interesting when trying Crusader Kings II back when it came out was the fact that it shared some of the mechanics of the Rome game, it had individuals with their own goals and ambitions which could lead an army, govern, rebel, plot murder, all the goody stuff CK2 players enjoy so much nowadays was inherited and polished (after a couple of expansions, mechanic revamps and other things in between) to what we know today of it. From the side of Europa Universalis, I am unsure how much it was inherited but I can be sure that with the current version that is coming out, Imperator: Rome will greatly benefit from the Europa Universalis IV mechanics and the now polished Crusader Kings 2 mechanics.

At the time the images that have shown up look great and remind me so much of the original Rome games, there is no need to go for battles such as Total War, Total War is there for those huge epic battles on the ground that you can enjoy from the shoulder of the Legions you send down to cause havoc, no, we are here to enjoy the massive intricacies of the military (with hopefully improved upgrade mechanics that do not tie you to one update whenever the game feels like it and research that was arbitrary as hell), political (I can already see the civic faction breaking oh so many games, they broke so many of mine and caused so many rebellions I would change the people in power five times before I got to understand how the hell anything worked), diplomatic (hopefully as Rome you can get some sweet casus belli to expand your Empire all the way to Asia and also interesting decisions with your neighbors so they don’t eat you alive from the get go such as that little devil Pyrrhus breaking hell all over the shores of southern Italy) and religious system (some of the bonuses were really broken and the fact that you could get the total opposite to what you wished really made you think if you should even consider it on your to-do list but if you did not do it then you were asking for the religious faction on breaking your back every single time) of the Roman Empire.

Other mechanics that are coming back to my mind were the Legions your provincial Governors or Legate would command a Legion which in turn would start to become loyal to him, on one side this would be good because your treasury would be released from the much needed money during the early state of the game, on the other hand these men had become loyal to him so in case he rebelled they would stand by him no matter what, this would lead to some very interesting battles in which Legions would be fighting on the same square against other members of the same Legion who had fought with them side by side.

The sea battles were horrible, and I could never understand why the Romans would not capture more ships once they had discovered the retractable arm they could throw onto other ships, in real life this would give the Romans the advantage they needed over their much larger Carthagian foes as their sailors were not ready to face the might of the Roman Legion from ship to ship. The mechanics were oddly clunky and I was always praying my transported troops would make it to wherever they had to go because losing one of my Legions, any Legion, could cost me a bunch of territory.

Those barbarian invasions were also a hell of an adventure to deal with, I would leave regional legions (attached them to a local Governor who could be so useless at times) to defend tracts of land such as northern Italy (the alps mostly and using the bonuses of the mountains to my advantage) and fight the massive mothballs of up to 100K barbarians, sure the slaves and money I would get from them would be absolutely great and with the right politics you could get freedman and citizens in a considerably breeze (quite some time to be honest) which would in turn help Civilization push further out and bring the rest of the territories into being gloriously Roman (because what else is better than to have 100 Civilization and be the center of all European civilization, eh?)

As a Historian with a formal education one of the things that drove me to study History were the Total War and Europa Universalis games, I was amazed by the Roman and Medieval eras and to this day they continue to be some of my interests as a Historian, I also believe that teaching through videogames is one of the best ways for the current generations to learn about the many interesting aspect of Humanity (even if this vision is eurocentrist).

Now, if only Paradox Interactive would take their time to rework that Sengoku game they made, I know that would be another really interesting period to visit and while we are at it, a Victoria 3 game, anyone?

Crusader Kings II - Holy Fury: Powernexing Ireland (Week 1)

Week 1 of the Powernexing Ireland Campaign for Crusader Kings II, Holy Fury (3.0.1.1)

Last week I started a new Iron Man campaign for the latest DLC of Crusader Kings, Holy Fury, in order to help friends get up to date with the latest mechanics and some other interesting features I am seeing with other DLCs that we have not properly tried out since the time Horse Lords came out, at this point all available official DLCs from Paradox Interactive are active and the purpose of the Campaign is to Powernex Ireland as fast as possible, some explanation is in order.

What is Powernexing?

Powernexing comes from Diplonexing, I’m not sure if I heard it first from Arumba or Quill18, which in turn means to quickly and without consequence annex territory from your neighbors without getting yourself in the middle of the crosshair, basically this means that we will get territory through border disputes, fabricated claims, intrigues, marriages or any other method that will get us more territory under our belt, but there is more to it than simply saying it, applying it is a whole different story but let me put this into context as we are slightly cheating here by choosing the right scenario.

Setting up the battleground:

As an old tradition I always start as a Count in either Ireland or England, it is not so much that I start as a Feudal or Tribal Count but rather this position allows me to experiment on different techniques and ideas that I have, in one playthrough I decided to start moving south instead of consolidating inside the islands so I eventually ended up with territory in northern France and northern Spain, in another instance I invaded Norway and Sweden then was crushed by the pagans in Finland, a fun playthrough, and as another old tradition we have done a playthrough in Russia and managed to get an Empire so large it was becoming very complicated to govern everything without more than two human players.

Agenda and Objectives for the Playthrough:

I always keep ideas in mind about how and what I want to do for a playthrough, for this particular one I came up with the following agenda:

Agenda:

1)      Test new mechanics from the DLCs past Horse Lords, this means using and abusing old mechanics too to accomplish our objectives

2)      Iron Man mode only, if I fail I fail, no reloading, no rage quitting, no cheating, nothing, it is what it is and the world keeps moving on with or without my intervention

3)      This is a single player campaign and no other players will intervene, for other playthroughs this could be different though

Objectives:

1)      Start as a Count and go all the way up to Emperor, this does not mean the title of Emperor must come from being the Emperor of Britania, it can be from any other Empire or forming our own

2)      The original culture of the founding character shall remain the same, any characters who do not have this culture will have it pushed into them

3)      The same applies for the culture inside Ireland, it shall always remain the same as well as religiously it shall remain Catholic, adjacent territories to Ireland shall eventually become of the same culture

4)      Only family shall control the counties, duchies and kingdoms under the main ruler, as the expansion continues everything shall temporarily remain under the hands of others but at a minimum, every mechanic shall be used to bring everything under the rule of the same dynasty

5)      Prisoners will be ransomed when possible otherwise released, traitors will be executed when no titles are under their belt otherwise it will be removed from them, this also applies to family

6)      The dynasty needs to be at least one hundred members big by the turn of the next century from the start date, in this case 869, through any means possible

7)      Council members should only be family when possible and applicable, otherwise other members may be part of the council

8)      The ruling member of the family will always have the largest amount of territory possible for the rank it possesses, always, which also means that Centralization shall be performed as soon as possible in order to get more territories under the same ruler, other family members shall have equal amounts of territory to avoid major confrontations between them

9)      Peace shall always be enforced inside the realm and as soon as it is possible the vassals shall have all power removed including the council

Here are the links to the videos:

Ireland Pt. 1 - https://youtu.be/2WUdL1iDBjA

Ireland Pt. 2 - https://youtu.be/bXLrcRJgWWY

Ireland Pt. 3 - https://youtu.be/UAHOH7_30hA

Ireland Pt. 4 - https://youtu.be/tKX07S3voqw

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vicosurge

Twitter: https://twitter.com/vicosurge