1y ago

What is your comfort activity (like comfort food)?

Mine is playing AOE2 in easiest (or standard if I want a bit of challenge) mode against 3 bots. I just build my economy, wall up (and laugh at the enemy soldiers attacking my walls in vain), reach imperial age and attack once my army reaches the population limit. I also send 104 in the chat so they don't surrender and I can enjoy razing their all buildings one by one. If any of them builds a castle, even more fun. A build a trebuchet and watch it raze the castle from a safe distance. If there is sea, after I am done with the land, I build 3 docks, do research and build a navy and hunt down ships around the unxplored sea. It is fun, satisfying and relaxing.

What is yours?

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Ah, you mean what do we do to cope with the crushing existential pressures of modern existence?
In order from productive to not productive:
Hike, photography, walking, playing music, writing music, editing photos/videos, producing music, cooking, playing videogames, Lemmy, porn.
That about accounts for all the time I'm not sleeping, working, shitting, showering, or shaving,
- Can you please change 'working' to 'slaving' so that you keep the alliteration?
- Sir/Madam, as an expert in this area, I draw issue with your comment: several of these can be performed WHILE shitting. The determination of which specific activities are compatible is an exercise left to the reader.
- Hey you just coincidentally listed all of my interests
- Since when is producing music less productive than playing music??
  
  ... okay so first, the word produce has like 600 definitions, so start there.
  Playing music takes me away from reality and my thoughts a fuck ton more than producing ever will.
  It is far more productive in terms of stabilizing mental health.
  What the fuck did you think I was "producing" on hikes?

Cycling. It's the only way I can relax.
- Fuck yeah, I see you buddy.
  
  Nothing like the clear head when you're putting the miles down.

Walking and running
- You might also enjoy hiking, which is pretty much those two things but mostly the first.

I have two:
Lichess vs computer, easiest setting, trying to promote as many pawns to queens as I can before checkmating.
Civ 5, duel, Shoshone vs. Venice. No city-States, the only winning condition is time. Farming generals until Venice is reduced to a single hex.
- I don't normally watch streamers, but I suddenly want to watch you streaming lichess.
  
  It would be kind of boring though. I rewind the moves quite a bit when I'm doing this. (Kind of weird since I make a point of never rewinding moves when actually playing, at difficulty 5.)

Lemmy. Lol. And a nice walk with my favourite music is good too

Hah, I do the same in AoE 2 as well, though I put the AI to standard and like to give them grief, like build towers around their base early in the game, or use an army of monks to convert every unit they send towards my base, and build up my own army of converted units; or lure them into my base by deliberately leaving a gap in my walls, except the path to my tc is lined with towers along the way - sometimes I even make a maze of walls and towers and it's fun picking them off one by one as they make their way towards my tc.
But lately though, I've been doing all of that in 0 A.D., an opensource RTS like AoE. One of the cool things about 0 A.D. is the soundtrack, it's really, really done well, especially considering it's a free game; and I also like the customisable AI - in addition to difficulty, you can set their behavior to defensive/aggressive/balanced etc, and you can have a ceasefire period where the enemy doesn't attack you at all for x minutes after the game starts, which gives you enough time to build up your base.
- That sounds fun and creative

These comments are more safe for work than I expected.

Replaying old games that I have fond memories of. We're in an incredible renaissance of classic games getting source ports or updates that bring them up to modern standards, and I'm loving it. Daggerfall, Blade of Darkness, Jagged Alliance 2, Morrowind, Jedi Knight, Caesar 3... I'm sure I'm forgetting ~~some~~ many. They let me forget the present and pretend that I'm back in simpler, happier times, at least for a little while.
- Daggerfall? I'll have to check that out!
  
  The Daggerfall Unity re-release was free some time ago on Bethesda's official website. I'd check there.
- I'm here for all these but my personal zen is Lucasarts' Gladius. I have kept my original Xbox all these years just to play it but it was finally recently made backwards compatible for my series x.

Whenever I feel like I need a breather, I ride my bike. Just ride, not hard or fast, just spinning the cranks. Feels amazing.
- Same. Moving my body, experiencing the world, it's good.
- Agreed, this can be so zen.

Getting near blackout drunk and then hating myself for doing so for a couple days with a hangover.

A nap.

Walking, watching lets plays, playing minecraft

I found this post while playing AoE2. I enjoy playing the campaign a lot because there are so many and because of the sandbox gameplay.
So I can pretty much infinitely play them and have done so from time to time since it launched :)

I like driving around in open world games like Forza Horizon and Watch Dogs. Not even doing anything, just exploring the streets.

Watching cartoons from my childhood. Not quite as so early it's Nick Jr level. But like I've watched Hey Arnold so many times at this point(my favorite), Are You Afraid of the Dark?, the Angry Beavers, Ahhh Real Monsters, Pete and Pete. I was so happy to hear Paramount+ had a bunch of those shows... but then all the striking stuff happened so I just went back to my hard drive with a bunch of the shows.
- I’m in this comment, though the shows are a lil different

Recently it's listening to audiobooks. Makes commuting or doing chores great.

I like to cross stitch. It's calming and satisfying when a project is finally finished.

Riding a bicycle, browsing forums, drinking, fishing, hiking, and vidya games.

Factorio. Hands down. I have a few other games that I self-soothe with, mostly colony builders, idle games, or automation games, but Factorio is my go-to when I get into a bad headspace. To the point that my "end of world" plan includes immediately scraping the entire mod database to a portable hard drive, along with Rimworld's entire collection. If I have those + my Steam Deck, I feel like I would be able to manage in a full social collapse and Mad Max-esque world. I know how to build a variety of generators and the proliferation of solar panels has made post-collapse planning a lot easier.
I am also regularly doing mirror backups of the whole of Wikipedia. I am thinking of adding Wikihow to that automated task. Wikipedia is only like 20GB for the aggregate knowledge of most of humanity, so well worth keeping for research after the internet dies.
- Could you go into detail, even just privately, that seems like a solid use for some otherwise idle storage space.
  Then again, the only part of being a scout (boy) that stuck with me involved fire or survival methods, and to always be prepared is a good maxim.
  
  Assuming you are talking about Wikipedia here. It is pretty straightforward at the most basic level. So much so in fact that Wikipedia has a page dedicated to it.
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download
  I use Python on a scheduled job on my Windows PC to update it every so often, but you could setup a cron job in any job scheduling software for whatever OS you are using to do it. There are even ways to do it on your phone. I am only doing text currently, but I will likely so images and videos for certain knowledge domains in the future. Articles in fields of Math and Engineering rely heavily on them for illustrating (duh) the concepts.
  If you are talking about the emergency download of all of the mods for Factorio and Rimworld, that I still need to research some. I was planning on just using the check all and download inside Factorio's in-built mod manager. Rimworld I will probably have to see if an api exists for the Steam Workshop and build off that.

Beat Saber, currently. Get me in that music zone and let me wave my arms around like an idiot.

Depending on the weather, go for a walk while listening to some music

Stellaris, so similar vein as AOE2 lol.

Watching old Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. They never showed on tv where I’m from, so I got in to them about 10 years ago.
There’s something comforting about watching an old movie with dated pop culture jokes being made in the background. I don’t really focus on either one and just enjoy the coziness.
- May the Rowsdower be with you. That is supreme coziness. Minnesota jokes I don't understand? No problem. No need to look up anything, I'm just happy to be with the boys.

surprised nobody put down the classic yet...
- Masturbation?
  
  money shot!
  
  It's alright ma'am, this is my emotional support orgasm.
- What is it?
  
  jerking off?
- No alcoholics in this thread either. Too wholesome, it's eerie.

Sleep

Making TTRPG maps. I just put on some music, throw down a background and a grid and start doodling. Thinking about details to add in here or what kinds of encounters could go there is pretty meditative.

Sleep. I like sleep. It's incredibly soothing to switch off from reality and often my dreams are vivid and interesting.
- I haven't been able to remember my dreams for the past 10 years, I envy you. Sleep is definately my comfort too

I play heroes of the storm vs AI. It's pretty fun.

Meditation

I watch the anime gurren lagann. It's a stupidly chaotic optimistic show that basically asks "but what if humanity really could do anything?"
Answer: we would throw around galaxys like frisbees in giant space robots.
So when I'm down I like to watch it and think maybe I can do anything if I believe.

Putting on a good old mindless comedy movie. Give me Black Sheep or Airplane or Mr. Deeds or Bridesmaids and I immediately zone out and relax.
- I love airplane, I will check others.

Recently, playing Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead on my steam deck.
I excuse it by convincing myself it's preparation for TEOTWAWKI which can't be far off now.

I like wandering around skyrim and doing occasional side quest

Doing dumb runs in EU4 while cheating. I give myself a few techs at the beginning of the game to be stronger than everyone else and focus on my objective.
For example, Hindu Hungary, Jewish Arabia, Totemist England, Tengri Russia, Protestant Ottoman Empire, destroying France as a small East Asian country and forming it again by culture converting, being Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire by starting with an African country etc.

Fountain pens. And brawlhalla.
- What do you do with the fountain pens? Write/journal? Or do you more enjoy inking them etc?
  
  Inking them is a ritual, I do enjoy that, but more often it's journaling or studying. It helps with mindfulness
- Wouldn't say Brawlhalla is all that relaxing lol
  
  Lol fair, but it scratches an itch that helps me unwind

Sometimes I pick through homebrew content other people have made and offer comments and suggestions. I used to float around on /r/UnearthedArcana before I jumped from Reddit, I'm kind of hoping something similar pops up in the federation. Either that, or on the really bad days, I play an old game that I've played a bajillion times before. I know the routes and strats, I can kind of go on autopilot while I try to decompress from the shit that happened. System Shock 2 is a favorite.

Smoking and watching YouTube.
Not super healthy, I know.
- Fwiw, I’m doing that, and kbin. Kbin isn’t very comforting, you say? Maybe, but at least there’s intelligent discussion to be found.

Op plays briton longbows for sure

GuildWars 2, small scale stuff on the borderlands with my WvW guild.

Gunpla. I go into a zen like state and achieve inner peace as long as I'm making dumb little robos.

Playing Palia.

Sudoku.

Watching YouTube videos of people making things in machine shops. It switches my brain off and just lets me focus on the work happening on screen. It’s so rewarding to see the process and the finished product.
See:
Abom79
Clickspring
Cutting Edge Engineering Australia
Make it Extreme
bigstackD Casting

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