[SSLP] Let's have a Touhou Party in Sid Meier's Civilization VI! (Completed!)

[niektory]

The most detailed explanation of how to achieve a cultural victory is given here. If it's still too complicated for you (I can't blame you, it is), here's a crash course: Tourism output gets you closer to a cultural victory. Increasing your own culture and population defends the cultural victory from someone. Currently, Sanae does best in this category. If we didn't have the second highest domestic tourism, she would have 6 of only 49 required tourists, which would already be a little scary. I'm confident we can improve the Kobito's culture and keep the shrine maiden from this winning strategy.

I think you meant 99, not 49?

Also, hurray for a new page! The 3rd one was already crashing my phone browser.

[Gesh86]

Kaguya: "A new empire overseas? Gee, it will be so cool to declare a war on it-- WAIT WHAT YOU JUST DID THE SAME THING HOW DARE YOU"

Oh, the wacky, reality-detached AI of Civ 6. Kaguya's problem isn't exactly our cruel deeds, but more the fact that we didn't ask her to be our accomplice.

I think you meant 99, not 49?

Also, hurray for a new page! The 3rd one was already crashing my phone browser.

I did make some of those updates a little long, sorry  :blush:. The paragraph about the cultural victory I made is not only a little confusing but there is indeed a mistake in it. The formula for victory is having one more visiting tourist than the player with the most domestic tourists (excluding yourself). For Sanae, that number is 99, as we are the cultural bulwark she's competing against. Were we doing really poorly in culture, the next best player would be Remilia and the necessary score would be 75. I wrote the number 49 because I actually overlooked our vampiric rival. In the end, Sanae is still miles from winning through this route.

Update nr. 44 - Finn MacCool's legendary spears he hands out for free to anyone who comes by

Turn 230 ? 1.595 A.D.

Last time, we swapped horses for horsepower and got ourselves a national anthem. Let's say it's Kobito of the Shining Needle ~ Little Princess.
We also put the Grande Arme? into our card deck, more by accident. Let's make it an intended accident and change Kirisame Magic Shop's production to a field cannon. 10 turns. We're going to ship our whole army away from Iberia northward and I don't like the thought that no one will be there to defend our provinces, should the need arise.

Nemuno Sakata was one of the musketman we just didn't have the funds to upgrade. A turn has passed so now we do. The mountain hag has the full mission gear of a modern G.I. now. Now we only have a single musketman left. The one in quesion is at Brittany, where there's a comeback of the local barbarians:



These crossbowmen have not been in the area when we leveled their home. Now they're out for vengeance, but their fury won't help them: The Palanquin Ship can handle them with ease. 64 damage, a little below predictions it seemed.

The horsemen we upgraded into cavalry at home are bound for the Atlantic, but they shouldn't enter it while there are still pirates abound. The ironclad keeps the pressure on them and...



...turns them into thriftwood! That attack was actually above predictions. I wouldn't want it the other way around.

During the barbarians' turn, the crossbowman in Brittany returns fire upon the Palanquin Ship for 21 damage. That's all just a desperate effort that won't lead anywhere, of course.

Turn 231 ? 1.600 A.D.

17th century and the very year the Sengoku Jidai ended. If you don't count the Siege of Osaka. Most people don't. To us, it is also a historical year where we've made a wonder that is probably about 2.000 years late, if not more:

   

There is this heinous rumor that the Oracle was built at Benevolent Orl?ans Dolls long ago when Alice was still in power. Don't believe that, it was but a phony and the mentioned city never existed. This Oracle is far better and will make the districts in Laputa produce more Great People points.
Another big achievement by Laputa was making our first spy. Let's make a tradition out of that and have them train the second one as well. 9 turns.

The infantry at Spain is slowly embarking one by one, with a course that seems to be going to Ireland. With another mighty blast from The Palanquin Ship, the enemy crossbowman falls. Brittany is now pacified and will likely stay that way for a long time. A very short Youmu finally evolves into an infantry and will join the rest of her kind on their voyage.

Sekibanki and Kagerou are always making the best discoveries among our recon units. Today was no exception:



Mount Everest lies in the Himalayas and is the very tallest peak on our planet. Climbing it is undoubtedly one of the greatest tests of grit a human can give oneself, but it is very dangerous. Many people have died trying and the terrain is so harsh and hostile, their bodies can usually not even be recovered.
Sir Edmund Percival Hillary and Tenzing Norgay were the first team to make it to the top and back alive.



The natural wonder benefits religion and religious units that pass it, so it's not something we'll concern ourselves much with.

A builder that's still roaming around Kirisame Magic Shop with plenty of charges cultivates a source of marble northeast of town with a quarry. This awards us our 13th luxury resource, all thanks to conquering the area.

I don't think it would have felt right if Alice out of all people didn't denounce us as well:



We weren't too young, too simple and at that point in time too naive to throw you out of your home country, were we?



Dangerous. National parks are a tool to create a lot of tourism through the use of faith. I get the feeling Sanae is indeed aiming for a cultural victory. We currently lack the civics to do anything similar.

Turn 232 ? 1.605 A.D.

For 30 long turns did Futatsuiwa of Sado toil. Now it has finally paid off:

   

Washington Irving was an American writer of short stories and a historian. His most well-known written work is undoubtedly "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Furthermore, he became the U.S. ambassador in Spain. During this time is when he learned of the Alhambra and said what you can read here.

We discover the technology that allows you to view this Let's Play. One of the ones required at least:



A common name, but I'm pretty sure this witty quote is by journalist and columnist Harvey Earl Wilson. He worked for the Washington Post.



The seaport is the third building in a harbor and has more in common with the lighthouse than the shipyard. Great for that extra boost in money, food and housing. I don't often build shipyards. How I'd wish this was only the second building in the district.



The power plant is the third building in a workshop and is really nothing too different from a factory. Even the effect that it spreads to other cities is the same. We really should get around to building at least some factories sometime, but you know how it is: So much to build, so little time.



Submarines are a much older part of warfare than a lot of people realize. Their usefulness reached its peak in World War 2. Privateers evolve into them. I think the stealth-component makes even more sense for a sub, which were genuinely hard to locate for a long time. For the privateer, it was a bit of a logical stretch.



Combined Arms and Plastics have joined our selection. Hmm, plastics seems exceptionally tempting, but let's finish Flight. The eureka is something we are not getting, unfortunately.

Thanks to the Alhambra, we have gained an extra slot for military policies, which allows us to change cards for free. Professional Army goes out, Chivalry and Retainers go in. Looking at it now, Liberalism would have been the superior choice to Retainers. Grand Arme? will actually stay, since we're making that field cannon in Kirisame Magic Shop and profitting from it. Our cavalry in progress at Shining Needle Castle and Lilliput should also saddle up a little sooner now.

Futatsuiwa of Sado can act again after such a long time. While the housing there isn't too great and I'd like more districts, I couldn't think of a sensible one to place. Let's make a simple decision and have it build a market. More money is always good.

The builder at Kirisame Magic Shop we've been hearing about often lately destroys another unneccessary mine. He'll put a farm on that tile just east of the city next turn. It'll make a delicious, plentiful triangle.

The majority of our army is currently embarked on the west coast of Ireland. Next turn is going to be a big reveal on why.

Turn 233 ? 1.610 A.D.

So since Sanae is now the only friend we have and will have, I was wondering how secure this friendship was...



Semi-secure I would say. Razing cities in as late an era as we did even goes through the cracks of a joint war it seems. The total sum of relationship points is still positive, but what worries me is that she rejected the typically generous deal of sugar for 3 gold a turn I wanted to give her. For the duration of the declaration of friendship, we are safe from any denunciations, but it may not stay like that.

Balnibarbi has a builder, who I think will be cultivating farmland in the southeast. We could set a new production now, but I'm reminded of something. We have 334 faith in our pockets, so we quick-purchase something in the youngest of our self-settled cities:



So how exactly can we buy an amphitheatre through faith? This ability comes from the very first religious perk we picked, Jesuit Education. We have not gotten around to doing anything with it until now, as our faith output has only been slowly stacking up. Apostles, missionaries, inquisitors and pagodas had always had a higher priority. Expect us to keep buying campus and theatre square buildings at this advanced stage of the game. Now that the first Kobito can watch sophisticated stage plays, Balnibarbi constructs a university the old-fashioned way.

Benevolent French Dolls is a naturally coastal city and does this status justice with the harbor it now has. We could follow up with a lighthouse, but...let's do something weird. Let's place the freaking Colossus of Rhodes, 2,000 years late. The city's not too deep in a rush to do anything else. How did absolutely no one pick up the Colossus over all this time? It's a good wonder that only takes 11 turns for our wimpiest city. This is where we'll put it:



I said wimpiest, but 30+ cogs per turn is pretty impressive actually.

So the infantrymen we've been shipping over the Atlantic are all bundled up near the Giant's Causeway. Once we pass it, we see something peculiar popping up:



"Spear of Fionn", huh? Turns out, every land unit that passes along this natural wonder gets a buff for +5 combat strength. I believe this power is permanent. At least I hope so. It reads like it is. Now you know why our whole army is doing this pilgrimage to Ireland. I'm sure the old Celtic legends will help us smite our enemies with gusto.
The next plan for these soldiers, once they've all picked up the perk, is passing over Britain and entering the North Sea towards the east. But just as we are about to do so, one of our embarked units uncovers a barbarian quadrireme! We retreat a little and wait until one of our naval units catches up. We have kept an ironclad tailing our infantrymen, so this shouldn't delay us for long.

A builder at Kirisame Magic Shop uses his second-to-last charge to set down a farm. The city that just recently joined our empire can feel proud about its first farm-triangle.

Turn 234 - 1.615 A.D.

Another turn grants us a new Great Person. They're coming rapidly now it seems. Who is it this time?



A Great General! For these, you will always have the option to have your units escort them to benefit from their buffs or retire the general for a special effect. Unlike Civ 5, the bonus to combat strength for being near a general only applies if the units are from the right era. Hannibal Barca for example doesn't know how a tank works, so you are better off giving him a pension than letting him ride next to your battalions.
Lakshmibai, Rani of Jhansi was the queen of the Jhansi area in northern India and fought the British when they were establishing their Raj. She is viewed as a just revolutionary and you can find many statues showing her on horseback, as riding had a strong tradition for the leaders of her region. The good queen benefits industrial and modern units, which is indeed the composition of our current army! We'll be recruiting her and sending her to Europe as soon as we can.



Amusingly, the unit graphics at this era of the game show her in a military truck instead of riding, as would be appropriate. Saying it again: Horsepower over actual horses!

Shining Needle Castle finished a cavalry, the third under our command and one of many going straight towards Europe. Wouldn't our capital of all places deserve a wonder? Unfortunately, we can't rest, we need more units and we need them now. An artillery it is. 10 turns

We're putting an end to another case of piracy, the one I mentioned last turn:



The people of the classical mediterranean would have feared such a quadrireme, but our mighty ironclad smashes the feeble wooden ship to bits. 6 damage on us. The way is clear for all the embarked units to proceed and pick up their very own Spear of Fionn. The name of this item comes from Fionn Mc Cumhail, by the way. The musical "Finn MacCool" is based upon this mythology and a Steam achievement references it.

Turn 235 ? 1.620 A.D.

Last turn for today. As the first action for it, we quick-purchase a builder in Futatsuiwa of Sado for 405 of our 577 coins. Building the Alhambra over many dozen turns there made the city lag behind in many of its needs, so that'll help.

It's Great Person time again and this one is another brand new type. One that I would have never expected to get...



Apparently, none of the AI was even remotely interested in making theatre squares. Except Mamizou, who is no longer with us. Despite our mediocre cultural play, we've secured ourselves the Great Writer Li Bai, a poet during the time of the Chinese Tang dynasty. If you cash in Great Writers at a place that has an empty slot for a Great Work of Writing, you'll create such a piece and gain bonuses for holding onto it. We're sending Li Bai to the amphitheatre in Balnibarbi to do just that. It'll take the poet with a mind of fantasy, nostalgia and drink a couple of turns to get there, as he unfortunately spawned in Laputa.

Something happened right after this recruitment that was a lot more negative. It really annoyed me when I realized there was something amiss:



These two are the cavalrymen we recently finished in Shining Needle Castle and Lilliput. We placed them next to each other and, thanks to having the Nationalism civic, should be able to fuse them into a corps. A corps will be a more powerful unit, but not as powerful as two non-corps units of the same type. The idea is that quality goes over quantity: A smaller army is easier to navigate through terrain than an oversized one. Units will block each other if you bring too many. Reducing the frontline width through corps- and army-fusing has benefits.
Too bad we can't do that because it's apparently bugged. Believe me, I'm not quick to call out a game on being faulty, but I have often formed corps and armies in the past and I know I'm not doing anything wrong here. So long as one unit still has movement points, and both cavalries have, they can form a corps. This function doesn't even require to be done within your cultural borders, but even if it did, this would be the case. I really don't get why the button to form corps does not appear, but I'm pretty sure it has to do with the game taking place over several patches. If you recall, about a hundred turns ago, Firaxis nearly killed our Let's Play...

One of the two cavalry came from Lilliput, freshly made on this very turn. I was thinking of making another artillery, but no, with the two already in production, it's enough for now I think. The pre-placed theatre square will be made next. 8 turns.

A builder at Balnibarbi makes the first farm for that city on a hill southeast of it. I can see two adjacent tiles that could also do with one. The town is already benefitting from the additional food: Growth to 9 population swiftened from 10 turns to 7.

While trying to cross over Scotland, our many infantrymen once again find themselves annoyed by greedy pirates:



With our ironclad, we're well prepared, of course. The bandit camp you can see is probably what spawned many of the hostile ships we found. We should be able to waltz right over it with our military might.

A missionary in Spain spreads The Touhou Fandom one more time in Kirisame Magic Shop and we're finally religiously unified for good. Let's hope it stays that way and there'll be no foreign proselytizers.

One of our rangers reaches the goody hut in Papua New Guinea. Our prize: Another recon unit appears at Laputa, which at this point will be a ranger. Hooray? Not really. But now that we have him, we won't disband him. He'll probably go to the southern tip of Africa, where we haven't been at all due to barbarian raiders.
Suddenly, I miss Aya and Momiji  .

Pirates with a quadrireme surprise and shoot the same ranger that picked up that goody hut. 10 damage. They're going to learn that you don't mess with the evolution of a scout...
The ironclad at Scotland is swarmed by not one but two pirates! A quadrireme shoots arrows at it for 6 damage. It's quite funny how ineffective they sound colliding with the metal. After that, a caravel approaches, deals 16 damage and takes 46.

Alright, we'll give those cheeky pirates what they've got coming for them. But not today. Next time, we'll flip through an urban dictionary and roll our eyes at all the words you can't casually use anymore. Bis bald!

[Gesh86]

Update nr. 45 - The deluxe suite? I'd rather sleep inside some kitchenware

Turn 236 - 1.625 A.D.

Last time, dark rooms turned to light when someone invented the light switch. Wallets also turned from full to empty when someone else invented the meter. This update is just in time for a new civic, a very vital one, too:



Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky is another winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. This Let's Play proves those people are good with words. He was a poet and essayist from Soviet Russia, but had quarrels with the regime. After serving a prison sentence, he emigrated to the United States.



What is a neighborhood district? Apparently something so good you would demolish a farm you spent a builder charge on for it. I don't think I've ever used this card, as I usually leave at least some room for said districts.



A strange card to unlock with "Urbanization". Generally, there are better ones to boost your scientific output, as you will likely have few of these two costly buildings. We actually have none at all.



Oh, how I have been looking forward to these. Contrary to all other civilizations, the Kobito are happy enough living inside rice bowls rather than neighborhoods. In the standard type of this district, bonus housing is entirely dependant on tile appeal and usually goes up to around +6. Locked at +3, the rice bowl doesn't help as much in achieving the big housing bonuses for your civilization, but the extra amenity and yields should make up for it. Plus, it is cheaper to build!
We should make rice bowls in our cities as soon as we can. This district and the neighborhood do not use up your district limits. In fact, they are also the only districts you can have multiple times in the same city!

Among our policy cards, Retainers and Chivalry make way for Liberalism and another one that we haven't had yet: Meritocracy. Meritocracy gives a flat +1 culture for every district you have. What sounds pretty unimpressive actually boils down to a lot in an empire as developed as ours! With a rise from 81,1 culture a turn to 115, the difference is huge!
Completely ignoring culture is not actually that smart in Civ 6. Yes, there's a science race, but you shouldn't put science over everything. With this new, very high output we should be catching up on civics soon. The one we pick now is the already boosted Scorched Earth. 5 turns.

We have our very first artillery in Blefuscu. Should we make a rice bowl there? Tempting, but no, not quite. The pre-placed entertainment complex deserves to finally be worked upon. It's only 6 turns anyway.

Now we're going to apply some trickery at Futatsuiwa of Sado. We first set a barracks as our production focus. 4 turns, but you know what? Let's make that 0 turns! We move the builder we quick-purchased last turn over here:



Then, we chop the forest. The barracks instantly stand in all their glory. After that, we select a rice bowl and put it on that very tile we chopped the forest. Usually, having some forests around doesn't hurt, they provide consistent production and even more if you use lumber mills. But when you want to use a hex up for a district anyway (districts always remove any yields from a tile), it's best to collect all the lumber beforehand. The rice bowl for all the little Kobito will be done in 10 turns.

In the untamed Scotland, we had some barbarian quarrels. How are those going?



It shouldn't take us more than two rounds to be rid of these pests. We start by taking care of the root of the problem: The selected, nameless infantryman disembarks into the enemy's camp. This is not an amphibious unit, so you can see we're getting a 10 point malus for disembarking straight into combat. Yet the odds are so uneven that we are not really feeling much of that. The battle is over as soon as it begins, we only take 4 damage in return.
As for our ironclad and its two foes, a good principle in RPGs and strategy games is to dispose of the weakest enemies first:



Quadriremes are dead meat against any melee ship beyond the galley. We again take a forgettable 4 damage. Good news: All embarked land units have saved themselves onto Scottish shores. The remaining caravel has no way to harm them.

We have enough faith for a minor quick-purchase: An inquisitor at Futatsuiwa of Sado for 170 points. I like to have at least one inquisitor at each holy site I own. It's the typical minimum of defense.

I feel like I'm copying this line all the time: A builder at Kirisame Magic Shop removes a mine at the southern coast. I do however have an idea for a special improvement there next turn. It's not going to be a farm. The very same city pre-places a harbor that will have +2 gold from adjacency, then returns to making a field cannon.

Our ranger in Papua New Guinea takes out his carbine and shoots a quadrireme with pirates. The outcome is that of an action-B-movie:



Yup, a single bullet sent them to join the whales under the tile they were floating on. That's just all kinds of badass.

Huh. Wasn't seeing this one coming:



That's a pretty far away crusade Sanae is planning there. I wonder if she already has troops in place or if she's only relocating them now. If I were to attack Remilia, I'd probably ship mine around Europe in a suspicious manner and only declare when I'm at the gates.
The pirates of Scotland were very cooperate. They sunk their remaining caravel on our ironclad. The damage they dealt with this was 15 points.

Turn 237 - 1.630 A.D.

The friendship between us and Sanae that the last joint war forged is no more. It's no use trying to renew it now and I'd be surprised if it even worked later. To reduce the possibility of a denunciation by her, we give her the special super steal offer of sugar for a flat 40 gold. She accepts it.

Brobdingnag is another city that became one of learning. A campus stands ready for all students. Before we help them study with additional installations, we make a rice bowl, right here:



Neighborhoods and rice bowls don't receive adjacency, but they can provide, in this case for the campus next to it. 12 turns.

So about that special improvement we wanted to make in Spain last turn:

   

We've been the suzerain of Granada all this time and never got around to placing even a single Alc?zar. Shame on us, let's rectify. You know what's appropriate? This very tile is probably the one the real-life Granada and many moorish forts would be on. I didn't even plan that, but I'm seeing it now! This was the last project our builder could do for us. We're going to need to make more in the region at some point.

I don't have any sensible uses for the missionary we currently have in Spain anymore. We had him sprint up to Alice's city Chalk-White Russian Dolls, the one we spared in the big war. We use one of our two religious spreads to weaken the Catholicism there, but the effect is minimal. No change in majority religion.

The builder at Futatsuiwa of Sado that chopped the forest there has no grudge towards nature. The next few trees he'll be preserving, to a degree at least: A riverside forest tile in the southwest of the city gets a lumber mill, making it a very productive tile meant to last. Thanks to the quality of our road-network, he got there in a single turn.

Balnibarbi's builder grants his home its second farm, once again on a hilltop. I can't think of anything to do with his remaining charges, so he'll probably hold his position for a while.

The badass ranger at Papua New Guinea is still enraged by the hostile treatment of the barbarians there. He just wanted to grab the goody hut and leave. It didn't have to go this way:



The garrisoned spearmen of the camp take a hefty 93 damage. I just love the fact that our recon squads are as strong as musketmen now.

Li Bai stands on the theatre square in Balnibarbi and with a click, he leaves his poems to be preserved for the ages:

   

Sean Bean also reads us the Great Work of Writing quotes. To the right you can see the Great Work overview, accessible through the marked button. There's a relic sitting in each of our temples and the palace Great Work slot is a universal one. No matter what it is, you can always display something there. Great Works can be moved around on this screen, but watch out: Any shipped object will have a 10-turn cooldown until it's transportable again.
Li Bai and all other Great Writers have two charges. He will make another Great Work for the second slot in Balnibarbi next turn.

Turn 238 - 1.635 A.D.

The quote from the following technology is part of the lyrics (in its Italian original) of Civilization 6's title song "Sogno di Volare:"



Leonardo di Ser Piero da Vinci was the definition of a genius in all crafts. He painted the Mona Lisa, was a scientist, an inventor and countless other professions you'd usually have to dedicate a lifetime to even get remotely good at. From self-portraits and self-sculpting, he's also described to be very handsome and with great physique. That last one may however be self-diagnosed and therefore shouldn't carry as much weight...



Here is the first building to make in an aerodrome. What's an aerodrome?



It is this, your key to having an airforce. I've got to be honest: In Civ 6, I've barely ever made aircrafts and couldn't even tell you much about the worth of air combat. Supposedly it's very good if you get a decent number of planes and sites to store them in? But yes, the entry fee for this approach to war has greatly increased compared to Civ 5 where you could just make planes when you had the technology and resources, in whatever city you liked. This district does count towards the district limit, by the way.



You do not need an aerodrome for this support unit and it's a really great one to have. Artillery with a range of three is a very cowardly but effective way to decrease a city's defenses. Like battleships, the artillery will be safe from the city strikes. In Civ 5, all artillery had this range by its very nature. Here, you have to work for it, but it's something worth working for.



This is the best what pilots had during World War 1 and classifies as a fighter. There are more subtypes for planes. To my knowledge, biplanes can harass land units on respectable distance without any damage to themselves. There are ways to defend against them in the form of special support units. We'll learn of those at some point.



There are several options on how to store planes. One is the aerodrome itself, another this tile improvement. I also believe we get aircraft carriers at some point?



Step right up, everyone! See the alc?zar we made last turn from the skies in an unforgettable balloon ride! What a view!

I would really like to get some oil in the near future. We have so many sources of it, but they're all at see, so we'll be researching Plastics. 8 turns.

This is an outrage! We've fallen victim to covert action for the first time:



Kirisame Magic Shop did not have a counter-spy present, so this naughty agent got away alive and without even having his affiliation revealed. The workshop will need to be repaired over one turn, the factory over two. Overall, industrial zone sabotague is a typical choice of the AI and one of the less harmful ones.

Kirisame Magic Shop by the way has a field cannon ready and loaded. The city will first spend another turn making a shrine that was mostly complete, then it'll fix the bombing in its industrial zone.

Li Bai gives the world his second and last piece of poetry, viewable only if you're in the lands of the Kobito, of course:



East of Britain, we have our ranger Mystia and Kyouko leading the way for our big pack of infantrymen. As they get in range of Norway, they confirm what a piece of gossip from long ago told us had to be there:



Lysefjorden is an extremely popular spot for tourists in southwestern Norway. The fjord is long and narrow and drops down very far from the cliffsides around it. The quote here is from the French romantic Victor Marie Hugo's novel "Toilers of the Sea" and does revolve around this natural wonder. The effect in the game is a free promotion for all naval units that go adjacent to the wonder. I guess they're "racing the trench." We should make gradual use of that.

Our counter-spy in Shining Needle Castle has the chance to relocate and start a new mission somewhere. With espionage in Civ 6, lightning is not unlikely to strike the same place twice. We send agent Sukunabikona to Kirisame Magic Shop. The travelling time will be 4 turns.

The ranger at Papua New Guinea takes another attack and wipes out the spearmen. Ranged units never move after an assault, so he must wait a little longer until he can snuff out the bandits' campsite.

Turn 239 - 1.640 A.D.

Come on, pirates in the Baltic Sea as well? 



Ironclad to the rescue! I was about to retreat it and it's lagging behind a little, but it should be more than enough to handle the enemy privateer. Let's hope he won't cause too much damage until then. As our ship passes Lysefjord, we level up and get a rank 2 promotion:



As privateers are ranged attackers, this could become imminently useful. Among our train of embarked units, as many as possible quickly go ashore. They should be much safer from the new threat there.

Laputa got us another spy. He has a custom name, but until we learn of it, he'll be Austin Powers. Rice bowls have a very high priority, so we'll make one in 8 turns and buy an extra tile for it. It's one deep in the desert, perfect for a district:



Kirisame Magic Shop made a shrine for ZUN and should clean up the mess that is its broken workshop. A single turn for that.

By pure chance, we notice some shady folks at Yucatan. They are not welcome so close to our mainland:



The barbarian scout briefly popping up while exploring made me notice the outline of a camp, marked in the south and very difficult to notice because of the fog of war. I think we'll send a field cannon from Balnibarbi there. Unless the hideout is occupied by something technologically advanced, it should be able to handle it. Meanwhile, the badass ranger of Oceania destroys his barbarian camp of choice, netting us 45 gold.

Since we sent our original spy to Kirisame Magic Shop, the commercial hub in our capital and all the riches it holds are currently unprotected. This will stay that way for two more turns, until Laputa's newest spy, Issunboshi, has travelled there. I sure hope this won't come back to bite us.

The enemy privateer shoots the ranger unit (Mystia and Kyouko) that previously discovered him for 32 damage. They were unfortunately still embarked and might have taken less if they weren't.

For a change, we'll be having not too bloated of an update and leave it at a mere four turns of this one. Next time, a civic with a really cool name. You'd like it less if you've become a victim of it...

[CyberAngel]

Looks like you managed to hire Chuck Norris.

[Gesh86]

Looks like you managed to hire Chuck Norris.

Walker Texas Ranger. We populate Texas and the unit is a ranger. I see what you did there  . Although this won't be the custom rank 2 name we'll pick: We still have too many Touhou dogs and their masters to consider.

Update nr. 46 - Don't worry, those soldiers...oh. Okay. We're just going to invade then

Turn 240 ? 1.645 A.D.

Last time, we learned that the only real way to live is under a kitchen dish, when we aren't visiting fjords in Norway, that is. We're starting to have a real inflation when it comes to Great People:



A Great Merchant, the category we continue proving we're best at recruiting. John Spilsbury was the inventor of the jigsaw puzzle. The original idea behind this puzzle was educational, with the earliest models being themed around maps and geography.
We cash Spilsbury in right away and let the little children of Kobito (even littler than their parents) have fun with their toys until they break or are too drenched by drool. We always have the option to trade them to other civilizations, but most likely we'll hold onto them jealously.

The workshop at Kirisame Magic Shop was repaired, now we also renovate the ruined factory there. This one takes 3 turns, unfortunately.

There was a privateer in the Baltic getting on our nerves in the previous update. The ironclad to save the day has arrived and with a difference in combat strength of 31, ends their days of sea-banditry in an inglorious fashion. The heroic ironclad that took only 7 damage qualifies for a custom name. It's...



No more skipping out on math problems for Cirno. Now that the Baltic is calm again, we have our units  in the area embark once again.

A builder at Futatsuiwa of Sado completes a farm-triangle east of the city. He has a single charge left now and I think he'll save it for an oil-drilling platform We should be able to get one in 6 turns. That's the current counter for discovering Plastics.

Turn 241 ? 1.650 A.D.

I first heard the following term in the game "Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2", where the Desolator used it, but more as a pun. Obviously, I didn't get it for the longest time:



The concept of Scorched Earth is one of warfare: An army wages destruction on a countryside, so that an opposing one has a harder time nourishing its soldiers. Often, this destruction goes even against one's own civilians. Even though it is an industrial era civic in Civ 6, historical accounts of Scorched Earth go back as far as the ancient wars between Persia and Scythia.
Roger Eugene Ailes was the former CEO of Fox News and media consultant for several Republican presidents. He passed away less than a year ago.



Most will agree that this card is better than Total War: Rome II. It combines the policies Sack and Raid, so that you don't have to differentiate anymore what you're pillaging.



Expropriation means taking someone's home and belongings away through power of state. Through it, you can extract settlers faster and tell them to buzz off sooner.



Another wildcard policy for Great People points. The old, discarded one only gave +2.



These are our options when it comes to culture. Opera and Ballet is a dead-end civic and not at all important now. So would Reformed Church be, but the fact that we can get it in a single turn is interesting and possibly strategic. We're working on Mobilization for now. It greatly annoys me that we cannot get the inspiration for it due to a bug, when it would be so easy otherwise!
Due to my negligence, we unfortunately do not change policy cards for free this turn, even though there would have been some advantage from it. Do not fret, we'll be able to again soon enough.

Scorched Earth brought 2 free envoys with it, getting us up to 5. We simply have to spend some of those and I know just the city-states who would want them. None of our old suzerain statuses are contested, so we're building up some new blood. Scientific Palenque gets 2, giving +2 science in all of our campus districts. Hard to imagine from our playstyle, but the next one is 2 envoys to cultural Nan Madol, securing us +2 culture in all theatre squares and even the suzerain status! That one brings +2 culture to all districts we have at the coast. I do believe we have quite a few of them.



Suzerainship for the city known from the C'thulu mythos reveals a lot of tiles around the African coast. They must have sent a scouting ship there at some point. Overall, four goody huts are revealed that the lazy Sanae has never bothered with. We're sending our youngest rangers in that direction. By the way, there's a natural wonder at Madagaskar we didn't see a graphic for:



Tsingy de Bemeraha is a far-reaching array of karst rocks. A giant tiger trap. And yes, it will cut your pretty face (That's part of the quote you would get).

At Yucatan, we have identified who is guarding the barbarian camp and I am confident we can take him on:



The field cannon takes the shot and deals 52 points of damage. One more should destroy those pikemen, who for some reason left the safety of their base of operations.

The trade route Benevolent French Dolls → Kirisame Magic Shop is discontinued. The trader gets transported to start at Kirisame Magic Shop in the future.

Turn 242 ? 1.655 A.D.

Blefuscu has set down another Disneyland for us, an entertainment complex. This also happened to be a city-state quest, putting our envoys at Hattusa up to 8. Like with so many other cities, we want our third-oldest to have a rice bowl in 10 turns. The question is where. After some pondering, we decide to buy this remote tile:



This is also the turn where we manage to land most of our soldiers on the Polish coast:



The swordsman of Remilia may not have modded graphics, but it is her unique unit: The vampire. Vampires are a little stronger than non-unique swordsmen and have a special trait: If they land the killing blow on an enemy unit, they will create another vampire unit out of it you can control. This makes them very powerful within their era, probably moreso than our already very formidable Shining Needle Swordsmen were. Remilia has a respectable military presence in the area, in numbers at least. That all her units are outdated trash is a different story.

Our field cannon at Yucatan is aiming at a vulnerable, injured barbarian pikeman that is seeking shelter in his camp. It did not save him. If we're lucky, we can march in before a new unit is readied there. Ranged units are not ideal at destroying barbarian hotspots, but it's all we had nearby.

Kirisame Magic Shop builds up a new trade route that Alice would probably not approve of if she had a say. Assignment of trade routes is not something foreign civilizations actively agree with or deny:



The fog of war does not hide city hitpoints. We can tell Sanae is doing somewhat well in her campaign against Remilia:



I would like the Scarlet Devil to not fall victim to Moriya's shrine maiden. Sure, I like the attacker better in a diplomatic context, but the already strong shouldn't get stronger through conquered capitals. Ideally, Remilia's defense will hold.

Turn 243 - 1.660 A.D.

First things first, we need to spend some accumulated faith. I feel like Blefuscu has too little time to construct all the buildings it could, so let's mobilize those Jesuits and purchase them a university. The student dormitories help with the poor housing there, too.

Lilliput has done its due to the arts with a theatre square. We do not have enough rice bowls. We need more and we're getting one here as well! 12 turns on the following tile:



Kirisame Magic Shop does not yet need to be concerned with remedying housing issues. So they make a temple to the gods. 3 turns.

After all units were given their orders, the picture painted of Poland is as thus:



Experiencing Lysefjord, Remilia's Rocket goes up to rank 3. Frigates have the following choices at such a threshold:



I've mocked Proximity Fuses before on how extremely situational it is, so left side it is.
Just as we were hoping to throw the barbarians out of Yucatan, a new swordsman takes the garrison. Oh well, guess we'll be fighting there for a little longer.

Just at this moment, I notice how clever it would be to swap our cultural focus so that we can change cards for free as soon as possible. We are now developing Reformed Church. An otherwise not really important dead-end civic, but we'll have it in 2 turns.

Upon ending our turn, the mentioned Yucatanian swordsman engages our field cannon for 16 damage on us, 58 on himself. I see he is fine with dying even sooner.
Not expecting anything less from her, Remilia notices our expeditionary forces and has a clear hunch on what they're aiming for. She puts us on the spot about what our intentions are. We just arrogantly ignore this callout.

Turn 244 - 1.665 A.D.

Shining Needle Castle has made an artillery, the last we'll need in the near future. Another rice-bowl is tempting, but we first finish the pre-placed entertainment complex. It's only 6 turns anyway.

At Balnibarbi, I was somewhat at a loss at what to make next. A university was constructed there and not only is the town at its district limit, but all the most attractive buildings have already been made. Since I had no better ideas, we're starting on a builder there. 6 turns. Also within Balnibarbi's perimeter was a sneaky little barbarian scout that has just spotted the city and will relay the news to his home camp. Too bad for him, scouts are very easy to stop from spilling the beans when you have urban walls. After a well-aimed city strike, nothing remains of the troublemaker.
The same goes for the swordsman at Yucatan against our field cannon. Can we demolish the camp next turn? Please?

More of our units are landing at Poland. While we're numerous there, we're still somewhat disorganized. We're going to spend the next few turns arranging a somewhat orderly formation. There isn't any rush ton this operation. After all, we're not in a war right now, nothing can hurt us yet...

   

This means not one war but two if you want!

Well, well, what do you know? During their turns, Remilia and Alice have declared a joint war against us. It might seem unintuitive, but our advance on Remilia's lands had probably nothing to do with this. To my knowledge, only our poor diplomatic stance with both powers led to this event. Honestly, I'm not worried, but this does mean we need to adapt: Our expeditionary force at Poland is going to go all in, as fast as it can. No more strategic line-building, we're all on the offense now.
I enjoy sudden moments like these. When this declaration of war happened, it really shook and surprised me at first. No actions against our troops were made this round, though some of them are pinned down from zone of control now and will have to fight their way out. Interestingly, Shinmyoumaru's special ability kicked in, as this was a war declared against us: All units are healed to full and receive 10 experience points.

Had there been peace, maybe we could have put another turn into this update. But since that's not the case I want to divide it up here. Next time, a war where we should be more afraid of our mutual ally than our opponent.

[CyberAngel]

SCAAARLEEET SKYYY IS FAAALIIING DOOOWN
BUUURYYY MEEE SIX FEEEET UUUNDEEER

(She just HAD TO declare a war in that exact year, the showoff...)

[Gesh86]

SCAAARLEEET SKYYY IS FAAALIIING DOOOWN
BUUURYYY MEEE SIX FEEEET UUUNDEEER

See the update title on what I made with this remark  .

Update nr. 47 - Rose-killing the Carmilla

Turn 245 - 1.670 A.D.

Last time, we had a war declared on us for the very first time and It's not like we didn't deserve it. We start with something much more pleasant:

   

Philo ho Byzantios was a greek engineer and physicist of the classical era. We have another late-blooming wonder now that awarded us an extra trade route slot and a free trader. We've also finished another civic:



It's the last one attributed to the Renaissance era and is placed in this way in reference to Martin Luther and the forming of Protestantism as the Reformation. Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, translator, historian, mathematician, and teacher during the Victorian era. His most famous written work was "On Heroes, Hero-worship and the Heroic in History."



Theocracy translates to "rule of God", with religious leaders getting their authority from God. The best real-life example is undoubtedly the Vatican. This is the last tier 2 government and it can be a very powerful one. Civilizations that favour a religious playstyle often lag behind in science, culture and military and could be recognized as easy prey for aggressors. With the faith purchases Theocracy allows, they can muster a strong defense even as an underdog. The +5 strength in theological combat also makes a much bigger difference than you would think. Theocracy may be the only tier 2 government I value over any tier 3 governments when aiming for a religious victory. Yet for our purposes in this campaign, it is utterly inappropriate. We are not ever going to become a Theocracy.



Deus vult! This may actually be a really good card for us. Among the AI players, only Kaguya has no state-religion. +4 in all combat situations is not to be underestimated.



You want this if you're sending missionaries and apostles to have magical faith battles in foreign lands.



A large amount of your faith output will come from your shrines, temples and the third building you chose from perks.



This special mod-exclusive city project concerns only Sanae and nobody else.



Grande Arm?e and Meritocracy go out, National identity and Wars of Religion in. We've got the upcoming war as our greatest concern and our cards should give us as much punching power as possible. The following turns will once again put less emphasis on domestic matters. There are still some to report on, like this one:



One of the rice bowls was constructed this turn and happened to be on a tile with very high natural appeal. This is quite lucky, as I did not check at all what the tile appeal was: Rice bowls always have the same value no matter where you place them. Our civic development switches back to Mobilization by the way. 7 turns are left on that.

Futatsuiwa of Sado was the one who made the rice bowl with "breathtaking appeal". They will make an armory for the next 6 turns. Benevolent French Dolls smiles at its awe-inspiring Colossus and makes a much less impressive lighthouse next. 3 turns.

We have a total of 13 units ready for action at Remilia's gates: 6 infantry, 5 cavalry, 1 artillery and 1 ranger. We're using orange for numbers exclusively, it's the more noticable colour than red because Remilia is already using that:



Unit 10 rides onto the cattle resource northeast of it and reveals the city of Flandre. It has an embarrassingly low combat strength of 32 and no walls. For the sin of having such laughable defenses for this late stage of the game, Remilia deserves everything she's got coming to her. Unit 2, the artillery, lands on the northern coast claimed by the very edge of the enemy borders. It is not quite in shooting range of Flandre. Unit 9 picks a fight with the crossbowman east of it:



These are about the combat odds you can expect for all encounters here. Even the vampires will be only about 10 points stronger and not really close the gap of a full-health instant kill. We mow 'em down and take 3 damage, the least I'm sure we've ever taken. Unit 7 faces vampires on 3 sides, but is utterly unimpressed and avalanches over the one in the east. 5 damage to us. Unit 5 (Sakuya Izayoi, betraying her lady) moves a little to the east and then promotes to rank 4, grabbing Elite Guard, like the late Tenshi once did. Unit 3 rides land-inward and when only on 1 movement point remains, also promotes. They pick the Coursers perk. Unit 11 advances pretty far east to give us a look on Sanae's side of the campaign:



Yikes! The shrine maiden has her opponent on the ropes. Remilia's capital here could fall at any point. It would be great if we could conquer it instead and I have a sneaky little plan on how we could do that. For now, we'll only send the selected cavalry into the forest adjacent to Koumakan.
Ranger unit 12 shoots the vampire west of it for 63 damage. All other units that didn't get a specific mention advance east as far as they can.

Marisa's Broom, a frigate anchored at Kirisame Magic Shop, is converted into a modern Battleship for 230 gold. I usually wait to get the Professional Army card before evolving anything, but we're making an exception. A young ranger heading to Africa can promote and picks the, well, Ranger perk. He's now a ranger specialized in rangery things. Unbelievable, I know...
The field cannon that's fighting barbarians in Yucatan also takes a promotion, Volley.



I can't stress enough how important it is to have a counter-spy in your capital's commercial hub. We just escaped a financial catastrophy there.
There's another ranger we've had in our services for a long time. He can finally promote to rank 2 due to the declaration of war on us and picks the Guerilla perk to be able to attack and move afterwards. The custom name we give him is Reimu and Aunn. Yes, I know Aunn is more a lion than a dog, but I see so many people calling her a "good doggo", we might as well jump on the bandwagon.

This super-turn concludes with a message about Sanae completing the Mahabodhi Temple and a few feeble attacks on us by Remilia:

- Unit 7 is challenged by a vampire who they dispose of as if he were nothing. 5 damage to us
- Unit 9 gets vampiric company from the west, but must have garlic-tipped bullets. The enemy is no more, 5 damage to us.
- Ranger unit 12 proves that they too can stand their ground despite being a recon unit. Another vampire becomes dust. 13 damage on our side.
- Yucatanian field cannon trades attacks with a barbarian swordsman, 15 damage on us, 56 on them.

Turn 246 - 1.675 A.D.

What's the most prominent aspect about the era from World War 2 over the duration of the Cold War to name it after?





The extremely useful but also environmentally criticized material of plastic came around in this period. Roland G?rard Barthes was a French philosopher, linguist and literature critic. His subjects were for example structuralism, post-structualism and semiotics. Excuse me if I can't say more on him, I think you must be an expert and enthusiast in his fields to appreciate them, or even understand them.



At this point, I will already mention that we have builders in position at Futatsuiwa of Sado, Blefuscu and Balnibarbi to put some of these down. By the end of the turn, we'll have enough oil to make whatever we needed it for.



Perhaps plastics help substantially in the fisherman's craft? Or maybe it helps with preventing fish from going bad, which they do ever so quickly.



Above is your overview of the Atomic Era. Nuclear Fission has another radioactive symbol and a bulbous bomb. This era is also that of Rocketry and the space race. Look forward to those! We will however pick none of these, and instead do a literal cleanup with the last of the Industrial Era technologies, Sanitation. In the end, there was just too much poop in the streets. 5 turns, unboosted.

Kirisame Magic Shop has a temple now and will make a pre-placed harbor for the next 8 turns.

On to our extremely one-sided military operations in Eastern Europe:



The artillery nr. 1 will not attack this turn and will instead give us an overview of what the promotion tree of bombard units looks like. Yes, we've never seen this one before:



Rule of thumb applies, right side is for destroying cities, left is more about unit hunting. Although I wouldn't say you should use the bombard class as unit hunters. For this specimen, we pick Crew Weapons. Unit 10 can also promote, becomes a Commando so that he can disembark even unto cliffs. The custom name of this unit will be a Touhou with a melee weapon, as is tradition. It's Komachi Onozuka. Unit 6 (A very short Youmu) becomes another rank 4 Elite Guard. Unit 9 pillages a pasture and the stolen cows net us 50 gold pieces.
Most soldiers just advance a little forward, but as we check unit 4's (Nitori Kawashiro) combat odds on the city of Flandre, we get a screenshot for the ages:



Yup, the ingenious Kappa will single-handedly make this city ours, if the numbers are to be trusted. Many factors play into the ridiculous combat bonuses we're getting: General Rani Lakshmibai is nearby, Fionn's Spear is helping us out, we have the right promotions and the Religious Warfare policy card has been put to use.



And thus the town of Flandre falls and is razed. We do not need an outpost city besides Remilia's capital.
When infantry destroys a unit, they do this a jump with a pirouette followed by a mid-air rifle shot. I love how comical that is! I hope you're not one of those people who expects their civilization games to be the most earnest and believable. Civilization 6 does not fit into that category.

Reimu and Aunn find a goody hut on an unassuming island east of Africa. I think it might be Mauritius, an extremely popular vacation spot. My sister and brother-in-law went there a short while ago. Our ranger will be able to go there and grab it on the next turn.

We are done with the troop commandeering, but won't end the turn before one more district pre-placement: Balnibarbi is still making a builder, but puts an industrial zone between two copper mines in the northwest. It'll have an impressive +2 adjacency there.
An artillery we currently have in the Atlantic can promote. Just like its brother far east, it takes Crew Weapons. The Yucatanian field cannon destroys a barbarian swordsman. Can this please, please have been the last one that camp makes? I'd like to be done on that front before the century ends.

Will any of the moves Remilia makes be anything but desperate? I wouldn't make the bet in her favour:

- Unit 6 is chased down by a swift vampire from the west. Swift, but far too weak to survive the attack he chose to do. 4 damage to A very short Youmu.
- I can see another vampire succumbing to Sanae's forces, who in turn also deal a small amount of damage to the city of Koumakan.

Turn 247 - 1.680 A.D.

We have two rice bowls in our empire now, which means we get a eureka. This one is essentially the Kobito figuring out that there is something such as germs and that water can be infested, rather than their earlier theories of miasma causing sickness:



The time to develop the technology has been reduced to a single turn with this.

The phase of the war is such a exciting one, we're beginning with troop orders:



Unit 4 both advances and picks its rank 1 promotion. We're actually giving this cavalry the Caparison perk. Remilia doesn't seem to be using anti-cavalry, but we should have some variety. Unit 3 decides that the poor crossbowman northwest of it needs to go: He's wiped off the map, giving only 3 points of damage back to us. All other units simply advance further. We could bash the two cavalry units we have at Koumakan into the city to great effect, but I think the time is not right yet. Unless we're confident we can take it in a single turn, we should hold our horses, otherwise Sanae might capture it on her own turn.
See that builder in white and black colours near ranger unit 13 (Mystia and Kyouko)? That belongs to Yerevan. Remilia happens to be the suzerain of Yerevan, making them our enemy as well. We profit from this fact by having Choju Gigaku kidnap and enslave that builder. He has 3 charges. The same ranger also picks a rank 3 promotion, Spyglass.

Laputa was the city whose rice bowl boosted Sanitation. Next up, we want it to make an amphitheatre. 3 turns. This may also have to do with getting eurekas and inspirations, but you'll see.

In case you forgot, Alice is also in this war. If she thinks about relaxing and only being our enemy on paper, here's her wake-up call:



We still had ships around Spain. The only reason not to continue bombarding Alice's cities like we did in the previous war against her would have been laziness. And we're not getting lazy in this Let's Play, absolutely not! Marisa's Broom deals 27 points of wall damage, 1 to the city itself. That's only the start of it, though. Down at Kirisame Magic Shop, we spend another 230 gold to transform the Palanquin Ship from a frigate to a shiny battleship.
That barbarian camp at Yucatan has to be cheating. They've made ANOTHER swordsman. The field cannon shoots it for 58 points of damage.
Reimu and Aunn introduce themselves to the goody hut villagers. 20 faith is awarded. Not great, but not bad.

I'm worried at how bad Remilia will do on the AI's turn. Not because I'm expecting much from her, but from Sanae. I'm praying she doesn't conquer Koumakan. In the end, the city falls to under half health and doesn't regenerate anything due to the status of being under siege. Do we fall victim to anything at all? Yes:

- Chalk-White Russian Dolls uses its city-strike on Marisa's Broom. It's of extremely little use against the steel fortress. 6 damage.
- The newly recruited swordsmen of Yucatan suicide themselves on the field cannon. The camp simply has to be empty in the next turn. Those should be the game's rules!

Turn 248 - 1.685 A.D.

I was really hoping we would get this quote on this technology:



Graham Arthur Chapman was a comedian and member of Monty Python. His quote is from another one of their satirical movies, Life of Brian, more specifically the "What have the Romans..." sketch. Like the "Constitutional peasants", they've uploaded this iconic clip on Youtube. Click to watch. It proves that it's not a good idea to keep a professional objectivity or start a debate when trying to rally angry masses...



We haven't had a new city center building for ages: You don't need any districts to make a sewage system. However, it's not all that great. I barely ever build sewers, as neighborhoods generally create more housing and have a lower maintenance. If you absolutely can't spare any more tiles in a city, a sewer may be worth building. Otherwise not.



Medics are another helpful support unit. I sometimes make them, even though I don't feel they're as essential as observation balloons. Interestingly, the now obsoleted battering rams and siege towers can be evolved into them for cash. We might do that at some point.



Irrelevant for us. Only the Indian civilization can make stepwells.

The next research we decide to grab for ourselves is Combined Arms. We want to find out what the nuclear symbol is that comes with it. It's currently unboosted (we'd need to make an airstrip through a military engineer) and takes 7 turns.

We can congratulate ourselves on another Great Scientist. However, a look at this one made me frown a little...



The one James Young that had anything to do with oil was a Scottish chemist. He created a method to win paraffin from coal and oil shales. He then opened the Young's Paraffin Light and Mineral Oil Company Ltd.
As much credit as Mr. Young deserves, his abilities are not actually very valuable for us. We have already revealed oil, so that part is moot. We have also researched all industrial era technologies and some of the modern ones. There's a high chance the game would roll eurekas we already have and cannot get, so he might be totally worthless. I'm not taking that risk. We pass on this Great Person.
This option will make it so that someone else has to recruit Mr. Young for a lower price. We lose some Great Scientist points (84), but not so many that getting the following one before anyone else wouldn't be a certainty. Yes, passing was actually very strategic here. The next Great Scientist is bound to be much better.

Huh. We also have a completely different Great Person in the same turn. Go figure:



If you think of a pirate queen, you'll probably be thinking Hollywood camp and "there wouldn't be one in real life." Wrong. Cheng I Sao was arguably the most successful practitioner of the trade of piracy that ever lived. She commanded thousands of men and established a sort of pirate culture among her following with strict laws. She defeated fleets made out of the Chinese and European powers and became so notorious that she was able to extort full amnesty for her crimes from the Chinese government. You know, if it weren't so long ago, so long that you could apply romance to it all, they'd probably brand a similar person nowadays a terrorist...
Cheng I Sao will not be passed upon: Her bonuses do apply to the ships we have. Recruiting her completes a quest for Hattusa, giving us the 9th envoy there.

We spend 380 of our 418.7 faith for a pagoda at Kirisame Magic Shop. You know the drill: Spend faith to make more faith in the future. Benevolent French Dolls has a lighthouse now and enough population for a new district. It ends up being a commercial hub with +2 adjacency and 11 turns to make. Argh, I somewhat feel like I should have made an aerodrome there instead. But nothing we can do now.

Oh, Remilia. I hope your fate-manipulating powers work. Yours looks somewhat sealed:



It was very important to let Sanae do most of the work of softening up the city. Now it should be easy to capture. Cavalry unit 12 (Kaguya Houraisan) is the first to attack Koumakan: 74 damage dealt to the city. Just after that, Sanae admonishes us for recruiting too many Great People. Random, isn't it? That's why I couldn't see how much damage our cavalry took, but it must have been a pretty tiny amount. Cavalry nr. 11 follows up:



Koumakan is ours! The cavalry called Byakuren Hijiri takes 6 damage. Since it's the capital, we must keep the city and its two districts that were plundered into charred remains by Sanae. They are a campus and a holy site. Remilia to my knowledge only has a single city left in the northeast. Yes, we will put her out of her misery. Koumakan does what all conquered cities do: It repairs its monument for the next 2 turns.
Cavalry 6 reveals that the mentioned final city in the northeast is also called Remilia like its owner. It has a strength of 44 and apart from a garrisoned vampire no other units around it. Most units that can move do that and come closer towards this target. Not all though: Unit 7 (A very short Youmu) burns the vampire west of it better than the sun would. We take only 8 damage for that.

Back at Barcelona, our battleship shoots Alice's coastal city for 27 wall damage and 15 city center damage. This beast of a ship can probably cripple the town by itself, but we do have the rest of our fleet approaching.
After all this time, we feel great satisfaction destroying the barbarian camp at Yucatan and taking their 45 gold pieces. The field cannon will return to Balnibarbi and garrison the town.



Just suspend your disbelief: Despite the happy smile in the artwork, Sanae is very angry at us. And so we lose the very last civilization that was still on speaking terms with us. Despite all diplomatic prowess, we were just too cruel and too successful at being so cruel for anyone to tolerate us. You know, I saw it coming. I saw it coming earlier than it did come, which I'm happy for.

Two more vampires, one of them newly built, arrive near Remilia's final city. She cannot take any actions against us though. The only damage we suffer is a city strike on the battleship at Chalk-White Russian Dolls. 5 damage.

We're already at the epilog of this war against Remilia it seems. Next time, we'll see if the eternally young Scarlet Devil still has something up her sleeve or if this will be her greatest Charisma Break. See you then!

[CyberAngel]

Sanae: "You're fighting my enemy? And it wasn't you who declared war? And you're winning? HOW DARE YOU"

I sure wonder if AI can keep alliances even among themselves with a penalty system like that.

[Gesh86]

Sanae: "You're fighting my enemy? And it wasn't you who declared war? And you're winning? HOW DARE YOU"

I sure wonder if AI can keep alliances even among themselves with a penalty system like that.

Part of her must be frustrated that we snatched away Koumakan after letting her do all the work. That's the real reason for the denunciation if you ask me  :3.
Somehow they can get along, even in this campaign. You've got to understand that most of the warmonger penalty comes from razing cities, which the AI almost never does. They tend to keep what they conquer.

Update nr. 48 - Septette for a Dead Princess. The one that's dead because we killed her

Turn 249 - 1.690 A.D.

Last time, Remilia lost two of her three cities to us, among them the big mansion itself. The war is still so young, nobody could propose peace even if they wanted to. We'll first go through build plans, then we'll look at the battlefield.

Brobdingnag has made a rice bowl and should grow rapidly now. To increase its already decent production power, we make a workshop there for the next 7 turns.

Balnibarbi did well making us a builder when we were running out of them on our home continent. For the next 15 turns, they'll make a pre-placed industrial zone.

Here, have the image of Remilia's soon-to-end nightmare now:



Koumakan could strike the enemy two tiles north of it, but since cities don't gather experience, we're letting unit 6 do the honours. They suffer only 7 damage against the expired vampire. Unit 10 moves onto the horse pasture next to the last enemy stronghold, putting it into a besieged status. The three cavalry units we now have threatening it could possibly conquer if they worked together, but we shouldn't risk such a reckless move yet.
Unit nr. 11 is Sekibanki and Kagerou. The duo moves next to the city and promotes to rank 4! The ultimate perk recon units can pick is this one:



Unless we do foolish mistakes, little can harm our best explorers now. Artillery unit 1 moves two tiles east onto the holy site. It is out of movement points now, but could fire onto Remilia next turn. Other units marked on the screenshot don't do much of special relevance.

Meanwhile, we have both Marisa's Broom and the Palanquin Ship in firing range of Chalk-White Russian Dolls. The latter demolishes the walls with 57 points of damage and the city with 65. Marisa's Broom then deals a brutal 92 damage. All we would need now is an ironclad to capture Alice's last Spanish city. There's one that should get there in about two turns.

Hoping to collect a goody hut in Namibia for us, a ranger learns that it won't be as easy as he hoped:



One of these seems to be a weak special barbarian horseman like Mamizou used to build them, but the other two are apparently full-powered classical horsemen. We shoot the one adjacent to us for 80 points of damage.

A single-charge builder, the only one we had before the newest was born, makes a tobacco plantation near Lilliput.

We do receive some damage this round, but as usual, not from Remilia:

- Chalk-White Russian Dolls' walls may have toppled, but an archer inside the city shoots arrows at the armor surrounding Marisa's Broom for little effect. 7 tiny points of damage.
- The Namibian Ranger does not have a good time: A barbarian horseman (the weak version) attacks for 11 damage, taking 70 in return. Next is a strong horseman who is actually a worthy match: 28 damage to us, 29 to himself.

Turn 250 - 1.695 A.D.

Are you ready to have a sports league? Complete with crazy, crime-committing hooligans, steroid-abuse and overinflated player-trading prices between clubs? The Kobito already know that's what they want:



I think this is an atomic era civic. The fourth entertainment complex was made in Shining Needle Castle.

Before anything else this turn, we purchase an inquisitor at Kirisame Magic Shop for 185 faith. We were just in time to do this as the following screenshot will show you:



While we were busy fighting a war in the northeast, Sanae has stealthily launched a missionary force to Spain that she probably hoped we wouldn't notice. For the first time in the Let's Play, we're having religious combat. Civilizations do not need to have a war between one another to engage in these fights, as religious units of rival faiths are constantly hostile to one another. We can see two relatively helpless missionaries who cannot initiate religious combat themselves and who will try to convert cities of ours. There's also an apostle of Shinto sailing to our peninsula who may be the greater danger.
As you can see, our inquisitor will gain a great combat bonus thanks to being within any cultural borders where The Touhou Fandom is established. We take the previewed attack:



Religious combat is illustrated by the calling of divine lightning strikes! Think of this as symbolism. In reality, it's more like they're having debates and trying to discredit each others beliefs in front of listeners. Since that is too dry, Firaxis settled for a more fantastical imagery. Anyway, the unwanted missionary takes 50 damage, the Spanish inquisition only 21.

Shining Needle Castle was already mentioned: The city buys a piece of land three tiles directly west of the center for 290 gold. This is where they'll be making a rice bowl for the next 10 turns.

Laputa successfully constructed an amphitheatre. Next, they'll have a smelly factory there. As smelly as they are, we don't have enough of them. 9 turns.

Koumakan, the newest addition to our thriving empire, pre-places an aerodrome next to its currently demolished holy site. What they'll be doing for now is repairing their granary. 2 turns. And so, we've naturally arrived in the region where all the warfare is going on:



Unit 10, Sekibanki and Kagerou, gets the privilige of the first attack. With 23 damage dealt to the city, it's not too amazing, but still respectable for a unit type that isn't meant for the job. I would love for the artillery nr. 1 to bombard the enemy city. The attack would have depleted most of its hitpoints. But sadly, there's a tall hill in our line of fire that I'm only seeing now. In disappointment, the artillery blasts the vampire east of it to smithereens. At least that's some kind of contribution to the war they can now claim they've made.
We're going to follow this up by three cavalry-assaults upon our target: Unit 2 begins with 71 damage on the city, 15 on itself. Good, but you can tell they suffered from the river crossing. Unit 9 is next and gives us a much better result: 85 damage with only 11 on itself. The city is almost destroyed, perhaps 10% of its hitpoints remain. Unit 5 is the Taoist Hermit Toyosatomimi no Miko and she's delivering a most fabulous death blow:

   

Now we finally know what Remilia died from in Setz's comic. Yes, another civilization has been thrown out of the game! With Mamizou and Byakuren, that makes three. The war is immediately over on that front and only Alice remains as an opponent. Despite decent possessions, this newly conquered city is razed without mercy. We really have no need for more cities in that remote corner, Koumakan is enough.
Since there are no more threats in Russia, our army will probably sail over the Baltic once more towards home. If we leave some units behind as a defensive force, I'll let you know. But for now, the urban walls as well as a field cannon we quick-purchase in Koumakan for 1,080 gold will be the only peacekeepers this new province receives. Don't let our enemies know! Our new balance is 148 gold coins.

The Palanquin Ship in Spain blasts Chalk-White Russian Dolls for 63 damage. Health is reduced to 0, all that needs to happen now is for an ironclad to arrive and occupy the city. Some other ships we have are heading from Iberia to Britain:



It's not hard to guess what they'll be trying to do there. None of the mentioned conflicts this turn are as threatening in their odds as the one we're having in Namibia, though:



The unnamed ranger masterfully shoots the targeted horsemen off their steeds. There's more where that one came from unfortunately.

We have some attacks we must defend from on the AI's turn:
- The inquisitor we freshly purchased this round is assaulted from Sanae's apostle. I'd imagine her unit would be more powerful, but we're getting a religious combat bonus by standing on our holy site. 22 to us, 40 to them.
- The Palanquin Ship is getting shot at by archers, who are perfectly fine with embarrassing themselves. 7 damage to us.
- The brave ranger in Namibia must first fend off a crappy barbarian horseman: We deal 59 damage, taking 12. Another comes and suicides himself on us for the greater bad. 12 damage to the ranger.

Turn 251 - 1.700 A.D.

We're officially halfway through the maximum duration of the campaign. If that doesn't mobilize our people to do well, this new civic will:



The appreciatedly cynical quote for our first modern era civic comes from Th?ch Nhất Hạnh. He is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, writer and peace activist. He was abroad when the Vietnam War broke out and was not allowed to return home once the Vietkong emerged victorious. Only about 30 years later was this wish granted.



This card obsoletes Conscription and is simply a better version of it. 2 coins saved instead of 1. You can expect this one to have a permanent stay in our deck.



The prerequisite for this trade object to become available is having an alliance. Man...do you remember the times when Kaguya liked us and we could have negotitated this? It's really too bad that will never be possible again.



On crowded maps, this is a very common casus belli to justify a war. Neighbors have the strongest motive for invasion in Civilization 6 and should only trust the other as far as they can throw them.



Apart from summarizing the previous effects, we learn here that Mobilization introduces the forming of armies and armadas. These mega-units, as you may remember from the caravel that Alice had when she was still competitive, are made up of three regular units of the same kind. We unfortunately had to experience that the forming of corps was bugged for us. I guess that means we also can't have armies, right? Well, just wait and see...

For our policy cards, we throw out National Identity and Wars of Religion. We bring in the new Lev?e en Masse, Veterancy, for making encampment buildings faster, and the proud and proven Meritocracy to massively increase our culture output again. Speaking of culture, our next civic focus will be on Natural History. 5 turns. We could boost it by making an archaeological museum.

Blefuscu has completed a rice bowl for its numerous people and will now put the previously equipped Veterancy card to use: They're making a military academy. We want loads of those at this stage of the game. 8 turns.

Futatsuiwa of Sado first pre-places an aerodrome district three tiles west of itself. It does not need to purchase the culture for this specific tile, but the forest on it unfortunately had to be demolished by the placement. Apart from that, they do exactly what Blefuscu did: A military academy, made in 8 turns.

Huh? What is this? Did a bug magically fix itself for once?



When does that ever happen but now? See, I told you I knew how to make corps and armies. There's nothing special or complicated about it: 2 units of the same kind next to each other. It can happen even in no man's land as proven here. Was this perhaps an error in the description of Nationalism? Is Mobilization the actual civic that makes this possible? It might be. The Corps that we make this turn are:
- Toyosatomimi no Miko eats a rank 1 cavalry. The promotions the corps will have are always those of the more experienced unit.
- Rank 4 Sakuya Izayoi swallows what I think was Komachi Onozuka. Too bad, she only just got her name a while ago.

We dabble some more in religious intolerance and use our inquisitor against the same missionary we had debated with last turn. The Touhou Fandom's lightning hits for 49 damage, we take only 17.

Just barely, Chalk-White Russian Dolls is in range of our nearest ironclad:



The already severely weakened city falls, we obviously raze it. Had it been important enough for us to keep, we would have prolonged the previous war with Alice to get it sooner.

Our ranger duo of Reimu and Aunn land on the East African coast, at the country of Mosambique directly onto a goody hut. The spoils it had really impressed me. I didn't know you could find multiple inspirations in the same village:

   

Wow, what a haul! Especially if you consider that for those inspirations, we would have had to buy an archaeological and an art museum for 500 faith each. Our new completion time for Natural History is at 3 turns. The ranger at Namibia can also open his goody hut this turn: Inside were 20 points of faith. That's...somewhat insulting in comparison. He might die for it, too! All he can do is continue sniping at a nearby horseman for 74 points of damage. Even after that, the situation looks fairly grim for our survivalist:



Will he survive? The AI's turn will tell. Before it begins, a builder we have at Shining Needle Castle creates some fishing boats at a new swarm of fish we claimed for ourselves through natural culture growth. While my attention was at our capital, I thought it was appropriate for it to pause production of a rice bowl and make a military academy there now that we have the respective card equipped. 10 turns for the new project.

So on to the attacks we suffer:

- It's not an attack on our units, but on our interests: Sanae completes the Potala Palace in one of her cities. Correction: Our extremely low-priority interests.
- The apostle that was so zealous for religious combat last turn does it again: 42 damage on himself, 24 to us. Since that inquisitor of ours didn't act at all and is standing on a holy site, most of that damage gets healed anyway. The missionary in the region that we softened up so well unfortunately flees where our inquisitors won't be able to follow him.
- Not one but two severely injured horsemen give their lives to assault our likewise severely injured ranger for 10 and 23 damage. Ouch! He's on his last leg and has to get out of there if he can.

Turn 252 - 1.705 A.D.

Koumakan still has two districts to repair, but I'd rather like to construct that pre-placed aerodrome. As so often: Eureka-reasons. The city is slowly normalizing its production capabilities and will be done with the new district in 15 turns.

The ironclad that wiped out Chalk-White Russian Dolls last turn is eligible for promotion. This one went down the exploration path of naval melee units and can now go for this perk:



The custom name we're giving the ironclad is "Shinmyoumaru's Bedroom." With that I mean the little puppet house our favourite Kobito has at Hakurei Shrine. I recently read Forbidden Scrollery Vol. 2, that's what brought it to my mind.

We make another corps of infantrymen, now that we finally can: Rank 3 Nitori Kawashiro absorbs rank 2 Nemuno Sakata. I'm still unsure if we should leave some of the units we used to invade the area back at Koumakan for additional defense. Maybe one of the rangers?

The war against Alice is still hot, but at a different location:



The walls of this Welsh town take 39 points of damage and must only be of ancient era quality: They are almost destroyed from the frigate's barrage already.

Only one horseman remains near our African ranger that was previously in distress. We cannot flee back to sea in a single turn, so we must take him out. Thanks to our ranged attacking capabilities, we do so with ease. If no other units arrive, he might actually make it home alive!

Sanae's mad apostle who she thought could religiously conquer all of Spain on his own has not lost any of his fervor. He keeps attacking the same inquisitor he has the last two turns. This is the result:



The three apostles debated so hard with us, they fell over and died. Admirable how feverishly these religious units practice their craft, but there can be too much of a good thing. Interestingly, two pop-ups appear over Kirisame Magic Shop: "-250 Shinto" and "+250 The Touhou Fandom."
Cities will witness religious victories and losses happening in their vicinities and shift their interest towards the winner's side. This is why you should be very conservative with your units during religious invasions, moreso than military ones. Suicidal use of missionaries and apostles will undo your proselytizing efforts quickly.
I am suddenly strongly reminded of Hopeless Masquerade's religious wars...

The frigate (Remilia's Rocket) we used to attack Spring Kyoto Dolls gets a city-strike in return. It's only 10 damage though and therefore not much to worry about.

Turn 253 ? 1.710 A.D.

Another Great Scientist is knocking on our door. Is he more skilled than Mr. Young?



Slightly. Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev was a Russian inventor, teacher and chemist. He is the "Father of the Periodic Table". This title was not for making the first periodic tables there were, but by adding and predicting so many elements to the ones already in use that he revolutionized his science of choice.
This is not an especially powerful Great Scientist, but the fact that we have not yet researched or boosted chemistry makes him good enough to recruit.



 The secondary effect of the random eureka does not get triggered: There's nothing from the industrial era our scientists have not already mastered.

The completion of a harbor at Kirisame Magic Shop solves a city-state quest for Toronto, getting us an additional envoy there. It would be typical to follow up with a lighthouse there, but instead, I think we'll set our eyes on a wonder, a really good one. Let's make the Venetian Arsenal in our province. The production power of Alice's former capital is absolutely superb: We'll be done in 18 turns. Before we start that, we at least pre-place an encampment district though:



Koumakan may not be the most useful city, so far away from our mainland. But it does give us access to a new luxury this turn:



Now we have dyes. They're something that should be all over the world, but isn't and that makes them so valuable. You can also see that the new province already has a mine improvement on gypsum, a resource we only had temporarily before when we extorted it from Alice. I think we have 15 luxuries or so now? The happiness within our empire is by all means superb.

Remilia's Rocket puts the squeeze on Spring Kyoto Dolls once more. We should have waited for Cheng I Sao to come closer and support the frigate, then damage would have been even higher. Nonetheless, the walls are incapacitated and the city center takes 57 damage.

Reimu and Aunn are carefully voyaging around the eastern shores of Africa when they discover the highest peak of the continent:



Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano and the 4th highest mountain in the world. While losing to the Everest by almost three kilometers, it's still difficult and possibly lethal to trek to its top. The natural altitude training that comes with growing up in the region is cited as the reason why Tanzanians and Kenyans are so world-renowned at running marathons. In game, all tiles adjacent to the natural wonder receive +2 food.
Nancy Bonds does not have a wikipedia page and doesn't seem to be anyone particularly famous like our usually quoted personalities. Nonetheless, she wrote a popular blog on the University of Texas at Austin's BBA, "The five things I learned from climbing Kilimanjaro."

Absolutely nothing can be reported about the AI's turn, which isn't the worst. This update is already stretching quite long again. Next time, we'll learn of a useless, poisonous rock that can't possibly be the prime ingredient of the mightiest weapon humanity has ever created. Right?

[Gesh86]

Update nr. 49 - Rubbing it over your body will give you superpowers. You'll be Sickness Man!

Turn 254 ? 1.715 A.D.

Last time, we usurped Remilia as the new lords and ladies of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. We also got our first taste of theological combat. It wasn't too different from regular warfare, but maybe it'll come up again so that we can get into its intricacies a little more.

We lay the stepping stone for the profession of archaeology this turn. It's probably the only step we'll ever take in that direction:



Alfred Russel Wallace was a naturalist, biologist and a colleague to Charles Darwin: He too pushed the theory of evolution. For the purposes of his research on biogeography, he also took on several expeditions into exotic countries, at a time when this was uncommon.



So far into the game, and zoos only introduce themselves now as the second building in entertainment complexes. They have a regional effect similar to that of factories and power plants. Currently, we have little use for them, as our amenities are still excellent.



"Hermitage" is a broad term used in many countries for many institutions. The wonder in question should be The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Catherine the Great was the one who arranged for its founding. Nowadays, it's the second largest museum in the world, losing only to the Louvre in Paris.
The use of this wonder is purely one for a cultural victory.



It has been possible for a while to make archaeological museums, but only now could we recruit the archaeologists to fill their slots with artifacts. It's very important to know that archeologists can't ever be quick-purchased. A good strategy for a cultural victory is to have art museums in those cities of yours with lower production power and archeological museums in those with higher.



We can now see antiquity sites. These are where you send your archaeologists to create artifacts. An antiquity site vanishes once excavated, so there's a sort of race to secure sites for yourself apart from the overall tourism race that already exists between players. We do have a few antiquity sites nearby. There's one nestled between Blefuscu, Brobdingnag and Shining Needle Castle. We will unfortunately leave them alone: Making archaeologists is too much work when you're not aiming for a cultural victory.

We check our policy cards, but don't end up changing anything. Veterancy is still serving us well, with all those military academies we have in production.
I want to show you some of the modern era civics in a more detailed view:



Dang, it annoys me how much better Sanae is doing with civics. She's already in the atomic era! Anyway, we already have Mobilization and I think we can get the inspiration for Mass Media. The most important civic of this era is Ideology. It might not look like much and it's very quick to develop with only 3 turns time. However, you can see that it is a bottleneck that some unknown civics follow. Which ones will those be? I'll show you when the time comes. For now, we get started on establishing a Media for the Masses!

We find a new city belonging to our opponent Alice, where Croatia would be:



If we were to throw the puppeteer out of Britain, the two towns you see would be all that's left of her empire. You know what? We won't go after them. I briefly thought of doing so, but they're just too insignificant.

We lead our newest artillery to the Giant's Causeway, grabbing the Spear of Fionn buff for it. Always helpful. In the area is also where we're besieging Spring Kyoto Dolls by boat. Our trusty frigate fires again, dealing 63 points of damage, this time with the guidance of Cheng I Sao. The city falls to slightly under half of its hitpoints. The ironclad we have at its port could not deal that much damage, so we refuse the attack for it.

There is an old rainforest at Blefuscu that has served us well in the past. It will unfortunately have to go for the sake of our expanse:



When you chop a rainforest, they will produce an equal amount of food and cogs, 74 in this case. Removing it slightly lowers adjacency for our campus, but it's an egg worth breaking I think. We then pre-place an aerodrome on the tile. The military academy that we're still making fell from 5 to 3 turns of production because of the chopping. The town also grew from 17 to 18 population.

The AI does a few things we do not appreciate this turn: Alice proposes a peace deal that we do not take. She needs to lose a little more than she did until we let her off the hook.
The really bad news was that another enemy spy succeeded in exploding Kirisame Magic Shop's industrial zone. We had a counter-spy there, but our opponent just had the superior dice roll unfortunately. We will fix the damage in time, but for now production there stays on the Venetian Arsenal.

Turn 255 ? 1.720 A.D.

If using tactical synergies between jets and boats is enough to warrant a seperate technology, so be it:



Sir Basil Henry Liddel Hart was a British soldier and military theorist. He served active in World War 1 and interviewed many German prisoners of war post World War 2 to better understand life under the National Socialist regime. The "Rommel Myth" emerged due to his research, creating the possibility that the infamous Desert Fox Erwin Rommel was an apolitical general, rather than an enthusiast of Hitler. Whether that myth is true still can't be said without a doubt.



It is difficulty to deploy air units where you need them, as they can only act from within storage units like aerodromes and airstrips. The aircraft carrier is the most mobile of these. I believe the naval subclass of carriers cannot initiate any attacks, but I could be wrong. I don't have a history of extensively using them.



Ironclads evolve into destroyers. Apart from getting a substantial boost in power, they also become the natural enemy of submarines and nuclear submarines.



Uranium is a resource that I think is needed to make the strongest heavy cavalry unit: The modern armor. But that is only half of it: More importantly, you need uranium to produce the Atomic Bomb! Yes, you can nuke in Civilization 6. Actually, you could nuke in Civilization 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 as well. If you couldn't nuke in a new, numbered and non era-centric Civilization game, it would be reason to boycott!

Here are the options we have for our technological focuses:



Advanced Ballistics and Synthetic Materials do not have an exceptionally high priority. Chemistry would be quick to research as it's already boosted. Yet we need to recall that Radio must be established in order to get the inspiration for the Mass Media civic. That makes the biggest difference, so we're going to get ourselves some radio stars until video kills them.

The great question is: Do we have uranium in our lands? Will the atomic bomb even become an option for us? Let's toggle the pop-up:

   

This truly is our lucky day. I've had games in the past where I had no access to uranium. Had this been the case, we would have had to make a new settler exclusively to claim some. That's how important uranium is. What we need to do now is to fetch builders and remove the farms where the uranium deposits are. Then those builders will place mines on those hexes instead and we'll be all good. A builder with two charges remaining is at Blefuscu right now. We're redirecting him to the source at Shining Needle Castle. 3 turns until he gets there.

We're also switching production of Benevolent French Dolls from the 4 remaining turns of their not too urgent commercial hub to a builder. This one is meant for the source at Kirisame Magic Shop. 5 turns.

Lilliput joins the club of cities that have a rice bowl. With housing issues solved, it is now time for a military academy there. 11 turns.

Brobdingnag pre-places a holy site right here:



But goes on to make a factory in 13 turns. I think we still need some of those for a later civic inspiration. But even outside of that motive, factories are just great to have.

I think time and luck have run out for Spring Kyoto Dolls:



Our cannons roar again for 86 damage. After that, the ironclad is up for order, and it's a satisfying one to give: They conquer the city for only 10 points of damage taken. Unlike Alice who took a liking to an isolated island colony, we do not need one, so we raze it like so many before! I think the Seven-Coloured Puppeteer has learned her lesson with that. We enter negotiations and grab from Alice what we can. I would have liked the Great Work of Writing, Sun Tzu's Art of War to be among the reparations, but Alice wouldn't give it up. Is this reason enough to continue the war? No, I don't think so. In the end, all Alice does is pay us 18 gold per turn for the next 30 turns. It's at least something. Peace reigns once more now.

Reimu and Aunn open a goody hut we've located in Kenya and secure nothing for us, but something for themselves: Extra experience points. This qualifies them for rank 3, upon which they become our very first battle ranger:



I said rangers were about as strong as musketmen. This one's stronger.

Turn 256 - 1.725 A.D.

I've got to say, it feels good again not to have battles immediately ahead of ourselves. Somewhere around Norway, two cavalrymen of our expeditionary force happen to be next to each other. No reason not to turn them into a corps! Byakuren Hijiri devours a rank 1 unit of the same kind, slimming down our army structure. Contrary to what you might think, corps and armies do not save maintenance. It's just easier to move less units around.



We have 5 envoys at the ready just waiting to make some diplomacy. One of them goes to Carthage, bringing us up to 4 there. Nothing special happens at 4 envoys, but it's closer to 6 than 3. 2 more of our cronies are then sent to Kabul, giving us suzerainship of the Afghan capital. Bonus from this is double experience to all military units. It's funny that this city-state is now our lackey, as they were actually the ally of Remilia in the previous war and could have possibly harrassed us. Since the Scarlet Devil is gone and extinct, all their envoys have just vanished. That's one way to win someone over!

A builder once belonging to Yerevan cultivates a wheat resource at Koumakan. The nourishment is pretty good over there and it will get even better with this.

Just before clicking to end turn, another strategic decision comes to mind: The Mass Media civic is about to slip over the halfway point. To profit as much as we can from an inspiration we know we can secure, we switch over to Conservation. 3 turns.

Turn 257 - 1.730 A.D.



I'm expecting that we will at some point get a Great Artist in this campaign. To have room for that talented fellow's paintings when he joins us, our Jesuits quick-purchase an art museum in Balnibarbi. That should also speed up the process of recruiting that artist. We have only 9.3 points of faith left after this, but who cares? It's gathering fast enough by now.

Blefuscu has made our very first military academy. Next up, they work on the aerodrome we were clever enough to pre-place. 6 turns. How many times you have made a certain districts is another factor that affects their build time. Since we have no aerodrome yet, they're among the cheapest to make.

A builder in our homeland arrives at where he's needed most:



As foreshadowed earlier, we remove the farm. This takes away the builder's action, but doesn't deplete a charge. Next turn, that uranium will be ours!

Turn 258 - 1.735 A.D.

As uninteresting as moving an army is outside of war, it helps to keep your eyes open even during such busywork:



A barbarian builder. They once belonged to either a city-state or a player that left it unescorted. My bet is on Alice. Usually, barbarians will escort these back to their home camp and keep them captive there. You are then able to rescue them from there, but whoever should have didn't manage to. I think the camp this builder was meant to go to was the one we demolished in Brittany. Without it, he's just standing there all confused. Our cavalry corps we currently have under control is going to try to catch him and make it a builder of the Kobito. Shouldn't be hard, with the superior movement points we have.

We've also got a genuine barbarian alert going on again. Nothing horrible, but we should strike now before it becomes a situation:



It seems the combined forces of Kabul and Nan Madol are already trying to get rid of this camp on our behalf. Nonetheless, we're activating Laputa's field cannon and heading there ourselves.

As promised, we now have our own source of uranium. Hattusa's suzerainship was already providing a copy, but we have this one truly and forever secured. Now if only another builder could fetch the second uranium at Kirisame Magic Shop. There will be one in a couple of turns I think.

Either Raiko's drums are heard in Dolby Atmos, or she's in more than one place at the same time:



CyberAngel was wondering how the AI can get along with how sensitive they are with warmonger penalties. We know Sanae has blood on her hands, but not as much as we have. And not so much that she can't become bestest of friends forever with Kaguya. Hmm, a joint war of those two against us would be very inconvenient. We need to be prepared.

Turn 259 - 1.740 A.D.

We may be chopping down many forests. We're sorry. From now on at least, we'll be saving the animals:



Jacques-Yves Cousteau had many interests, among them was conservation. He did a lot of underwater research and wrote an incredibly successful book: "The Silent World: A Story of Undersea Discovery and Adventure". He also really boosted the popularity of television documentaries about marine biology with the many he made.



If you're having difficulties securing certain strategic resources (a problem not uncommon on more crowded maps), this card can really help you out of a pinch.



Naturalists are what you can spend overflowing faith on (about 1.600 per recruitment) if you're aiming for a cultural victory. Placing their national park actually takes a lot of foresight: The four tiles need to be arranged in a diamond, with a high enough appeal score for each. The catch is: The tiles you want for this need to be within your cultural borders AND not be tarnished by any other tile improvements. If you do abide by these picky rules, national parks will greatly add to your tourism score. We will not bother.



We'll gladly take more envoys. Planting artificial forests can be useful if you equip them with a lumber mill, but if you think you can chop these for production bursts: Unfortunately they won't give any. That's probably why I rarely plant them. Our tourism did increase from 94 to 109 I just noticed. Neat.

There is no change we're making to our policy cards on this occassion. While the time for Veterancy is running short, it's still serving us well for now.

The next cultural focus will be Opera and Ballet, but only for a single turn! We do not actually want our Kobito to dance and sing around yet, but we do want to reduce the development time of it from 2 turns to 1. Civics in reserve that can be finished in a single turn are very handy, we've already had that before.

After some consideration, we evolve the last frigate we had (Remilia's Rocket) into a battleship for 230 gold. We still have an impressive 1.477 in our pockets. I've got a hunch our strong navy will still serve us well in the future. That's why we're making the Venetian Arsenal, after all.

So what city-state can we spend the 3 free envoys that came with Conservation on? 2 of them join those we have in Carthage, giving us another +2 production bonus whenever we train military units. The rest will stay as an iron reserve for now. I think it's not worth trying to become the suzerain of more than we have right now. At some point, it becomes too difficult to contest that status against the other players. As much as we'd want to, we can't win over all of them. Some like Zanzibar for example will always belong to Sanae.

It's Laputa's turn. They have their factory up and running and so many other good options. A university, a bank, pre-placing a holy site perhaps? I'm unsure if we actually need another holy site, so let's not. When in doubt, make a builder. 2 measly little turns. I can see that the city still has an unimproved source of silver nearby.

Futatsuiwa of Sado makes our people proud by opening the second military academy of our empire. Next, they will help us fly: The pre-placed aerodrome will stand in 6 turns.

What's that builder doing in the wilderness without anyone caring for it?



Yoink! He's ours now. And I believe he still has many charges remaining. The trek is a little dangerous and we have no one to spare as an escort, but I think he's most needed at Koumakan. You'll learn of it when he arrives.

The builder that's already at Koumakan chops down a forest. Eastern Europe is full of them, one less won't hurt. The rush in production makes it so that the aerodrome that was being worked on is immediately finished. What happened then surprised me:



Apparently, this is awarded not just for having an aerodrome, but one on a continent that isn't your historical home. An airstrip made by a military engineer also would have worked.
Koumakan's next project will be extinguishing the flames that are still consuming their campus. 5 turns.



No way! Will Eientei finally make a fourth city? Can't be, must be fake news!
On such an unbelievable piece of gossip, I think we'll stop for today. Next time, we'll make Hollywoodland. Only when the four last letters get into disrepair will it become Hollywood. Bis bald!

[Gesh86]

Update nr. 50 - I respect you as a person, but I need to let you know that all your views on the world are wrong and stupid

Turn 260 - 1.745 A.D.

Last time, we told our enemy to stand down and now Alice is even paying us tribute. For a while, at least. On reaching the current turn, we're greeted by a valuable inspiration:



Totalitarianism? That sounds awful! Who would want to live in such a society? Well, maybe we would. In the context of this video game of course. The necessary count of military academies for this to trigger is 3.

The first thing we do today is setting our cultural focus from Opera and Ballet back to Mass Media. Good thing we didn't forget. It would have cost us.

Before Shining Needle Castle made its military academy, it did a minimum of work on a rice bowl. We resume this, as we're on the housing cap and need to raise it fast! 7 turns.

Benevolent French Dolls has made a builder who will do various jobs around Iberia. This city too has a started and unfinished construction plan that it resumes: A commercial hub. 4 turns.

A builder at our homeland uses his last charge to create fishing boats at a fish resource. These fish are at such a position that both Shining Needle Castle and Balnibarbi could nurture themselves on them. We check who they're automatically assigned to and...it's the wrong one. We make sure they become the property of the smaller city, Balnibarbi:



Turn 261 - 1.750 A.D.

The Kobito get their very own Howard Stern. They also won't be as bored when driving to work anymore:



Ernest Agyemang Yeboah doesn't seem big enough for a wikipedia page, but I can confirm for you that he is a Ghanaian writer and teacher.



A broadcast center is the third and last building you can make in a theater square. While the culture bonus is nice, working for a Great Musician is not too sensible in our situation. They're generally worth less than Great Artists in their tourism output.



Seaside resorts make coastal cities very attractive when you're playing culturally. Their tourism output is highly respectable. It's even worth creating new coastal cities in the late game simply as "vacation cities". For our science/military approach, it's not too likely we'll be making any new settlers.



With aluminum, we've made the final resource of the game visible. I forget what exactly you use it for. For Civilization 5, it was crucial for the space race. Here it seems to only be for futuristic planes of the final era.

Tuning in to the radio also lead to this inspiration...



and in combination with accumulating culture like we do every turn we see...



We already heard Mark Twain, author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, in a very early technology. It was for "Writing". "Writing is easy. All you've got to do, is cross out the wrong words." I like the quote we're getting now even better. He's right. It happens too often that news outlets are caught spreading misinformation. Let's not have specific accusations darken this Let's Play though.



Are those worthless citizens getting too tired of your wars? This card will trick them into feeling less sad than they should be feeling. In the late game, policies will tend to reduce negative amenities from war rather than outright giving you positive amenities like Liberalism and Retainers did.



The Broadway is not a building but a street in New York. The avenue is viewed as the Mekka of musicals and theatre plays. It runs through Lower Manhattan, Midtown Manhattan, Upper West Side, Northern Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester County. It's indeed a long and important road.
In our game, the Broadway is once again a purely cultural wonder and one of medium importance, roughly on par with the Hermitage. It will help you in getting more of the cultural Great People, but it's less vital than...



...the Cristo Redentor. The 98 foot tall statue of Jesus Christ is the next thing you associate with Rio de Janeiro right after the Carnival. The monument was completed in 1931 and counts as one of the "New Seven Wonders of the World".
Building this wonder together with the Eiffel Tower is the cultural victory meta in my opinion. Said tower will greatly raise appeal of all coastal tiles, making more of them eligible for seaside resorts. The Cristo Redentor will then double the output of those many seaside resorts you'll be making.

Thought is given to switching policy cards, but no change is made. We're leaving Veterancy in for how long it takes to develop one more civic.

   

We have many options, but the decisions this time are easy ones. Only 2 turns for Chemistry? Yes, please. Out of all modern era civics, nothing has greater importance than the bottlenecking Ideology.

Do we have the newly revealed aluminium in our lands? Yes and no: There is some in the northwestern desert of Mexico we could put down an otherwise useless city for:



I think we'll make do with the source Hattusa is providing to us. Or maybe Laputa will grab the nearest one? It's very rare that cities claim resources that are more than three hexes away, but it could happen.

On military matters, we are currently assembling our expeditionary force at Spain. This province will be their standby point for a while. We do have some plans for them...

Turn 262 - 1.755 A.D.

A turn starting with a eureka is never a bad turn:



Synthetic Materials has a fairly high priority for us to grab, as it will give us a new unit we will evolve many of our current ones into. We can also get a new Great Person and it wasn't at all the one I was expecting:



Sim?n Jos? Antonio de la Sant?sima Trinidad Bol?var Palacios Ponte y Blanco was a Venezuelan president known for not only achieving the independence of his home country, but for most of the Spanish colonies of South America. Though he proved very successful in these fights for freedom, his true ultimate goal to have a lasting union of the former colonies called Gran Colombia failed. Nevertheless, he is viewed as one of the most iconic historical figures on the continent.
We will recruit Mr. Bolivar, although I can see a time coming where he will not benefit our units anymore. He will be outdated at about the same time as Rani Lakshmibai, which is when field cannons, cavalry, infantry and artillery have evolved into their next version. For now, he'll be heading to Spain like the bulk of our army is.

Blefuscu was the one to give us the eureka of this round. They now have the second aerodrome of our empire. What we really need pronto is an observation balloon. We can't have our artilleries unsupported any longer. 5 turns.

Laputa has made a builder and has historically been more of an empire-supporting city rather than a military one. They continue that tradition by making a bank over the next 6 turns. The field cannon they have sent out to hunt the nearby barbarian camp blasts a scout out of his boots by the way. That outpost shouldn't last long. Hopefully not as long as the one in Yucatan did.

Benevolent French Dolls has too little farmland, so its recently produced builder chops a forest to make some room. The burst of lumber instantly finishes the commercial hub there. Next plan is one to make all future ones go faster: A factory. 8 turns thanks to the overflow.

Mystia and Kyouko are spying on what Sanae is doing on the northern edge of her empire. We see something that should make us a little envious. And cautious:



The shrine maiden has caught up with us on science it seems: That's a World War 2 fighter, something based on a technology we haven't even researched yet! We could only make cheap little biplanes at this point. I'm really surprised how well this opponent in particular is doing, when practically no other AI did. Somehow she must have really snowballed ahead like even we weren't able to.

Reimu and Aunn meet some ill-mannered folk around Lake Tanganyika:



I'm surprised we're getting such great combat odds against these rogue musketmen. I was especially surprised when we one-shotted them! Woah, I really need to make more alpine-guerilla-ambush rangers in the future.

On Sanae's turn, we learn that she made the Oxford University. Unfortunately, we never got around to it ourselves, just too many military operations to take care of and build up for. I don't like this at all! Now she's doing ever better at science than she already was!

Turn 263 - 1.760 A.D.

I congratulate Sean Bean for correctly pronouncing "methylethylamylophenylium":



Sir William Crookes was a chemist and physicist. He invented the Crookes tube, the Crookes radiometer and discovered Thalium, the chemical element with the atom number 81. I looked if he was perhaps a victim of stuttering, but it doesn't seem so. Must have just been a random lead-in for the joke.



The research lab is the third building for the campus district. It is slightly more effective than a university but does have a higher construction time. I see it unlikely that we'll find the time to construct one, but maybe that's where our Jesuits can help out? Yes, we can purchase these with faith as well and we should.



So spearmen and pikemen were exceptionally good at dealing with riders. I suppose a bazooka is as well? But yeah, the new cavalry a civilization on an equal technological level as you will use are tanks and helicopters. To combat those, AT crew is helpful.

Next technology to work on is definitely Synthetic Materials. Since we had the foresight to boost it, it's 4 turns away.

Benevolent French Doll's builder makes a farm where he removed the forest last turn. The extra crops are very welcome. Next destination of that builder will be the uranium at Kirisame Magic Shop.

It's official: Sanae is more advanced than we are:



We have to do our best to catch up. Our rangers do see proof of the Moriya's scientific prowess: They have some AT crew roaming around their lands.

Turn 264 - 1.765 A.D.

You can't believe how close we are from an upcoming power spike. This civic is an ingredient of it:



Yossel Mashel Slovo was a Jewish-Lithuanian born South African opponent of the apartheid system. When Nelson Mandela became President, he became his minister for housing.



If you have missed making counter-spies, you can use this card to trade a little freedom for a little security. I think we'll live without a police state.



Do we need a third spy? Not desperately, but we might make one anyway. If we do, that one will definitely be used for offense.

Finally, the Veterancy card goes out and in goes Professional Army. There are indeed parts of our army we wish to modernize. That's all the policy changes we're doing. Much more interesting is our choice of civics and boy is this a big one. You need to see the detailed view of it:



All three tier 3 governments are located at the end of the modern era civics. They are Democracy, Fascism and Communism. In Civilization 5, you had a similar system of state ideologies, but it triggered earlier. As early as having 3 factories in your empire. Back then, they were called Freedom, Autocracy and Order. Overall they are the same thing, with the difference that your ideology in Civ 5 was more committing. Getting a tier 3 government has the highest priority, but which one should we be? Democracy is good peace-lovers who aim for recruiting Great People. Is that us? I think we've proven it isn't. Communism helps with the space race and is good on homeland defense. This could be useful for us. Fascism is ideal for conquest, no question. It is already boosted. Know what? We're going to adopt some extremely questionable values for the Kobito and work on Totalitarianism.

We have gathered almost 600 faith, so we quick-purchase a university in Laputa. Can't believe that powerhouse of a city didn't have one already, but now it does.

Balnibarbi has finished its industrial zone that was in production for ages. It would be a good idea to follow up with a workshop, but there will be enough time for that. Let's make a trader there. We're too far away from our trade-route limit. 4 turns.

Now let's put Professional Army to some good use: Having a Siege Tower in this day and age is almost shameful. For 205 gold, it becomes a Medic. Their symbol is a cute little nurse:



They can't get custom names, otherwise they'd be Eirin Yagokoro. In Africa, Reimu and Aunn depopulate the barbarian camp the musketman they previously flattened came from. Since the garrison is just a spearman, he can't survive either. Thanks to the Guerilla promotion, they can loot the outpost in the very same turn, enriching us with 45 gold pieces. The field cannon in Laputa can do that too with their respective camp of Canadian barbarians. It is no more and the cannon will head home now.

A builder recently made at Laputa reaches a triplet of silver-laden mountains, of which we're only mining two. Make that three! Unfortunately, none of the AI players like us well enough to offer anything from that extra silver, but the tiles still have high production and gold yields.

It's a questionable decision to make, but since it's only 2 * 125 gold, we evolve our two ironclads into destroyers. This is how fierce they look now:



Magnificient. After everything we could spend, we still have 2,086 gold left. But I think more upgrading will follow soon. You'll see.

Turn 265 - 1.770 A.D.

We immediately notice an attack on our interests and react appropriately:



There's also another Shinto missionary Sanae is sending from North Africa to Spain. The other inquisitor we have in the region will watch his every move.

We encounter a new type of Great Person this round. It's not exactly one we were super keen on getting, but we're having him anyway:



Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was not actually a Ninja Turtle. He was an Italian artist and sculptor, with his magnum opus being the ceiling fresco of the Sistine Chapel, depicting the biblical Genesis.
Recruiting him clears a quest for Nan Madol, getting us our 4th envoy there. Michelangelo is born in Lilliput and is sent down to the art museum of Balnibarbi, where he will arrive next turn to trigger his ability. Leonardo da Vinci and Donatello are also in this game by the way. Only Raphael must have been too crude a dude to say no Civilization 6.

Speaking of Lilliput, it has finished its military academy and is now putting it to some use. Well, first we pre-place an aerodrome in the northeast. But after that, we make a tank. But not just one tank, a corps of tanks from the get-go:



Yes, when you have a military academy in a city, a button will appear next to every land military unit you can make there. A click on it drops down a menu to reveal the ability of making a corps or army of that same unit. When you make these units directly, you're actually getting a construction discount. A corps of tanks does not cost as much as two regular tanks. Same goes for an army, which is noticably cheaper than three tanks.

Futatsuiwa of Sado has completed its aerodrome and pre-places another district: A harbor next to its oil rig, giving +1 adjacency. As a next project, it'll make an observation balloon in 4 turns. The one in Blefuscu won't be enough.

Koumakan has repaired its campus, but you can't call it repaired when the library of it is still aflame. The firefighters will have everything extinguished in 2 turns.

We forgot to also upgrade our battering ram last turn. We can have one of those in a Renaissance fair, but not in an active army! For 230 gold, it too becomes a medic.

Alright, that'll do it for today. Next time, we're going to be like Schwarzenegger and get to the chopper. Be seeing you!

[Gesh86]

Update nr. 51 - Totally Totalitarian!

Turn 266 - 1.775 A.D.

Last time, we laid the groundwork for all tier 3 governments. We are only 2 turns away from adopting the one we're choosing. And what a controversial choice it is going to be.
Many of the units we have parked in Spain are embarking onto the southern coast:



What could they possibly be looking for in that direction? They're probably up to something pleasant and nice where no one will get harmed. Right? We're also reactivating our dormant navy and assigning it towards the same direction.

Since we're seeing a lot of Sanae's missionaries near Spain lately, we do what is only prudent and buy the region a third inquisitor for 195 faith. I really don't want her Shinto to meddle with The Touhou Fandom's dominance there.
The farm that was occupying the uranium resource at Kirisame Magic Shop is removed by a builder this round. The nuclear flavour can't have tasted good in the Kobitos' bread anyway.

As Reimu and Aunn go further south in Africa, they face another challenger:



A swordsman, how cute! I've got the feeling this is a fight they don't want to pick. Our ranger's goal by the way is the goody hut we've marked with a map pin on the screenshot.

Great Artists like Michelangelo will always provide three works of varying types. The first one he donates to the Kobito is his undoubtedly most famous:



This is classified as a Religious Painting. There are three other subtypes for Great Works of Art: Landscape paintings, portraits and sculptures. If you can exchange your Great Works of Art between your museums in such a way that you fill one of them with works of the same subtype yet all made by different artists you'll gain a theming bonus. This will award you with even more culture and tourism than when the museum's atelier in question is filled by whatever.

The swordsman we have spotted has the foolhardiness to attack Reimu and Aunn. Needless to say, they are no more. We took only 8 damage.

Turn 267 - 1.780 A.D.

For the purposes of our army, what nature offers will not be enough:



We must put a stop to the hunting of those synthetic vinyl leopards! Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin is an award-winning American actress and comedian. Her debuting era was the late 60s, while the 70s became her peak of success.



Cavalrymen will trade their trusty steeds for rotor-blades. Don't be mistaken here: This is still a land unit. Helicopters must embark onto boats like everyone else. The cavalry we have will work on their pilot licenses as soon as possible.



Logical. When you make artificial fur of Ran Yakumo, the fur belonging to actual Ran Yakumo will become a more expensive novelty item.

Power to the workers! I think we needed four factories for this inspiration. Or was it three? Anyway, it was Brobdingnag that got done with theirs.



We have many options for our technologies, but it won't be too hard to pick:



Composites is of the next era, but we would want to boost that first. What we need the most desperately is Advanced Ballistics. Then we can upgrade the field cannons we have garrisoned in so many places. We'll feel safer with the modernized defenses.

Now let's get to upgrading! Byakuren Hijiri, one of our corps of cavalry, becomes a helicopter pilot for 410 gold. Corps, like I said, are twice as expensive to evolve. It's as if you were modernizing two units at the same time. We pay 205 gold to have Kaguya Houraisan do the same. Toyosatomimi no Miko is another corps so that's another 410 gone. After all that, we still have 1,383 gold in our pocket. Damn, we're rich! This is the portrait and the combat strength of a helicopter corps by the way:



Before we go to construction projects, we should do some theological combat. There's a missionary of Sanae who had the foolish plan of approaching Kirisame Magic Shop with his false teachings:



We have two of our inquisitors attack him this round. The first deals 37 damage and takes 22. The second does a lot better and deals 51 and takes only 17. Our opponent should better run now.

The builder that's at Spain's uranium makes us a mine. Two Copies of this most destructive material are now ours.

Shining Needle Castle finally has a rice bowl in its territory, bringing the possible housing up to 23. Their next project is the same that Lilliput is working on: A tank corps. Only 12 turns. Impressive.

Blefuscu has made us an observation balloon. Now it needs to make something that goes well with it: An artillery corps, of course. Also 12 turns.

There is much to assign this turn. Laputa is pushing up our excellent finances even further with the bank that it's made. Let's have a holy site pre-placed:



The priority for this district isn't especially high. We're making a trader there now. 3 turns.

Brobdingnag was indeed the one who made a factory. Let's have them work on a holy site now that they pre-placed earlier. 7 turns.

Koumakan's infrastructure is atrocious, so they're making a builder now that the most necessary repairs have taken place. 8 turns.

A builder from Laputa makes a farm that is both in range of his home city and Lilliput. It's nice to have such a flexible farm. For now, it'll go to the less fertile Laputa.

Another turn, another work by Michelangelo. Just because the first of his was of religious subtype doesn't mean the rest has to be:



Am...am I flashing you with this screenshot?

Turn 268 - 1.785 A.D

Oh, I've been waiting for this one. It's going to make a world of difference:



Johanna Arendt was a political theorist and writer who only barely escaped the holocaust. She emigrated from Germany to Czechoslowakia in 1933, but we know now that would not be far enough away. Through help and forged visas, she did make it to the United States in 1941.



Atomic era totalitarian regimes like Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain and Hirohito's Japan are the prime example for Civilization 6's Fascism. This government is the nr. 1 choice for late-game wars. Your units will be of higher quality than those that haven't adopted the same form. You will also be able to pump them out a little quicker.



The popular German expression "Blitzkrieg" literally translates to Lightning Warfare. We have some tanks in production, so we absolutely want to have this.



Currently, this would award us 16 gold per turn for our 4 military academies. Good, but not quite as good as what we're earning from Triangular Trade.



Wasn't there a kung-fu policeman show of the same name once? Martial law is a special status within a country when democratic and prosecutory regulations are temporarily put out of power to combat imminent internal or external threats. The problem is that it's usually not set how long "temporary" is. This card has the exact same effect as Propaganda. Why would you need two times the same policy? Simple: They're stackable to 50% war weariness reduction.



Gunboat Diplomacy is when Yukari tells a diplomat that it's always her birthday and that she's forever 17. If that diplomat disagrees, he will become Youkai food. The card is an improved version of Charismatic Leader, getting you even more influence. Good, but I don't want to exchange it for Raj right now.

Goodbye, Merchant Republic. You've served us well. Shinmyoumaru and her followers have unfortunately become crazed fascists now. Our vastly changed policy lineup is on the right. It's actually really difficult during peacetime to find five military policies that are at least somewhat useful:

   

Having any tier 3 government activates this eureka:



Here is a look at the atomic era civics. Not many of them are available yet, so we're going with the already boosted Professional Sports:



Michelangelo does his final Great Work and disappears afterwards. This one isn't quite as well known as the other two outside the art scene:



It's the Virgin Mary holding Jesus' body after he was removed from the cross.

Theological combat in Spain resumes. The missionary we've already debated to near death didn't learn his lesson, so we send another inquisitor after him. The invader drops to the ground after having his beliefs shattered. The Touhou Fandom is just too good. 18 damage to us, our religion in the region gets further strengthened.

Turn 269 - 1.790 A.D.



More of Sanae's missionaries arrive at Spain. We need our inquisitors to take a rest and heal up their zeal a little, so we don't commence any debating this turn. I'm still confident we can protect our interests on the peninsula.

Futatsuiwa of Sado has blown up its observation balloon and acts parallel to Blefuscu: An artillery corps is next. 12 turns.

Balnibarbi has gifted us a trader to handle our economy a little better. He gets teleported to Lilliput, as that city currently has no outgoing traders. What an oversight...anyway, Balnibarbi doesn't have much to do now, so I think it's best if we're going for another wonder there. We're scarce on land tiles, so let's make it one for the sea. The not-so-ancient Great Lighthouse it is. 8 turns:



In the heat of the moment, I actually did a small mistake that would only be reversible through loading our save there: The tile we didn't choose would have given Balnibarbi's theatre square +1 adjacency after wonder creation. The negative impact of this so late in the game should however be extremely small. We're not travelling to the past for every little issue I notice.

A builder in the Rockies makes a cattle pasture for Lilliput. Somehow, this helps with making that tank corps slightly quicker. On that note, here's what our army is up to:



Just innocently sailing around the western side of Africa. Nothing else to it!

The builder that provided us with more uranium has one charge left. He uses it up near Kirisame Magic Shop for a lumber mill on a riverside forest, the most ideal kind of forest for this purpose.
Benevolent French Dolls has two outgoing trade-routes, which I think is a bit much. One of them can be reassigned this round, so we teleport the trader to our youngest exploit, Koumakan.

Turn 270 ? 1.795 A.D.

The frequency we're earning Great People at is almost frightening. Who is it this time?



Well, this could be the best Great Merchant we have earned yet! I believe we have heard at least one quote from political economist Adam Smith very early in the Let's Play. The writer of "The Wealth of Nations" also exists as a pretty great Great Person. Economic policy slots are probably the best after wildcard slots, making his ability very powerful. What this doesn't say: Getting this free slot also makes it so that we can switch policy cards on this turn for free. We do so, but apart from adding the Liberalism card back in for extra amenities don't change anything.

Laputa has made a trader extremely quickly. He will be moved to the violently annexed Koumakan. The desert oasis might be our most productive city with its 48.4 cogs per turn. That's why, as so often, it gets assigned to spy recruitment. 7 turns.

Benevolent French Dolls has made a factory and also counts as one of the more hard-working cities now. It's going to make an aerodrome right here:



If we were to put an aircraft carrier halfway between this city and Blefuscu, planes could make it from Europe to North America and back. Too bad we have neither a carrier nor any planes yet. We might at some point.
On the iron resource visible on that screenshot sits a careless Shinto missionary. We have our inquisitor right next to him, so we challenge him to a debate: 36 damage to them, 21 to us. Another missionary sits on the tile the aerodrome will be made on, preaching to the construction workers. We can't have that, so an inquisitor uses our excellent road network to attack him all the way from our holy site at Kirisame Magic Shop: 50 damage against him and his puny faith, 23 to us.

This was about the time where I came up with a special plan: We seem to be dividing our army that's sailing the Atlantic into two groups with different destinations. You'll see where when everyone has gotten into a more orderly formation. That point in time is still a bunch of turns away.

Reimu and Aunn are scouring the southern part of Africa and are the first to visit a goody hut in the region. Goody huts don't respawn, nor do additional ones reappear as the game progresses. I'm still amazed we're finding unclaimed ones:



The indigenous tribe that was living outside the influence of the world's major powers was apparently made up of rocket scientists. Whatever you say, game...
Rocketry is a key technology for many playstyles and I believe its eureka can only be achieved through goody huts, espionage and Great People. Once again, this was a very valuable find. Our ranger squads just keep on giving.

Koumakan has received a trader from Benevolent French Dolls last turn. In our isolated province, he has a bunch of interesting destinations:



Neither the badmouthing Alice nor Sanae will get any trade from us, so it has to be one of the city states. Suzerain of Zanzibar and Seoul is Sanae. For Yerevan, it is our puppeteer. Mohenjo-Daro however is without suzerain, so Koumakan -> Mohenjo-Daro will be our choice. This has the strategic reason that this route lasts even if wars are declared.

With that concludes another turn with an uneventful AI phase. And another update. There's a few personal appointments coming up for me that I'll have to prepare for. That means there will be a small break in the Let's Play. Don't worry, we're only talking about a few days here. Maybe that'll even help some of you at catching up if we're going to fast. Next time, we'll be living in a World of Tanks. You won't have to pay for premium ammunition in this one. See you soon!

[AzyWng]

I still haven't caught up on the whole LP, but I must say that all of your update titles are very yes.

[Lt Colonel Summers]

I wonder if there's anything in this game that's worth making a reference to Gensokyo's resident rich bitch goddess?

[Gesh86]

I still haven't caught up on the whole LP, but I must say that all of your update titles are very yes.

Thanks! I try to make them memorable so that it's easier to recall where one has left off reading .

I wonder if there's anything in this game that's worth making a reference to Gensokyo's resident rich bitch goddess?

A concert of the Prismrivers is a welcome distraction any spy will put to use when siphoning funds from a commercial hub.

Update nr. 52 - Tanks from the bottom of my heart

Turn 271 - 1.800 A.D

Last time, Shinmyoumaru became F?hrerin. The 19th century is upon us, but don't let that confuse you: We're about 140 years ahead of technology in this reality. The turn begins with something we've been looking forward to:

   

The majesty of the view is slightly undermined by our charred industrial zone. Robert Burton was a scholar at Oxford University, concentrating on the field of psychology. For this subject, he wrote "The Anatomy of Melancholy" and had it published in 1621.
Thanks to this wonder, we will now produce two ships whenever we make a single one, no matter what city we make it in.
With this herculean task in the bag, Kirisame Magic Shop finally brings its demolished workshop in order. 1 turn for the repairs.

There are still some missionaries of Sanae within our borders that haven't gotten the message yet. Our inquisitor makes the attack for 44 damage on them, 16 on himself. The enemy wouldn't survive another debate. Too bad we don't have anyone else in position to follow up on the attack.

Another trader at Koumakan needs an assignment. It is not an option I'm especially happy with, but Koumakan -> Yerevan for 7 gold and 3 faith per turn is the only sensible choice here. Hopefully, suzerain Alice won't declare war on us any time soon. We don't plan to have one with her from our side anymore.



This is the 5-charge-builder we saved from barbarians in France. He safely made it to Koumakan despite lacking an escort. He'll greatly help us out there and he starts his aid by cultivating more dyes. This is the second copy we have of that luxury now. Another builder in America sets down a farm on a space between Lilliput and Shining Needle Castle that's already adjacent to many other farms, making the oldest of our lands even more prosperous.



Our counter-spies are finally paying off. We now have a spy from the Moriya Shrine as a tradeable object. We could negotiate a ransom with the backstabbing shrine maiden. If we give her back the spy, I imagine she will just use him against us again. No, he will rot in prison forever. I think while he does, he will still count towards their maximum spy limit. From this defense, our own spy Issunboshi has also leveled up. We'll look at his promotions next turn.

Turn 272 - 1.802 A.D.

Time is running noticably slower once again, only 2 years per turn. If Ashley has Ballistics according to rude Luis, would Ada be the one with Advanced Ballistics?



George Smith Patton Jr., like the Heavy, has never seen a man that could outsmart a bullet. He was the general for the Allied Invasion of Normandy during World War 2, also known as "D-Day". Before then, he already had a long military career. Sometimes vulgar in his ralllying speeches, Patton is nonetheless regarded as an extremely heroic personality today.



A support unit I cannot really tell you anything about, as I don't think I've built even a single one of them to this day. I can't think of an ocassion where the AI has used aircraft against me. Maybe that will be a precedent before this LP ends?



The evolution of a field cannon that is a devolution in one regard: Range of them is reduced to 1. These turrets can apparently only shoot as far as our slingers of caveman times could throw. Despite this negative, the increased stats generally make it more formidable than the outdated field cannon. We will upgrade ours.



You know, I'm not going to even present arguments for the other technologies I haven't marked. Advanced Ballistics unlocked Nuclear Fission. We want "the bomb" more than anything else right now.



Enemy spies can get themselves killed or imprisoned even without a counter-spy present, but any time one did his part in their failure, a promotion can be chosen between 3 randomly selected possibilities. Recruiting partisans is a very specific job that I seldomly choose. Ace Driver is more sensible for a spy we're using exclusively on offense. It's an easy pick this time: Issunboshi will stay on homeland security and make any other spy better as a Quartermaster. He is the "Q" for any James Bond now.

Evolving any of our field cannons into a machine gun costs 160 gold. A click on a unit's name reveals: We have 7 of them, all on garrison duty. They're woken up and subsequently modernized. After our equipment is new and shiny again, we still have 881 coins left. Here's our defense squad's new portrait:



Kirisame Magic Shop moves on to also cleaning and repairing their factory. Damn those enemy spies, so glad we've finally caught one. 2 turns. By the way, the Shinto missionary from last turn is successfully inquisitioned. 17 damage to our unit. I think the coast is clear now. At least on that front.

Koumakan is still producing a builder, but we want them to pre-place an encampment right here:



I've noticed in the war with Remilia that Zanzibar sent no small amount of troops towards the Scarlet Devil's capital. Should a conflict between us and their suzerain Sanae break out, we have reason to expect this to repeat. An encampment there will secure us from any aggression of that city-state. The west flank will be the responsibility of our garrisoned machine gun and our city strikes.

During the barbarians' turn, an archer is jealously trying to keep Reimu and Aunn from landing in Madagascar. He shoots the currently embarked ranger for an extremely unimpressive 4 damage.

Turn 273 - 1.804 A.D.

We can make a civic our own that is the meaning of life to no few people in the world:



Heywood Campbell Broun Jr. was an American journalist. Sportswriting was only one field he was active in. He also reviewed films and wrote newspaper columns on topical social issues. He tried to find his way into politics, but was stopped in that regard due to low voting popularity. Later in his journalistic career, he founded a labour union for journalists, the Newspaper Guild.



Apart from a cultural playstyle, you need to have at least some stadiums within your empire to get sufficient use out of this card. Oh right, we know nothing about stadiums yet...



When you just don't have enough amenities to support your empire, you'll end up making stadiums. Like the factory, zoo and power plant, there is another regional effect you can profit from when making this building.



Here we have one of the last few wonders of the game. The Est?dio do Maracan? was made specifically for Brazil's hosting of the FIFA World Cup of 1950 and was also used in the World Cup of 2014. It is South America's second largest stadium. I think I heard a Brazilian on our forum once clamoring that the Maracan? always gets extremely neglected and vandalized between major events and needs a thorough spring cleaning whenever it's about to be presented to the public again. That is indeed not the ideal procedure. Were the Kobito to build it, I promise you it would be in mint condition every day.
Building requirements are steep, but if you do manage, any amenity troubles should be a thing of the past.

Only one small adjustment happens for our policy cards: Professional Army goes out, as no upgrading of units is currently in sight. In goes Grand Arm?e. There could always be more need for new infantry.



I think this is the majority of civics that are left in the civics tree. None of them are exceptionally urgent to grab, but I know that Cold War is prerequisite for a few more, whereas many others are dead-end civics. Mathematically, the inspiration for completing Nuclear Fission should kick in before the halfway point.

Since our machine guns and formerly field cannons had been on guard duty for so long, I forgot some had promotions available. The two that did pick Garrison.

At this point in time, I want to show you where we are gathering our troops. The area of operations is split over two locations:

   

The force at the right screenshot is somewhat puny. All reinforcements that are currently in production in our homeland will be heading to there. On the mini-map, the places shown are at the markings:



Isn't it great how impeccably this mini-map resembles the whole world now? The last time I showed it to you, so much of the globe was still unknown and unexplored.

Koumakan's travel-hardened builder makes them a pasture. Infrastructure there is slowly getting better.
Since I had the thought, I checked what tier 3 government Sanae had chosen. I was sure her pick must've been one of them, but it turns out the Moriya are still a monarchy somehow. Who would voluntarily skip past the tier 3 governments? Don't do what Sanae did there.

Reimu and Aunn now have Madagascarian soil under their feet. From above their heads, arrows come flying again by the hostile islanders. 7 damage. Next turn, we'll show them what we can do...

Turn 274 - 1.806 A.D.

Man, Issunboshi is one badass counter-spy. This time, a spy of Alice has fallen into his clutches. We're shutting the jail cell and throwing away the key. The possible promotions are:



Once again, we have two perks that are made with attacking spies in mind, the already known Ace Driver and Technologist. Ooh la la, we're going to teach Issunboshi Seduction. Number one rule: That enlarging pump isn't yours and you don't know who's always trying to send it to you.

Brobdingnag has a holy site now. Why not? For only 3 turns, a library is next. We could get that one through Jesuits instead, but believe me, they will not run out of buildings to purchase with our faith any time soon.

After all repair duties are finished, we first decide to make an encampment in Kirisame Magic Shop, but then pick a lighthouse instead. It's only 2 turns anyway.

A builder was born in Koumakan. Next up, we need to work on that encampment we pre-placed. Our position in the region is still isolated and not as secure as it could be, after all. 22 long turns to make it. I'm sure the time will lower when the two builders make their improvements. On that note, one of them makes another cattle pasture three tiles west of the city and the very newest builder reaches a horse resource to also make a pasture on.



We've had some of Sanae's missionaries barely escape from Spain. They've somehow made it to North America, where their chances to convert cities of ours are even slimmer. A single hitpoint missionary came to halt near Futatsuiwa of Sado, where he is promptly and ruthlessly inquisitioned. Our unit only takes 17 damage.
Did you know that in much earlier patches of Civilization 6, the AI-bias for religious play was unintendedly high? In the past, other players would start their missionary and apostle invasions much earlier and even more intensely than Sanae does here. Let me tell you, it was agony!

Reimu and Aunn seem dead-set on single-handedly depopulating Madagascar. They easily dispatch an archer, then, thanks to their Guerilla promotion, move onto a goody hut after having attacked. The chieftain there is called Strauss Zelnick and he teaches us not how to make some money, but ALL of the money you can get away with squeezing out of your customers' wallets:



That takes care of building three stock exchanges to get this inspiration.



Sanae and Kaguya are now at the point in their platonic love that we and the moon folk were during the best of times. Were we to attack any of the two, the other would have the option to quickly join the war on their side. That they take this option however is very doubtful from my experiences.

Turn 275 - 1.808 A.D.

We begin the turn by burning the other heretic missionary that has taken a wrong turn onto our continent. He was already damaged from previous debating and only returned 19 damage to our inquisitor.

We did it! Shining Needle Castle has produced a tank corps for us. They will be sent to West Africa immediately. I feel like we're going to need more tanks in the future, so they make another tank corps right away. 7 turns, thanks to Lightning Warfare being in effect. Here is what their portrait looks like:



I like that they made a soldier peek out of the turret with binoculars. Reminds you that there is still a personal component, even though our enemies will just see a steel warmachine.

Lilliput has finished their tank corps on time with Shining Needle Castle. That's why we can't say anyone made our first one. Do we need four tank corps? No, three should be enough. We work on the pre-placed aerodrome. 5 turns.

A builder at Koumakan makes the first farm-triangle there. After all this time, we may not forget these come best in bulk.

Madagascar is still hostile to our ranger. They actually have a crossbowman there that deals a respectable 11 damage to Reimu and Aunn. After that...



...a spearman leaves the sanctity of his barbarian camp to pay the ultimate price. I don't know how little damage that did to us, as the camera flew somewhere different immediately. What that was is something you'll find out in the next update. Next time, we're going to hire Utsuho Reiuji as our minister of nucular glowy things. See you when everything's ready!

[niektory]

Advance, Issun Corps!

[Gesh86]

Advance, Issun Corps!

That's us to a "T"! I hadn't ever seen that one before. Need to catch up on newer Touhou PVs!

Update nr. 53 - Senator McCarthy would like to question you about what you think of Shinto...

Turn 276 - 1.810 A.D.

Last time, we reinforced our army with some battletanks and rapid-firing gun turrets. We also constructed the Venetian Arsenal. This turn starts especially well with the completion of our next coastal wonder. It's the one that makes everyone google what a "cynosure" is:

   

Just so you don't have to, it's a "focus of attention." Henry David Thoreau was an essayist, philosopher and abolitionist. What was especially noteworthy about him was that he set an example of living outside the confines and bureaucracy of the state, like a hermit alone in the woods. This natural life he chose was subject to many of his writings. He also refused to pay taxes. When you do what he does, be sure not to be a rebel without a cause. Being as timely with his civil disobedience and philosophy, he at least had something to show for his behaviour.
The +1 movement on all water tiles that the Great Lighthouse provides stretches not just to naval units but all embarked units as well. This should quickly get our troops where we need them.

After such a wondrous project, Balnibarbi settles for something simple: A builder. 4 turns.

Laputa grants us the third spy of our empire. There's a special build order we'd like to give this city, but it won't be available for another 2 turns. Only for this timespan, we'll funnel production to a holy site.

We've got our nearest European aerodrome in Benevolent French Dolls now. This city is among the weakest of ours in infrastructure, so we quick-purchase a builder for 535 gold. That way, we can work on a market right away. 3 turns.

With ease, Kirisame Magic Shop has made a lighthouse. Now it's time to work on the pre-placed encampment there. A record-breaking 4 turns is what that takes.

That was a lot of building plans to cover. I've got good news in other regards, in that our Central African force is assembled:



It consists of a helicopter corps, an infantry, an infantry corps, a helicopter and two artillery units. Support units in the area are a medic, Great General Rani Lakshmibai and an observation balloon. These brave warriors will however not act until the other front is ready, which will still take several turns. Nonetheless, it's a start.

Reimu and Aunn are still conquering Madagascar: They flatten an empty barbarian camp and headshot-snipe the crossbowman that attacked them last turn. There's still a lot of barbarians on the island, but we shall take our leave as soon as possible. Nothing too important is there for us anymore.

The new spy's name is Seija by the way. How fitting. I can picture the crude little Amanojaku cheating, stealing from and bombing others. That's why she will become our first offensive spy. Her destination will be...



...Sanae's capital. Normally, you would want to be careful about who you spy on. If you're found out, you will damage your relationship with a possible friend. We know that the shrine maiden of Youkai Mountain will never like us again, so who cares? Travel time is 7 turns all the way to Africa and mission time, once specified, will be 8 turns. The text for "Sabotage Production" is overflowing a little, as Sanae can make a special industrial zone called "Kappa Heavy Industries".

A builder at Koumakan puts a farm on a source of wheat. Many hungry mouths will be fed through this.

Turn 277 - 1.812 A.D.

Blefuscu has constructed an artillery corps and trained its crew. Excellent! Just to be on the safe side, we're making another. We have a lot of money and I don't like the long construction time. Why don't we quick-purchase a workshop for 740 gold and bring it down from 12 to 11 turns? Done. We still have 657 coins after that investment, with our treasury filling up 178 a turn.

Brobdingnag has a place of knowledge now, a library for its students. We still need more builders in North America, so we're getting one over here in 4 turns.

A farm at Koumakan is repaired, one of the last reminders of Sanae's destructive, sloppy siege. Unlike our own, which quickly and efficiently took the city.

The only ranger without a custom name is doing some arctic exploration. He's landing right on a goody hut in Marie Byrd Land:



Inside it were 40 coins. Decent, although not amazing. Once landed, another barbarian warrior and a spearman protecting a barbarian camp are revealed. Who even lives and survives in Marie Byrd Land? Apparently, this part of the Arctic is owned by the U.S. and to a smaller part Russia. Apart from research, there isn't much going on there. You know what, let's pretend those hostiles are just rabid penguins.
Interesting to know about the "Greatest Earth Map:" The world is round from west to east, but not from north to south. The cut-off tiles in the south are an impassable border. I think Civilization 6 does not support a truly round planet.

An archer shoots Reimu and Aunn for 5 damage while they're leaving. The ranger in the biting cold is attacked by two groups of rabid penguins: The spearman deals 15 damage to us and takes 56. The warrior takes 76 and gives 11 back to us.

Turn 278 - 1.814 A.D.

An inspiration pops up instantly upon the flip of the turn:



New development time for Cold War is a single turn. The reason why this happened was this:



The quotes by Winston Churchill don't stop coming. This one could be misunderstood: It describes that once there would be a nuclear war, all that's left of the world would be rubble. Making it bounce wouldn't be very impactful at that point.



The first time I heard of the Manhattan Project was from the title of the third TMNT game on the NES. In the middle of World War 2, leading scientists of the Allies rushed to create a war-deciding wonder weapon. Despite the name, activities of this research expanded all over the U.S., the U.K. and Canada. For Civilization 6, this is a costly city project you will have to perform once in a city of your choice in order to even unlock the production of nuclear devices. When you have done so, you can make them whereever you want.



Atomic bombs are quite expensive to build. Once you have one, it gets stored within your empire like a resource would. Being able to fire the nuke is then tied to other conditions we'll learn about when the time comes.

The next technology we're picking is Advanced Flight. We're not going to make three biplanes to boost it, as it only takes 5 turns anyway.

We simply must set production to the Manhattan Project somewhere. To find out what place is best suited, we use the reports tab:



The "yields" section tells us what we need to know. Compared to Civilization 5, the UI of this screen seems a lot more bloated. It's harder to identify what you need to know and I think the root of the problem is that it also lists what buildings you have in a city and what each does. The UI has been a vulnerable point of criticism for Civ 6, that's for sure. Laputa has a total production of 52.5 cogs a turn. That's pretty good. Kirisame Magic Shop has a little more with 60.9, but I think it's currently a lot busier with an encampment and the buildings inside that encampment it soon needs to build because of its more strategic position. So Laputa it is. 21 turns until we have made our very own Manhattan Project. When looking for it, know that this option is aaaaall the way at the bottom of the scrollbar under "city projects".

We have acquired a new type of Great Person this turn. The reason we're finally getting one is because we've made Alice a shadow of her former self. Now she no longer has an unshakable monopoly on industrial zones to snatch all the engineers away from us:



Robert Hutchings Goddard was an American engineer and inventor. He was the one who launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket in the 1920s. His experiments in that field were thought to be wacky and absurd during his lifetime. Only when the real Space Race started did he really become recognized for his pioneering.
This is one of those cases where we don't need the effect of the Great Person at all, but we still want to recruit them just so that no one else can. If someone else were to successfully go to space, we would lose the campaign. Getting Goddard on our side completes a city-state quest for Palenque at the very least. We use him up during this very turn to seemingly little effect, as we already had the eureka for Rocketry from a goody hut. I guess the 20% faster Space Race production would be helpful if we actually did something in that regard?

Futatsuiwa of Sado made us another artillery corps. Considering the one that's in production at Blefuscu, we don't need any more of those. I hope. We could make a pre-placed harbor to get more places that can build ships. However, let's make another wonder we neglected: The Colosseum. We're putting it right here:



For blood and glory! That'll help with our increasing need for amenities. 9 turns.

The young builder we quick-purchased at Benevolent French Dolls chops a forest right next to the city. The market it was producing is immediately finished, and the now vast and clear tile is used for a rice bowl. 7 turns.

A builder at Koumakan is preparing even more farmland north of the city. Our newest province is getting better and better...

It looks like our daring ranger in the arctic has a lot of battles ahead of him:



In the end, we shoot not the targeted warrior but the spearman in the camp. This group of aggressive penguins is no more. During their turn, the barbarians east of our unit deal 14 damage to it and take 68 in return. The ones in the west also achieve 14 points of damage to us, but suicide themselves in the process. After all that, our health is still somewhat decent.

Turn 279 - 1.816 A.D.

It is official: We're in a Cold War with Sanae. Better dead than Moriya! The Green Scare is here:



Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States of America and led the country through the majority of the Vietnam War. He became especially infamous for the Watergate Scandal. Compared to the quoted presidents we've encountered, he's probably remembered the least fondly. I am, as said before, not the best address when it comes to these subjects, but I've yet to encounter an enthusiast of Nixon or someone who emphasized any positives of his terms.



Here we have the CIA, KGB, MI6, Mossad and many others in a handy little card format. Can be good, but I have the feeling we've imprisoned everyone's spies already.



The conundrum of owning oceans. We may build a few more ships, so it could come in handy. The Press Gangs card for Renaissance and Industrial ships is hereby obsoleted.



This could be interesting. I think this doesn't count for envoys you already have at city-states, but for new ones you assign while the policy is in equipped. I'd have to experiment more with it to say for sure.



Four spies is the new maximum, but I'm very, very opposed to spending time on training another.

We do only a minor policy card switch: Native Conquest got us a few coins from our rangers' victories over barbarians, but it's chump change compared to our income per turn. So it goes out. We take Veterancy instead. The card helps with two of our cities that are currently constructing encampments.



Before the late game, the list of possible civics never gets this long. It's a hard decision between Rapid Deployment, Nuclear Program and the winner, Capitalism.

Our troops are advancing as always, but most are still a few turns from their destination. Meanwhile, Mystia and Kyouko are picking fights in South Africa just because they were in the area and felt like it:



The garrisoned spearman is easily wiped out. The barbarian camp could technically harrass our units you can see in the north. It wouldn't really be threatening, but it could be annoying. It's good we're getting it out of the way. The unnamed ranger in the arctic destroys the camp belonging to the hostile penguins and steals their 45 gold coins. After that, they shoot down a barbarian warrior from a distance. Skirmishes in that area should cease soon as well.

A builder at Koumakan uses his second-to-last charge there to complete a second farm-triangle. Know what, I'll just show you the area so you can see how much it has improved:



It's safe to say that the resident vampires have it better there now than they ever did under their incompetent former leader Remilia. The Scarlet Devil's play in this campaign was, by all means, awful.

Before we regain control of our units, the arctic ranger is attacked by the last remaining penguin warrior for 13 damage. We fire back for 73. Believe it or not, we're actually in the red and should scoot home with haste.

Turn 280 - 1.818 A.D.

We have 1,272.8 points of faith at the moment. With a number that high, it seems like we forgot to make faith purchases, but that's not the case! I only forgot to buy what we wanted last turn, but the object in question is indeed that expensive:



+10 science is more than I remember from the tooltip we saw when we researched chemistry. But yes, Shining Needle Castle gets the first Jesuit-funded research lab of our empire. Upon the click, we see this:

   

Our science is now at 296 points per turn. In Civilization 5 numbers, this wouldn't be too great, but here it's very big and powerful.

Lilliput has completed its aerodrome. I would love to build an aircraft somewhere, but we'll wait until we have something better than World War 1 biplanes. Over here, we shall make an arena within our entertainment complex.

Balnibarbi has provided us another builder. A workshop would be attractive, but you know what we don't have but need? Submarines. 12 turns. We have the Venetian Arsenal, so two will come out when one finishes.

Kirisame Magic Shop has made an encampment and goes right back to bolstering it with barracks. It just takes 1 turn, in part thanks to Veterancy. I'm glad we took such a mighty city from Alice...

Two tank corps of ours have arrived in West Africa and are they ever looking ready for action:



In one of the previous posts when we looked at their portrait, I mistook the soldier manning the top as having binoculars. They're instead clutching an anti-infantry machine gun. Real tanks usually also have those besides their large shell-launching barrels. On the mentioned front, we're still waiting on two artillery corps to arrive. When they're present, we'll move in formation.

The ranger in South Africa collect the riches of an empty barbarian camp (45 gold) and dismounts a barbarian horse archer next to his position. There seem to be no more hostiles in that corner of the world.

The injured arctic ranger is reaching for a coast he can embark on. He kills a pitiful barbarian scout with a movement point he can't spend on anything more sensible. What we then see confirms to us that it's indeed smart to flee:



That's an AT crew. The penguins have acquired a bazooka! Do not ask me from where. I told you rangers could probably take on musketmen, but this is out of their league. We're getting out of there next turn.

When we routinely reject one of Sanae's incredibly unfair trade offers, we hear an open threat:

   

This doesn't actually mean anything, not even a loss in relationship I believe. The AI just has disappointed or otherwise unhappy flavour texts when you say no to their bartering. Still, this Yakuza side of Sanae amused me  :3.

With that, we're just about at a reasonable length of an update again. Next time, the unsolved mysteries of the cosmos and why they absolutely don't interest us at all. Bis bald!

[CyberAngel]

Church-funded lab? ...Illuminati confirmed?...

[Gesh86]

Church-funded lab? ...Illuminati confirmed?...

"Paul! I...I...I thought you were a GEP Gun!"  :]

Update nr. 54 - Do worry, because those soldiers are not on a drill, nor are their guns props.

Turn 281 - 1.820 A.D.

Last time, we started working on the Manhattan Project, even though there is no Manhattan. There once was New York by Mamizou, but we destroyed all traces of it. The update begins with a yummy eureka:



The third tank we needed to achieve this boost came from Shining Needle Castle. We will work on a military engineer there. The military engineers that I build so rarely and naturally, the first one of this campaign. He will have ae a special purpose. 2 turns. Before we switch our attention to a different city, we will pre-place an industrial zone in our capial:



The +2 adjacency next to the uranium would have been a little better, but we want to place a farm there as soon as we can.

Brobdingnag donated a builder to everyone's benefit, who immediately chops a forest. The burst of production goes towards a bank, which will only take 4 more turns from here on.

So long as we have the Veterancy card, Kirisame Magic Shop will use it! A barracks has been finished there, an armory follows. 3 turns.

A builder at Benevolent French Dolls secures us some ritzy truffles. This is already the second copy of this luxury, so it unfortunately won't affect our happiness. Still, camps provide a lot of coins.

The last builder at Koumakan uses his last charge to create a riverside lumber mill. The region should have a lot of potential now and won't need new builders for a while.

The rangers we have all over the world don't pick any fights this time. We will send some that need healing back home and then think of what to do with them. Almost nothing that we could explore is left in the world at this point. Can you believe that?



Looks like the great Napoleon won't just be giving us clever quotes but possibly clash with the Kobito at some point. He too is a general that affects industrial and modern units.

Turn 282 - 1.822 A.D.

No building plans need to be given to the hard-working Kobito this turn, but I can show you how the West African front is looking now:



Two tank corps protect the flanks. A helicopter corps, an infantry corps and a normal infantry are the heartpiece of our force, whereas one artillery corps is located at the rear. All support units are also present, but we're still waiting on one more artillery corps that is just off screen to the west.



A builder at Shining Needle Castle needs to chop some wood. We first switch to the pre-placed industrial zone to direct the production bonus  of 164 cogs there, then back to the military engineer who we were training.

There was another builder who exploited the forests of North America last turn, at Brobdingnag. He sets down a farm for us on that very space he cleared.

Turn 283 - 1.824 A.D.

Remember when we discovered Flight? Pff, what a lame technology that was. This one is better, says so in the name:



Virginia Katherine Rogers was an American actress with a genre focus on musicals, but also played in dramas and comedies later. Her career was at its peak in the 40s.



The airport is the second building within aerodromes and having some of those could actually greatly benefit the mobility of our forces. We do have a sprawling empire where it would otherwise take long periods of time to get from A to B or C. Especially if one of those letters is Koumakan.



Planes have reached the technological level of World War 2. These combat planes are much more formidable now, but I'm even more interested in...



Here's the first specimen of an air bomber unit. They too, like fighter planes, can attack units, but I believe they also have the power to pillage enemy tiles within their range at will. Bombing runs, so to say. They also have a secret, other ability that isn't mentioned here. Because of it, we'll be making a few bombers soon.

This is another one of those turns where we get not just a technology, but also a civic. It's another one of those where its worth for humanity is arguable, but whatever. The Kobito will embrace it:



I've heard many such clever quips that go the same route as what Sir Churchill is saying here. "You don't like capitalism? Neither do I, but everything's better than communism."



Laissez-Faire describes an intended inaction of state to regulate transactions between private businesses and their customers. The reasoning is that any intervention is more harmful than helpful in the end. We are so good at gathering Great Merchants, we don't need those additional +4.



If you have many international routes, this can be very powerful. The majority of ours are internal, making Triangular Trade more attractive. Still, we'll keep Market Economy in the back of our head.

The changes to our many military policies are quite extensive, so I'm giving you a direct overview:



National Identity, Wars of Religion, Martial Law...why, if I didn't know better I'd say someone is preparing for combat. There are setups to build up an army and setups to use an army you've built up. This one is clearly of the second category.

   

So many good technologies to choose from. Some of these would catapult us into the next and final era of the game, but there's no need to rush. We'll be working on Rocketry and Nuclear Program

A bright military engineer comes to life at Shining Needle Castle. Next up, they'll be making the already partially developed industrial zone. 5 turns. We also have a builder present to make a farm where he chopped a forest the previous turn.

Something surprises me: We've gathered a whole 6 envoys! Fascism creates them very quickly indeed. I've once said that we shouldn't be trying to become suzerain to more city-states than we already are, but Mohenjo-Daro only costs us 3 to do this for it. It's just too tempting, so we spend them. Now we're getting extra culture and their bonus, which is fresh water on all cities that don't already have it. Benevolent French Dolls was the only one that didn't. A builder makes another farm at that very city by the way.

Naughty spy Seija has snuck her way into Sanae's capital. What I typically do first for an offensive spy is this:



"Gain Sources" is an espionage mission that can never fail, as evident from the 100% success rate mentioned in green text on the tooltip. The idea is that you can decide to spend extra turns to do this and increase your success rate for actually dangerous missions you pick afterwards. Another plan could be to skip this preparation and, for example, sabotage an industrial zone right away or steal a Great Work of Art from a museum. You will risk your spy's life if you're too hasty, so I almost always gather sources first. The current situation is no exception. I'm wondering at this point if it was even sensible to give Seija a mission since there's no small chance that Moriya Shrine switches owners. I have a hunch there might be an imminent invasion  :3.



Alarming. We don't want Sanae escaping into space. Imagine that: It would be a place where she wouldn't have to fear us...

Turn 284 - 1.826 A.D.

The bloodthirsty Kobito of Lilliput can now watch gladiatorial battles in their arena. Now that we have the necessary technology, we'll be constructing a bomber there next. 10 turns.

Kirisame Magic Shop has an armory and should make something simple it's been missing for far too long. There are many wheat fields around the city, so a water mill would be quite efficient. No reason not to spend the single turn on it that it needs!



The artillery we've been waiting on has West Saharan soil under its wheels. These soldiers won't have to keep their trigger finger still for much longer.

Turn 285 - 1.828 A.D.

A rocket man who burns up his fuse up there alone is not who we're going to be:



So does John Carmack say that rocket science is easier or harder than your average joe thinks? He is not actually someone who has much to do with that field. He was the lead programmer for video game developer id Software. With games under his belt like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom (both theold and the one from 2016) he sure turned some heads. Would first person shooters be as relevant a game genre today without him? After all, they were literally just called "Doom Clones" for years.



The spaceport. This is an extremely interesting district as it's the key to a science victory. Once you complete all the projects listed in the tooltip, you will win the game through your power of science and production. Over the course of picking up the atomic era and information era technologies, more and more of these projects will unlock. All of them are still extremely costly to make and you can only do that in a city that has an already expensive spaceport.
The science victory is considered a very typical way to win the game. Even a fairly balanced playstyle will advance through the technology tree far enough to bring it into reach at some point.
When this Let's Play was still young, I thought we might be aiming to complete our campaign through this method. I've reconsidered. See, when you go for a science victory, it's not too sensible to fight more than a few wars. At some stage of the game, it's smarter to get your basic buildings and districts done, build up a minimum of a defense for your civilization and "turtle your way to a science victory". That's the Civilization jargon that's used for this phenomenon of late-game defensive play. Had we gone this route, the last phase of the Let's Play would probably be very boring and uneventful. No, I don't want to do this to you. Don't misunderstand: If you're playing this game yourself and are fully in control, doing the space race is fun enough. I think you, dear readers, deserve something more action-packed. It needed to be a campaign where exciting stuff happens! That's why we attacked Mamizou, Alice, Remilia...
With such a legacy of warmongering, can you guess how we want to win?



Ah, a silo for nuclear missiles. With these, military engineers will actually be useful. How convenient that we've just made one. "Weapon Capacity: 1" means that you can't shoot more than one nuke per turn with these.



Before the earth satellite is launched none of the other more advanced space race projects can be started. In the meantime, you're free to build more space ports though. I recommend at least 3 if you're serious about a science victory.



We do have a few quarries nowadays. The extra production power should make them of about equal worth as our mines.

We're going to work on our very first information era technology now, Composites. 3 turns. As tradition wants it, here's the overview that I give you at the advent of a new era:



There's a mushroom cloud at Nuclear Fusion. Savage. Something that I want sooner than later is Telecommunications, but we still need to grab Computers from the atomic era to get it.

Brobdingnag has its own branch of the first and only bank of Kobito now. We're going to make a water mill there. Those are helpful and don't have any maintenance cost, too.

Benevolent French Dolls has increased their housing to 16 points thanks to the just finished rice bow. Next up is an aircraft carrier to make ourselves an Atlantic air-bridge. The Venetian Arsenal should make two of them come out when a single one is produced.

Our Jesuits faith-purchase an amphitheatre in Lilliput. Faith drops to 265 points, but with 93 a turn, it's flowing back to us beautifully fast.

Kirisame Magic Shop has made a water mill and will finally get some use out of all these encampment buildings. A machine gun is scheduled, 7 turns. This city gains another farm this turn by the way. They now have another triangle of them in the north.

So much for all the building plans. This turn is the one where we start our advance. There are three areas where our forces are moving forward threateningly:

   



Our fleet will not play too big a role in this conflict I'd imagine, but their initial purpose will be to disable Miracle "Night With Bright Guest Stars"' encampment. The divison's goal of screenshot 2 will be to advance on the capital of Moriya Shrine, whereas the aim of the force on screenshot 3 will be Myouren Temple in the southeast. During her turn, Sanae confronts us about this highly provocative manuever:



If we cared even remotely about our diplomatic relationship at this point, we should be honest and declare war on demand. But we don't. We ignore the request, like the villains that we are.

Turn 286 - 1.830 A.D.

I know what you're waiting for, but let's recruit a Great Person first:



Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet and literary critic. He popularized the macabre and supernatural within written works. His most famous are the ones he'll make for the Kobito. When we possess them, we're going to cover those. Mr. Poe will be heading over to Laputa to put his creative mind to work.

Blefuscu made a possibly superfluous artillery corps. If this city made a factory, it'll spread a regional effect to others, for example Shining Needle Castle and Lilliput. Let's spend 8 turns to do just that.

The time has come at last. We contact Sanae and select a list of casus belli. Only the good old formal war is available. In this case, it was Sanae that denounced us, so we didn't have to do this ourselves.



This means Blitzkrieg! And everyone saw it coming a mile away!

I'm nervous about this conflict. Sanae is the most technologically advanced opponent we've had yet. She can get units to rival ours, but the question is, does she have them? Neglecting military matters could be how she got as far ahead in everything that she did. From the scouting we've done around her lands, it didn't seem like she had too big of a homeland defense. We'll see. This could go really well or absolutely terribly for us.

The first clash of troops happens at the coast of West Africa, where a tank corps that's catching up with everyone else gets a chance to roll over a knight. This knight was somehow sitting within the borders of Kirisame Magic Shop, where he got trapped since our war with Alice. Because you can never have units within an enemy's borders as a war starts, this is where he got teleported to. It was a teleport to his doom...



Combat odds of this amphibiously attacking tank corps was 89 to 49. The knight learned too late that you don't joust against tank tracks. They squished him. 6 damage to us.

Sanae has a total of 11 cities, we only have 10. Recall the Kobito's special trait: The act to declare a war on a civilization with more cities than us healed all our injured rangers and awarded everyone 10 experience points. We use these to promote the machine gun garrisoned in Laputa to rank 2, pick Volley and name it Sumireko Usami. I chose her because she makes herself handguns out of a 3D-printer...

At the West African front, all units advance as far as they can without slipping into Myouren Temple's bombard range, but no actions are taken against the city yet. We do see that they have a fighter plane present there, so we need to brace ourselves for an aerial attack. The infantry corps of Nitori Kawashiro that is under our command has enough experience to reach rank 4, so she becomes the next Elite Guard. The late Tenshi would be proud! 



To allow these three battleships to take their pot-shots at the encampment, our piratey admiral Ching Shih must bring it into sight range by cancelling her escort order and sailing one tile east on her own. Ship 1 takes the shot first: 21 damage to the encampment's walls, 1 to the encampment itself. Ship 2 does a little worse with 14 wall damage and 6 to the encampment. Ship 3 then ends on a high note with 22 wall damage and 14 past them. The defenses of the encampment are at about half strength.



The other division at Moriya Shrine advances towards the enemy capital, but is still too far away to do anything significant. What we notice here is that Sanae has no defensive units nearby at all. Just helpless builders and gurus. It seems she really didn't think anyone would challenge her too soon. She really should rederict anything she has back to her lands before it's too late.

As the first turn of this war comes to a close, a builder at Blefuscu constructs an oil rig for the seaside town. That's our fourth resource of oil. We're not going to run out anytime soon, and prices for consumers must be at an all-time low. You don't even want to know them if you drive your own car. It would be too depressing to hear. Another builder in the same region directs fishing boats onto a source of crabs for extra food and housing.

During Sanae's turn, we lose a trade route that's been going from Koumakan to Yerevan. I briefly saw the knights that were waylaying between those two cities, so it had to happen. Nothing we could do, but not the worst thing in the world.
You know, I was sure the fighter pilot at Myouren Temple would make an air raid on our forces there. Turns out, he's a big coward or Sanae is just too shaken and confused. I don't think there would have been any repercussions if she used that plane against us. Oh well, that's her business.
With this first turn of the war over, we're putting a stop to this update. Next time, we'll learn how prolific in battle our opponent is. Is she more the sort of Mamizou, who goes against the odds with a keen spirit? Or like Remilia who has preemptively given up? Hold tight until we find out!

[Lt Colonel Summers]

"These odds are terrible. We need new odds!"
Can you guess where the above quote came from?

Anyway, the odds doesn't look like they'll be in your favor. What's with Sanae having a higher-levelled tech tree than you do...

[CyberAngel]

Counterquote: "Never tell me the odds!"

[Gesh86]

Anyway, the odds doesn't look like they'll be in your favor. What's with Sanae having a higher-levelled tech tree than you do...

Counterquote: "Never tell me the odds!"

What we have on our side is bonus combat strength from Fascism and the Wars of Religion policy card. Unless Sanae adopts everything we do, we will mitigate the difference in power we would have compared to unit evolutions we haven't encountered yet.

Update nr. 55 - Stop talking! That's too much information

Turn 287 - 1.832 A.D.

Last time, we stormed into Sanae's lands. The cold war with her has grown hot. To keep the panic of our Kobito under better control, Futatsuiwa of Sado has completed this project of prestige:

   

Bede the Venerable was a Benedictine monk in Northumbria. He wrote "The Ecclestical History of the English People" and was proclaimed a "Doctor of the Church" post-mortem. During his time, the Colosseum was still very much intact. The damages you can see on it today have apparently happened during an earthquake of 1349.

On top of that, we learn of a civic that lets us use uranium for non-violent methods:



Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist and the "Master of the New Unpleasantness". He caricatures excesses of society. Just from his quote, we can smell an air of negativity about the contemporary circumstances. Sometimes, we need people who bring negativity into our lives, as hard as that is to believe.



Have we ever read a quote by Alfred Bernhard Nobel? I know some of our quoted have won Nobel Prizes. This card is another improved version of a Great People booster. We don't need it.



After reading the tooltip multiple times, I think I understand how this card works: You'll be stealing two eurekas for the price of one. Spies in Civilization 6 don't steal full technologies like they used to, only eurekas your rival has gained and you haven't.

We throw out the International Waters policy for Grand Arm?e. I don't quite know why I did that in hindsight. It doesn't apply to the machine gun we're making in Kirisame Magic Shop. Likely, it won't stay too long.

The next civic we work on is Rapid Deployment. This one counts as one from the information era I believe. 5 turns, already boosted.

Futatsuiwa of Sado, the new Rome of the world with its mighty Colosseum, makes a bomber next. 10 turns.

Brobdingnag has completed a water mill. I see a relatively useless hill tile near it, so we're going to put an entertainment complex there. 7 turns.

Balnibarbi gets us 20.000 leagues under the sea with the first two submarines we've made. We immediately combine them into an easier to manage fleet. A sensible approach if you've made the Venetian Arsenal. This city could do with a workshop. 5 turns.

We begin our military operations for this turn with our ships in the Gulf of Guinea:



Battleship nr. 3 doesn't fire this turn, it picks the Supply Fleet promotion instead. Ship 2 does, using the same trick with the pirate queen as we did last turn to make the encampment temporarily visible: 11 wall damage, 12 encampment damage. Ship 1 then launches a devastating barrage for 19 wall damage and 34 to the actual hitpoints. The encampment has almost lost its ability to perform ranged strikes.



Unit 6 advances one hex southeast, then one east onto the pillaged farm. We were not the ones who pillaged that by the way, Sanae has had severe barbarian troubles it seems. Artillery 3 heads one hex southeast in shooting range of Myouren Temple. Helicopter 4 flies two tiles east to surround our target. Artillery 1 rolls onto the helicopter's initial position. It seems that due to the movement bonus of our Great General Simon Bolivar, the artilleries have two movement points left and can fire onto the city this very round! Normally, they're not supposed to attack when they have 1 of their 2 movement points left, but with 2 of their buffed 3 remaining, it's ok. Artillery 1 lifts its barrel and completely smashes the city walls, 1 point of damage to the city itself. Artillery 3 doubles down for 113 hitpoints worth of damage. Artilleries sure are scary...
We notice that chopper 4 can just fly down and take the city with the movement points it has left. Said and done. We take 9 points of damage in the process.



This is indeed the original capital of Byakuren's civilization. The fact that we can't raze it if we wanted to confirms that. That long stretched option to give it back to Myouren Temple is interesting but also very stupid. We want to take control of all capitals, not give them back as gifts. Besides, Byakuren died before we ever encountered her. The dead can't be revived, right? We keep the city as our own.
All other units on the tactical screenshot advance as far as they can. Myouren Temple will repair its monument over the next 3 turns.

The panzer that had killed one of Sanae's knights last turn can promote. Here's what the promotion tree of heavy cavalry that keeps all its horses under its hood looks like:



Left side is that of a unit hunter, right has better defenses in mind. We decide to pick Charge for this one.

Blefuscu gets another oil rig from a builder. A ranger in our homeland promotes to become a Ranger-Guerilla archetype. I can't yet think of a good custom name. Maybe later in the update...

The units we have at Moriya Shrine position themselves closer to the revered capital of the human turned god, but no offensive actions are taken. None of our soldiers have landed within the city strike range, but we also spot a fighter plane that must have travelled to this city. We may indeed take a hit, no matter how careful we are. In a completely different matter, Edgar Allan Poe delivers some fine reading material:



The Tell Tale Heart is a short story about someone having committed what he thinks is the perfect crime. It's one of the most classic examples for the use of an "unreliable narrator", who is constantly busy trying to convince the reader he isn't insane. I haven't read it myself, but I imagine this isn't for the faint of heart. I have read something else though that might be using this style, Traven's "The Death Ship", where the main character doesn't tell you his name for a long time, until another character is introduced who you can assume he then projects his identity onto.

Again, the fighter pilot at Moriya Shrine flies to a different airport and no one else attacks us as well. Sanae has a very weird (and ineffective) commandeering style so far...

Turn 288 - 1.834 A.D.



The final and current age where people are no longer kept ignorant is upon us! Information is power now. We earn the typical bonus of money and culture for the last time in this Let's Play. Rapid Deployment gains an extra turn of development thanks to this.
New technology, all I know about composite attacks is that they really sucked in Labyrinth of Touhou 1 because they targeted an especially large sum of enemy defense and mind:



Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician and author. You all know the comical image that he had an apple drop on his head and bam, he knew gravity existed. He was indeed a forerunner with his laws of motion and gravitational forces.



This is the best thing anti-cavalry can become. The only difference to the old portrait is that the bazooka of the modern AT is thicker than that of an AT crew. To remind you, we have no anti-cavalry in the field right now. They're not a must-have, never have been.



Modern armor is the kind of tank they would use in current conflicts and the best heavy cavalry can become. The uranium they need is not a problem for us, and we could turn the tanks we have into them at Myouren Temple. However, I'm getting more and more confident that Sanae is pretty helpless against us, so let's refrain from that for now.
In Civilization 5, modern armor had another evolution: The Giant Death Robot. I suppose it felt a little too cartooney, so neither them nor the X-Com squad made it into the sequel anymore.

Next technology to shoot for is Computers. 3 turns.

There is a knight and a swordsman of Sanae near Koumakan. Units that are so outdated are honestly not even a threat. We make a ranged city strike on a knight for 83 damage, our camouflaged ranger Sekibanki and Kagerou then wipe him out. At this moment we see that Sanae has several more knights threatening our youngest protectorate state of Mohenjo-Daro. If the shrine maiden thinks that city-state has a higher priority to pin down than to send her units against ours, I don't know what to tell her.

Our many harbors grant us access to another famous admiral:



Laskarina Pinotsis successfully fought for Greek Independence against the Ottoman Empire as a fleet commander. The following civil wars of the region were unfortunately pretty tragic for her and the rest of her family. We recruit the good lady, but I don't think we need her escorting bonuses as an admiral. In fact, we use her retirement ability on our submarine fleet this very turn, promoting them. The naval raider promotion tree looks like this:



This one's a bit different: Firaxis doesn't assume you use naval raiders for city sieges. That's what battleships are for. The left side of the tree is for pillaging and scouting, the right is for winning sea battles. We pick the former plan with Loot.

Shining Needle Castle has made an industrial zone and improves its value with a workshop. 4 turns.

Edgar Allan Poe uses his second charge to write his most famous work:



The first time in my life that I encountered "The Raven" was from a Simpsons episode parodying the whole thing. Still, we acknowledge that the short-story was important as a pioneering effort in paranormal horror.

One of the artillery corps that ravaged Myouren Temple last turn can promote. They too have a promotion tree we have not yet seen:



Left is for hunting units, right is for city besieging. Nothing too surprising. Of course, we made those artilleries exclusively to destroy cities, so we pick Crew Weapons here. The rest of the Myouren Temple division units advance forward, but don't encounter any enemies they could engage. Toyosatomimi no Miko, the helicopter corps that took the city last turn can also promote. The listener of desires takes the third level Pursuit promotion to gain an additional movement point.

We again use our three ships to blast the coastal encampment of Sanae to smithereens. After only 2 attacks, its health and walls are reduced to 0, so it finally couldn't fire any more. If we had a land or naval unit nearby that could assault or pillage the district, we could disable it for good. Nonetheless, it has pretty much been made ineffective by now.

Blessed be our observation balloons! We are finally in bombing range of Moriya Shrine:



Artillery 5 moves one space northeast onto the coffee resource. Artillery 2 takes aim and rains carnage down on the capital: 24 wall damage, 1 on the city center. Infantry 6 and all its support units move one tile east. The infantry corps with the nr. 3 moves one tile northeast and one tile east. Both helicopters just wait where they are. Again, Sanae does not get around to retaliate against us at all. Even the units at Koumakan simply retreat.

Turn 289 - 1.836 A.D.

We send an inquisitor from Kirisame Magic Shop down to our most recent conquest. While we're in the area, our Jesuits faith-purchase an amphitheatre for the usual 300 points. We still have 333 remaining after that.

What we have even more of is gold. 3,040 pieces to be exact. 585 gets deducted for an instant builder and another 535 for a trader, both at Myouren Temple. At some point in the future, that dump needs to be worth living in!

At this moment, an idea for a custom name for the previously unnamed ranger hits me:



They don't call her "The Dog of the Devil" for nothing. After that rather inconsequential action, our attention is drawn to the siege of Moriya Shrine:



Artillery 4 takes careful aim and directly hits the city for 34 wall damage and 8 city center damage. Artillery nr. 3 feels challenged and tries to do the same but better: Not quite, 31 wall damage and 14 city damage. Walls are reduced to a minimum after that, but active nonetheless. Only infantry 6 moves one hex to the northeast, the rest of the melee and cavalry troops hold still.

After that, we concentrate on our battleships:



With the trick of bringing the city into sight range with a helicopter (marked with the orange circle) belonging to the western army, we are able to have two of them attack the city of Night With Bright Guest Stars directly: The Palanquin Ship (unit 3) cannon-snipes it for 20 wall damage, 1 city damage. Marisa's Broom (unit 2) is a little weaker and hits the wall for 10 damage, the city for 6. Unit 1 (Remilia's Rocket) uses her firepower to keep the encampment at 0 hitpoints.

The units at the western front simply advance as far as the game mechanics allow them to. There is a knight corps we can see, but attacking it would bait us into city strike range. We're not that foolish. Our ranger duo Mystia and Kyouko will be the ones to garrison Myouren Temple over the course of this war. They stay behind at this point.

Sekibanki and Kagerou are protecting Koumakan when they see a Zanzibarian crossbowman approaching from the east. There's no mercy for Sanae's cronies, we approach and take them out with our deadly rifle.

Before the turn ends, a builder makes another oil rig, this time at Balnibarbi. You probably guessed it: We receive no attacks during the AI phase.

Turn 290 - 1.838 A.D.

Last turn for today, as warfare makes them so very huge. The newest player in our team, Myouren Temple, has repaired its monument. Being so close to the housing cap, repair of the granary comes next. 2 turns. Before we do so, we pre-place a campus into a swamp, where it will get +2 adjacency from surrounding jungle tiles. Keep in mind: Cities nestled around rainforests bring forth great amounts of research. The time to work on that campus would be 52 turns right now. Yeah, that's why you pre-place.

That's all the building plans for now. We begin with our good old navy at Night With Bright Guest Stars:



Unit 1 switches position with 2 so that it won't be taking up one of the two only firing spaces we have, then promotes to rank 3. Once more, we pick Supply Fleet to heal anywhere we would want to. Ship 2 takes the attack, 20 damage to walls, 12 to the city. Ship 3 continues the assault with 24 wall damage and 23 on the city. Defenses of our target are down to about a quarter after this.



The next target for the army we have in West Africa will be the city of Byakuren. It's in southern Algeria and while it's a pretty barren town, it does have the Jebel Barkal and Petra wonders. Our artilleries can advance close enough to it, they just lack the movement points to fire. At this point of the game, when battering rams and siege towers are useless, it's ill-advised to have any close combat units attack cities when they still have active walls. Your ranged siege units have to soften everything up before you conquer.
One of the artillery corps in the region gets the chance to promote. They too pick the defensive perk of Crew Weapons.

The real climax of this turn comes at Moriya Shrine, which is in a really bad place:



Know what's funny? Offensive spy Seija will probably not finish her mission in time there, but she is indeed the one giving us the sight range we need so that our artilleries can fire. If anything, she was good for something! Artillery 4 begins the bombardment: The walls break, 21 damage to the admittedly very sturdy city. Artillery 3 can now let the Moriya capital feel the full force of its grenade shells: 48 damage. Now that it lacks any ranged strikes and doesn't mitigate direct damage anymore, other units move in. Unit 5 and its Great General move one tile northwest onto Oxford University. Unit 2 travels two tiles northwest onto the industrial zone. Helicopter 1 moves onto the tile southwest of Moriya Shrine, unit 6 then flies over the Chichen Itza next to its comrade.
Now that everyone is in place and supporting each other, we begin attacking: Helicopter corps 1 under pilot Byakuren Hijiri begins:



The helicopter and the mechanized infantry are having a machine-gunning duel. Since Sanae is in the information era, this highly advanced unit that we haven't even encountered yet is representing her cities on any defensive occasion. Damage on the city for this is 51 points, 18 on our chopper. The adjacent helicopter piloted by Kaguya Houraisan follows up on this attack: 37 damage to them, another 18 to us. The city is on its last leg, if it had any. It's too bad we can't finish it off right away, our infantrymen are out of movement points.

At Koumakan, there is a Zanzibarian musketman who's had the misfortune of landing next to the invisible Sekibanki and Kagerou. We take the shot and deal 47 damage. That's all that's left to do this turn, so I leave you on a cliffhanger. Can we really take Sanae's capital? So far, everything is pointing in that direction. Unless the wind priestess has waited until this moment to present the full military might of her empire to us, I'm extremely disappointed by her lack of self-preservation instincts. Really, it's shameful how she just lets us do what we want!
Next time, we're going to try and say hello to an empire we haven't met yet. How is that even possible at this point? Just wait and see!

[CyberAngel]

The Tell Tale Heart is a short story about someone having committed what he thinks is the perfect crime. It's one of the most classic examples for the use of an "unreliable narrator", who is constantly busy trying to convince the reader he isn't insane. I haven't read it myself, but I imagine this isn't for the faint of heart. I have read something else though that might be using this style, Traven's "The Death Ship", where the main character doesn't tell you his name for a long time, until another character is introduced who you can assume he then projects his identity onto.

Never heard of the latter, but The Tell Tale Heart is a short (as in VERY short, The Raven probably takes more lines!) story that's not too graphic but is more of a psychological thriller that delves into a mindset of a totally-not-crazy person. I can advise checking out a video about some Edgar Allan Poe stories, this one included, by Overly Sarcastic Productions. Or, if you think you're not too impressionalbe, a dramatic reading of the full story from the same channel.

[Gesh86]

Never heard of the latter, but The Tell Tale Heart is a short (as in VERY short, The Raven probably takes more lines!) story that's not too graphic but is more of a psychological thriller that delves into a mindset of a totally-not-crazy person. I can advise checking out a video about some Edgar Allan Poe stories, this one included, by Overly Sarcastic Productions. Or, if you think you're not too impressionalbe, a dramatic reading of the full story from the same channel.

Poe can proudly call himself timeless when even Youtubers talk about him almost 200 years later. I've stumbled upon Overly Sarcastic Productions once before, on the subject how a damsel in distress can actually be interesting and not only cringeworthy. Good stuff.

Update nr. 56 - An innocent saint, rescued from the depths of Makai

Turn 291 - 1.840 A.D.

Last time, we continued our campaign against Sanae with great success. So far, we seem unstoppable. This turn is again one of those double features with a new technology and civic:



I like that quote. A computer really is only as smart as the one who uses it. Theodor Holm Nelson is a philosopher, sociologist and, unfitting to those two occupations, a pioneer of information technology. His "Project Xanadu" began in the 60s and and has unfortunately failed. It is even mocked to a degree as the world's longest running vaporware. Nonetheless, it was anyone's very first attempt at a hypertext program. The idea itself was revolutionary enough in its own right.



Due to this passive, Computers actually has an incredibly high priority when you are aiming for a cultural victory. Our tourism has doubled from 158 to 316 in the span of a turn. That is a lot of tourism and it feels like we did nothing dedicated to getting this much. It just kind of accumulated while we were working on whatever was the most sensible.



Vice Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson and 1st Duke of Bront? is to many British the most skilled admiral to have ever lived. A real hero. Only those who have also heard of Yi Sun Shi admit that dude might have been about as good. Nelson fought in the Napoleonic Wars, until he fell at the Battle of Trafalgar.



This policy obsoletes Grande Arme?, the card we accidentally put in last time. Since we're already on the subject, putting Military First into the now emptied policy slot is the only change we make to our setup this turn.



We heard of this passive when we researched Advanced Flight. It would be great to take advantage of, but alas, we have yet to make any airports within our aerodromes.

We have a lot of science focuses to choose from, but I've foreshadowed that we needed Telecommunications. 6 turns, unboosted. We will ignore the eureka of making 2 broadcast centers for it. Our civic of choice will be Class Struggle to become Soviet Kobito. However, I think we won't develop it straight away, just partially. 4 turns, already boosted through making a trio of factories.

A Great Person who doesn't know his place in the world is looking for a home. Naturally, he was drawn to us:



Hey Albert Einstein, you're on our side! Little needs to be said about the most iconic scientist of the 20th century and the discoverer of the theory of relativity. He did play a huge part in the initialization of the Manhattan Project by the way, which is coincidentally only a couple of turns away from finishing in this reality's Laputa.
Einstein is used during this very turn. His bonus to provide a eureka did not trigger, but that was to be expected. We only have information era technologies left I think. What did help us greatly is the improved efficiency our universities have now: Once recalculated upon the end of the turn, science rises from 300 to 344. Einstein sure knows how to teach!

Balnibarbi has made a workshop, and even though it would be neat to follow up with a factory, we need some new traders. 4 turns.

Kirisame Magic Shop has trained a machine gunner, who will take garrison in Benevolent French Dolls. There's a tile that grants +4 adjacency for a commercial hub among the southern Spanish coast. Yes, please. 7 turns.

Koumakan has an encampment in the east now and should be secure for the rest of the war. They pre-place an entertainment complex one tile southwest of their center, but will instead repair their holy site for the next 10 turns. The Zanzibarian musketman our nearby ranger has attacked last round has taken a promotion and healed up to full. Not a problem: The same ranger shoots again for 43 damage, getting close to bringing back the status quo.

We begin operations this turn with the army aiming for the desert city of Byakuren:



What's this? There's actually an AT crew corps! Yes, Sanae has units that are somewhat relevant. I was having doubts. Helicopter 4 moves one tile east and waits for now. Artillery 3 also moves east one hex and opens fire on the city: 52 wall damage and 1 to the city center. Walls are at about 50% now, probably 48% as I'm suspecting a total of 100 hitpoints. Artillery 8 is unfortunately not yet able to shoot the city, but it can take aim at the AT crew corps. 33 damage, not bad but not great. You shouldn't use siege weapons against units unless they have nothing better to do like this one.
We check combat odds of our surrounding units, until we compare the infantry nr. 7:



Ho boy! There must be a million other modifiers on the second page, as 70 + 10 + 5 +5 is only 90. I can think of Wars of Religion and Spear of Fionn that get added. But yeah, when true melee units clash with anti-cavalry, they will always look better. The AT crewmen are crushed so bad, the game didn't bother to show them shooting a rocket. 11 damage to A Very Short Youmu. All other units of the front move closer to the city. Someone will unfortunately have to take the city strike on Sanae's turn. There was no avoiding that, unless we wanted to leave that AT crew alive.

A builder at Myouren Temple repairs a broken sheep pasture. The infrastructure is desperately needed there: It's not a healthy town yet. Seija flees the about to be conquered Moriya Shrine to scheme against Sanae at a different city, "Sea Opening: "The Day the Sea Split."" I actually know that spellcard and it looks very pretty.

~Got a feeling Sanae is going to lose her capital this turn~



Sorry for how crowded that looks. Artillery 5 moves one tile northeast and promotes. On level 2, it can pick Shells for even more damage against cities! Helicopter 3 is the one to do the first attack: 30 damage to the city, 23 to us. The death blow comes from unit 1, Sakuya Izayoi's corps. 10 damage to them...

   

The condition for the Space Race inspiration is to build a spaceport. Apparently, "build" can be substituted with "steal". Apart from a 12 population city with a whole 4 districts, Moriya Shrine also has the Chichen Itza and the Oxford University within its borders. What a haul that was!
Helicopter unit 2 promotes and picks Pursuit. Artillery 5 does the same and picks Shells like its kin. The new city we have in our iron grasp repairs its monument. 1 turn. I can already tell you that it will follow with repairing its granary for another single turn.

The one to soak up Byakuren's city strike is the killer of the AT crew corps, A Very Short Youmu. 27 damage to her, the tender frame of the ghostly gardener wasn't small enough to make all the bullets miss.

Turn 292 - 1.842 A.D.

We begin by giving a helicopter that helped with capturing Moriya Shrine a health-restoring promotion. This one, like so many before, takes the Pursuit perk. There's also another builder at Moriya Shrine that is still under Sanae's command. An artillery abducts the poor soul into our service.

On to the choices for building plans this turn. Shining Needle Castle has made us a cozy little workshop. We see with horror that our capital has no water mill yet. It takes 1 turn, no reason to say no to that!

Myouren Temple has repaired both its monument and granary. They need another builder more than anything. 18 turns. The one that is already around makes a niter mine north of the city.

Our fleet at Night With Bright Guest Stars couldn't do much last turn, as we couldn't see the city itself due to a lack of nearby units. This is no longer the case:



Unit 3 begins with 21 wall damage and 35 city damage. Unit 2 switches positions with 1 and shoots all of its mighty cannons for total destruction of the wall and 23 city damage. Unit 1 just shoots the encampment back to 0 hitpoints.

The city of Byakuren is overall in good shape. But will "good" be enough with what we're about to unleash on it?



We do an interesting trick at the very start of this battle phase: Currently, artillery 8 doesn't receive the extra point to its shooting range. Observation balloons spread their effect on their own tile as well as one tile into all directions. We un-escort the balloon from artillery 3 and move it one tile southeast. Now both artilleries profit from the buff! Artillery 8 shoots right away and makes all of Byakuren's walls crumble. 23 damage to the city. Artillery 3 follows up with a 90 damage bombardment on the battered city. It is at about half health after this.
Tank corps nr. 7 does something you would probably not have expected: We send it not towards Byakuren, but attack Night With Bright Guest Stars instead! Yes, that town is also in range. It takes 71 damage, falling into the red and returning 11 to our sturdy panzers. Helicopter corps nr. 4 feels motivated to do what they did and also attacks the city in the south. 69 damage, 10 to us and dang it, we were probably one hitpoint away from taking it! There is no healthbar visible any more.
The tank corps nr. 1 in the north will go against the closest target, Byakuren. The odds foresee a conquest and wouldn't you know it...

   

We took 11 damage for the attack. There is a case to be made for keeping this city. 3 districts is pretty good. Like I said, they also have some wonders there. But no, we should not overextend our empire over the 12 cities that we now have. So we raze it, like we always do? No...



You know, we are always so mean. Always grabbing what we can from others. For once in this campaign we'll be nice. My fifth favourite Touhou character, Byakuren Hijiri, will be alive again and have this city for herself. Liberating a city will greatly reduce your diplomatic penalty for warmongering, although it will not be enough for anyone who hated us to like us again.

   

Byakuren became extinct at some point during the classical era, long before we were able to send scouts to Africa. We do the same we would with any newly acquianted leader: Being polite, feeding them some sugar and applying for an embassy. All of that works just fine. Myouren Temple (the city that was once Byakuren's capital but we didn't give that one back) assigns a trade route to Byakuren, granting us 7 gold, 1 science and 3 faith a turn.

Just as we're about done with combat for this round, I notice we have a helicopter corps at Moriya Shrine that could reach all the way over to Night With Bright Guest Stars and deliver the death blow to that city. Naturally, we let it. 12 damage to us, and we abduct a builder.



This one we are absolutely not keeping, it is razed to oblivion! What I don't like about this is how Byakuren immediately witnesses how we are Genghis Khaning around. She sternly considers that with 35 negative relationship points. For bringing her back to life, we received 20 positive points with her. Damn, we really should have destroyed this city while Byakuren was still deceased, then she wouldn't have known.

The Zanzibarian musketman is finally turned into swiss cheese by the machine gun of Koumakan that has arrived. Sekibanki and Kagerou notice one of Sanae's knights in the north, a former luckless besieger of Mohenjo-Daro, already heavily injured. They shoot him out of the saddle.

Turn 293 - 1.844 A.D.

After a single turn Shining Needle Castle had to spend on a water mill, they do a proper project next: A factory over the next 7 turns.

Lilliput has made our first bomber. Oh, we'll get back to that bomber. A builder is needed in the region, 2 turns.

Blefuscu is so lucky to already have the factory our capital wants. They do it the other way around and will make a water mill next. 2 turns.

Moriya Shrine has repaired its granary and has one more thing to fix: Its walls. They came damaged despite the takeover. Did we ever have to repair our walls before? If not, the option is all the way down at the bottom of the list under "city projects". The time the repairs take is proportional to how damaged the wall is. In our case, it's 6 turns. If you have hostile units next to the city, this build plan is not available. If it were, you could simply heal your walls against incoming damage whenever you wanted.

We've actually had a threat pop up within our homeland. Take a look at this barbarian scum:



A hostile camp has formed between Shining Needle Castle and Laputa and it has already produced a scout and an AT crew. This could be a small problem, but we have the best of all remedies for it: Marked in red within Lilliput's aerodrome is our new bomber inhabiting one of the four parking spots on the runway. A click selects it, then we get one of the most expansive unit menus we have seen:



Fourth from the left is the "rebase" option. Biplanes, fighters and bombers are units that don't travel like your average military unit. They are always bound to a home base and can only take actions from there. If another aerodrome, airstrip or aircraft carrier is not too far away, they can make this object their new home base.
There are also two mushroom cloud symbols that are greyed out at the moment. How mysterious. Maybe there will come a time when they become available? We chose the marked symbol for a simple bombing run you can fly on enemy units, cities or tile improvements within range. We pick the barbarian bazooka-wielder as our victim:



Our bomber actually took a situational 17 combat strength malus. You're apparently supposed to use fighters on units for more efficiency. Someone tell Sanae that. We deal 29 damage and take none in return, as aircrafts don't take damage from their assaults. I think they do against destroyers and if units have a flak battery as a support unit near them. None of that applied to the AT crew.

We switch our civic focus from Class Struggle to the recently boosted Space Race. 5 turns. We don't need to learn a new tier 3 government just yet, nor a chance to switch policies. That's our reasoning for the delay. By the way, here are the information era civics in overview. We...don't have too many:



For a long time, Globalization and Social Media were ever-repeatable civics for score, but I think there's something else behind them that took over this function through a patch. We've finally eclipsed the wind priestess in culture by the way! Something tells me we won't fall behind again. Speaking of her, get ready for her furious retaliation:



...it's a single AT crew that she mindlessly threw into Koumakan's city strike range. We shoot it for 35 of its hitpoints. We also engage it with Sekibanki and Kagerou who take of another 32 points. I'm actually worried that this AT crew uses its next turn to pillage the aerodrome it's standing on. This would be the most obnoxious action Sanae could take against us here.

An inquisitor of The Touhou Fandom has reached Myouren Temple and gets rid of that yucky Shinto that got established there after Sanae's takeover. A missionary who we buy in Kirisame Magic Shop for 130 points will soon spread his faith to there.

There's nothing to show about our African military assault that's really worth a screenshot this turn. The units that gave the buddhist Magician her empire back last turn set their sights towards the city of Ichirin in northern Algeria. One of the tanks involved in that takes the Barding promotion to protect itself against future ranged attacks. A tank that helped with capturing Night With Bright Guest Stars also ranks up and takes Charge. The city of Ichirin seems to be constructing the Cristo Redentor by the way. We can see a tile with the malformed socket it will be made on. Surely that's going to help with defending against us, isn't it? (It's not)



Another wargoal of ours is to take over and raze the two marked cities here. We'll use the conquerers of Moriya Shrine to demolish the northern one first. When they are gone, Moriya Shrine will be able to claim many of the tiles they had by culture. It'll also have some more room to breathe. The units in the area advance, but are not close enough to take any actions against Night With Overly Bright Guest Stars.
We can give the artilleries of this squad some custom names! They are Utsuho Reiuji and Flandre Scarlet from now on! I'm taking Touhou names for siege units that are given very destructive tendencies by the fandom.

Between turns, Byakuren asks for an absurd trade offer. We make something better out of it and end up providing her tobacco for 3 gold a turn. Are buddhists even allowed to smoke?
The hostile AT crew at Koumakan does not actually pillage our aerodrome. I'm glad about that! Instead, they attack Sekibanki and Kagerou who have done a fine job as bait. We take 55 damage, they take 17.

Turn 294 - 1.846 A.D.

These turns are getting so huge again, so this will be the last one for this update.

Brobdingnag has made an entertainment complex to combat the ongoing war weariness. We won't be doing much for faith anymore, but I think it won't hurt to have a shrine here. 2 turns.

Balnibarbi has made a trader who will be teleported to Moriya Shrine. This city is at its housing cap, so it needs a rice bowl. It will be placed just between Balnibarbi's own industrial zone and that of Shining Needle Castle, handing adjacency bonuses to both. 9 turns.

Sekibanki and Kagerou take revenge on the AT crew that halved their health. This victory makes them eligible for rank 5. It's the first unit of ours that will promote to such a high level. You usually don't get this far.

The siege of Ichirin officially starts this turn:



Yes, there's another artillery with the number 5 hidden by the interface. Needless to say, it will not get into a relevant range too soon. Tank corps 1 drives 2 tiles west first, artillery 3 takes the old position of it. Infantry 4 moves 2 tiles north, allowing the artillery to profit from our Great General. Somehow, this artillery can still shoot. I thought it couldn't with 1 movement point, but maybe it can because of the General or the balloon. Tank 2 drives northwest to make the city visible, a condition which artillery 3 uses to take out the walls in a single blast. 6 damage to the city center. Tank 2 keeps going, advances onto the city's campus and pillages the university. 25 points of science were stolen this way. That's almost irrelevantly little at this stage of the game.
Tank 1 keeps going onto the position west of where tank 2 is. We reveal a barbarian musketman and crossbowman just west of Ichirin. Will they help us, or stand by the city? You never know when barbarian meddle in a conflict.

A builder at Myouren Temple makes an alc?zar on a hill two tiles northeast. That's the second of Granada's unique improvements we've made in this campaign. I was thinking "why not?" After that short break, we move to another place where violence is going on:



Artillery 7 is the one called Flandre Scarlet and she shows the enemy city in the north that U.N. Owen was her. The walls are instantly destroyed, 1 city center damage. I'm suspecting that Sanae somehow skipped the technology of Steel and that these are all still ancient and medieval walls. Urban walls like we have them would never break this easily. Artillery nr. 6, Utsuho Reiuji, readies her armcannon for one heck of a blast: 120 points of damage to the city, it's in the red. We quickly fetch tank corps nr. 3. Due to its superb mobility and the high-tech roads, it can drive up to the damaged city and attack. 9 damage to us and...

   

...too much to the city. A tiny place like this with few districts and no wonders gets razed, of course. The eureka for Nanotechnology we can see was gained because we briefly held two sources of aluminum. That we don't anymore after leveling the settlement is inconsequential.

A builder at Moriya Shrine creates another plantation over a source of coffee. Sanae has had the courtesy to cultivate most of them for us before we took her cities, but this one she missed. I think we have 4 copies of it now.

Oh right, we haven't solved the barbarian problem in North America. The bomber repeats its run on the AT crew: 37 damage. We also have two machine guns at the site now: One shreds the AT crew to bits, the other enters the camp to rid us of barbarian activity for good. The 45 gold for this are a nice bonus.
A machine gun at Koumakan can promote to level 1. They pick Volley, as they would rather chase hostile units than stay garrisoned.

A barbarian musketman suicides himself on our tank that besieges Ichirin. They probably didn't know what a tank was and didn't get the smart idea to run away from it. The remaining scout in our homeland also does the same against a machinegun. Someone should educate them that a scout won't ever win against a machinegun.

Alright, that's it for today. It's safe to say that the current conflict is in the bag and that Sanae will never come back from the losses she has taken. Ichirin and Divine Virtue "Bumper Crop Rice Shower" are still two cities that are worth taking (but not keeping) at this point. Will the next update bring a merciful peace treaty? Or should we just wipe the Moriya out for good? Bis bald!

[Gesh86]

Update nr. 57 - In Soviet Kobito, shrine maidens donate to you!

Turn 295 - 1.848 A.D.

Last time, we witnessed the return of a long forgotten culture and cut three whole cities from Sanae's rule. We begin by adding another able commander to our many troops:



Crikey, it's General Sir John Monash, an Australian civil engineer and military commander. He led the largest corps of the Western Front during World War 1 and had supervision over the allied troops at Amiens in 1918, the battle which effectively won the war. He affects modern and atomic era troops, which would be much more inclusive than what the two generals we currently have are specialized on. Obviously, we recruit Sir Monash. This process grants us an envoy with Kabul due to their quest.

Lilliput's newest builder is done, we're actually making a sewer now. I know I bashed the uselessness of sewers when we got access to them. Know what? I'm giving them another chance. We have, after all, only so many tiles to put rice bowls on. Sewers might have actually been buffed to have lower cost than in the past, as 5 turns is less than I thought this one would take.

Now that Blefuscu has a water mill, they're going to make a commercial hub. A new tile has just been claimed in the north where one of them will get +2 coins for adjacency. Also, Blefuscu is over its housing cap. I check how expensive a sewer is to quick-purchase and it's only 760 coins. Yeah, we can spend that. 1,936 gold is still available to us.

Sekibanki and Kagerou can promote to rank 5. When you level up that many times, you'll be at the bottom of any promotion tree and you can pick up some perks you declined to take before. We make the Youkai duo a Ranger-Sentry-Spyglass-Camouflage-Guerilla. Guerilla is the newest one.

There are some pretty surefire signs that Ichirin will fall this round:



Artillery 3 has a clear shot at the city and takes 80 hitpoints away. To get next to the city, tank corps 1 unfortunately has to get rid of the barbarian crossbowman first. It does so with ease, losing only 3 hitpoints in the process, but also the ability to attack the city this turn. Tank 2 could attack Ichirin, but its damage is predicted to be just short of conquering it and nobody could follow up. We refrain from taking this unnecessary move then. Against what I would have expected, the city stays under the banner of Moriya for one more turn.

We buy a hex 3 tiles east of Myouren Temple with 330 gold. A military engineer happens to have made his way onto this very tile. He uses an ability that would put any other civilization into a panic:

   

Missile silos can launch nukes directly onto targets that are within their shooting range. They are constructed quickly with military engineers, but have the disadvantage of being completely static once set down. We currently have no nukes within our empire's inventory. First number you can see on the right screenshot would be nuclear devices, the second number would be their evolution, thermonuclear devices.

Divine Virtue "Bumper Crop Rice Shower" is another city that needs to get out of the sun for us. It too is in grave danger already:



Artillery 3 moves onto the spaceport we've stolen from Sanae and is free to open fire on our enemies. The walls are no more, 1 damage on the city center. Artillery 4 has an ideal line of fire where it already is and takes a whopping 118 hitpoints from our target. Unit 5 escorts our Great General onto the horse pasture next to it, where Ms. Rani Lakshmibai will support any other assaults from us. Helicopter 6, piloted by Kaguya Houraisan, has a good chance to take the city already and tries her best, but the efforts were just short of our goal. 71 points of damage to them, 10 to us.
We have one more trick up our sleeve: Tank corps 1 sits in the middle of nowhere, as it razed a city there in the previous turn. Once again, these tanks can drive far enough to reach the almost-fallen city. They engage...



5 points of damage to them. Well now, this city isn't especially worthwhile as a location, but it does have the Potala Palace and the Huey Teocalli as pre-constructed wonders. After thinking for a brief while, we decide that we don't want any of those and that the place looks better when razed! Being in control of the Potala Palace for just a moment caused a unique little bug by the way: It forced us to reassign all our policy cards. This would have been understandable, as the Potala Palace permanently gives you a diplomatic slot, but our deck was somehow completely empty! It takes me a while to recreate what we had before, but I think I took Logistics instead of Wars of Religion. It's not a big deal, overall, just...weird.

Moriya Shrine has a trader available that it uses to make an internal route: Moriya Shrine -> Myouren Temple for 1 food, 2 production, 4.5 coins and 1 faith.

The only really interesting thing to happen between turns is this:



We were able to stay on cordial terms with Byakuren for exactly 3 turns. I do not blame her. Yes, we saved her existence and all, but within that timespan, we turned two metropolises into rubble. It is like Byakuren's character, canonical and especially fanonical, that she would not be friends with someone like us and that even a positive history with each other only goes so far.

Turn 296 - 1.850 A.D.

Those of you who are fed up with all the Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, Myspace and...*snort* Google+ will not like the inspiration we've just gotten:



It was awarded for the completion of the following technology:



George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright, (controversial) political activist and polemicist. When you ask people about the playwrights they know, he comes right after Shakespeare. One of his most famous works was Pygmalion. It first existed as a play before Shaw wrote the script for the award-winning movie from the 30s.



Oh yeah! Now you know why we decided to make that submarine in Balnibarbi. A transformation into a nuclear submarine doesn't just beef up their power, but actually gives them the trait of being a mobile missile site. Be sure to park them at someone's border if you want a Cuban Missile Crisis.



Nanotechnology may already be boosted, but it isn't too important for us. We are much more in need for the unit that comes with Satellites. We also switch our civic back from Space Race to Class Struggle. 2 turns are left on that. Like I said, we just wanted to delay getting it.

Futatsuiwa of Sado has made us our second bomber. It needs to invest only a single turn into a water mill. We're happy to spend it.

Brobdingnag has made a shrine and stays devoted to its religious ambitions: A temple is next. 3 turns.

After a long time, Benevolent French Dolls has made us two aircraft carriers. I find out here that this kind of ship is different in that you can't make it form fleets or armadas. It makes sense, as it's more of a utility ship than one for combat. The carriers will provide a sort of air-bridge over the Atlantic, should we ever need aircrafts in Europe or Africa. Next up, the town will construct an entertainment complex on an uncultivated hill tile. 7 turns.

We are left with only a single front that is worth talking about:



Artillery 3 makes the ground rumble: 88 damage to the city, its health is almost depleted. There's not really a need for artillery 4 to fire, so they promote instead and take Shells to deal even more damage on any future opponents. We give the honors of taking the city to tank corps nr. 2. 10 damage to it, the last damage anyone takes in this conflict.



Should we give this back to Byakuren after she spat in our faces? I know the rules and how quick civilizations denounce warmongers in this game, so we can't really blame her. Yes, we liberate the city back to the buddhists. The administrative turnover teleports our units right out of the borders. Tank corps nr. 1 lands next to a barbarian camp, garrisoned by an almost-dead AT crew. Even though you shouldn't use cavalry on anti-cavalry, the odds are good enough to take the attack. The anti-tank crew wasn't anti enough for these tanks. 19 damage and 45 gold to us.

This is actually the very first turn where a peace treaty with Sanae is even possible. We contact the shrine maiden and once again suggest very one-sided reparations: The ceding of Myouren Temple and Moriya Shrine is the first priority. She would accept. She has two copies of a resource we don't have: Wine. She fills up our glasses and loads off the kegs. The Moriya's income is pretty poor, but there are still 95 coins sitting around. We pocket them and Sanae does not object. There's little else in the trade screen that's worth scooping up, so we hit the button...



For having her purse shaken out so thoroughly, Sanae is a little too motivated. That kind of mindset is unhealthy, girl. Peace reigns once again.

A tank corps that burned down a city of Sanae last turn can promote. They increase their potential strength against units with...



The use of this is very specific unfortunately, as you can't easily control whether the enemy units sit in a district or not. Still, it may help from time to time.

We currently have two industrial era Great Generals and one from the modern era. That's actually more than necessary, especially with a war having been settled. Mr. Bol?var has served us well. It is not unfair that his time has come:



In our reality, his post-wartime politics shall not fail as badly as they did. With two extra envoys, we are up to 5. I know I'm really going back on my word here, but with an investment of 3 at Yerevan, we can usurp Alice's influence on them and get them on our side. Let's hope that wasn't too bold.

That's a first: A builder makes a banana plantation near Moriya Shrine. We don't have those at our homeland or any non-African province. Just as a reminder, bananas are a bonus resource, not a luxury. Another builder in the same location chops a rainforest, instantly finishing wall repairs at Sanae's former capital. Next, they will repair their broken sewer system. 2 turns. One builder also makes a farm at Lilliput, another at Myouren Temple.

Turn 297 - 1.852 A.D.

Another missionary is faith-purchased at Kirisame Magic Shop. We needed more of them if we want to have a chance of converting Moriya Shrine. If possible, I try to have provinces as a part of my state religion. Only for the far away Koumakan we are not bothering with. Hinduism is established there to this day.

Futatsuiwa of Sado has quickly picked up that water mill and is also at its housing cap of 21. The time is right for a sewer. 4 turns.

Our fleet has had nothing to do since the fall of Night With Bright Guest Stars and has dispersed into the Atlantic a few turns ago. They will guard our harbors in Spain and North America, with the only exception being our submarine. That one will continue circling around Africa counter-clockwise.
We also have an attack force in Africa that has done its duty well. One infantry, one artillery and one ranger each will guard Myouren Temple and Moriya Shrine. You never know when a surprise war against us could break out. We certainly have the necessary infamy for it. The rest of the troops will embark into the Atlantic and split up among North America and Europe.
A level 2 artillery can pick a name. I can see a fairy from hell identifying as war machinery:



With his last charge, a builder at Myouren Temple chops a rainforest. The resulting avalanche of food and production grows the city to 6 population points and instantly creates the new builder it was producing. A tired builder for a fresh builder. Nice. He rushes to the place where the rainforest was and puts down a farm. The city goes for repairs of its damaged outer wall next. 2 turns.

The tank corps that has made itself a name as a razer of cities is also at rank 2, the first of its kind. When we compare a Touhou to a battletank, we should pick those likely to make a...taller number appear on the bathroom scale. A certain banquet-loving ghost lady comes to mind:



A builder at Moriya Shrine makes a farm next to another one. The jungle town still has relatively few of them, despite its 12 population points. We also have another farm-placing builder at Lilliput. He has 2 charges left and will go towards Laputa for his next jobs.

At the new rival city agent Seija has been assigned to and arrived at this turn, she once again picks Gain Sources as a mission before any that may actually be dangerous. 8 turns. Hopefully, a change of ownership won't sabotage her operations again.

Something very frustrating for us happens between turns that I absolutely did not see coming. It seems that Yerevan has been conquered:



That is especially obnoxious because we just recently spent lots of envoys to get on good relations with them. I assume Sanae was already at war with Yerevan before we declared ours against her, otherwise the peace deal with us would have extended to any city-states under our suzerainship. We should keep the possibility of the city-state's liberation in mind for any future wars we would have with the shrine maiden. Once we do that, our suzerainship would be restored.

Turn 298 - 1.854 A.D.

Oh boy, that's not a quote that will get a lot of sympathy nowadays:



Warren Edward Buffett is an American entrepreneur with a focus on investment and is currently the third richest man in the world. The company he is the CEO of is called Berkshire Holding.



At its full speed, neither ox nor donkey will stop Communism. Has a much bigger ring to it in German...
This tier 3 government is fairly well balanced to be effective in both war and peace times. The only downside it has is that Communism only has a single wildcard policy slot, less than the 2 of Fascism.



A policy that combines science and production power, two things that are very relevant to our playstyle. The term used here was coined by Josef Stalin for his political and economic agenda from 1928 to 1934.



4 units of food seems like a lot and we do have loads of domestic trade routes. But keep in mind that especially in the late game, growth is more dictated by housing than crops per turn.



This should include medics, observation balloons and anti-air units. Neat, but except for the latter, we're stocked up on them already.



A lot of people will argue that accumulating war weariness for losses in your own territory, especially when it's coupled with a war you did not declare, is a huge design flaw of Civilization 6. Nonetheless, it exists unless you mod it out and this card will help you combat it.

If Fascism is the best government for wartime and we're currently not in a war, is there really a need to keep it? I don't think so. Funny that it is so easy when real fascist regimes are among the most stubbornly opposed to being deposed and do their best at making this extra difficult. We just do it with a few clicks:

   

Our military cards become tailored less for an active conflict and allow us to upgrade for cheap. Five-Year Plan is new and so is Cryptography. Enemy spies could really break our stride at this point. We've won wars against any players that were once relevant, so covert operations are one of the few methods they could target our campaign's success at this point with.

Our civic focus goes back to Space Race. 2 turns are left on that.

Kirisame Magic Shop is pumping money into us with its new +4 adjacency commercial hub. It's prudent to immediately follow up with a market. 2 turns.

Moriya Shrine's urban walls are repaired to peak condition. A water mill also costs us only 2 turns there, so let's work on that.

Two of the tank corps we own have made it back into our cultural borders. For 310 gold each we make them into...



...Modern armor. I think this is the unit in the game with the overall highest combat strength. These corps sport 100 points each. Our new financial balance is 1,480 coins afterwards. Still plenty and ever growing by 126 a turn.

An inquisitor removes the Shinto influence on the city of Moriya Shrine. Will it even be Moriya Shrine anymore then? Anyway, all we need now are missionaries to establish The Touhou Fandom there. The mentioned inquisitor will stay in the area as a defense against possible conversion attempts from Sanae.

Our newest builder at Myouren Temple makes a plantation at a banana resource. Food and housing at this province is slowly but surely getting better. A builder at Moriya Shrine makes a camp at a source of ivory, which we should be ashamed for, as we already have that luxury. Still, we feel the need to hunt more elephants for prosperity. Alas, that is Civilization 6 for you.

A military engineer disowns some farmers at Moriya Shrine:



There's still plenty of farmland possibilities to use, but we want this tile, the tile that borders closest to Sanae's lands, to have a special installation. You'll find out what it is next turn.

Finally, there's another unit we need to upgrade and this one we desperately want to. A submarine uses our influence into a bay at Moriya Shrine for this:



For another 310 coins, we get our very own Red October. It is piloted by an Scotsman Kobito most able at his job and in his mind, but not so able at imitating a Russian accent.

Turn 299 - 1.856 A.D.

Byakuren deserves a respectful clap for completing research on Sailing in this day and age. That's what some gossip told us and yeah, restored civilizations have the same level of technology as they had when they first went extinct.

This is a very important turn, as...



Laputa has done it! Any city that has sufficient production power should get to work on nuclear devices as soon as possible. You find the option to build them all the way at the bottom of the list:



The production time you can see here is that for Laputa. Another city that jump on this train is Lilliput (18 turns), which just got done making a sewer.

Brobdingnag has made a temple and further bolsters its religious output and housing through a faith-purchase of a pagoda. A sewer is next for the city with 13 population points, so that it will hopefully be bigger one day.

A barbarian scout puts his nose where it doesn't belong at the northern border of Futatsuiwa of Sado. In the past, we would have had to activate some unit and get it there over several turns. Nowadays, we just fetch our nearby bomber and blast the area! Needless to say, a scout can't survive an atomic era carpet bombing.

Myouren Temple has gotten its walls into better shape and will do the same for its pillaged commercial hub. Barbarians were probably responsible for that ages ago.

At Spain, we make our third upgrade of a tank into a modern armor. 984 coins are still in our state register.

For the first time, we're using a unit function that all of those who don't like micromanaging will be keen to learn of:



If you open up the full list of command icons by clicking on the „+“, one of the options is automated exploration. It's especially helpful for scouts and rangers. The computer will then go after the nearest unexplored tiles without any more input from you. Should they come across something important like a goody hut or a hostile unit that threatens them, control will come back to you automatically. The function is good for when you're not particularly interested in the process of scouting. I personally love the exploration aspect of Civilization and barely ever use automation, but we will for Reimu and Aunn. Besides, there are only very few mystery tiles left on the map, most of them in Siberia.

A missionary at Myouren Temple converts the province to our state relgion. Now all that's left is Moriya Shrine. Speaking of that, the military engineer makes a little something there:



This missile silo will put several of Sanae's remaining cities in Africa into permanent nuking range. That is, once we have any nukes.

That'll do it for now. What an eventful update. The war found a definitive end with Sanae having lost 7 cities in total from it. There's really no one left to rival us in power currently. Still, you've only won the game when you've truly won it. No early celebrations yet! Next time, are we mechanical, are we mechanical, are we mechanical men?

[AzyWng]

It looks like we'll be riding a few rockets all the way into history...

Or maybe we're nuclear?

[niektory]

You want to end it with a bang, eh?

It's disappointing that even Sanae couldn't put up a fight. It would be more interesting if you didn't just roflstomp everybody.

[CyberAngel]

I wonder how much the Kobito's special abilities tip the combat scales in their favor. Considering that they've been outpacing everyone in all aspects as well, probably not too much at this point.

[Gesh86]

It looks like we'll be riding a few rockets all the way into history...

Or maybe we're nuclear?

You want to end it with a bang, eh?

Our building bias for nuclear weapons is about that of an AI Mahatma Gandhi after he's adopted democracy :derp:.

It's disappointing that even Sanae couldn't put up a fight. It would be more interesting if you didn't just roflstomp everybody.

Since we never really lost many units during our wars and just got stronger and stronger through our conquests, we really did snowball into power pretty hard. Then again, assuming that we had picked Emperor difficulty: Would we have even won the second war with Mamizou? Would she have had walls and crossbowmen? The line between winning a war by a landslide and being repelled is surprisingly thin in this game.

I wonder how much the Kobito's special abilities tip the combat scales in their favor. Considering that they've been outpacing everyone in all aspects as well, probably not too much at this point.

We got a small amount of advantage out of Descendant of Issun-Boshi from the two times it was triggered. There can be scenarios in which you can put it to great use if you play it just right. Imagine you're in the middle of a war and it's not going well. Most of the units you're assaulting with are low on health. If you know a civilization that has many cities and is far enough away that they won't really send any units after you, you could declare a war against them just for the sake of declaring a war. The ability would trigger and heal your battered frontline. It would be quite a comeback.

Update nr. 58 - Better show some respect to our returning soldiers. You've seen Rambo 1, right?

Turn 300 ? 1.858 A.D.

Last time, we decimated our greatest rival Sanae Kochiya, cementing our top position in the world. The only people we haven't defeated in a war are Kaguya and Byakuren. Would they stand even the tiniest chance?
As the new turn starts, a civic is learned. Somewhere within our empire, there is a small Buzz Aldrin:



John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States and a very popular one from what you hear. He was the opponent of Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis. He also captured the hearts of the people of West Berlin by saying "Ich bin ein Berliner." It's funny because that can also translate to "I am a marmelade-filled sugar doughnut". Tragically, his presidency was cut short in a most brutal fashion: During a parade in Dallas, 1963, he was assassinated by a sniper.



This can produce an impressive amount of tourism if you have recruited sufficiently many musicians. We do not own a single one, unfortunately. The Kobito just have no taste for the gentle tunes.



Try to prepare for your science victory by having one of those buildings in the three cities you build your space ports in. +15% is a bonus not to be underestimated.

We've upgraded all the units we wanted to upgrade for now. That's why the policy card Professional Army goes out, and Veterancy goes in. I'm sure there's need for encampments or their buildings somewhere.



There shouldn't be many more civics left after the ones you see here. We've ignored one of them for a long time and it's Cultural Heritage. I'm especially looking forward for the 3 envoys it brings.

Shining Needle Castle has made a factory and can call itself a very powerful city: 23 population points, sufficient food and amenities for the future and a fairly impressive 60.5 production per turn if we set tile priority on cogs. It is only fair that such a mighty place works on a nuclear device. 13 turns, probably less when we've reassigned the city's trade route that's currently on hold.

There's a city that needs to be praised just as much, if not more: 19 population Kirisame Magic Sop has made a market and can finish a nuclear device in 13 turns with a rate of 61.9 cogs a turn. Obviously, that's what we want.

Moriya Shrine will not join in on that fun, but it will do well enough with a theatre square. 5 turns, right here:



It's too bad we're losing the yields from that tile, including the culture symbols that are on it. These apparently come from Sanae's jungle-centric pantheon. So long as the Touhou Fandom is not fully established in the city, it will stick to its traditional pantheon instead of ours.

Troop movements this turn aren't too interesting. We'll be depositing 1 helicopter of our former expeditionary force to guard Spain, another goes to Koumakan at Russia. The latter will still be travelling there for several turns. The three battleships we have in our fleet are all guarding North America, the two destroyers are protecting their harbors in Spain. We see an apostle of Sanae vanishing at one of her holy sites. I guess she just sacrificed him to upgrade her religion. A little late for that, isn't it? Maybe she sees religion as the only viable victory type that's left for her?

Turn 301 ? 1.860 A.D.

~Like a satellite I'm in orbit all the way around you~



I think Civilization 4 used the quote "beep beep beep" for this technology. It was attributed to an actual satellite, Sputnik I believe. Egbert Roscoe Murrow was a radio broadcaster during World War 2 where he brought frontline news stories from Europe over to the U.S. He later became the director of the Unites States Information Agency.



The mechanized infantry is the final upgrade to the melee class, so infantry turns into this. The unit graphics look like a lighter tank, but I think you're supposed to view this as current era soldiers of technologically advanced countries. These usually have motorized equipment, troop transports, which they use if the terrain and infrastructure allows. That's what's "mechanized" about them, they aren't cyborgs.



It's a huge step for a Kobito but an even huger one for the world. This is the space race project that follows the launching of a satellite. If you're going for a Science Victory, try to finish this one as soon as you can, as only when it's done will several of the final projects become selectable. Lucky for us, we won't need to bother with this task.

I'm starting to feel bad about my previously poor opinion about sewers. Building as many as we have achieved us another inspiration this turn:



Marvelous. Hey, remember when our scientists were trying to figure out things like bowstrings? Look at all this futuristic stuff:



Out of all of these options, I think we'll have the most use for Guidance Systems.

The sewer at Futatsuiwa of Sado was what brought us the inspiration. With a housing cap of 23, they have a bit of a leeway until they need more. A nuke is tempting, but I think we need some more static defense in the area. A machine gun corps won't hurt. 10 turns.

A builder at Myouren Temple constructs another camp for ivory. Sorry, we need the income. What do you use ivory for again? Piano keys?

A missionary spreads The Touhou Fandom to our province of Moriya Shrine, but isn't influential enough to convert it. Still, it's a start. Since it was his final charge, we're going to have to wait for another until we continue proselytizing.

We've sent the bomber we've had at Futatsuiwa of Sado over to Lilliput's aerodrome:



It will soon be needed there more than anywhere.

Turn 302 ? 1.862 A.D.

I'm unsure if I've ever shown you the victory overview for Domination. I think I didn't, but whatever the case, here it is:



The game started with 7 civilizations, so the number of capitals we need to capture in order to win the campaign is 6 (7 minus ourselves). The small star you can see on the symbol of a civilization signifies that this player is still in possession of their capital. This is only the case for us and Kaguya. Long story short, the moment we conquered Eientei, we would win a Domination Victory.

Blefuscu has completed its commercial hub very swiftly. I've got a plan for this city to speed up construction of those that are building all the nukes right now. The industrial zone it has regionally benefits both Lilliput and Shining Needle Castle. Making a power plant there, the first of our empire, would support their construction by +4 cogs a turn. Let's do it! 10 turns.

Balnibarbi was the next city to get its own rice bowl. Only some of our younger provinces are missing one now. The Mexican city still has unimproved land in the south, so we're getting a new builder. 4 turns.

Benevolent French Dolls got us another amenity through the completion of its entertainment complex. It's arguably not going to be very useful, but just because we don't have one yet: We're building a fighter aircraft. 13 turns.

With the repair of its holy site, Koumakan has sutured the last wounds of its bloody takeover. Let's make that holy site actually worthwhile with a shrine. 3 turns.

The first unit of our former African force is arriving back at where it was born:



We have something in mind for these tanks and whoever is next to arrive. They will not be confined to garrison duty, I assure you.

Turn 303 - 1.864 A.D.



Yeah, Alice is still somewhat present in the game. This is the fourth city she has left and it's the third she crammed into Italy. There's benefit to making your cities somwhat close to each other in Civilization 6, but I wouldn't recommend you stuff three cities into the relatively small landmass that is Italy of the Greatest Earth Map.

East of Moriya Shrine, a builder improves another resource of coffee. I think we already had at least two of those. I feel like nutrition experts are always going back and forth on whether coffee is good or bad for you. For the sake of this Let's Play, we'll agree with Godot on the fact that you can't ever have enough coffee.

The tank corps at North America we've looked at last turn parks itself in the north of Lilliput, right onto the Terracotta Army. This will be a gathering point for a large number of incoming troops.

As we navigate our nuclear submarine (piloted by inch-high Connery) through the straight between Mozambique and Madagascar, we notice that we overlooked a goody hut:



I can't imagine how that slipped past us, but better late than never. The position is not too far away from Moriya Shrine where we have a ranger stationed, Remirya and Inu Sakuya. They will fetch it for us over the next couple of turns.



Sanae brings her city count up to seven. This one she settled onto Greece, infringing onto Alice's territory quite aggressively. Do keep in mind that these two are on pretty bad terms with each other. Sanae was our ally in the war against Alice. Nowadays, it would be logical for them to bond over the fact that we crushed both of them soundly.

Turn 304 - 1.866 A.D.

We have stored up a whole 1,256.7 points of faith. Time for a big investment! Another research lab? No, we're going for something new. A look on the Great People chart tells us that we're about 40 points away from a recruitment that we couldn't put to use unless we had a broadcast center. We purchase our first in the town of arts, Balnibarbi. Here are the stats, as a reminder:



Brobdingnag has its own sewer now that you could have as a level in a video game. It would be the worst level. Nonetheless, with an excess housing balance of 13 out of 17 used, they have few worries and can concentrate on whatever is best for them and others. We're getting another trader. 4 turns.

Out of our African forces, a helicopter disembarks back onto North America. There's one unit, the artillery called Flandre Scarlet, which will not go back home where the rest is heading. It'll take garrison duty inside Koumakan, after the long trek it'll take to get there.

We're doing an action this turn that has double the moral ambiguity than most: We're chopping a forest in Laputa's range for the sake of speeding up its nuclear armament:



The excess lumber lowers the remaining construction time from 8 to 5 turns. How wood is woven into our atomic bomb I do not know. Don't think about these things.

At long last, a missionary arrives at Moriya Shrine and converts Sanae's former capital. The symbol of The Touhou Fandom proudly stands next to the city name. Once our accumulated faith allows it again, we'll use the local holy site to secure our faith with more inquisitors. After all, the zealous and jealous Sanae isn't far.

A builder repairs a farm west of Myouren Temple. We weren't the ones who pillaged it, but if we don't clean it up, no one else will.

Turn 305 - 1.868 A.D.

A little jingle informs us that Seija has completed her espionage mission of gaining sources at the target city. We'll take a look at what she can do next in a few moments. We've made enough faith to afford an inquisitor at Moriya Shrine, who will guard the northern border against heretics together with the inquisitor we already had there.

Balnibarbi has created a builder who is venturing south to complete some jobs there. Possibly chopping a rainforest to make room for a district. The 14-population city can work on a sewer to increase their available housing. 5 turns.

To follow up on the shrine we've made at Koumakan, I would have liked to make a temple. I'm seeing that housing is close to the cap though, so we're making barracks instead. 2 turns. It's a good convenience that the initial encampment buildings provide some housing.

Myouren Temple has repaired its commercial hub. That's at least one district it can use. We could work on a pre-placed campus next, but let's do something about the city's somewhat mediocre production power. An industrial zone shall go here in 22 turns:



It's not the best tile, I know, but neither did I want to give up the sheep resource with +3 nor did I want to spend the 340 gold for the +2 tile in the north.

There are so many building projects to set this turn, wow. Moriya Shrine is next, with a new theatre square that the Jesuits shall outfit with buildings soon. An armory will boost production there and with only 3 turns to make, it's hard to pass up.

Alright, all eyes go on Seija and her next covert mission. There aren't many to choose from:



Siphoning funds is what I'm always afraid the AI will do to me. For being as devastating as it potentially can be, success rates are generally very high for it. We reach the 90% through various bonuses, among them our quartermaster Issunboshi strengthening all operations and the fact that we took the time to gain sources. Keep in mind that the success percentage you see assumes that there is no counter-spy present. You can never know if there is one in the city you're operating in. A follow-up screen to selecting the mission tells us that the 10% chance of failure is divided into 7% of not getting the money but Seiga staying safe, with the remaining 3% that she is captured or killed. Here's hoping for a good dice roll!

During this turn, a modern armor corps and an artillery corps arrive on the shores of Florida. The numbers of our returning veterans are growing!

The builder who donated a boatload of lumber to Laputa last turn makes a farm on the tile he just cleared, then he retires. Laputa will need it, it is still only a 16-population city, despite being the savant that completed the Manhattan Project. Another builder who just makes a farm is the one at Myouren Temple. It was his final charge as well.



Bootleg Remilia and her good doggy Inu Sakuya say hello to the villagers, the last who I'm suspecting we'll be finding in the world (really, almost every spot on the globe has been uncovered). The bonus we're awarded is 60 points of faith. That's worth half of what we're making a turn. Good enough I guess.

A helicopter corps with chief pilot Byakuren Hijiri in command arrives at Koumakan. The defense force there is now a ranger, a machine gun, urban walls and an encampment. In my book, the region is already very safe. Security will be even tighter once Flandre Scarlet's artillery arrives.

Today's update has been a calm before the storm. There aren't many turns of production left for what those bigger cities of ours are creating. Next time, we're setting the launch sequence password to 12345, so that only we know it. Bis bald!

[CyberAngel]

The mechanized infantry is the final upgrade to the melee class, so infantry turns into this. The unit graphics look like a lighter tank, but I think you're supposed to view this as current era soldiers of technologically advanced countries. These usually have motorized equipment, troop transports, which they use if the terrain and infrastructure allows. That's what's "mechanized" about them, they aren't cyborgs.

Or they have Metal Slugs now.

There's one unit, the artillery called Flandre Scarlet, which will not go back home where the rest is heading. It'll take garrison duty inside Koumakan, after the long trek it'll take to get there.

Oh, you.