Brant Guillory, 11 July 2013

Seriously. I wore #16 for about 28 of the 35 years I’ve been playing soccer. It’s totally a superstition thing at this point.

Click images to enlarge

Last episode, we turned our first spy loose on the world, and started really bringing some city-states into our orbit. This time? Read on…

Going Nowhere Fast.
Our galley can’t cross open ocean just yet, so we’re going to have to bring him home to upgrade him. We’re working on researching our way toward navigation, but aren’t there yet. Still, it’s going to take this guy a while to get there, so we’ll start home now.

Normally, you can just disband a unit that’s so far from home rather than go through the travel time (and maintenance cost) to bring him back. But this guy’s been upgraded twice, and I don’t want to lose those upgrades and would rather keep them with the upgraded unit.

Bastards.
They vultured me again. #@*&$^.

But Hey! There’s More Where They Came From!
We found their camp, and we found their better fighting unit. And we’re stuck in between. Canadians, bah!

Reaching Astronomical Heights of …
OK, OK, enough with the cheap jokes. This brand of humor is clearly from a bygone era…

Willya Lookithat!
It really is from a bygone era! We’re now ready to head to the Faire!

Let’s take a moment and update our situation with the top-of-the-window information.

Money, money, money, money!
We’re making some, but not a lot.

I’m a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I’d like to put more in that jar. That’s where you come in.

We’re almost evenly split between building and unit maintenance, but could really use more revenue, and that means more gold-producing buildings.

C’mon, C’mon Get Happy!
Put on a happy face! We’re doing OK on happiness. Civ V heavily penalizes you for over-expanding with too many cities, but we’ve got a good stable of luxuries built up, plus our religion bonuses help, too.

Golden Years.
We’re tracking well towards our Golden Ages. The problem we’ll have later in the game is that successive Golden Ages are all shorter than the previous ones, and we went through several early on. That means our later ones might end up being quite short.

Ministry of Cultural Excessiveness.
Proclaiming the glory that is the Carthaginian, our cultural development is actually pretty good, helped along by a few wonders, and the mini-wonders that are pagodas. We’re getting a good boost spill over from happiness, too, thanks to our "piety" development track. Again, over-expanding will kill you on trying to hit your cultural achievements.

Have a Little Faith. Just a Little Faith, Not Much.
We’re not raking it in, but we’re solid. Again, the pagodas help, but we could use a little boost here and there.

Back to the War!
Our scout needs to run and hide, but our archer can lob some shots at this Barcadian pikeman.

Feels Like We’re Going Backwards.
Seriously – most folks develop Iron Working before they ever leave the ancient era, but I was focused on money and getting on the oceans, so I now have to go back and get a few of the "low tech" research developments. These will come quickly, but stil detract from pushing further forward.

Speak Softly, and Carry a Big Stick.
Or a pointy stick, whichever you prefer.

Renew the Same Deal.
Since we’re clearly better negotiators than the NHL and the NHLPA, we’re able to renew the same deal we before, without either side screwing the other. (Yes, I know the owners were completely at fault for tearing up the agreement they insisted would "save" hockey once they found their own loopholes…)

Either way, I have to have the open borders renewed, or I’ll never get my galley home to upgrade him to an ocean-going caravel.

A Sailing We Will Go.
I’m going to get a caravel in the water, ASAP. I need to start getting over the open ocean and seeing who/what else is out there.

Reload the Queue. And Reboot the Mission.
Yep, time to crank up some gold production out in Saguntum. Get the Mint first, then go back for the Market. And we’ll need to sprinkle in some defensive buildings – like the Walls – because sooner or later the Incans will come knocking at the door.

Caravel Ho!
We’re just going to send him out into the fog and see what we come back with. At this point, we got nothing better to do with our naval guys than just send them out to see what they find.

Advancing to the Rear.
Now that I’ve got an elephant in the fray, I’m going to send the archer back to Saguntum to help garrison the town, and I expect he’ll be able to upgrade by the time he gets there, based on my research projections.

Eek.

Elephants to the Rescue!
Will they get there in time?

You’ll have to come back for part 17 – yes, 17! – to find out. How’s that for excellence in AAR-ing, huh? We’re still able to keep you coming back after 16 episodes. We should work for NBC.

Discuss this AAR in our forums >>