Gavagai manages his personal GULAG

[Gavagai]

In that case we should swap Priesthood-CoL and Construction. Courts build faster and give an economic benefit immediately, coliseums will not be that relevant until we adopt the appropriate civics. Earlier Priesthood will also let us get started on Great Prophet generation earlier, which is a good thing -- we are falling behind on the shrine, starting to get painful.

If we put CoL that early, then your initial argument will start to work: we are going to have even higher priority builds during next 10-15 turns in most cities. Also, I want Construction ASAP because bridges: chances are that we will need to fight in Grimaceland.

Also, colosseum is now required for Heroic Epic.

[Gavagai]

About Great Prophet - I will first build ToA, then Paya and only then (may be) temple.

EDIT. To clarify: we can't afford running priest if the city is building wonders.

[Bacchus]

Didn't know about the coliseum prereq for heroic epic.

Still, what are the higher priority builds? Only libraries remain unbuilt in the core, and they are not going everywhere -- probably not in Norilsk and 859, and these two cities only need to put 48 base hammers into them.

[Gavagai]

Still, what are the higher priority builds?

Settlers, workers, mints, missionaries, units.

[Gavagai]

Rng gave us Iron.

The North:

[Bacchus]

Solid city locations for Barteq.

Settlers, workers, mints, missionaries, units.

Not a convincing list. We only need a maximum of 4 settlers (north-eastern coast, moai, cow filler, tsargon filler), the last of which is starting to scratch the bottom of the barrel, and the first two which will be finished long before we get Currency, not to mention CoL. We need maybe three missionaries. Mints in core cities are mostly complete already. But the time Currency finishes we will already have built a whole bunch of units out of 859 and Norilsk, enough for protection.

Anyway, we can wait until Currency comes in, and see that I am right in having spare production.

[Bacchus]

The genteel prisoners settled in Newly Acquired Territories just don't have the same worker spirit ingrained in them as the convicts of the Old Core. Our latest report from Kola says the local warden worked his inmates to death building a Library! Unheard of in our penitentiary kingdom. We will have to keep a close watch over that city, in case all those books make the convicts unruly.

[Ceiliazul]

We will have to keep a close watch over that city, in case all those books make the convicts unruly.

Loving the flavor, keep it coming

[Gavagai]

Northern territories. Observe that newly founded Barteq's city doesn't claim Whales. Really, don't know why he hasn't settled it 1W.




And this is our new city. Speczstroy is Russian abbreviation for "Special Construction". In this city we hope to build ToA and Paya.




And this is the first library in our empire - the about Bacchus was talking:




Poster says: "Do you help exterminate illiteracy? All join End Illiteracy Society."

Small taxt in the left part says: "From the Lenin's Testaments: by the 10th anniversary of October Revolution no single illiterate should exist"

[Bacchus]

Actually, Kola ITL deserves a little introductory note, being based as it is in the glorious city of Murmansk, in some respects even more impressive than Norilsk. Meet the largest human settlement beyond the Polar Circle with a current population of over 300,000:




Murmansk lies at 69 degrees North, on a latitude slightly below Norilsk, but is twice the size. Because of the vagaries of the Gulfstream, Murmansk is an ice free port, a rare commodity in Russia, and the prime reason for settling there. The city is not a Soviet creation per se, the port there was originally developed during the First World War to supply Russia in its fight against Germany. The railroad on the coast on the Kola peninsula was built at the same time.

There were so many supplies delivered to Murmansk by the Entente, especially the British, that once the Revolution broke out, United Kingdom sent a contingent of its troops, along with even a couple of tanks to ensure the security of the materiel. Another force was deployed to Archangel, a much older port in the Russian north.

In any case, the whole project was right up the communist street, so once they took over, they supercharged its development with their favourite method — convict labour. Murmansk itself and its surrounding lands were covered by a whole network of labour camps, which different specialisations. The geology over here is quite rich, so some camps, like the future town of Apatity, focussed on mining, whilst Murmansk was of course devoted to shipping and shipbuilding. During Second World War, the port again saw strategically important military use, as the Allies supplied the Soviet Union in a strange repeat of history 30 years later.

Unlike in the First World War, Finland was an ally of Nazi Germany and Germans themselves were fond of spectacular, borderline crazy operations. So in 1941, together with the much-better known Operation Barbarossa, they launched Operation Silver Fox, which was meant to capture Murmansk and cut off the rail link to its ice-free port. All geographical aspects of that campaign are nothing short of wondrous, never before or since have so many troops fought so extensively in conditions so unsuitable for humans. Approximately five entire divisions fought on each side (fun fact, Germany's entire army today amounts to three divisions). To add to the whole grimdark aspect, the convicts of the local camps participated in the fighting as much as regular soldiers — given how much the Soviet command valued the life of a regular troop, you can imagine their treatment of these prisoner-irregulars.

Through a combination of incredible Russian resilience and German arrogance in attempting a major offensive across hostile terrain with absolutely zero infrastructure, the Murmansk theatre was the only theatre on which the Soviet military achieved a total success, fulfilling the objectives set before it in their entirety. This was the only front where the Germans failed to make any significant advance at all. Given the dangers the war posed however, and the inability to keep something as dangerous and prone to revolt as a labour camp so close to the frontlines, the entire regional labour camp system was liquidated in 1941. The convicts were either pressed into military services, as described above, or transferred to other camps.

Here is where we are:



I invite everyone to investigate the terrain around the city on Google Earth, it is truly something alien as viewed from above.

The annual average temperature in the city is 0.6 centigrade, which, as you would expect, means an average temperature below freezing 6 months in the year. In July, the average climbs to an almost-tropical 12.8. As with Norilsk, the extreme latitude means that the sun sets on 2 December and comes back up only on 11 January. Would make for a peculiar Christmas ambience, if Russians celebrated it. Of course, the converse is that from 22 May to 22 July the sun doesn't set at all.

The citizens of Murmansk keep their head up, though, and run an annual "best body of Murmansk" pageant.

NSFW

And they enjoy taking bracing showers.

Also, whilst looking at this city, I discovered a formerly unbeknownst to me phenomenon: people recording short clips of their weddings and putting them out on YouTube for the whole world to see that they know how to have a good time in bad taste:


Murmansk, or rather it's suburb Severodvinsk, continues to be the headquarters and the main base of Russia's Northern Fleet, the mainstay of our navy, with all those scary submarines Western media and fiction loves so much.