[spoilers]Oh Canada! Victoria has a Commodore, eh?

[Commodore]

First off, the sequence:

Accepted

Accepted

Accepted, still grumpy.

Event log. The timing should say something. SCOOTER GAVE MACKOTI FIVE CITIES IN 1605! So whatever the terms were, it was for more than a simple 10-turn treaty. Good night. Well, I hope you're not in the way of mackoti and victory, Scooter...mackoti's honor lasts until the second his winning is in trouble. I paid him for an ingame-enforced peace treaty, that is the only way to be sure.


I'm still "Annoyed" with Scooter. So here's me extracting some spare gold to pay my Mackoti Extortion. Oh really? This is *it*?


I'm offering this to Scooter; he's still annoying me but he's just affably two-faced, not actually a ruthless lying bastard like Mackoti. So Scooter gets first offer; this gets extended to Mackoti next if Scooter feels uppity.


I feel like my core competency is slipping, though. I'm not here to stand athwart history yelling "stop". I'm here to settle iceballs, and I just found the Last Good Ball. Machine gun, settler, and missionary enroute next turn.


Last but not even close to least, I got the 65% odds Great Prophet. That means...


...I'm extremely unimpressed with that silly Confucian shrine down south. Guys, this is what a shrine ought to look like. I'll rush Wall Street here in a couple turns.

[Commodore]

Canadian Faces: Hospice Nurse in the Ottawa Factory District

Your mornings begin long before the dim grey dawns, tumbling out of your cot and pulling yourself shivering into your uniform. Your mother would be appalled to see how little time you spend on your hair, but she was a caring woman, she wouldn't be appalled for your reasons. Breakfast is eaten cold, and you hurry onto your bicycle to pedal down to the hospital.

It's not a real hospital, not like the ones you've read about in Maya where the New Science is taught and medicine is systematized. No, this is a sad clapboard warehouse, run by the kind and sad Benedictines on their sparse budgets left over from the grander works of beauty in high cathedrals Downtown. Drafty and thin, much like your own life. Mostly, it's a place to die, although you wake up every morning for the few who live.

Factory workers, coal-men, ironmongers' leavings...a host of rasping and groaning men and their too-skinny families all pack in to the cots, given dignity and soup and not much else. Friar Cougees hates to turn any away but he has to every day. Only the sick may enter...the sick, the injured, and you.

You are a plain woman, everyone always told you so when you grew up. Finding a husband would have been hard even before the sickness left you barren and bloodless your sixteenth year. But to the men who lie weeping in the cots, you are an angel. They thank you, and thank the God who sent you, as you go from bed to bed changing urine-stained sheets and blood-stained bandaging. You smile and speak softly, although you're not quite sure about God yourself.

In Friar Cougees' eyes, you see something. In the fervent prayers of the dying, and the comfort in the families of the dead, perhaps. Some come in and are healed as if by miracles, so you will not gainsay their witness. But as you pedal home in the smoggy grey of the underbelly of Ottawa, you hear the grand church bells in the distance and cannot help but sneer. You go to your apartment and wash for a long time, and you are always unsure if it is the corruption of sickness or despair that you try to scrub out.

But you will go back tomorrow, and the next day and the next week and the next year. You're just as trapped as every other poor soul in The District, chained by the orphans you might spare from the orphanage, the widows you might spare from widowhood, the workers you might spare for more work. Its your life, and they are your children. Such is every day in your life, as an angel of mercy in the darkened bowels of Ottawa.

[Commodore]

Here's a fun thing. Hopefully, Scooter will keep locking Mack out of OBs...so I'm just going to plant this annoyance right on the spit.

One more turn, and I'll turn on tech to buy a billion Destroyers.

[Commodore]

Well these are kind of awesome things. In retrospect, I probably should have beelined Arty over Railroad; try to trade for oil and all, but make these pretty nightmares en masse anyway. As it is, my few interior cities will pump them with the externals mass destroyers.


I realize it's been a while. CANADA THE BEAUTIFUL:

[Dp101]

Please tell me it will turn into canada of the bloodthirsty hordes, I want to see how good cash-rushing is when used to replace losses in a war.

[Kofiman]

If you need more iceball names, don't forget about the ~5000 islands off of British Columbia. Some of them are even inhabitated!

...

I am really amazed at how little land you have. That's a hell of a lot of production out of so little.

[Ceiliazul]

Can we get a demographics and victory screen shot?

[Commodore]

Okay, I'm tired of mackoti's bullying. Plako is going to fight back folks! I rejected this offer and his request to purchase oil, instead just stone cold giving Plako the aid for free. Although I also asked for ivory because I miss whales. Mack will be vengeful, I'm sure, but let's suffer this anyhow. Endgame, folks!


...I am floating some real hardware, too. And scouting north of Ottawa for sneakers. Incoming, folks.


And vice versa. Mack, you pissed me off by requesting this pittance from me. Jerk! Although given I'm reporting this as to how I'm helping Plako, I'm sure Mackoti will back down vs. Plako and then pummel me alone as everyone just sits around. So enjoy Canada for now, if Plako peaces Mackoti I'm dead.


See your request now, Ceil, I'll getcha in a bit. Answer: Mackoti/Scooter/Plako all much better off than me.

[darrelljs]

Now that's principle, pure and uncompromising .

Darrell

[Commodore]

Kipling time again!