Y'know, Commodore, when you told me it was quite possible for Catwalk to lose the war despite his advantages, I doubted.
Course, I don't *know* that this is a crushing defeat. I mean, it was massive enough for 3 GG's, and it happened on Jowy's turn. And Jowy's thread's suddenly gotten a bunch of lurker comments.
It could, I suppose, be Catwalk winning through attrition, even. But...I'm starting to think Catwalk's not gonna be a counterweight to Zanth, anyway.
In other news, Confucianism spread continues. We're up to 10/22 cities converted; a solid start but still not enough to even consider swapping out of OrgRel. Enough that I'm sure we're getting a nice amount of hammers toward our infrastructure, though.
And, when in doubt of things to report, Mardoc, go through the cities again.
Istanbul's Grocer is paying off well already
. As mentioned, the city is currently on ice. Not growing because I want to get Samsun up to a nice stagnation size, and not infra-building mainly because it's out of useful infra to build. Monasteries and a Courthouse are the only remaining items that seem of any significant use, at least until we tech some more. This is definitely the place for an Oxford, though! Although...7 Universities might be a bit of a slog
.
Edirne, on the other hand, is very much not paused. Growing quickly, and putting up the Moai at a good clip. I think it needs the very next missionary I have to speed Moai even further. I'm a smidge frustrated with its split personality, also working on my Golden Age instead of merely growing to use all those coast tiles in anticipation of the nice Moai, but I don't have a better spot for specialists at the moment, either. And 5 fpt surplus is still going to get it nice and big by the time Moai finishes up, even if not as big as I'd really like. I think Edirne may be the right spot for my National Epic, too, once it finishes the Moai. We've already got ~9 food surplus, and can steal the Rice for a few more, perhaps. Moai means I won't want to whip the place - and provides a nice starting GPP. It's not perfect, but again - imperfect and available soon beats perfect 50 turns from now.
Other empire-wide news:
Despite Zanth's golden age ending, we're still about 300 behind in GNP, and we're 2nd or 3rd depending on the slider. Gotta keep pushing, but that's a bigger deficit than I expected. And doesn't even account for the beaker lead he already has. I'm *hoping* that this is caused by a combination of culture (he's got something like 4 holy cities) and the Colossus, which is due to be obsoleted pretty soon. I found a mini-stack of Cuirs in his territory, so he's definitely planning to eat someone. Just gotta hope it's not me, I think.
We're researching Printing Press. Empire growth has gotten to the point that the Philo diversion only costs a turn on the tech, not bad at all. After that, most likely Banking then Education. All should help our GNP situation a lot, I just have to hope it's enough. I'm debating Education, I'm not sure I'll have the hammers for universities right after Banking comes in, and Banks seem a much better investment in themselves. Double the multiplier, and our slider's biased toward gold at the moment, too. Maybe instead that'll be the time to go back to military tech for a bit; Gunpowder/Chemistry for a mixed bonus, or work on Nationalism, or go for navy.
What gives me hope to catch Zanth regardless is the food situation. We're due for 10 cities to grow next turn!
We've a lot of little cities, rapidly becoming solid contributors. And we're still ~50 fpt ahead of our nearest competitor.
Civic-wise...I'm thinking I stay in Serfdom until Banking is in, probably 6 more turns. It's making a huge difference on workers' progress, enough I think to get me on the right side of the city/worker balance. Which means that I can afford to get back out soon
. Probably to Slavery again, although Caste is always a tempting alternative. And of course to Mercantilism to help the push for golden ages.
. Yes, I want Philo, but not yet! Pretty sure that happened while I was clicking around while the game was paused, but because it doesn't report that immediately I didn't notice.
. 
. On the one hand, Istanbul's about done with its grocer, and it could really benefit from a bank. Like, 35 gpt at breakeven benefit - that's probably worth the 1000 beakers in itself. And I will probably want to go Mercantilist on the next or second civic swap, we need Golden Ages and that'll make them a lot less painful to get to.
