Turn 121
All those turns of war.
The early axe whips, the stacked anger.
No infrastructure, no workers, no settlers: only troops.
Watching people zoom ahead with farmer gambits.
Being pink dotted by multiple parties.
It was all worth it
Hinduism has gotten HUGE. I hadn't looked at the Religion screen in a while, but 32 gold was far more than i expected when I planted the shrine this turn. I mean, I just cut my expenses by over 20%!
9% of the world follows it now, making it the second best religion to Judaism. I suspect our Jewish friends have actively been trying to spread their faith; I haven't so much as lifted a finger to get mine.
This cements the decision to finish up Barry now. I want this shrine locked down and safe. I don't want anybody thinking they can just waltz in and take it without a lot of sacrifice. (Even now dtay is having an alarming power spike; at least my catapults are being whipped and moved towards the east.)
I should have 4 catapults and 8 swords, give or take, ready to roll against Barry in however long it takes to get from my far west to the far east. Probably within 10 turns. Then we can lessen Lord Parkin's responsibilities a little.
There's another reason I want to have this done within 10 turns; I'm under another timer:
This will probably be the golden age for Bureaucracy, Caste, and either Theology or Organized Religion. I haven't ruled out going for Feudalism either. That shaved two full turn off my Civil Service ETA - it takes me 5 turns of 100% burn to tech CoL and CS; now it will only take 3.5 turns to earn the gold I need instead of the 5.5 I was planning on. Which in turn has me thinking maybe I need to tech HBR quick first and start on some horse archers and elephants.
I don't think I have to fear my western neighbor. Cyneheard asked for open borders a few turns back, and the posture I'm seeing is more defensive than anything. As in "keep you bloodthirsty minions in the east, because look at how prickly I am!"
It's been a while since we got some empire-wide shots:
I planted my 15th city this turn. There's room for 2 more, plus Barry's lone holdout. I probably won't settle the marked filler location by Cyneheard. I'd rather we stayed peaceful.
The world is filling up. And you lurkers know what that means