ping

Great Library on Emperor is a gamble, but it can work out if you're lucky. In this case, I got only one settler before building it, hoping that the spot to the left wouldn't get taken by Babylon. It helped that they took their first expo elsewhere, which iirc went down before I started Great Library. Used the Library to bulb Mathematics, researched Currency before Philosophy. As the Dutch, entering Medieval with Guilds isn't too bad anyway (I normally go Civil Service, then Theology, or vice versa if I want to go for Borobodur/Hagia) because that's the prerequisite for Polders. Stonehenge just happens to not be taken when I had finished Petra (775 BC) and the National College(550 BC). Guess none of the civs were particularly religion-focused. Notre and Chichen... well, at that point, I've been having an awesome science game. I'm actually not sure if a fourth city would've been helpful. There wasn't any great spots left (in particular none at a river), so unless I would've tried to conquer Persepolis, it wouldn't have added all that much. Oy. That's a "6" in the difficulty setting right there.

Marie Antoinette, queen of France, caught a lot of public ire a couple years before the French Revolution started thanks to an affair that she had nothing to do with. Basically, a con artist (the Comptesse de la Motte) tricked Cardinal de Rohan by promising him to arrange a correspondence with the queen and then faking her replies, in a tone that suggested that Marie Antoinette had fallen in love with the cardinal. To top it off, when the cardinal pleaded for a personal meeting, the Comptesse hired a lookalike to pose as the queen during a nightly meeting in the gardens of Versailles. After conning the cardinal out of some money "for charity work done by the queen", de la Motte then presented a letter in which the queen asked de Rohan to act as an intermediary for the purchase of an incredibly valuable diamond necklace, one that had been offered to and refused by the queen prior to this whole affair. The jewelers assumed that the queen would pay them later, and de Rohan assumed that the man fetching the necklace was a servant of the queen, the husband of the Comptesse smuggled to necklace to London in order to sell its diamonds. Unfortunately for the queen (and, really, the entire royal court, given what's to come), despite the entire fraud being more or less exposed in its entirety, everybody assumed that the whole thing was actually an intrigue with the queen at its center: It was well-known that she actually couldn't stand the cardinal, so people thought that she had been using the Comptesse to ruin his reputation. De Rohan was acquitted by the parliament but still stripped by the king of his abbey and some honours he had received, which reinforced that notion.

Highest population in the world with only three cities. Polders are fun.

True, but Order's happiness comes more quickly and, as you said, with fewer otherwise useless buildings. Monument happiness is guaranteed +2 happiness in every city (if the monument in a captured city is destroyed, it's super cheap to rebuy), while Arsenals and Military Bases for Autocracy's Lv.1 happiness tenet are something that I hardly ever build. Even with the tenet, that's a lot of hammers for just +1 happiness each. Young Pioneers is also basically guaranteed +2 happiness in your core cities, and buying a Workshop in conquered cities isn't too expensive, either, so +1 there is pretty much a given, too. This frontloadedness gives you more freedom to go for economic tenets, I find. Worker's Faculties and Five-Year Plan are both really nice. It's not as if you don't need science and hammers while you're warmongering.

BEHOLD! Wraith's greatest fear: Order is excellent for domination, honestly. You get a lot of happiness from the Lv.1 tenets, which I personally value higher than Autocracy's direct warfare bonuses. (Plus, I don't like playing as the nazis out of principle)

ftfy Mmm, cookies.

On that sad day, I'd still be more articulate than that wheezing husk

Well...

Poor Wraith I fear that his long-standing reliance on the, ha, Emperor has afflicted his mind and senses.

I always recommend Inca Terrace farms are beautiful yield porn, and having full movement through hills (including forest/jungle hills) is very very nice. It's only too bad that their unique unit is pretty garbage, since it can't protect workers/settlers. But they're genuinely really good (personally, I'd only rank Poland and Babylon higher) because they can get so much food and production if they spawn near a mountain range. Little word of warning - going wide is generally not recommended, unless you have a really crappy capital. Normally, because you centralise so much of your population (Tradition is the best first culture tree like 95% of the time) and science in your capital (National College, yo), adding more cities will slow down your overall tech (and culture) rate. Three cities can be decent enough if they have a lot of food (like, for example, in a Polder Paradise), four is often the goldilock number, five can be fine if there's enough good spots and enough happiness (i.e. luxuries, unless you have the most awesomest religion, or a unique building with extra happiness) to support it.

Sir, you haven't paid close enough attention. Cookies, not chaos. 🥰 Sweet, delicious cookies of heresy. Covered in chocolate and firm refusal of any wannabe imperial's power. Hey, that's kinda offensive! Um... I'm not that physically imposing, to be honest. So unless you're a bully who enjoys picking on the weak, I don't think this is true. Well, yeah, I'd probably try to get some help if some madman would want to fight me. In truth, Wraith just has proven to be deadly afraid of hereticalarmless cookies. That sounds reminiscent of my own Civ5 experiences on Immortal, to be honest. I either get get swarmed by an aggressive neighbor (I still have PTSD from one game that started great, partitioning the Mongols between myself and Rome, just to have Rome backstab me and invade with approximately 40 Trebuchets) or I play overly careful and there's some Korea or Babylon runaway civ on the other side of the world. I've come to accept that I'm probably just an Emperor scrub (ironic, given my totally serious feud with Wraith, I know). 😐 The secret to Polder Paradise is to play on the Sandstorm map script, by the way. You won't get Desert Faith unless you're insanely lucky (I think it went the turn after I finished my shrine, and I got Pottery four turns early thanks to a tech goodie hut), but there's a good chance that you'll spawn on a river through a desert. (2) Yeah, religion game can be really annoying. The only way to defend against the inevitable Great Prophet sent against you without declaring war (including the "everybody hates you" part) is to indefinitely block him with your own units or banked up great people. (3) Jungle being a dead tile for the city itself (only enough food to feed the pop itself that is working it and no production) makes any Jungle bias a really rough start. Good job getting to the lategame. (5) Tourism is rough even on Emperor, yes. You kinda need all the bonuses you can get - world religion and/or ideology from the congress (the latter can be doable if you're first to get one), trade routes and open borders with everybody, and probably some Great Musicians to get one-time tourism boosts with any big culture civ. With all the culture bonuses that the AI gets on higher difficulties, its "defensive tourism" really is a mountain to climb. (6) The earliest reasonable point to attack a neighbor is at Crossbows, imo. Comp bows can work on Emperor if you have a weak neighbor, but I doubt that it can work on Immortal. For that reason, I'd actually point towards England (3-range crossbows) or China (Logistics on their crossbows, which also basically doubles their XP gain) for "early" conquest. Plus, with how Civ5's tech works (extremely centralised on your capital, plus the increased tech/culture cost for additional cities), you actually shoot yourself in the foot if you expand too aggressively too early, so the big KILL ALL THE AI push shouldn't come too early, anyway. Basically, killing one neighbor with Crossbows is very helpful, but you might actually wait until the modern era to continue. The happiness boosts in the ideologies (I like to go Commie for domination games) really helps, too. Anyway, that's enough smartassery from the scrub who plays on Emperor

Sir, I believe this is one of the saner discussions of Fire Emblem: Fates that has been had on this site. Er, restaurant.

Hans is clearly working for Blackwater. Iago... I don't think he has much of an own agenda beyond "make Corrin suffer because ???", so I don't think lobbyist is the best fit. I'm going to say he's a alt-right grifter. Knows that he's just talking bullshit, but keeps it up because (1) this is how he makes money, (2) he likes the power he wields by riling up his followers, and (3) to own the libs Corrin. -- Lekker

Xander's finest hour, I assume. (Useless fact of the day: I just learned that Ctrl+Shift+X swaps the forum's design from left-aligned to right-aligned)

Now that just sounds like cruel and unusual punishment. Hey, BR!Elise was genuinely OK, if I recall. You know, when she doesn't need to be a technical adult. It's a bit of a distant memory at this point, but I think I also appreciated her more melancholic tone as her siblings grew more reclusive and/or deranged because their sibling (who they definitely see as a sibling and nothing else) didn't love them anymore. Plus, you can't fool me anymore, Shrimpy! Just take this as an opening to admit defeat! Actually, I have no idea where I'm going with this Ignore me

Banned for being a Persona protagonist who isn't mute. That's just confusing!

*bonk* Go to horny jail! Where we send all horny people! All the horny people, clumped up in a tight, confined space! ...I feel like somebody didn't quite think this concept through. Or maybe they thought it through very thoroughly and it's all part of their masterful (and probably horny) plan. They say that criminal jail breeds crime, so it stands to reason that horny jail breeds horny. I mean, I believe it's been recently established that Shrimpy = Rubenio. And Rubenio loves Fates. Well, at least the parts of Fates that include Garon.

Banned for turning Sooks into a Persona protagonist. Truly the greatest of bannable offences.

Continues to fight against cookies, which is just plain silly. I mean, who doesn't like a nice, delicious cookie? (By the way, who decided that a baked good should be named cookie? English, pls)

Should know that those the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. Maaaad! Mahahahahahaaaaaad! Contrary to popular opinion, a loud, healthy laugh is almost certainly a sign of a healthy body and mind. Among experts, the worship of a completely ordinary human (or even one that barely clings to what can hardly be called 'life' anymore) is seen as a much more clear indication of a slipping mind. As medication, cookies are generally recommended.

Yeah, that sounds about right. She's not that great because there's another fk-you dragon rider who's even better.

Another entry in the category "funny names" (for English speakers) is Felix Mendelssohn Bartoldy's sister Fanny Hensel. However, it would do her a great disservice to not mention that she was a very talented musician and composer in her own right - but because both Felix and their father Abraham thought that it would be unbecoming of a woman to earn money, they both discouraged her from publishing any of her compositions and the father in particular basically told her to get back to the kitchen, and sure, I fully support music as your hobby, but what would the neighbours think if they saw you getting a job? Felix's attitute seems to be more of a "yeah, well, if she decides to try and publish her work, I'll support her, but I still don't really want her to". Instead, Fanny was only able to show her talent in a more private environment. In 1821 (when Fanny was 15-16 and Felix was 11-12), their father held semi-private Sonntagsmusiken (Sunday musics) to showcase his children's talent. Apart from Bach or Beethoven, they also featured compositions of the Mendelssohn children. However, in 1829, when Felix left Berlin and Fanny got married, these concerts were discontinued. Luckily, her husband (the painter Wilhelm Hensel) was much more supportive of Fanny's musical career (and, probably even more importantly, less condescending about it). In 1831, Fanny reestablished the Sonntagsmusiken under her own direction, participating herself as composer, musician, and conducting both orchestras and her own little choir. In that role, she absolutely had a noteable role in Berlin's cultural scene - these little concerts sometimes had up to 300 visitors. It also seems that Felix managed to at least loosen that giant stick up his arse a little. To his (partial) credit, he never was dismissive of her musical talent - he "just" had that 19th century bourgeoise attitude of "woman's job is housekeeping", but he always valued Fanny's opinion and suggestions about his works above anybody else's, and the two of them had a close relationship for their entire (unfortunately both too short) lives. Fanny's first published compositions were actually printed under Felix's name in 1827, and while that would've been kinda shitty if he had appropriated them for himself, he didn't seem to be shy about admitting that six of the songs in two of "his" collections were actually Fanny's. Only three years later, London musical magazine The Harmonicon (which, two years later, would also do the first "official" publication of her work) noted that this was the case. Still, this led to a funny little embarrassment for Queen Victoria, who told Felix that his magnificient piece Italien was her absolute favourite, to which Felix had to reply that, well, sorry, that's actually my sister's composition.