Part 25: 320 AD - 320 AD (4th contact and wrap-up)

SKRAELINGS! Awesome, I finally found someone! It’s showtime once again. They’re due west of the peninsula beyond the Aztecs. I am VERY glad I’ve been spending so long building Roads up into there before even putting down my cities. The distance is just barely crossable safely by Longship at the closest point, so it will be very convenient to launch from that general area.







You’re making us look bad, Abe!




I was in that exact same situation with the Babylonians, but I didn’t have the Great Wall then so they actually declared war. I very definitely don’t want a war to start here until I actually have had time to scout and move in troops.




This will make it hard to move around, but on the plus side it will reveal any cities I go near.




I will never stop!







Well, well, well, there’s Boston. I think I can take it pretty easily with just a few more Crusaders.




Just a bit more wrap-up to do as I finish out the turn. Great luck over here; that will save a lot of time settling this place.




I reorganize all my cities. There are still colonies to be made, so I can’t stop producing Settlers entirely but I do ramp up Crusader production significantly and start planning routes toward Boston.




And it’s time for a few renames of default-named cities.







The two cities soon to be founded here will be No Complaints and Noble Leader as suggested.







Not sure I get this one.













These will work less well as new cities are someday founded in between.







I couldn’t name my first overseas colony Vinland, but this one is geographically nearest at least and thus could have been my first feasibly if I’d sent my Longships east instead of south first.







I’m not even sure how many barbarians this place has fought off anymore, but I’m tired of them!







I think that’s everyone’s ideas used. I’ll need a new batch for next update!




Here’s a view of just some of the areas exploration continues in at the moment, trying to show location relative to cities you know about wherever possible.










And here’s an unreadable map of the whole world:




I left that little nub of land on the right so you can see exactly how much is unexplored. At this point I not only control but have settled about 50% of the globe, but there are still absolutely vast unexplored regions. I was not lucky with the placement of enemy civs this game. I mean, there are now actually 6 left (the Greeks and Babylonians and Aztecs have ALL been replaced), but I somehow have no idea where any of them but one Skraeling city are. Not a one of them has built a single ship to come find me or given any kind of other clue about their location.

It’s going to be a mad dash to try to conquer them all.

The whole second half of this session was an interminable slog with no opposition but random barbarians. I’ve gone from just 20 or so cities last time to 50 this time and I still have dozens more to make in just the territory I control, plus Roads to build (though I did a very good job on that front and connected even most of my most far-flung outposts this time) plus Irrigation plus more islands to find and settle. Just managing every city every turn now takes about half an hour and is extremely boring. But if I get lazy, the whole game will only take longer.

I actually kind of enjoy mass-Settler-management, but it’s starting to get boring even for me at this point with nothing else to do but move Longships around and find nothing.




Well at least I get to decorate my throne room. That’s exciting, right? Beowulf is living the high life these days with actual walls rather than a dank cave.