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To be completely different. Take Strategist and then remove it. Nice things are not allowed here!
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Apr 15, 2020 23:34
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Strategist/Zealous PRAISE. THE. SUN. MOTHERFUCKERS.
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Apr 15, 2020 23:56
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Strategist/Zealous
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Apr 16, 2020 00:46
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Zealous it is then, though Naive had a pretty decent showing.
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Apr 16, 2020 00:57
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Jossar posted:Zealous it is then, though Naive had a pretty decent showing. PRAISE THE SUN 
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Apr 16, 2020 01:34
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Jossar’s Playthrough – Classical 2 More military production, more I say! I’m really not kidding about the game starting to throw these things at us now. I suppose it makes sense what with the late Ancient/Early Classical period corresponding to the formation of the earliest empires and war conducted on a larger scale than ever before.  This one’s useful for channeling troops between cities, particularly Tenduk and Khaidu.  Of course we can’t afford to neglect the rest of our development too. Military buildup is going to be limited to a few cities and I want to keep building things in other cities like Plato’s Academy for science and other infrastructure.  The Great Wall has a conceptually interesting effect but in practice I find that at this point you tend to envelop the barbarians and so you can’t really stop them from entering your empire.   Anyway that’s enough builup, let’s invade Rome. An attack is launched on the outermost city of the Roman Empire, Signia, and it is swiftly captured.  Ancient Machinery mostly brings with it Classical Era Siege Weapons and the logistics infrastructure needed to build and take care of them. I can still technically get away without siege weapons, but as the efforts of later this update show, I might want to start building them to make sieges less ruinous nonetheless.   On to Mighty Rome. So far, so easy right? This starts a bit of a trend though – as the Romans get increasingly more concentrated and bring nastier forces to bear on defense, our own are starting to get worn down from all the constant sieging. So despite dealing a crippling blow to the Roman economy, actually finishing the job becomes much harder.  We’re also making sure to spread Andeanism to all the new cities captured for the sweet, sweet science and state religion bonuses.   After a few turns spent healing up it’s on to Ostia. More cities taken, more wear and tear.  There we go, traits starting to pay off. I get a Great General and doing so triggers a Golden Age.  The culmination of the above listed trend comes at Velitrae, when I take the city but my soldiers are burnt out and can’t proceed any further. I would usually burn such a small city but here I have no choice but to keep it so that all the troops can hunker down while I build a couple of healing focused Medicine Men back in the earlier captured cities and send them to the front to accelerate the healing process. It still takes a while for the troops to get back on their feet relative to before though.   A series of Wonders are constructed to solve some of our problems. If we hope to get more Golden Ages through war, we should try to make them last longer. If our troops are increasingly getting damage from taking cities, give them a chance to heal after combat.  This update has been pretty light on talking about techs but Code of Laws is especially crucial. While some other ones have buildings focused on cutting down crime, Courthouses cut down on Crime and Maintenance at the same time, saving huge amounts of money. There’s also the promotions and other miscellaneous crime fighting buildings as well.   The final assault begins on Circeii after the troops heal up, and with that the Roman Empire is destroyed. Conversion of the last city will begin apace and I’m going to have the troops take Engis before moving them (apart from a moderate sized guard to deal with all the barbarians) to the Berlin front. Khaidu is finally free to get back to infrastructure, with its troop producing burden being taken over by Karakorum. Rome represented the average tech level for the other top civilizations at this time, although it lacked some economy and strategic sense that the full civilizations might have and the Celts will be a higher level by the time we get to them. Otherwise the most difficult part of wars at this point is logistical, not tactical. (Techs not mentioned: Geometry, Calendar, Mail, City Planning, Oratory.) Jossar fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Apr 16, 2020 |
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Apr 16, 2020 13:25
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Lmao did we just take a whole continent?
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Apr 16, 2020 13:35
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A small continent, but yes.
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Apr 16, 2020 13:38
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I think you may need to go up a difficulty level.
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Apr 16, 2020 16:35
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Nah this is just the real Genghis Khan experience
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Apr 16, 2020 17:33
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Unless I switch to the experimental Nightmare AI, the AI is as smart as it'll ever be on Monarch and the bonuses given to the AI would be too little too late. The real turning point was hundreds of turns ago with Darius falling hilariously behind even me, let alone the other AI, despite initially having the tech advantage. Yes, even behind the ones that are currently at 70 score and have been doing nothing of worth since the mid Prehistoric. I'm not sure Emperor or even maybe Immortal difficulty could've saved him since he had awful luck with jaguars/pressed random buttons on the tech tree/whatever. At Deity/Nightmare difficulty the AI's been fed enough bonuses so that maybe even the losers among the AI could've fended me off, but then we go to the possible problem of it flipping the other way and getting crushed to an early AI roll. I don't play Civ IV enough to be confident of winning at that level, even if the C2C AI is slightly dumber. Also, a lot of us are really here to see what wacky things live at the later ends of the tech tree anyway, and rolling the map gets us to that point faster. Even if it means the next bunch of updates are going to involve a lot of map painting. Jossar fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Apr 16, 2020 |
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Apr 16, 2020 17:35
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sincx fucked around with this message at 06:12 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Apr 16, 2020 17:45
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Played through a bit more and... Actually conquering all these cities is, in addition to starting to look like a snuff film/power fantasy, resulting in updates which only cover like 60 turns or so. I think we get the point on what me eating the rest of the planet looks like, but i'm also worried that the alternative is really boring for the next few eras. Not a formal vote but do people want to see the war stuff or just take it on authority/the minimaps that it's going on while I have the updates themselves focus on development?
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Apr 16, 2020 19:10
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You hit their stack their stack dies their stack hits back you don't die and then you capture the city and it's a different colour. Cliff notes for the war, please.
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Apr 16, 2020 19:17
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I think we've seen enough war stuff for this part of the game that it can mostly be skipped.
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Apr 16, 2020 19:26
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Unless there's something profoundly stupid and / or detailed that you feel worthy of making a point about, like terrain elevation impacting an air pressure variable impacting slinger performance.
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Apr 16, 2020 19:50
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Jossar’s Playthrough – Classical 3 The Forbidden Palace is completed in the Southeast Continent. Maintenance is one of the biggest killers at this point so anything that reduces it is a must grab.  I don’t need to care about people’s opinions anymore so out the garbage goes! This requires a little bit of a reworking of the Disease control infrastructure, but the budget’s looking a lot better.  This World Wonder isn’t particularly useful right now, but if I want to switch back to a civic that needs food to build units, it’s nice to not have to worry about losing city growth while that’s happening.  The war against the Neanderthals begins. Catapults really do make this a LOT easier. Cities practically melt away once their defensive bonuses are blown away. The Neanderthals have a lot of mounted units which is interesting, but bad for them because they have practically no bonuses to city defense. These combined mean the war ends quickly.   Disease and Crime Reduction upgrades. The medicine tech comes with the Apothecary Hut, a building which is ridiculously good at reducing Disease (-15, when disease crawls up in single digit increments).  The war against the Neanderthals ends. Well sort of. They apparently got a city off which is now hiding somewhere far away from their main continent. But all their big double digit cities are now working for us. Also i'm guessing it's the Celts that ate Denmark during this time.  On top of the disease control building from before there’s the Hippocratic Oath which gives a MASSIVE -100 Disease. I think it can’t ever go too low though, since disease starts building up again in Little Sarai soon enough.   Troops keep on moving. The war in Siam begins and gives me another Golden Age.  Literature is the next big science tech, here’s where all your Libraries and such are.  Colosseums are pretty good generalist buildings so it’s nice to get this up. I like the bit about it being obsolete with Modern Sports, since presumably people aren’t satisfied unless you get an even bigger venue at that point.    Aristocracy seems like it should be an unimportant tech, but the civic alone is extremely worth it. Bourgeois reduces maintenance costs and increases several things but mostly Commerce/Wealth production. It also allows you to build Grand Villas, buildings which generate enormous amounts of wealth. The numbers keep fluctuating, but the result is a massive boost in gold production.  Oh hey, that’s where the Neanderthals went. Meh, they can have that island for now, I’ve got bigger fish to fry.  The war against Siam ends. Pattaya got pretty badly slammed there. As soon as it was captured, Bangkok’s influence sphere expanded to take its place and began starving the city. I tried to save as much as I could, but there was a lot of damage done in those few turns. (Techs not mentioned: Diplomacy (ha!), Spice Trade, Feline Domestication, Veterinary Medicine, Drug Trade, Hydraulic Mining, Construction, Canal Systems, Falconry, Calligraphy.) Jossar fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Apr 16, 2020 |
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Apr 16, 2020 22:50
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How garbage is handled being one of Civic's is kinda... weird. Other categories seem much more defining.
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Apr 17, 2020 06:02
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We bring the light of the sun city by captured city!
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Apr 17, 2020 08:15
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lol at Bourgeois producing unhappiness from Labor Union
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Apr 17, 2020 15:27
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Jossar’s Playthrough – Classical 4 The Great Library’s been reduced to an okay but not exceptionally great Wonder.  Aesop’s Fables are pretty cool in that they provide a civilization-wide crime fighting bonus. I’m guessing this is because people are moralized into doing less obviously heinous things?  The war against the Celts begins. Might as well get them out of the way before they get any bigger.  The Olympic Games is a nice happiness and trade producing wonder at the cost of tanking the military production of the city it’s located in. Berlin’s nowhere near the frontlines any more and it produced a ton of military during the Neanderthal offensive and needs to catch up, so the loss isn’t too bad.  We’re moving through minor techs leftover from the last age and this one so I don’t have a lot of interesting ones to show off. Drama is at least noticeable because it lets you adjust the culture slider.    If you were expecting a picture here marking my glorious triumph against the Celts, I’m sorry to disappoint. Brennus is the smartest AI I’ve had to face off against so far, and kind of a jerk. Undergarrisoned cities are swiftly recaptured and he keeps trying to settle cities on my home islands in an attempt to force me to divert my troops. He also has a lot of dudes. A LOT of dudes. I eventually retake the eastern part of his continent but it’s very slow work at this point as I have to leave large garrisons in place and destroy his armies before making any significant progress.  Democracy is the next interesting tech, although sadly not very useful for our current circumstances. I tried switching but my economy tanked when I moved from my current set of civics.  Weather Lore is nice for letting ships move around at larger distances. That’ll be useful when I finally get off the Celtic continent. Honestly it’s a pretty meh tech, but given how much I’m skipping I figure I need to throw a bone to the tech tree somewhere.  whyyyyyyyy… Oh hey trait pick. (Techs not mentioned: Insurance, Combat Sports, Folk Dance, Sericulture, Furniture Making, Resurrection, Aesthetics, Musical Notation, Chariotry, Ancient Ballistics, Siege Warfare, Machinery, Magic, Astrology, Cloud Patterns, Polytheism, Karma, Reincarnation, Meritocracy, Philosophy, Geocentrism, Glass Blowing Hey did you know that several techs are mandatory but utterly useless if you’re not playing… Hellenism or Nagualism or whatever? That’s in addition to the “this tech adds one new building” or “6 buildings only useful if you have silk” or “incremental upgrades and heroes to be unlocked when you get other techs” ones.)
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Apr 17, 2020 17:08
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Jossar’s Playthrough - 5th Trait Vote A single Positive trait. The war against Brennus is slow going, but there’s no doubt that we’re winning. So the traits are mostly based on the general situation. As always single facet traits (Food, Culture, Science, Wealth, Hammers) are welcome. But people like fancy options so here you go:  Maintenance costs suck, probably our biggest expense at this point. Organized makes them suck less, which will be useful as we get more cities. Slight penalties to special military stuff, though general production goes up. And the civ bonuses minor but decent.  I’m getting a lot more Golden Ages than before but I’m not popping them literally all the time. Could try for Glorious to fix that problem? I’m personally more of a fan of constant growth, but people swear by this strategy and we’re pretty heavy in already.  Negotiator is like Organized but focused on improving city benefits rather than decreasing penalties. It doesn’t synergize as well with our current build as Organized but also the bonuses don’t vanish if Maintenance ever stops being a problem. Vote continues until the first to get 7 votes or 8 AM EST tomorrow.
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Apr 17, 2020 17:10
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I'm the boring person who picks Scientific, but Glorious sounds appropriately wild. gently caress it, let's give it a go!
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Apr 17, 2020 17:27
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Organized
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Apr 17, 2020 18:02
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What do Warmonger, Aggressive and Imperialist look like?
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Apr 17, 2020 18:09
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   They're not bad per se, but they just don't seem as helpful to me? You only need a few siege weapons to hammer away at a city so having super Siege Production isn't as good as it sounds. Warmonger's bonuses are a little too "war generalist" to be useful, since I generally have high production levels anyway except right at the front, although that's admittedly the best place for them. Aggressive isn't bad, I suppose, but it sucks long term when we own everything. Jossar fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Apr 17, 2020 |
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Apr 17, 2020 18:21
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overmind2000 posted:Organized
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Apr 17, 2020 20:06
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Glorious, as befits the light of the sun.
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Apr 17, 2020 20:24
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What is Revolutionary like?
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Apr 17, 2020 21:36
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 If we kept the capitol in Karakorum this would be amazing, but as it is it's pretty so-so. Doesn't really address most of the big problems except for money, and even then only so much.
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Apr 17, 2020 21:46
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I don't know what Innovative does, but I pick that.
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Apr 17, 2020 21:53
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 The anti-Covetous. Very good but very generalist. But hey we picked Civilized before so why not?
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Apr 17, 2020 22:04
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Organized
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Apr 17, 2020 23:55
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Revolutionary
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Apr 18, 2020 00:20
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Gloriousness!
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Apr 18, 2020 00:59
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Innovative claims to boost espionage but has no actual espionage bonus? Raising commerce can be used to boost espionage yes but the same can be said to boost science and culture so it's kinda dumb to leave those out.
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Apr 18, 2020 11:08
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Making me Glorious
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Apr 18, 2020 11:19
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Poil posted:Innovative claims to boost espionage but has no actual espionage bonus? Raising commerce can be used to boost espionage yes but the same can be said to boost science and culture so it's kinda dumb to leave those out. I think it's a leftover from when the trait did something else or the wires getting crossed with another description. There's lots of little bits like that floating around in the Traits that could've used another pass by an editor. EDIT: Vote closed: "If we die this day, we die in Glory. We die heroes' deaths! But we shall not die, no, it is the enemy who will taste death and defeat!" Jossar fucked around with this message at 13:06 on Apr 18, 2020 |
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Apr 18, 2020 11:29
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Jossar’s Playthrough – Medieval 1 The only other really interesting thing I pick up from the end of last update until now is Paved Roads, allowing for another level of increased efficiency in travel. Then it’s on to…  Forsooth!   Apart with the usual education wrangling and similar stuff that comes with a transition to the next Era, I also pick up Smithing, mostly to turn our Light Swordsmen into Swordsmen.  Vassalage is an interesting tech. I kinda want to blow up the Celts because their AI turns out to be really nasty when given the opportunity but actually conquering each and every civilization is starting to get prohibitively expensive. I’ll look into seeing if I can subordinate the rest.  Glorious paying off already. We can’t Great Person loop infinitely but we’re getting a lot closer to being able to do so, or at the very least generating a ton of them, and now we make better use of Golden Ages than ever.  Better boats. I think Cogs are the first that can actually cross Ocean tiles once you have the requisite techs.   Sanitation is a Classical era tech I skipped over until I could just brute force my way through it. It’s good for building up Health, which some of my cities are starting to have Sickness creep up and near overtaking. It also comes with an improved garbage civic.  I’d say I’d miss the effects from losing the Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro (extra population when settling cities), but we really don’t need to settle cities any time soon. The troops are kind of a waste since we’re running Swordsmen all the time anyway, but if you hadn’t run away with the game by Medieval there’s your troop diversity.  Feudalism is notable for a lot of civics which, as before, we can’t switch to without tanking the economy.   Engineering is a generalist tech allowing for improvements in City Defense units, siege units, caravans and a few wonders. It feels like it should be combined with Architecture, although the wonders from Architecture are much more useful.   Guilds comes with a lot of minor wonders (the eponymous guilds) but is mostly useful for a civic shift away from basic agriculture to something more developed.  I’m just putting this one here to marvel at the champagne industry as a World Wonder.  Speaking of, a lot of wonders are being built but this is probably the most notable among the current batch. If you’re wondering why my numbers all went up, the Celts got a last minute wind and took back a bunch of cities, which I sacked rather than retook because I needed to deliver the finishing blow rather than just keep fighting dozens of Celts for turns on end. Losing those cities actually IMPROVES our economy because a lot of the Celt cities are really badly positioned and their wealth generation is outweighed by their maintenance costs. Their population also gets brought back to the well positioned Celt cities and puts them on par with the lowest level cities elsewhere in the civilization.   The war against the Celts finally ends. The continent got thrown to hell and back with the constant recapturing and I’m not sure if I sacked too many cities in an attempt to try and maintain position/finish the war. I was probably too eager to just take everything and move forward to new cities based on my experiences with the other AI. Brennus took advantage of this multiple times, and I never really found a good solution for that didn't involve wasting a lot of time building up defenses. Of course you could be really dark and say that I didn't sack enough cities because as it is, because a few of the cities here still might not be worth holding onto. But I’d rather not abandon a large part of the place to Barbarians. (Techs not mentioned: Concrete, Mosaic Working, Waterwheels, Surveying, Candle Making, Invention, Theology.) Jossar fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Apr 18, 2020 |
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Apr 18, 2020 18:19
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Is there anyone else coming around to bother us or can we take the time to shore up our defenses/economy/military?
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Apr 18, 2020 20:15
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