Post making contest: easier mode

This is episode #10.

• is Smiffy ever going to take Babylon
  
• I can imagine him bombarding it with planes many, many turns from now and still not managing to capture it due to his inability to throw more than two units at it at a time
  
• oh Trott finished Tradition jolly good the Liberty is a bit questionable but AT LEAST HE HASN'T OPENED EXPLORATION
  
• so Trott and Mark are just going to swap their forward settles that's hilarious
  
• OH MY GOD
  
• MARK THAT WAS PHENOMENAL
  
• so Trott had made a semi-serious peace offering when it looked like all hope was lost and then when it looked like he still had a chance at Dark Magician he just forgot about it BUT MARK DIDN'T
  
• MARK SIGNED THE PEACE TREATY SO BOTH DARK MAGICIAN AND NEKKER STAY IN HIS HANDS OH MY DEAR LORD
  
• (and then Rythian and Sjin quietly made peace)
  
• The other benefit of this is that Mark can devote his whole attention to dealing with Tom...
  
• Smiffy: "How do you tell what is and isn't rough terrain?" ...
  
• Rough: hills, forests, hills with forests, jungles, hills with jungles
  
• Open: plains, grasslands, marsh, desert, tundra, coast and ocean
  
• ALSO LOOKING AT THE TILES HELPS
  
• calling it now Smiffy is going to lose his general
  
• Rythian, talking great general strategy: "you need to keep a unit on top of him and also have him surrounded by a ton of other dudes to protect him and get the bonus" SMIFFY HAS ONE UNIT
  
• (okay there's also a pikeman in the far south but eh)
  
• SMIFFY IS HAVING BARB ISSUES
  
• Tom: "why have been attacking a city state?" Smiffy: "because I wanted their city?" Tom, incredulously: "why didn't you just... build one?"
  
• Sjin actually built an island city. A one tile island city. I mean actually to be fair it has a lot of fish and two atolls and eventually Treasure Fleets will make it good buuuuuuuuuut.
  
• everyone is going to freak the fuck out when Smiffy enters the Industrial Era but it will have taken him 16 turns to research Industrialisation
  
• also he has two cities and is incompetent
  
• wow Mark went a reasonable way into Honour that's actually helpful
  
• Sjin: "does Old Faithful count as a mountain?" this is honestly not as silly as it sounds because in context he's talking about the observatory yields for mountains and some natural wonders are classed as mountains for unmodded observatory bonuses so does the NQMod take this into account? I do not know?
  
• Rythian entered the Industrial Era halfway through the turn Smiffy also entered? Well gee, I wonder what happened there...
  
• Tom: "okay, so you're saying that... roads are good?" LORD HAVE MERCY
  
• "I just thought that roads were really fucking expensive"
  
• ...does Rythian know about the change to the factory route to ideologies?
  
• "Angor has entered the Renaissance Era" ...ah...
  
• Sjin: "oh, I can see how much money Rythian is making by clicking on him" AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH
  
• TROTT HAS THE CITY BOMBARD CURSOR PROBLEM NOW
  
• okay comparison time it took Smiffy 16 turns to research a first-level industrial tech it is currently taking Rythian just 5 turns
  
• Trott's casus belli: Mark renamed Nekker to Kuriboh
  
• yeah that is not going to be a sufficient defence goodbye Dark Magician
  
• Sjin are you going window shopping because if so that is not how you do it. Try an open borders agreement. Not declaring war...
  
• Smiffy says one of his reasons for declaring war on Sydney was to get their horses. They were already giving him their horses when they were his ally. Fucking hell.
  
• Smiffy: "how do I ally with somebody?" ...well you managed to do it before... good luck now because your resting point is utterly shot due to the repeated war declarations...
  
• What was that Sjin used his Oxford for? Navigation? Has Sjin actually been clever? Is this whole Exploration schtick part of a plan to invade Rythian from the sea with the frigates he's just unlocked? Hmmmmmm...
  
• EVERYONE'S DIVULGING THEIR BEAKERS PER TURN OH MY GOODNESS THIS WILL BE FUN
  
• Tom: 85 / Mark: 50 / Trott: 95 / Smiffy: 95
  
• Smiffy: "I'm guessing Sjin and Rythian are above us both" YES BY AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDE
  
• Mark is barbarian-spawningly unhappy. None of Mark, Tom or Trott seem to know how to manage happiness. Somehow they are doing worse than the person who didn't know how much happiness luxuries give...
  
• Rythian: "I will say that it is at least three digits" Sjin: "Is it above one hundred?" UH HUH UH HUH
  
• It's been a whole minute guys come on.
  
• Rythian: 285 / Sjin: 213
  
• I'VE ALREADY SAID RYTHIAN WILL WIN. MANY TIMES. FREQUENTLY.
  
• And Rythian's building the Porcelain Tower, so he's opened Rationalism. Sjin has not done that. In fact, I don't think anyone else has opened Rationalism at all. It's all Liberty and Honour across the board.
  
• WELP
  
• SMIFFY HAS JUST CONFIRMED HE'S QUEUED HIS TECHS UP BY SHIFT-CLICKING SOMETHING FROM THE FUTURE
  
• ...aaaaaand the barbarians have spawned in Egyptian territory, despite the capture of Dark Magician. DOUBLE WELP.
  
• Sjin has cannons. Half the people in the game are completely floored by this revelation.

tl;dr - cc+ Rythian gg a-fucking-gain

End of message.