I'm booting the game up special just to grab some final screenshots because while the game isn't over, it's as good as over. Egypt is basically destroyed, and Scythia is in shambles, Carthage is losing territory, and we're inching towards the conquest mark I set despite having hit the city limit--the limit I chose was set high enough to be something nobody could accidentally trigger in the middle of their fun, but low enough to actually be feasibly possible to achieve, and with me having run through Egypt, we're at that mark pretty much.

We've got a few territories that don't have 100 culture which when they expand will expand my percentage of the world area that final percent. Even if not, it will only take a city or two captured to get there.

The percentage of the world population is a little less controlled or predictable. I'm probably slowing it down by drafting every turn to try and contain the Persian Pillager Problem. But it'll be something that I get to just from my natural cities growth outpacing that of the entire rest of the world, and again, every city I take and build an infirmary within will help skyrocket that further. It's already close, so that will be within the next five turns or so, I reckon.

Two spearmen, both conscripts, in one of Egypt's two remaining cities.

I have the manpower where I could wipe them out, just like I can the Celts. Their continued existence is sheerly by virtue of my mercy.

And while the Scythians are technically better off, it's not by much.

Now, I might not actually have the manpower to brute force a taking of Tanais, but with even a light dusting of save scumming, I easily could.

They've got three tier two spearmen and some Scythian Riders, but that's it. The main reason I'm not attacking Tanais is because I don't want to risk the Persians taking it yet, and I actually find the idea amusing of letting them try. Again--mercy, on my end, to let them continue to live. Because their only other three cities? One has only one tile to its name, with Melitopol better off destroyed and only existing because I don't want it razed yet.

Ereen is surrounded on all eight sides by swamp, and I don't want to bother clearing eight tiles of swamp yet. But Ereen is undefended, like Giza, and could theoretically be captured at any time.

​The Horde Spearman is up in the Scythian's newest city, which is raw forest on all sides, no roads. Not as much a pain as Ereen would be, and more valuable, but at the same time, is much the same. I have the power to take it; I'm not because it's not worth it, honestly speaking.

Ditto for the Celts. I can walk into both of their remaining cities which have no remaining units. I left Burdigala to give those warring with the Celts the false hope they can gain something. Ditto for them sending all of their naval forces towards Ireland to be disappointed they can't reach Caiseal.

And Carthage, despite spamming War Elephants every single turn (how do they have so many galleys and war elephants, I didn't give them that many and I didn't think their production was good enough to pump them out that quickly), is rapidly reaching its ultimate end as well.

I have some Cataphracts in Malaca and Carthago Novo. Easily enough to storm Carmona.

I have an army of Cataphracts in Nora (plus Tarraco). That's enough where I wouldn't even need to save scum to take Madrid, I could brute force it, tank/accept the loss of Cataphracts that die, and still run through the Carthaginian defenses.

​I've got three Legionaries in Cadiz. Given a Galley to transport them, that's easily taking Lagos.

And even if I had none of those?

From my learnings against the Goths, Celts, Scythians, and Egyptians?

I know that with a sufficient level of save scumming, I have a sufficiently large enough pillager horde to overwhelm their defenses despite Tyrian Guards being a 3/6 unit defending against a 4/1 attacker. If my pillagers have 4 - 5 HP against one HP, I only need to hit them once. And let me tell ya as someone who had to save scum when my 4/1 pillagers with one HP kept being killed attacking units with only 1 defense...sometimes it's not the bigger value in attack/defense which wins but rather just which unit has more HP. (Also the reason why Armies are so good at brute forcing their way through, and also why quantity of units matters a lot more than quality in terms of advancing a conquest.)

Carthage continues to exist in the Iberian peninsula because I'm taking my time, not because I can't end them.

Sooooooooo.

I've effectively won. There's nothing that can bypass my defenses. Even the Persian Pillager Problem is gradually being contained. It's the main area of concern, to be sure, but a lot of their cities are surrounded and a lot of my borders are being secured and my forces are building there. I forgot to take screenshots before closing my game, but as it turns out even conscript Praetorian Guards with their 4 HP and 7 defense are pretty good at stopping 4/1 pillagers from escaping.

Yeah, it's the area I'm most vulnerable, sure. But I'm not as concerned as I was before.

So this time for real--there's nothing left to really share. The only thing from here is to officially end the game.

But being honest...that's not the reason why it's a final update.

The reason why it's a final update is because the worst is looking like it's going to happen. I don't want to dare share the details, but know that what I'm sharing isn't the worst, it's just scratching the surface of just how bad things are getting. And I don't see a way out.

Back in January, I made a letter, a final call for help. I posted it literally everywhere I could--in every discord I'm in, in every forum I'm in, in the social media platforms I partake in, on my YouTube channel, on the webcomics I've made, and on every platform I write my blog on. Everywhere I thought it wouldn't be against the terms of service, everywhere I could place it, everywhere I thought I could post it and it wouldn't instantly be taken down/deleted.

I posted it.

And then...silence.

I went largely dark.

Because I was, quietly, trying to fight for my future, for my life.

Every time I've blogged about this let's play, there's been a section, a dark section hinting at bleak undertones. And the reason why?

...Because that final call for help...reached...nobody who could.

All of the issues that I mentioned in that letter are still there...some worse, and some new ones not mentioned.

I have no money in my bank account--and we're two months behind in rent, which is $3400.

I've been trying to have some fun before life falls apart, because I don't see how to stop it from falling apart. If I did, then I would have been fighting harder. I've done little things here and there. And some of them have helped keep us afloat for this long. Stalling, delaying.

But it's been just that. Pushing back and ignoring what can't be pushed back and ignored indefinitely.

There's...still a few things left to potentially try.

But as much as I hate to say it...this...might be it for us.

I don't like sharing this bad news. Heck, I alienated some of my best friends back in January, the communities I was closest in, from asking as I did. I've been doing nothing but burning bridge after bridge after bridge and becoming a worse and worse version of myself in pursuit of trying to survive. In trying to do whatever it takes to live life with my wife, I've done...whatever it took, including losing things I never wanted to lose, and doing things I never wanted to do.

And despite those efforts it's looking like it's still not going to be enough. We need another miracle or two, and we probably used our last one last week.

I prefer to Bree a Breeacon of joy. I prefer to share my nerdy hyperfixations, to ramble about things going on in my life, to share events we've gone to, to talk about things I've done, ideas I've had. Heck, today saw me come up with a million-dollar board game idea!

But I've been closing myself off because...I've run out of energy.

So this is likely the final let's play because...I probably won't be gaming in any future. I've got a few things I can try fighting for, but those will take the time/energy I've spent relaxing playing my for fun recharge game.

I don't want to be bleak, I don't want to have people worry, but the unfortunate reality is...this is my reality.

I made a final call for help and I didn't get help, so I have no...no real ability to ask for help again. Because who's left to help me? Everyone who could, already did and has. And it hasn't been enough. So now what? Can't be anything good. All I can really do is hope for a miracle.

We have one week to pull it off. I get paid this week, and I have to get $1740 paid to my apartment complex before the 18th. My paycheck will get me half-way there, albeit leaving me about $600 - $900 short. Who knows what we can maybe pull off? Only time will tell. And if I end up never blogging again at some point...well, that's what time will have told you. But we're not there yet, despite being close. So here's to hoping we never will be.

I always have said I intend to live forever. I know it's not possible, but at the same time, the sentiment is there. I enjoy life, and I'm a fighter. Let's hope that can carry me through what's to come.

I mean, historically, my blog has been a blog about...literally whatever I felt like talking about. A lot of it sharing a lot about what's going on in my life, a lot about games I was enjoying at the time, a lot reflecting the corners of the internet I was in at the time, a ton about my various ideas for video games, stories, and songs, and a lot about my evolution of personal beliefs.

A lot about my health, a lot about my neurodivergencies, a lot about my journey through life and self-discovery. A lot about my current hyperfixations. You get the idea. But I'm both running out of interest in my current Civ 3 hyperfixation (a third Carthage playthrough might revitalize it, but the double long turns is kinda draining my interest especially given the amount of save scumming), and there's other things I want to talk about.

I want to share a lot more of my beliefs. I know a fair number of those beliefs can be heretical, can be slightly alienating, can be radical, but I want to share them all the same, despite how I know smarter people than me who do more research than I do can likely give better breakdowns of those things.

Namely I have a lot of things that I feel like could help challenge the, so to speak, 'programming' of many of the demographics who typically hold beliefs that are largely detrimental to people like me. I wanna give out, for instance, a 'cure' of sorts for the male loneliness epidemic by giving a breakdown of what these men who have been poisoned by toxic masculine podcasts can do to help reconnect with humanity. I've mentally had a lot of ways to break down the walls there in a calm, gentle way that can help ease them into it, and I wanna follow through on how to basically hand them the instruction manual on how to improve themselves to be the actual best version of themselves.

​I wanna give out breakdowns of Christianity and spirituality and religion, laying out how basically the teachings of Jesus are incompatible with Christianity but at the same time the heart of Christianity through the messages given mean that there is good beliefs within, but they come only after deconstructing an entire religion that was never designed to be a religion in the first place.

And I wanna also tackle the mindset of those who think they follow logic and science but have poor choices in sources that lead them to believing conspiracy theorists and worldviews. The people who have this genuine belief they are in the right, that they know the way the world works, but have these glaring blindspots in their sources and their information and lead to some warping of facts to fit the worldview rather than adjusting world view for the ever-evolving information.

​I know nothing I do will be the best, and I know I have no platform and no reach. I love being a content creator even if I've stopped really making content (although I still plan on making music and songs regardless).

But at the same time, these are ideas I've had to talk about for the better part of three years at least, I just thought I'd never be able to do them, I'd never do the research for them (to be fair, I probably won't, this will be a lot of talking out of my ass), I' never have the energy to, I'd never have the words to, etc. I made reason after reason for not pursuing talking about it, despite how in private I would freely share these ideas over discord and thoughts and lay out these trivia and beliefs and so on and so forth.

And I also wanna include my spiritual beliefs, and my view on healing, on communities, on helping people and oneself, on growth, on all of the things.

But for the time being.

You get one more blog about Civ 3, and my playthrough of a modded Rise of Rome scenario. I'm once again playing as I'm blogging, but the tl;dr of it is, I've found out that with enough pillagers to bombard the 3/5 defenders down to one hp and then another pillager to kill them, that I actually was able of capturing a whole lot more than I realized. I'm pretty sure I've mostly done what I can for Egypt this turn, but suffice to say even if they do produce pillagers they're not gonna be able to snowball it into retaking much territory at this point. They've got only seven cities left in Africa, Heliopolis will fall next turn, Kahun and El-Amunra will fall next turn, and while not certain, Pi-Ramses and Heirancopolis are both vulnerable and potentially enough to be taken.

Bubastis and Alexandria, the two I really want, are gonna be harder to take, with Bubastis taking at least two to get my troops there and Alexandria requiring a proper siege unless Egypt actually sends their forces out to try and retake cities (which is likely to fail, barring pillager snowballing).

Scythia is where I'm mostly finishing up this turn right now. Sadly, Asiopolis (iron) and Saka (horses) are two cities I lack the resources to take, and are connected to two to four other cities I can't take this turn. It's the last bastion of Scythian strength, so they might launch a counter-offensive, but at the same time, they can only field swordsmen (3/2/1) units that have 5 movement and their cavalry with 10 movement and they can only produce a maximum of 5 and they only have 10 horseman units right now, so I'm not too worried about a counter-offensive. I've got like five cities which might be vulnerable, but those cities are not going to give them momentum.

The main problem I'm going to be facing is actually going to be from one of the two civilizations I'm not at war with.

...Yeahhhhh. That's...a lot of pillagers being produced. I've basically swapped all of my cities in the area to pillager/Praetorian Guard production, because my only real recourse is to surround all their cities, then create a wall around my borders. Normally I make the wall first, but I don't have the time to build it up, it takes eight units to surround a city but it takes 12 to surround boarders.

I could be mentally mathing that wrong, but yeah. Persia is on basically pure Pillager production. I need to try and contain the pillager production, which will have the side-effect of limiting Persia's angle of attack for the Macedonians to be purely by sea. (By the way, I buffed the Macedonians' supply of naval power because Persia is overwhelming the Macedonians with their fleet which should be the other way around.)

Now, there's probably a lot more I can say, but I have two options at the moment. Option one is to leave this blog to be completed later, option two is to post it as-is and if I wanna make more go make it later. If you're seeing it as-is, I chose the latter, which makes sense, because I badly hurt myself when taking our puppy out. Again.

I don't think I blogged about how I badly fell and SLAMMED my back, slightly on the right side, back in December.

This time I slipped and got dragged down concrete stairs, and have scraped myself very very very badly in three different areas.

I already needed to run errands, but now said errands involve getting medical supplies because while we have medical alcohol and while we have band-aids...these are some GNARLY wounds. Like, we're talking, my left thigh is scraped badly enough to have instantly swollen up and it's covering nearly the entirety of the thigh (bad enough I would never take a photo to share how disgusting it is), my right heel has a deep cut, and my right hip also has a deep cut. The right side wounds are deeper but cover less surface area, the left side is something no bandaid can cover because we're talking a scrape about the side of two hands at least. Soyeah. Gonna need to get treatment. Not hospital-visit-worthy, but I'm badly banged up rn.

​Gotta go.

What a difference a turn makes. By giving up on crushing Scythia in a single turn, I've ended up with something I always consider my favorite part of every playthrough:
Crushing Egypt.

Now, I'm disappointed in the sudden lack of manpower against Carthage (although I was close to driving them out of Africa anyway), and also how the Persians have lost their only real competition with the war against them effectively over, but at the same time, I'll take any excuse to war against Egypt, because the civilization controlling Pelusium is able to, through land instead of sea, connect the entirety of the map for their units.

​Byzantium gives a similar point, but can technically be bypassed by traversing around the Black Sea (which for some reason, NPC-Persia is quite fond of doing rather than just directly attacking Byzantium or using galleys in the black sea).

Scythia signed a mutual protection pact and trade embargo with Egypt against me, and it auto-triggered at the end of my transitionary turn thanks to me already having units in Scythian territory. (A bit weird, since I thought it'd require actual aggression, but oh well.)

​Not the type of war normally declared against me, but hey, I'll take it. I'm never signing a peace treaty with Scythia and the only way Egypt has out of this is for that to happen, so now I'm gonna wipe them out. Gradually. I'm playing as I'm writing this blog, but currently losing some RNG battles despite an advantage in both HP and attack. (I have Legionary IIIs with +3 HP and 7 attack losing to 5 defense 3 HP Numidian Mercenaries.)

So by the time I actually post this blog, a lot of the info I'll have to share on the Egyptian front will likely have changed. I'm actively in the process of taking Pelusium (which will eat up the majority of my available manpower and might be a struggle to hold when Egypt inevitably mounts a counter-attack), and there's just enough Legionaries available for me to take Asyut as well. Which won't rob the Egyptians of Ivory (they actually have 3 sources), but it'll link one of my cities cut off and will help to cut their cities off.

Now, as is the case for all of these wars so far...my cities are inadequately prepared for the war. I don't have the manpower in galleys for cities that have plenty of units, I don't have Legionaries in the cities with galleys to send them off for aquatic assaults, I'm very much lacking in Cataphracts to launch attacks against their Numidian Mercenaries, and I don't have an adequate supply of pillagers to really overwhelm their defenses.

And Egypt is no push-over. They've got numerous sources of horses I can't decapitate their usage from, multiple sources of ivory, and at least one source of gold. The saving grace is that, unless they're importing Iron from the Greeks, they have none, which means no more War Chariots, what they have is what they have and they can't get more. The problem is in how many they have, and how they're about to be a horde with their pillager production.

Basically every city of theirs is going to produce a pillager, unless it works differently for NPC cities compared to the human player. The human player can produce a unit in a city if the city loses access to the resources. So if the Egyptian cities are the same...that's a lot of pillagers. Now, in theory, as far as I can tell, they only have one source of gold, and no source of silver. (I don't know how they are producing the pillagers tbh, this iteration of pillagers requires gold, silver, and ivory. I've tweaked it for my next playthrough but as-is they shouldn't be able to make them so I don't know how they are.)

So I'll be cutting them off.

​But if the production goes through...that's a lot of ouch times.

Now, the upside to this is, outside of those pillagers being produced...Egypt has very limited ability to counter-attack, outside of their limited supply of War Chariots. What my cities DO have plenty of, nearly universally, is lots and lots of Praetorian Guards. Egypt has a lot of War Chariots, and Alexandria poses a serious threat of retaking Pelusium thanks to them, but otherwise their War Chariots are fairly scattered, outside of one area of concern where they have a lot and I don't yet have the defenses to defend confidently. I'm pretty sure List and Abydos can weather an attack, but they might genuinely suffer losses there and be left vulnerable, especially if the pillagers are produced and gain momentum.

When I took those screenshots, I was losing the RNG battle to Egypt's only Galley, which has since been destroyed, and I've also already taken Pelusium with my current assault being on Asyut. (Which I'm currently one unit away from capturing, but I just lost the RNG war despite a 2:1 advantage against their final Heavy Cavalry.)

But here's a fairly good breakdown of their army.

Not shown is the two pillagers they already have, one in Alexandria and the second I don't remember the location of. (The Pelusium pillager was the final defender I destroyed when taking it.)

​Egypt is in a very similar situation to Scythia; literally all of their cities have at least one Numidian Mercenary, with most having multiple. And while they have some cities in key areas heavily defended, the vast majority of their cities are actually rather vulnerable, all things considered.

If not for the unfortunate fact the two cities I needed Galleys in this turn don't have galleys yet, I could have captured Hierancopolis, Avaris, and threatened either Pi-Ramses or Heliopolis (alas, sadly not both). Alas, they'll be given a turn to bolster their forces, but I'll pull off the invasion of Egypt next turn. I'll probably leave them with Giza, because it's their most pathetic least-valuable city and is easily invaded by Persia, so that if I do end up making peace with them, they can be kept technically alive or wiped out by Persia.

But this will take a few turns. Alexandria is heavily defended, I've gotta get all of their African cities, and while I can move to annihilate them within a few turns, I can't decapitate their forces fully this turn or next. But I am currently wiping out their excess war chariots and hopefully can leapfrog the pillagers responsible into being a veritable menace this turn and leave Egypt with less resources even if they produce their pillager army.

This is what I had to show off before I took Pelusium for their two main cities beyond Pelusium and Alexandria though to give you an idea of where their forces are focused.

So these screenshots were taken at the beginning of the turn pretty much, and since then, the war chariots near Memphis and that advanced infantry near Khmun are both already wiped out. Pelusium and Asyut have been captured in the process of writing this blog, and the war chariot army I wrote about earlier is being dealt with by a pillager who I need to spawn another pillager or two in order to complete the eradication.

I can kill their single warrior and a couple of war chariots, the remnants of their Carthaginian spearhead, and then near Avaris a few more. An advanced infantry, one heavy cavalry, and a couple war chariots are all easily dispatched this turn, which will reduce their numbers significantly. Life allowing, I'll probably make a follow-through end-of-turn report on the amount of devastation I was able to inflict on the Egyptian army.

Granted, this is only half of the turn.

​All of this work in Egypt?

Mostly just a distraction from the grind of obliterating Scythia. Ulsky has been captured, Massagetai I'm deliberately waiting until Persia's army has softened their defenses so I can sweep in and steal it next turn with my forces fresh and Persia's weakened, Scythia is down to about 14 Scythian Riders, and a few cities might be capturable albeit with a grind involved. I've already done my round of Carthage conflict for the turn, but I do need to do a lot of work to deal with Persia.

Still, Egypt has become my main focus for now. I want to capture Alexandria and Bubastis because those two cities are two of the largest in the game, but to get there will take time.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. Hopefully, fingers crossed, life allows me to give a follow-through, but if not, then just know, I hope you have enjoyed and thank you for going on this journey with me and indulging my hyperfixation of modded Civilization III. As a reminder, my life might be on the verge of falling apart and things could go to the worst timeline at any moment pretty much, so nothing is certain. But regardless of what the future holds, I still did this and if you're reading this then I hope it brings you some amount of pleasure, because it happened and gave joy. <3

Now, part of that is because all I have left to do is to grind out the bits remaining. Once I've save-scummed my way to defeating the RNG gods (so far, I've been reloading bad luck I ought to have won, but I'm about to enter into the zone of luck I have no right winning so any time I do is actually good luck), then there won't really be much left to report on. I might give a final after screen and show off Persia and the Egyptian pillager to show the next challenges, but the main challenge of effectively taking out all of the barbarian civilizations who betrayed me will be completed.

And the other part of it is because life is going to get busy regardless of whether it's in a bad way, a good way, or as is usually the case a mixture of both. I'm in this weird zone where I actually have a lot of hope of things improving, of being able to negotiate for the things I am most concerned about, of working things out, of getting the small bits of help, and of life improving. I completed a training that increases my value in my field of employment by a considerable amount. I've applied for four positions that are higher up in the chain of command, positions that are considerably rare to land but which I feel I actually for the first time in my life have a reasonable chance of landing them.

My current boss actually recommended I apply. Promising sign. I got an email from HR which mirrored the email I first got when I first applied for my current job. Promising sign number two. I have updated my resume, gotten a stronger cover letter, and improved my voice in my workplace, and I have a lot of people who have seen this change in me where I am performing exceptionally.

Plus on a sidenote, my bosses have actually had to work the current shift they assign me to work regularly in the last two weeks, and their struggle to actually work the shift they expect me to do every day? Presumably gives them a lot of perspective on just what I have been capable of in terms of what I accomplish. In short, I feel like they've, through actually experiencing what I go through, gained an amount of appreciation and respect for my workload previously not found. Which I feel will translate into them realizing I've been doing a lot more than they realized, been keeping things running in ways they didn't know, and that I am more valuable than they were giving me credit for, all of which translates into...presumably, advocating for me.

My medical health has improved significantly since getting physical therapy, and while it doesn't solve all of my health issues, it's making me less in pain and less sore in my back, neck, shoulders, and right side, so I'm slowly healing and improving.

Regardless of whether we end up moving or not, I feel like I've got a good chance of getting things to work, and I feel if we did end up moving, we have the resources available to make it work.

All of that is where I have the hope of things continuing to improve.

But at the same time, I'm also in a zone where I also have lost hope of things going well, and am just waiting for a death blow to be dealt to my life, to my dreams, to my chance of getting going. It could be anything. Something happening to my car which can't be covered, something happening to my income, being unable to get severely out of debt, being evicted from our new place because of an inability to pay on a reasonable timeframe, losing health insurance...again...being unable to go to the food bank...again...not getting access to food stamps...the list goes on and on.

In order for life to improve it takes nothing going wrong and at least one or two things to go right and continue to go right;

In order for life to collapse and go beyond shambles into actually being ended, it takes only a single thing going wrong with no ability to find a way out, to pivot, to fight, to recover. There's been so many close calls. Every month since December or so has had at least one if not multiple and we're probably a day or two away from another. I'm not sure what will happen but it can't be good things.

Soyeah. If things go well I'll be really busy. Either with a new job or with efforts to move, hopefully.
And if things go poorly...I'll...be...unavailable, to say the least.

And if it's a mixture of both, doubly so.

But in the unlikely event even all of those don't remove my free time, I'm not sure what's left to show. After Scythia falls, and after I clean up in the Iberian peninsula, there won't be much left to share and victory will be around the corner, likely only requiring one final war to wage against whoever first pulls the trigger on peace with Carthage. Then it's on to the next, playing as Carthage, to see if they're as viable to play as and have the playstyle I'm aiming for. (This'll be the first time on either version of this mod I'll be playing as Carthage since I've only gotten far enough to play as Persia and Rome on either version of the mod.)

​With all of that said, here's the current Scythian city army distribution.

Now, this doesn't give the full picture of the units, but you can at least get at least some idea of where their unit strongholds are. Ereen and Melitopol are going to be their last bastions, Ereen because I don't want the swamp until I can clear it (so I need to pre-load a bunch of units there to have available for that), and Melitopol because it's possibly where I limit the Scythians to, one of three cities I'm considering with Ereen as one of the other two. (Iazygia is the third.)

Now to give you an idea of what those icons are, lemme show you (the majority of) their unit breakdown.

The Scythians don't have their tier three horseman units yet, limited to their Scythian Riders. The three Scythian Scouts you see there are all in Ulksy, because Ulksy produces a Scythian Scout and Scythian Spearman every turn (which is also why Ulsky has like ten Horde Walls in it, because the Scythians gained access to the resources to upgrade said spearmen produced every turn).

Not all of their Scythian Riders are in cities, but they've still got an uncomfortably large amount. I'll be trimming the amount they have by reducing Melitopol and Ereen, but that'll still leave 30ish around their cities, all hiding behind Horde Walls and Numidian Mercenaries.

Not shown; they have a lot of Horde Warriors (the tier 1 swordsmen) and a few normal Warriors, as well as like 20 regular spearmen, too. All of those are annoyances, but not really concerns. The concerns are their warlords which are their 5/3 tier two swordsmen that treat all terrain as roads (meaning 5 movement for each of them). The horde raiders are their all-terrain-as-roads swordsmen, 3/2, but they're not much of a concern.

The advanced infantry, generic 5/3 units, aren't a threat because they can only kill units inside of Scythian territory or on the edge of my boarders, not able to penetrate deep.

The area of greatest concern is actually the Horde Walls being used offensively. They're 3/5, with the same treat-all-terrain-as-roads buff of the other Scythian units, and while Scythia can't make anymore as long as I hold onto the territories on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, they also have a large amount. Now, I'm relatively confident the Scythians are always going to keep at least one in each of their cities with one. That keeps 27 of them out of concern. And despite the save scumming required, I intend to breach Ulsky this turn or get it in breach range for next turn, taking an additional 10 of them out of concern. (Make no mistake, that's gonna be the majority of save scumming because it will require my pillagers who have only 4 attack not only winning against the horde wall but producing enough pillagers to keep the assault going. It's the area I'm most likely to be forced to give up in.) But that's only about 37/57 horde walls guaranteed to be locked down. The rest are at risk of being used offensively, and might kill units and are gonna be pains to take down.

And that brings me to my next show--of how all the easy work has been done pretty much, leaving only the hard parts left.

Every. single. city. is protected by a minimum of one Horde Wall (with the points of greatest pain being 2 - 3), with a couple having a Warlord as well. (Warlords, despite technically having one less defense than my pillager army, are still a pain and often take me 3 - 6 times to kill.) My pillagers have 4 attack and can sometimes retreat at 1 HP without killing the target, and in order to take these cities I need to not only kill the horde walls but also enslave at least once to create a pillager capable of mopping up the leftovers underneath of the horde walls. And the Scythian cities also have catapults making the attacking pillagers often start with 1 less HP, against an opponent they already have the disadvantage against.

Like I said. This is the section of the game that is going to take the longest and require the most save scumming. Gaimonov is more lightly defended and I have two pillagers there whereas I only have one pillager at the other cities, but none of them are going to be easy to take. All of them are going to take RNJesus rolls for me to actually have a chance of taking, so my hope is to get really lucky, and/or do enough damage that even if I get burned out/frustrated and give up, I cripple them enough to prevent any counter-offensive.

Sarsae is going to be difficult. Phasis might be impossible. I can't reach Oblia this turn with any of my units so Oblia is gonna stay under Scythian control for one more turn regardless, which really sucks because Oblia is one of their sources of horses. Shibe will also be very hard to take. And it doesn't get any easier on the northeastern front.

Here I'm running into the issue of just not having the manpower to advance, and unless I can capture Great Bulgar this turn (which will require snowballing one pillager into three against multiple Horde Walls and a Warlord), my cities in the corner are cut off from all resources except horses, meaning they can't actually produce my advanced units. No Praetorian Guards, Legionaries, Cataphracts, or Pillagers. (I forgot to swap them over before the declaration of war, whoops!)

​Now, Ulliastay has one Pillager, which can be used to easily attack Paratae or potentially the other border cities here.

And Kelermes has one pillager that can be used to kill the horde raider and Scythian Rider near Asiopolis and potentially attack it and/or Chersonesus, and as you can see, I do have a pillager poised to assault Saka and assuming said pillager can kill the Horde wall I can probably capture Saka, too. But at the same time, I don't have the manpower to actually plow through these cities. I can devastate them enough where they won't be able to effectively mount a counterattack, or so I hope, but I can't actually stop them.

​I do need to capture Asiopolis though. If I capture Asiopolis, that means the Scythians lose access to iron, which cuts them off from producing Kheshiks (the name I opted for their tier three horsemen), swordsmen, and horde raiders. (They already lack the means to produce warlords since those require gold and silver in addition to iron, but losing iron also guarantees no more warlords, too.)

I can probably reinforce my weakly-defended cities and I can probably prevent them from reclaiming dangerous territory, but while I might be able to capture Kimmeria with sufficient save scumming, you can see how vulnerable a lot of my defenses are, here. The best defense I can think of is convincing the Scythians they don't have the manpower to mount an offensive and providing shinies to distract them from higher-profile targets. I'll temporarily lose a few workers if the tradeoff is not losing any cities.

Which brings me to the area of greatest annoyance.

Tanais has three horde walls plus a fourth 3/5 in the form of a numidian mercenary, aided by a catapult, and I don't have any units with 5+ attack in the area. All my legionaries and cataphracts got deployed to cut Scythia's ivory supply off on the other side of the Caspian Sea. So I don't really have the manpower except by brute forcing to potentially get through, and my terrain is not properly defended. My hope is that the Persians focus on Tanais and the Scythians focus on the Persians, but without that it's going to be very, very rough.

And then you can also see Ulsky. I've got two or three Cataphracts there, but I've also only got about three pillagers available--meaning in order to breach into Ulsky, said three pillagers need to multiply into one or two each for a total of six to nine that each have enough HP to attack twice.

That's...ah...not very likely to happen, so I might be forced to give up on my aspirations of capturing Ulsky this turn. I do have enough Legionaries in the area to easily capture it next turn tho, so here's to hoping. (Also you can see one of Persia's Immortals II armies in Khazar, courtesy of the Scythian-Persian conflict prior to the Scythians declaring war against me.)

Now, it should be noted; a lot of the poorly-defended areas can have their defenses bolstered, I haven't put in the time to move all of my units to where they need to be and set up my logistics to protect my units and cities appropriately.

But at the same time, you can see why I tend to not like warring with the Scythians. I have the first strike, with a unit capable of theoretically snowballing and creating momentum, but they have such a strong defense, such a strong attack, an overwhelming horde of units, and they're rich enough in resources to use them. And their units can all pierce deep into enemy territory, my territory, to attack at will. (There's a reason that the first barbarian civilization I'm going to play as is the Scythians, because I think in my hands I could genuinely take over the world using them, the easiest of the barbarian civilizations to do so.)

It'll take a LOT of work to neuter them effectively, and I'm 2 - 4 turns from wiping them out. We've got a lot of save scumming to do, and then the pain of after. But once they're gone, I'm pretty much left just dealing with Persia, who I'm hoping will be my next foe. Both because it guarantees my conquest victory, I don't want them to expand further, they're the greatest threat, and they stole a wonder from me so I want to steal all of their cities. But obviously that will also be the hardest foe to fight, so not looking forward to it.

The challenges of being a conqueror, I suppose.

Anyway, that's it. Gotta go to bed and tackle the challenges of being an impoverished married disabled neurodivergent queer witch trying to start a lesbian family in a capitalistic society designed to prevent people like that from ever succeeding.

I don't wanna pretend that life is in any way okay, because things are quite bad and likely to get worse. Any blog could be my last at this point because I'm not sure I'm going to be able to keep blogging if things get worse. But at the same time--if things do get worse, I want to have what amounts to a last hurrah of having a good time.

So if any update could be my last, I want to leave a lil bit of fun to remind folks that I did a lot of really nifty things and was genuinely enjoying life. So without further ado, let's return to my second playthrough of the broken-modded-to-all-hell Rise of Rome scenario in Civ 3. The laptop busted overexaggerated over the top version, where I'm playing as Rome.

When last I checked in, it was 250 BC, one of the longest turns ever.

Since then, we've advanced to 205 BC, which...might prove to be the longest turn ever.

The Goths are gone--the Scythians wiped them out, after I captured most of their cities and destroyed their army leaving it easy for the Scythians to mop up the leftovers.

The Celts have been reduced to two cities, completely surrounded by my units, with me having killed all of their military units, leaving them effectively dead. Burdigala is their one mainland city and they have one single-tile city in Ireland, too.

Carthage, as of this turn, has lost the majority of their African territory, with me taking Tingis and Mersa Madakh, although there's 2.5 cities I want and one city I don't care for left to capture yet. The Iberian front is slower, as while I did get Cadiz, they still effectively have the entirety of Portugal and Spain. They've mostly ran out of steam, and my defenses are almost impenetrable for when they do mount an offensive, but I've not advanced much. I've sent an Army (as in, four-units combined into one) of Cataphracts (my name for the Roman equivalent to Heavy Cavalry) to take their city of Asido, their furthest northeast city, but it'll take time to actually capture. Meanwhile the Greeks and Persians are probably also gonna attack Carthage's remaining territory, so that's not a big concern of mine.

The Egyptians were convinced to declare war against the Persians, and then they roped the Scythians into it as well, leaving Scythia at war with Carthage, the Celts, and Persia, which they still are. I was content to let Persia fight the Scythians and Egyptians as a mostly neutral observer, with my pillagers picking random workers up as they could, but I knew I needed to do two things:

Strengthen my defense against the civilizations who would eventually deploy pillagers,
And to strengthen my defense against Scythia because the Goths and Celts declared war, the Scythians would sure to soon follow.

Much to my disappointment, I've been too slow on both sides. Egypt has their first Pillager (I probably need to up their cost again), and Persia produced five, in Antioch, Jordan, Babylon, Ctesiphon, and Persepolis. I don't have the means to shut their pillagers down yet, so that's gonna be a point of pain.

And Scythia...is war-ready with me. I got them to remove their forces from my territory at the beginning of my turn, but when I ended my turn and they told me to remove my forces (this was also how I discovered pillagers were on the loose), I told them to do the same and they declared war, so I closed and reloaded my end of turn save, and here we are, in 205 BC...with me deciding to ask them before ending the turn (despite having done so at the beginning of the turn), and sure enough...they declared war on me.

Now, I hate warring against the Scythians because they're arguably the most OP. They produce a large horde of units that can treat all terrain including enemy terrain as if friendly roads, meaning their units go 5 moves for foot units and 10 moves for their horse units. Scythia also has a lot of tier two spearmen, meaning that they're well-defended and have good offense, making them a terrifying opponent to face and the question usually isn't if I lose stuff, but rather how much I lose.

I think I'll maybe lose a few units, particularly captured workers, but mostly...I think if I play everything out, I'll be fine and Scythia, while not destroyed, will be crippled. But it's gonna be a slog. I've made a lot of progress already, even since taking screenshots, but there's a whole bunch I'll need to do or want to do.

So this is a city I might be able to capture, because I do have a pillager there already and more nearby. The question isn't if I can but whether I should, due to the amount of swampy terrain. Maybe I'll put a Praetorian Guard, Legionary, and Cataphract in each spot, then take the city, then clear the jungle in one single turn. Still gonna be a pain to get through that amount tho.

And this is one of the easiest spots.

Pazyryk here is gonna be a pain because their Horde Walls are...well, a wall. And they've got an army there. I may or may not be able to capture it this turn. I'm working on clearing out the units in Belgorod below.

Belgorod will be relatively easy to get, because there's only the two high-defense units, but it's still gonna be a slugfest to get there and also clear out the units slightly to the west (my current angle of attack).

Slightly to the east we have the city which was the Goth's last city, and that's why I already have so many units deployed in the area. It's gonna be painful to get through five high-defense units, but I'll be able to pull that off and then get through them all after that.

I already took Solokha, so the other main area of focus here to neuter is a nearly-invisible territory not a threat in terms of size, but menacing in terms of size of units.

Six horde walls, and an army of units, in a size-two city with one single tile. Because every time I told them to remove their units from my territory, they got sent to Melitopol. Not gonna be fun dealing with that, but even if I end up unable to kill them all, I'm cautiously optimistic I'll be able to contain them.

The majority of Scythian cities are actually pretty lightly defended, so I'm not too worried about most.

Parnii is the heaviest-defended city with the most units in it, but all the others in the area including Shibe are actually barely defended at all. I don't need to capture them, I just need to cripple them and defend my own.

Again, Great Bulgar is the heaviest city for its area, with the rest all pretty much not defended at all. They've got a single Horde Wall, and then maybe another defensive unit, and then that's it. Barely a Scythian Rider to be found, and basically nothing.

You can see here on the eastern side of the Caspian Sea that they have a single Rider to their name and then nothing else. I've run out of momentum this turn, but they can't go on the offensive, so it'll be me crushing them within the next few turns.

Not shown: Tanais, down south of Khazar, which also has a veritable army of units of all kinds and which I definitely can't capture this turn.

This is the area of greatest grind. Massagetai is relatively capturable, the problem is that I have a higher-priority target in Ulsky. Which is capturable, but to get it...will require a huge grind.

Jinjan was just captured by the Scythians, because much to surprise, they were actually winning the war against Persia. Persia has an Army unit in Khazar, and a lot of units in the area, but Scythia burned one Persian city and captured Jinjan. I wanted to watch Persia and Scythia fight further, to see if Persia could mount a counter-offensive and potentially take Ulsky, but alas. Scythia declared war against me before I could get the chance. So I've got this entire area to clear out.

And like...by the end of it all, I'll do to Scythia what I did to both the Goths and the Celts, and probably have enough territory to be at or near a Conquest victory, allowing me to finally play a third time as Carthage with the fixes and tweaks I've made from playing this round. But getting there is a grind.

So 250 BC has proven to be the longest turn I've ever played in any game (okay so I've had a couple of other long turns but this one is pretty darn long), but it's finally reached the end, so I'm gonna show the main points of conflict I have on the map. (Zoomed out, so I might need to describe for people to see and understand.) Let's start with the Iberian front.

So a couple turns ago or so I captured Malaca, and Carthage has been harassing me ever since, sending War Elephants into the spaces you can now see Praetorian Guards occupying. (Praetorian Guards are what I named the second-tier Spearman, Rome's equivalent to the generic Numidian Mercenary, the upgrade to Garrisons which are the first-tier Spearman equivalent native to the scenario.)

I like to take my time in my conquests, so despite having the manpower to advance, I'm waiting until the road to directly invade Cadiz is repaired so the Legionary IIIs can attack instantly. From there it'll be Carmona and then Corduba.

You can also see further north Carthage started with about six War Elephants near Nora, and I drove them mostly out. This back-and-forth has been going on for multiple turns now, and will likely go until Carthage is either unable to spam War Elephants or I have enough momentum from my units to brute force their removal from the peninsula. 

​There is a bit of an annoyance though.

So up until a couple turns ago, the Celts were allies against Carthage. They betrayed me by signing a peace treaty, but I make it mandatory most of the time that if you're gonna have a war against my enemy, your Right of Passage is tied to that war; betray me by ending the war and signing a peace treaty? You lose the Right of Passage, so those Celtic units have been stuck there, unable to get hime, because I'm not letting them through.

And you may recall, the Celts declared war against me this turn, so I've got them as a potential nuisance in the area.

I'm not too worried about this though, because I have a, relatively expensive, secret weapon.

Now, the Scythians also betrayed me in my war against Carthage. They abandoned me in my moment of need. They were supposed to use this veritable horde to wipe out the war elephants who have been harassing me in the northern parts of Iberia. But when I most needed their cannon fodder, they signed a peace treaty with Carthage and lost their right of passage, and got on my "I'm going to end you" list.

At this point only Macedon and Persia have kept their word, but that's likely because they both have forces in galleys headed to invade Carthage combined with them needing the right of passage to war against each other. (I'm not screenshotting their battle, but you can see the red there means they're not accessing each other without my say, by and large.)

But I'm pragmatic--whereas the Celts and Goths declared war against me, the Scythians didn't, and because I needed their manpower in a couple of spots, I was willing to bribe both them and Persia. (Which you'll see why later for why Persia.)

So I'm not too worried about the Celtic nuisance there, because the Scythians should have them sufficiently distracted and the Celts don't have any of their T2 spearmen or T3 swordsmen there, making them easily dealt with.

​So let's talk about the other Carthage front.

So that mid-health Praetorian Guard you see near Theveste? Just killed Hannibal. As in, the army the Carthaginians start with was near Saldae, poised to invade, but was at mid-HP. I sacced a Praetorian Guard to get the army low and then sent a second to finish it off. The one north of that was also dispatching a War Elephant. Timbuktu is currently undefended, but I'm not too concerned about it since Carthage can't take it this turn and even if that War Elephant kills my Praetorian Guard, I've got a replacement next turn. Ditto for the Sulcis area. Could I send a praetorian guard to kill that war elephant? Sure! But I don't feel a need to.

As for Carthage itself (renamed from Carthago because I was feeling petty and wanted to spite the Carthaginians), they've been sending 3 - 6 War Elephants per turn to try and retake their capital. I'm slowly building up my forces there to where I'll be able to take Utica and Tunis (artistic liberties were taken, I wanted cities in those locations), but this is going to take some time. You can also spot the Persian and Macedonian galleys bound towards the pillars of hercules I imagine since if they're not carrying armies to try and take Carthaginian territory they're probably trying to explore the sea.

Carthage isn't my main priority though. That'd be wiping the Goths out, or putting them as close to as is possible without pulling the trigger. (Ideally, either the Scythians or Persians take their final city for me.)

So the goths basically controlled nearly the entirety of the northern corner of the map at the beginning of this turn. I don't have a screenshot of what they had at the beginning of the turn, but every city without an obvious Roman name aside from Ubii? All of those were controlled by the Goths. If I had taken a screenshot over to the left, it'd be more obvious, but while the Goths might retake some of their workers and kill a lot of the low-HP pillagers, I've still got enough to be poised to wipe them out next turn, which will reduce their presence down to one spot.

So this is the area of greatest concern to me. The goths shouldn't have any 2-movement units left, except in that tile between Melitopol and Kriyvyy Rih (which are all 1-HP). The main concern is they do have a lot of swordsman-tier second-level teutonic warriors, a lot of swordsmen, and a lot of teutonic warriors. This was also a lot of why I asked the Scythians for help, and also bribed the Persians. The Celts and Goths both have a presence where the Persians and Scythians are, so by having their help, I should have a lot of assistance in handling their hordes. which will protect my cities. I'm actually thinking of not trying to take the two Gothic cities, despite how well Kuczkowo is positioned, because I don't really have the manpower in the area, all of my units are Praetorian Guards and I don't really have the ability to make many more offensive units. (Although spotting it now, I can swap Sevastopol and Kul Oba and such to units, so good thing I haven't hit 'end turn' yet.)

You can also spot a Celtic horde near Bampur and Kriyvyy Rih. It's all defensive units, but it's a lot of them, plus a bunch of settlers and workers. I don't really have the manpower to get through the horde, but it won't threaten me more than maybe a road or two destroyed, so the Scythians are probably gonna have fun there capturing that army of workers. If the opportunity arises I'll nab them, but I'm not planning on it.

The front which is newest, and of greatest concern, would be that of the Celts. Now, the British Isles area isn't too bad.

I captured and destroyed Noviodunum, which was between New Confinium, New Pompeii, and York. That Praetorian Guard you see on the cattle? Rebuilt the road from the ruins of Noviodunum, because I saw it as unnecessary to keep. I did keep all the other cities though--Bibactre, Dyfedd, and Decetia all got captured, but while I reduced the power of Gwynedd and Strathclyde, I lacked the manpower to capture them this turn. It'll probably take me a few turns to really build up the momentum for actually capturing all of northern England, and even longer to actually get to Ireland.

I'm not sure what city to let the Celts keep. I don't want to wipe them out, but I do want to leave them with only one city with no resources in a location which won't inconvenience me. It needn't be on the British Isles though because there's another front to fight them on, which is also an area that terrifies me.

The Celts have a veritable army in La Tene, including a couple Woad Raiders, their T3 swordsman unit. As a reminder, Celtic units universally have +1 movement compared to generic counterparts and ignore the movement costs of hills, mountains, and forests. Which means Naissus (well, theoretically; the units there are likely too weak to zerg rush my defenses), Verona, Grenoble, Luna, Caesarea, Lugdunum, Basel, Antium, Mediolanum, and Benevetum are all in striking range in theory.

Now, mind you, the Celts only have 6 Woad Raiders left across all their cities, so that's only six units that are 5/3/2, but they do have a lot of their T2 spearmen (how did they even get Ivory, I don't know, but they have 20 of their 3/5/2 defensive unit), 120 of their 1/2/2 spearmen, 7 2/1/2 of their archers (mostly near Naissus), 27 of their 1/2/2 warriors, and an alarming 70 3/2/2 Gallic Swordsmen.

Some of that horde is in the Scythian territory, there's a small amount near the rim of Gothic territory guarding settlers and workers, a fair amount is in the British Isles, but La Tene has about 80 different units of all kinds and all of those cities are stacked.

I do have leftover pillagers near Alesia due to capturing the Gothic cities, but that means I have to wait until next turn to mount an offensive.

Unlike the Goths, who I had to preemptively strike against, the Celts I'm actually mostly better off being defensive about because my units have better defense than their units have attack, butstill...it's gonna be scary hitting that 'next turn' button and scanning the area for the damage to result next turn.

Here's to hoping it's minimal!

Butyeah, that's my report for 250 BC. It was a long slog to get this far, but it's finally time to brace for impact and hope I did enough.

I know, I'm trying to do more than just waste my time playing video games, but at the same time, I did progress my modded Rise scenario.

The update is, the Goths are gonna be mostly gone very shortly, although I've mostly run out of Pillagers and made most of the progress I wanted to, so I'm not going to aim for a one-turn wipeout.

Then I noticed something.

I had pillagers too far away from the Goths...but in range of the Celts. So I sent a couple to capture a worker and kill a couple of their units, then told the Celts who had already removed their forces from my territory at the beginning of my turn to do it again...

...And they declared war.

On the one hand, yessssss, when I'm limited in cities this extra war allows me to make progress I otherwise couldn't.

On the other hand...the Celts have a lot of units in striking range of cities I was still building the defensive forces of. Mostly not a problem, they're still gonna burn through unit movement and my units have better defense, but...

Most of this is manageable, at least I hope. But La Tene has about 50 - 80+ units with two movements, including multiple Gallic Swordsmen not visible in the above.

It's gonna be a challenge, but at the same time, not my current issue. I'm fighting three different fronts now, the Goths and the Celts and I've still gotta fight Carthage. But I'm invoking a helping hand; I decided to pay Persia and Scythia close to 100 gold between the two of them to declare war against both the Goths and the Celts, so that should help prune their forces that I don't cull.

So hey, getting to where I want to be, but gonna be a long, long, longgggg turn to get it all done.

To be fair, it's not often I blog these days at all, but in the few times I do, it's mostly talking about political ideals which I think we can and should all get behind as a universal common ground, religious and spiritual beliefs, million-dollar ideas I think should be made, stories that I come up with but know I'll never be able to make, rambling about my works namely my novels, art, etc., or talking about life, mostly the bad but on occasion the good.

And...that's not likely to change any time soon. Infrequent blogs, talking about quite serious stuff when they do, because life isn't improving. It's getting worse. I'm probably a month away from losing everything and I don't know how to find the path to not. I've burned so many bridges, so many resources, and it's only extended the deadline to disaster, not actually provided a path to avert it. There is very likely going to be a time where you see me blog for one final time, and then never again, and that time is likely to be soon, very soon, because I am losing hope in fixing my life.

But I do owe both others and myself a reprieve. Despite how there's the impending doom of the disaster to end everything for me personally...I do have my moments of enjoying life. This Valentine's weekend in particular, for instance. And I have my vices, which are the things that I do that couldn't possibly lead to improving my life in any way shape or form but I do them for fun despite the loss in time because they're not draining energy or money.

Now, on a spiritual and psychological level, said vices wouldn't even be considered a bad thing. They'd be called rest, relaxation, recharge time, to replenish myself by fulfilling my desires, providing me happiness, joy, etc. But despite how the body, mind, spirit, soul, arguably requires this downtime of enjoying myself and having fun, it's hard to call it anything other than vice considering just how much of my free time I've been pouring into it.

In this case the big timewaster right now is going back to an old favorite of mine, modding Civ 3 Conquests. I have over 1100 hours just on steam, have modded it on my laptop, did so extensively on my old desktop at home, and was really into refining and honing a modified scenario on my desktop, my personal favorite scenario of Rise of Rome. There's multiple reasons that scenario is my favorite, namely how it provides the best balance of conquering existing cities and expanding into new cities. Every civilization starts with cities (making it better than Mesoamerica, Mesopotamia, or Japan), there's the ability to build settlers (making it better than Napoleon), the map doesn't feel too crowded, there's not too many civilizations, and each existing civilization has strengths that can be built upon to give them unique traits and make them each provide a different experience.

So what I do, from the start, is decouple all civ units from the generic ones and tweak them and add in a generic swordsman upgrade. The generic "advanced infantry" (taking a cue from Mesopotamia) is a 5/3 upgrade and aquatic assault, and I buff the generic Numidian Mercenary to be 3/5 to match, in exchange for being more expensive and later in the tech tree. The highest level of spearman/swordsman/cavalry all have zone of control, with their civ specific versions also having it.

Then with the generic units almost-universally available, I build upon the strengths of all eight civilizations as I envision them and make all eight playable.

Persia gains a warrior-replacement of the Enkidu Warrior, with a +1 HP bar carried over into both Immortals and a new Immortals II (who are a 6/4 unit). They also gain an Archer upgrade of the Babylonian Archer, usually kept to be a 4/1 offense unit. Archers have been buffed to have a passive bombard, unable to bombard like catapults but bombarding units attacking, providing defense; the Babylonian Archer is there to be an upgrade over just the Archer, albeit requiring Gold and Silver (which, taking a cue from Fall, are both strategic resources--I also add an eighth luxury resource, with my current go-to being "salt").

Persia also has their Heavy Cavalry equivalent, Mobile Immortals, be 6/3 instead of 5/2, and have the +1 hp of immortals. The identity of Persia, as I see it, is to have the de facto victory by having the most starting territory of any civilization--if no civilization gains control of the map through war or aggressive settling, the victory will go to Persia simply by Persia not losing territory to the Greeks. And the second identity is to have the widest array of unique units to bring to the front, so they have some unique ones not given elsewhere. Their Immortals units are designed to be one stronger in offense than the Hoplite but one weaker in defense, rewarding them for striking on the offense.

The Macedonian Greeks gain a Hoplite II upgrade, with Hoplites and Hoplites II both having an extra HP bar like Immortals. They also gain zone of control and aquatic assault. The Macedonians essentially are a bit of an inverse, in that while they can technically build any unit, the one and only unit they need to build is the Hoplite. They are in many ways identical to the Persians, in that they have victory by default simply by conquering all existing Persian territory.

Carthage I give the advantage of being able to build cheaper units which cost extra resources. They have unique warriors, swordsmen, spearmen, and upgrades thereto, which cost half the shields of their generic counterpart, in exchange for requiring gold, silver, or ivory. Golden warriors/swordsmen/spearmen/mercenaries, silver warriors/swordsmen/spearmen/mercenaries, and ivory warriors/swordsmen/spearment, requiring gold plus any generic resource, silver plus any generic resource, and ivory plus any generic resource. In short, as long as Carthage has access to gold, silver, and ivory, they are able to churn out massive armies at a rate faster than any other civilization, in theory.

War Elephants are buffed to be a +1 HP unit requiring no resources and being 6/2, with an upgrade of War Elephants II with +2 HP, blitz, aquatic assault, and being 8/4 or thereabouts. They also get the Tyrian Guard, which is 3/6, a cheap defensive unit that is good on the attack as well.

Rome I build on the upgrading units and road-building by giving all of their basic units--Hastatus (the warrior-equivalent), Garrison, and "Civic Defense" (horseman equivalent), road-building capabilities at minimum, upgrading as the units do to be faster and have more actions, with their highest level being able to do every worker action and Legionary IIIs being able to form cities. Imperial Workers are an upgrade to Workers, so I give Rome an upgrade to Imperial Workers called Roman Workers.

Rome's strongest units, Legionary III (buffed to be in the range of 7/4 or so with +3 HP), Praetorian Guard (4/7 or so with +2 HP), and the Cataphract (6/4), are designed to be the strongest in the game, albeit by a slim enough margin where other civilizations CAN war with lategame Rome, it's just a pain to try and overcome their power. As I see Rome, they are both the ones building roads and terraforming the map, and the ones who have the strongest threat to expand and take over the world.

So that's the warring 4 civilizations as I tend to call them.

What do I do for the others?

Well for Egypt, I make War Chariots a 5/3 unit requiring Iron (effectively making them the Egyptian equivalent to Heavy Cavalry), but in the hills that often spawn iron randomly in playthoughs anyway, I give them a permanent source of iron they can easily settle and access. I give Egypt one of the easiest access to almost every luxury and strategic resource, and I make their land ridiculously fertile. By buffing the land of the nile area to be super-rich in terms of shields, food in particular, commerce, and resources, I give Egypt the ability to build megacities with ease, and to easily expand into some of the least-populated areas of the map.

Now, Egypt is still designed to be one of the harder civilizations to play (the game is still meant to be easiest playing as one of the warring 4 and conquering the civ you're warring with to have a nearly de-facto victory even given the expanded time to 250 turns and needed map control to 80% land/90% population), but can theoretically win passively by focusing on settlers or win aggressively by warring with Persia and/or Carthage, and I speak from experience in their War Chariots being able to fare well against both.

The Celts, similarly, are one of the harder civilizations to play, but I give their units +1 movement across the board and the ability to ignore the movement cost of hills, mountains, and forests. Celtic Workers, Migrants(settlers), Warriors, Spearmen, etc., all have 2 movement, with their chariots, horsemen, and heavy cavalry equivalents all having 3 movement. The way I envision them is that their units are just as strong as the generic equivalents, but have higher movement, able to go further (helped by me often increasing roads to 5).

This makes them a bit harder to play than the Scythians, who I basically combine with the Huns and Mongols in making them a horde with horseman focus. These workers, migrants(settlers), warriors, spearmen, etc., have the normal movement, but treat all terrain as roads. By having hordes of horsemen with this terrain-as-roads buff, this allows the Scythians to peacefully expand across the entirety of the unoccupied territory, and/or overrun the likes of the Greeks and/or Persians by penetrating deep into their territory and potentially wiping out the Goths, too. Of the non-warring civilizations, they're probably the easiest to play just because of how strong this ability is, although it is technically weaker than the Celts in mobility if the Celts are all moving along roads. (A 5-movement foot unit is outpaced by a 10-movement foot unit, and a 10-movement cavalry is outpaced by a 15-movement cavalry, but the Scythians don't need roads for their movement whereas the Celts do.)

The Goths, I lean into their Teutonic Warriors being raw offense with no defense, by making them instead of spearmen equivalent...warrior equivalent. As in, a 4/1 unit at 10 shields requiring no research, with the upgraded version being 6/1, and the third tier being 12/2. They get horsemen which are 7/1/2, and upgrade into the range of 10/1/2, or thereabouts. The way I envision them, the Goths have the best offensive units, even more than Rome or Carthage, but lack in anything resembling defense. I did give them access to spearmen, but because they lack a nearby source of ivory, they're not going to really be pumping out defensive units and require sheer raw aggression.

I do give the Goths a generic buff to industry though, by having their cities have a unique improvement provided by a wonder they start with which means they can produce anything faster in theory.

On my desktop, I intended for this to be as subtle and as balanced as possible.

Problem is, my desktop is currently not powering on. Suspected/hoped for problem is the PSU unit being fried, because it's the cheapest easiest thing to replace, but who knows? Too broke to really try to fix it, and that's not likely to change any time soon, so I'm basically without my desktop and left with only my old, ancient, archaic laptop.

Did that stop me? For a time, yes. But then I decided to just...go make the modded scenario again, from scrap, on the laptop. This time I didn't care to really balance things carefully. The values are exaggerated, terrain modified more, etc. A lot of the changes were made not as a matter of quality of life or balance, but really just to make things faster and take less time. It's vastly inferior to the desktop version, but at the same time, its over the top nature means that it can still serve as a sandbox for the real version of the mod, a testing ground for ideas I have but wouldn't know if I should implement or not.

And this modded scenario is...pretty fun.

I was in the middle of my v3 Roman playthrough on the desktop. As in, 3 full Persia playthroughs, 2 full Roman playthroughs, and midway through a third Roman playthrough. I use Persia and Rome as the tests because playing as Persia lets me observe the NPC balance between Carthage and Rome (they should loosely stalemate with Carthage having an initial edge and Rome clawing back some later), and playing as Persia lets me observe the NPC balance between Persia and Macedon (they should loosely stalemate with Macedon having an initial edge but then running into their units being too few to match Persia's with Persia unable to recapture territory but also not bleeding it).

Now, I'm playing on my laptop. I completed my first playthrough on Persia, then modded the scenario more, and am on my first playthrough as Rome. I've already adjusted things (Persia is dominating Macedon, I'm happy with Persia's strength and don't want to nerf Persia so Macedonia needed to be buffed), but wanna see this Rome playthrough conclude.

I ran into an issue I've never hit before in Rise; the 512 city limit. Turns out that with the Celts, Goths, and Scythians all expanding, plus Persia also doing a lot of it, and Rome expanding aggressively as well...despite the small map size? You do in fact hit that limit pretty quickly. Like, I'm not even sure I'll be able to get the landmass number due to how much is unoccupied land, limit hit.

But I did decide that this playthrough would have a unit to menace civilizations. When playing as Persia, I was annoyed Carthage stole a city from me, and no matter my efforts, I couldn't steal it back. So in response, I made a Pillager unit, a 4/1/2 unit with lethal bombardment that treats all terrain as roads, has blitz, and is anonymous, with enslave of making more pillagers. I made it ridiculously expensive both in terms of resources and shields because I didn't want it spammed against me, but I wanted it to be something I could use to harass other civilizations.

This has turned out to be a lifesaver. Because I ended up having the Goths just declare war against me--and they had a veritable HORDE of units with massive attack, poised to overwhelm me. We're talking, one tile had at least 50 units, all of which have their lowest attack match the defense of my highest defense. They're meant to be an overpowering force of sheer offense, and they were about to overwhelm me--until I noticed...

..."Hey wait a second...I have two pillagers in their territory." (The very thing which ticked the Goths enough to where they declared war, mind you, as I was using those pillagers to capture workers.)

Those two pillagers have multiplied to have captured one of the Goths main cities, half of their territory, have destroyed their main horde, and are beginning to get poised to wipe the Goths off the map, albeit requiring a lot of save scumming to produce the necessary pillagers. Right now, the save scumming is pretty annoying, especially since civ 3 has this issue where if you're repeatedly loading you risk corrupting the save files and/or crashing the game. (The game was never optimized for modern computers, and was arguably always this level of broken anyway.)

The process is taking a ludicrous amount of time...but ultimately, the results are going to be a huge amount of serotonin. Because once I pull it off...a complete wipe of a civilization on the turn they declared war on me, having begun with only two units and multiplied into a force that completely destroys them? That's gonna be hugely satisfying. I'm already thinking ahead to what to do with this massive excess of units (it's gonna be absolutely harassing the Celts who ticked me off by signing a peace treaty with Carthage when I most needed their firepower to make advances into Iberia), and I will feel so good once I get there.

​Just...gotta get the right rand enough times.​

In the case of this screenshot, managing to actually get another pillager spawn when attacking the swordsman in the city, so I have the manpower needed to reach the areas I need more help in.

​Almost there...just gotta keep at it.

Is fun, but time-consuming.

Thank you for listening to my for-fun moment of time-wasting.

I keep on wanting to make a perfect blog entry to return to blogging rather than just doing blogging with is plenty good on its own. A single line of a blog post is better than no blog at all, after all.

However, there has been other factors, like the strong call to play Stardew Valley consuming me--if not for my game glitching/breaking, I would still be playing right now, instead of writing a blog. And I can't write a very long one, either, because between how close it is to bedtime and how long it takes to post to five or six different places (weebly blog, wix mirror, ko-fi blog, reddit post, youtube community, and maybe more?), I don't have much time to write the blog itself.

But I will say this much at least.

I am at least doing okay.

I'm obviously neglecting a lot of the aspects of my life, mostly various self-care things (largely the same ol' hygiene ones), but I'm doing more than I am not doing.

I'm largely staying on top of life.

I'm streaming to my schedule every single week.

I fixed the encoding issue I was having for recording videos and plan to start recording tomorrow.

Financially, things are really tight.

But I continue to make spiritual and plurality-based breakthroughs.

I have picked up extra hours at work and should in theory be getting a pay raise.
I am making progress on my twitch and discord.
I am branching out on my social media presence.

I have started progesterone, and am doing all of my healthcare and workouts.

I did have a, very good, but also very rattling conversation.

It basically was like a therapy session. It was a call with a friend, but left me wrecked in a good way.

My body has an uncontrollable shaking when certain stressful/anxiety/fear/overwhelmed/shutdown situations happen. I just kinda bluescreen, shake uncontrollably, and tremble, where I feel some deep fear, some deep emotions, and feel like a bunch needs to be unpacked by the experience.

I've had that for every car accident I've been in, most notably the January 2014 one which helped me realize I'm trans.

I've had that for when I came out to my family.

I've had that for when I confess my feelings--and also confess to others I have those feelings for someone.

And I've had that for when I've had the heart-sinking realization I just lost people I love from my life forever.

It's not an inherently negative thing.

What it is, is very clearly a trauma response.

And having it during the conversation we had made me realize...

...I have a lot more trauma to unpack than I ever thought.

I have so much work left to do in working through my damaged self.

​BUT, the bright side of this, is, no day has dropped below a 6/10. I've had moments where I've had negative mental at times, and at one point may have briefly dropped to 4/10 for half an hour or so, but I've been having lots of 10/10 days and just have been feeling all sorts of positivity and joy.

I did want to blog about a few things. Notably having made a rather longterm mistake I promised not to make again. I tend to get too longwinded and too overwhelming in giving my love to others. I realized I had been doing this for months upon months, and probably getting worse and worse at how severe it is, and that I need to restrain myself to levels that are more considerate--and also, pursue giving those in a medium more appropriate.

That was the tipping point for inspiring me to make my videos, which I should be starting tomorrow. Long messages in discords help some, but to others give them anxiety and stress and bombard them with more than they can handle. If I am to help those people I was helping before, I need to do so in a format where it doesn't harm those who I was harming before. And videos are a perfect format for accomplishing that.

I may not reach those I did before, but I can also give them shorter messages with longer videos for those who need them.

​So I'm going to be doing that.

I am going to get better and better at being empathetic and understanding to others.

There's some things I will never understand. I wrote a longwinded ramble which got longer and longer with time with the longest version being posted to the YT communities, about how I don't understand why people tend to lose their idealism, lose their sight of the good, etc. In that they tend to overcomplicate things and make them worse, despite how I do understand at the same time. (It's hard to explain. But basically, I get it, but at the same time, I can't understand it.)

​I will never understand everything. I will never understand hatred, understand forgetting all that is good in the world, etc. But I will still understand the people. I can understand the people even if I don't get it, if I don't get why they lost sight of the joy and positivity.

But I will be improving.

​I got big inspired for my novel. I am trying to see other perspectives and work with them more and more. I am opening up, being more transparent, more willing to share, etc.

I am growing.

I have a lot to give.

And I am beginning to heal.
I'm beginning to also accept that while the perspective of others are valid and their true beliefs, they can be wrong, and I should trust myself, my instincts, my sense of things--and my sense of myself is that I am exactly who I have always been, a kind caring empathetic person who wants to be a Breeacon of light bringing joy and positivity.

I can understand others don't see me that way. Everyone has skeletons in the closet, getting a direct view of mine sours their view, making their perspective more negative. Seeing the bad makes it easy to forget the good, and all the flaws, all the imperfections, being on full display makes it easy to believe that's indicative of who I am. Or even if not, that it's too late, that it's a bad match, etc.

...but while I can understand they see things that way...I don't have to agree. Respect, yes! I have to respect they see me that way, they see things that way, etc. But I don't have to agree. I can see myself and disagree with their view, because I can and do believe most people are good, including me, and despite the flaws are more good than bad, including me, and that I can think myself good despite the flaws.

I am rambling here, but I am going to keep going in life.

I have my rough spots, but...I am going to get stronger and stronger.

Tomorrow, I'm going to record videos.
I'm going to continue typing my plurality and working on my novel.
I'll cut down on Stardew Valley.

I'll fill gaps with work, art or writing.

I can do it.

​And it starts now.