We are getting away from the suburbs of Burgos now, away from navigating around vehicle-dominated streets, away from roads of any kind other than gravel, and back to the little towns along the Way. Now we are in the Spanish meseta, the second chapter of our pilgrimage. The land spreads out forever in every direction. Many people say they are stopping in Burgos and bussing ahead to León to skip the boringness of the meseta, but walking out here, it is immediately obvious that they are missing out on an unappreciated beauty. The vastness of the land, the way you can pick the path out as it snakes ahead. The quiet brilliance lends to this feeling of vastness, and it turn leaves you feeling small.
There is no escape from the sun on the meseta. We have picked our destination out for the day, a town called Hontanas, which according to both our guidebooks is supposed to be just a couple kilometers ahead. How can that be? We can see in every direction what seems to be forever, and there is no sign of a town. Twenty minutes later a sign is on the gravel path: Hontanas, 500m.
This must be a joke, there is no town in sight, no hill or bend for it to be around. All we can see is the road ahead and the meseta stretching out in every direction.
And then slowly as the steps fall the mystery is revealed. The land that looked to go on unbroken ahead begins to shift; as you get closer we see what looked like flat meseta begins to drop off into a hidden valley. And in the valley a church steeple is first spotted, then the rest of the town begins to take form:
That night the sunset was one of the most magnificent I had ever seen. All those people who stopped at Burgos to skip ahead have no idea what they were missing.
*****
My Hontanas is not quite as hidden, but I hope one day it will be just as beautiful.
Notice in the upperleft that German-Joey has founded Christianity and unlucky for me, it went right on my border. He switched to make it his state religion immediately, simply to begin winning that culture war, and forcing me to switch to a culture building there. This is very irritating, but he has revealed other things that make me realize what I need to do for my next steps.
In the southeast another culture battle is beginning to brew, with Brick popping borders in his city just 2 turns after I got a missionary into Azofra. I think I'll want to whip a monastery or library here as well, to make sure i hold onto that clam that I am netting.
But here is the big news of turn 110:
GermanJoey has gone all-in on this religious line beeline, but grabbing Paper before the backfill may have been a mistake. Now I know he does not have Math, which means he is several turns away from War Elephants, Catapults, and even farther from Maces. He can beeline Knights just like I can, but he does not have a lot of the solid units that make up the core of an army.
He's shown me that now is the time to attempt an attack. And further, I am the only one who can do it. The geography of this world is such that I border him in north and the south, and a thin border with plako is to his east, but that would not be hard for him to hold if plako was his only attacker.
Time to switch to unit production across the empire. Next turn we revolt to Vassalage and Slavery.
Next turn we find out if we win the race to Statue of Zeus.
There is no escape from the sun on the meseta. We have picked our destination out for the day, a town called Hontanas, which according to both our guidebooks is supposed to be just a couple kilometers ahead. How can that be? We can see in every direction what seems to be forever, and there is no sign of a town. Twenty minutes later a sign is on the gravel path: Hontanas, 500m.
This must be a joke, there is no town in sight, no hill or bend for it to be around. All we can see is the road ahead and the meseta stretching out in every direction.
And then slowly as the steps fall the mystery is revealed. The land that looked to go on unbroken ahead begins to shift; as you get closer we see what looked like flat meseta begins to drop off into a hidden valley. And in the valley a church steeple is first spotted, then the rest of the town begins to take form:
That night the sunset was one of the most magnificent I had ever seen. All those people who stopped at Burgos to skip ahead have no idea what they were missing.
*****
My Hontanas is not quite as hidden, but I hope one day it will be just as beautiful.
Notice in the upperleft that German-Joey has founded Christianity and unlucky for me, it went right on my border. He switched to make it his state religion immediately, simply to begin winning that culture war, and forcing me to switch to a culture building there. This is very irritating, but he has revealed other things that make me realize what I need to do for my next steps.
In the southeast another culture battle is beginning to brew, with Brick popping borders in his city just 2 turns after I got a missionary into Azofra. I think I'll want to whip a monastery or library here as well, to make sure i hold onto that clam that I am netting.
But here is the big news of turn 110:
GermanJoey has gone all-in on this religious line beeline, but grabbing Paper before the backfill may have been a mistake. Now I know he does not have Math, which means he is several turns away from War Elephants, Catapults, and even farther from Maces. He can beeline Knights just like I can, but he does not have a lot of the solid units that make up the core of an army.
He's shown me that now is the time to attempt an attack. And further, I am the only one who can do it. The geography of this world is such that I border him in north and the south, and a thin border with plako is to his east, but that would not be hard for him to hold if plako was his only attacker.
Time to switch to unit production across the empire. Next turn we revolt to Vassalage and Slavery.
Next turn we find out if we win the race to Statue of Zeus.
Suffer Game Sicko
Dodo Tier Player
Dodo Tier Player
