[SPOILERS]The Tyrant realizes that once the world burns it gets really boring....

[NobleHelium]

You can use Google Voice if you want to avoid paying for text messages.

[spacetyrantxenu]

You can use Google Voice if you want to avoid paying for text messages.

Ding ding ding, that's why he can't SMS or MMS (or whatever it is) those giant ass photos to me. My Voice client only accepts text. I keep telling him that if he wants to send me a photo he can...email it to me. Because, gasp, both of our phones do email!

I guess I'll play the turns. I was kind of hoping I wouldn't have to and no one would notice. Is there anything in particular that needs doing?

[NobleHelium]

T-Mobile and Sprint subscribers can send MMS to Google Voice users. Not that I've ever actually sent an MMS to anyone...

[spacetyrantxenu]

Yeah but I don't think the Voice client can display it. I think the MMS gets sent to your Gmail inbox, if you have some kind of forwarding set up correctly (I don't...because who cares. If someone wants to send me a picture....email it!)

[NobleHelium]

Aren't you using the same Google account for Voice and Gmail? I don't see why you wouldn't.

The MMS will also get displayed inside the Hangouts app now if you've updated/downloaded it. Older phones without ICS (4.0) don't get that functionality though. I don't know about the iOS version.

[spacetyrantxenu]

I am. And I get Voice texts in my corresponding Gmail account. I've just never received an MMS into the Gmail inbox, even though BGN will probably claim to have sent some at one time or another.

I have Hangouts, though I'm not sure I care for it yet. Maybe it's a case that over time I trained people to not send MMS messages and they don't bother, and so I don't actually know if it works or not.

[NobleHelium]

Hangouts is actually super annoying because it doesn't tell you whether the person you're talking to is online or not. But they replaced Talk with it, such is life. I use it to yell at Gaspar and such. It also serves as the SMS app in Android 4.4...for those who aren't using Google Voice of course.

Hangouts and Voice will probably merge next year. We'll see how much of Voice's functionality is retained properly...

[spacetyrantxenu]

I'm guessing all the functionality that helps Google harvest the data it wants from us will be retained. Anything else, who knows. Android 4.4 hasn't hit my tablet yet, but since I have Voice installed will the update remove Voice and enable that functionality through Hangouts? I'm guessing two different programs trying to do the same thing wouldn't be very helpful.

[NobleHelium]

No, Voice is unchanged. I am saying that the Talk app was replaced by Hangouts a while back. 4.4 removes the old Messaging app and supplants it with Hangouts. I expect Voice will be merged into Hangouts next year.

[spacetyrantxenu]

T203 - Not going to report that much, the important stuff is happening elsewhere. I don't know why William declared war on Wetbandit but they're at peace now. There is a war weariness of 1 on Wetbandit's side so maybe William killed one of his units. The only thing they could really be fighting over is island cities, so possibly Wetbandit settled a site William wanted? Hey guys, fight Retep, not each other.

In domestic news we're in representation/bureaucracy now, and I balanced the budget. At 0% slider we're now making 6gpt.




Need to let these bastard children cities grow. No more whips. Forges aren't as good as growing onto mature cottages.




Even though it's a total waste of time I went through and microed cities for quicker growth. So we'll grow a turn earlier in a few cities coming up.

Demographics:




Oh yes look at that impressive economic recovery. We're not last now, we're third to last, joy of joys. While I was logged in Kuro held me up for about four minutes while he logged in, promptly pressed enter, and logged out. I'm guessing there isn't a ton of management left to do in the Businessman Empire. But at least he's alive. William should have done the decent thing and killed him so he wouldn't have to keep logging in.

I'm not analyzing this but in case anyone is curious here's the tech screen.




Interesting that William teched Steel before Rifling, though. I know it was to build a bunch of cannons, he probably thought he had enough hitters on hand already. Yet Kuro is still alive. But a big stack of cannons can be a deterrent, I don't see any of his neighbors wanting to come after him. Certainly not us, who don't care, or Wetbandit, who has no army (or Molach for that matter). But William is still settling cities out on the seas, he just needs the stack so people will leave his core alone I suppose.

I think the direction this game is going is that we'll see the three contenders keep setting cities until they're not useful or they run out of space. And when they're done having their fun farming they'll probably concede to Retep because I think given his head start in the colonial settling race, with an active GLH, he's still ahead of the others. And he's too far away for them to attack him so all they can do is try to out grow and out economy him, which isn't going to happen. So I guess as long as they're having fun and we don't hate playing the turns too much this can go on, but I don't see anything changing the paradigm here. Maybe someone gets sloppy in their tech path and gets caught with their pants down by destroyers/transports or air power, but I don't think that's likely. Anyway, since I'm apparently playing turns for a few days if anyone wants more info or screenshots let me know.