You know there's a thread specifically for your weekly bonus post, right?
http://www.earthempires.com/...e-stuff-7694?t=1503969576

Two, in fact!
http://www.earthempires.com/...-bonus-30642?t=1503941933

And one here, too!
http://www.earthempires.com/.../bonus-33977?t=1503869831

I'm curious why Oiler is considered a bad strategy. You would think that oil, which typically sells for more than food, would be a better commodity and give Oilers an edge on Farmers, who sell the lower-value food. Does oil have a lower demand or something?

!

Yeah, nothing really to talk about this week, either...

Here's a post for that.

It not only lowers defense, but offense as well. The military's overall effectiveness is reduced if you reduce their Readiness. Of course, it regenerates over the course of turns, so it's best to make your attacks at the start of your play for the day, so that your Readiness will go back to 100% by the time you're done.

That is an incredible psychobabble of a sentence that sounds like something from MadLibs, and I'm glad I read that.

You know WWII isn't what I was referring to. We'd been forcibly obtaining territories both on the continent and in the Pacific for decades before WWII.

I won't argue with you on those...

But this one I have some issues with. Certainly, Saddam was a terrible dictator, but because we went off half-fluffed thinking we'd be greeted with open arms as liberators instead of enacting a real plan, Iraq has become a breeding ground for insurgent activity, as well as an open battlefield. Yes, Saddam committed acts of terror against his own people, but at least they didn't have to live in constant fear of being blown to pieces by an errant air strike or a random car bombing. On top of that, we had no business invading Iraq, which makes the whole thing even more tasteless to me.

I really don't believe any of that. The world isn't stable, we've got mounting tensions everywhere. Most wars aren't on the same scale as wars in the past because the sides involved are often very lop-sided in terms of power, so they become insurgencies rather than direct confrontations. I also don't think military hegemony is the reason why countries are less willing to engage in genocide, I think it's the rise of social media and globalization. It's hard to pretend you're not killing millions of people when the victims and bystanders can upload pictures and videos within seconds of it happening. That's why more brutal regimes like China and Iran restrict internet access and content, after all.


Edit: Also, apparently c**k is a censored word here, so half-c**ked got censored to half-fluffed. I just thought that was hilarious, and wanted to make clear what I was saying there.

We've invaded loads of people! We've been engaged in near-constant wars and military actions since the Spanish American war! Why do you think we have territories and military bases all over the world? It's not because people asked us to!

That said, I don't believe we are a "force for evil" or anything like that. I just really feel like our politicians are becoming too arrogant, and the media are only encouraging this arrogance.

But without oil, we'll have less to sell at the end of the session!

On a more serious note, I wish we could just stop pissing the world off. We need some real leaders in both Congress and the White House.

I don't really think you could, unless you grouped the countries by networth or something, which would cause rapid continental drift. Still, it could be interesting.