Long Live the Queen! Turns 211-220

It's been a while since we checked in on our communal game of Civilization VI, but turn 210 has rolled around so it's time for us to revisit the British Empire for the government of UnwiseOwl the third, Prime Minister to her Eternal Majesty Queen Victoria following the tenure of Krikket. 4 of the 5 black city states on the map swear fealty to the Union Flag, but we're quickly running out of any usable space for expansion.

Since our last term, both the Babylonians and the Egyptians have built new cities inside lands that I would have preferred to remain firmly under the control of Her Majesty. Gilgamesh has another Settler eyeing up the river to the west of Stoke-Upon-Trent, so when diplomatic efforts to stop him settling fail, I decide to rush build a settler of my own and send the military out to slow him down a little. If we get lucky, maybe we can beat him to the punch.

We also begin cultural development into Humanism, which should give us the ability to build museums for a much needed culture and tourism boost. We're ahead by almost all the other measures, so improving our cultural output should pretty much guarantee that we can't lose this game.

There's a lot of unexplored area out past the Eastern edges of our empire near the newly settled city of Sheffield, so I embark the unused military units into the ocean to go for a little bit of a swim and scout around. The only military threat anywhere near by is Pedro, and I figure he's unlikely to mess with us again any time soon. We could actually build a navy out here once we get the infrastructure built up in Sheffield, but that's not likely to happen any time soon, and I'm not expecting to find that many major landmasses out there anyways.

Gilgamesh isn't a big fan of my settler shepherding strategy, but given that our military is more than twice the size of his I'm pretty confident that he's not going to go to war with us about it. He seems very unsettled about our forces on his borders at the moment, and looking at this fearsome army massing just here I can't say that I blame him.

Poor Pedro wants in on the settling, but sadly for him he's a little boxed in up in his northeastern peninsula, and I'm not willing to give him give him an inch for expansion or for his military, scant as it is, by granting free passage through our territory for a paltry 6 gold pieces.

Having just researched Military Science I successfully settle the city of Plymouth, gaining a free Redcoat unit and and forcing Gilgamesh back to Ur; He's going to have to find somewhere else to build his cities. Since he rudely insisted on expansion earlier, I'm not willing to promise him that we're not going to expand further either. I feel a little bad about upsetting him, since he's one of my favourite Civ leaders (I just want to bury my hands in that fabulous beard!), but friendship has to work both ways. 

I can't say I was particularly interested in either of the potential scientific prospects, but I decide to investigate Economics. I've also started work on Oxford University in Stoke. If we complete it it'll give us a huge science boost, but it's going to be slow work.

To help with the wonder building, I begin recruitment of a few more traders. I hope to transfer control of them to Stoke in order to increase the production output there to allow the builders to hire a few more workers finish building Oxford a little faster. I also notice a single potential city building hex to the the northwest of Birmingham, and with Gilgamesh and Cleopatra both with settlers on the prowl look to secure it for the realm. It's not an amazing spot for a city, but I'd much rather put a British city there than let our neighbours expand, so I'm going to leave this knight here until we can scratch a settling party together.

One of the major developments since my last tenure has been the development of English Buddhism, so I do my part for the faith and deploy a couple of Apostles. Both of them have neat upgrades for converting cities in foreign civilisations, so I've sent them off to spread the good news in Egypt. I thought about sending them after Pedro, but since he has a religion already and is likely to put up a bit of fight over it, I thought it might be easier to convince the heathens.

Just like that, my term in office has come to an end. Feels like at least bit a little more this time around, but at this point I'm starting to get the impression that there isn't that much that could stop the English steamroller now that it's gotten up steam. The Rambling Redshirt is the head of the incoming government, and can find the save file here.