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.

USA Today Crossword - June 18th 2020

Island where Queen Lilioukalani was born / City name in Texas and Ukraine / Sound of rushing wind / Comedian Poundstone / Genre of the song "Duke of Earl" / Hughes who wrote "I, Too" / Blanket statement's lack

Constructor: Evan Kalish

Difficulty: A little on the easy side. It only took me two sweeps of the grid to solve in my morning semi-catatonic state. (7:46)

Theme: JUST MY TYPE - The first words of the three theme anwers give the name of a common typeface.

• TIME'S A-WASTING (20A: "Let's get moving!")
• NEW MANAGEMENT (36A: Different ownership)
• ROMAN NUMERALS (60A: Something popes and Super Bowls have in common)

I dunno how many folks are solving crosswords in serif fonts (even the New Yorker uses something simple and understated for the grid, though their clues are written in their distinctive typeface), but as a bit of a fan of a good embellishment myself, I'm all for the idea of this theme, even if I have small quibbles with each of the theme answers. And yes, this is a blog about the minuitae of crossword puzzles, so of course I'm going to share them.

Having TIMES as one word in the answer rather than cheating it over two words ala TIME SIGNATURE was a nice touch, but the answer having an apostrophe when the theme doesn't want one just makes me feel a little squicky. I can't think of a good replacement with TIMES TABLES and TIMES SQUARE both being a little short, though.

I'm also not convinced that different owners always mean NEW MANAGEMENT. Don't get me wrong, it was a gimme of an answer, but it lacks a certain degree of precision.

Last and almost certainly least, though I enjoyed the mental image of elderly pontiffs in crash helmets and body armour lining up on the gridiron, I feel compelled as a pope fanboy to mention that by my count 44 of the 266 Popes up to this point, including the incumbent, don't have Roman numerals in their names. 

That little rant out of the way, this was a pleasant grid without that much spoor. Sure, there's PSST and PFFT, the ever-present APP and BAA, but none of them are in places where they cause a problem. I continue to be uncomfortable with IDED (identificationed? Identity Documented?) but have to admit that as little as I like it I would like IDD even less. The larger down answers like DOOWOP, SMUDGE , NOODLE, NUANCE, LANGSTON are all good solid fill, very gettable but not the sort of thing you see every day, so overall the puzzle gave me fresh vibes, which is all one can really ask for. Did you know EARTHA Kitt was Batwoman for a while? I didn't.

Today I learned: Zakat (almsgiving) is one of the pillars of ISLAM. Easy enough clue given the context, Islam famously has pillars, but I certainly can't name any of them other than the always crossword-ready HAJJ.

There are five principles that should be followed when giving the zakāt:

• The giver must declare to God his intention to give the zakāt.
• The zakāt must be paid on the day that it is due.
• After the offering, the payer must not exaggerate on spending his money more than usual means.
• Payment must be in kind. This means if one is wealthy then he or she needs to pay a portion of their income. If a person does not have much money, then they should compensate for it in different ways, such as good deeds and good behavior toward others.
• The zakāt must be distributed in the community from which it was taken. (wikipedia)

Word of the Day: EMPORIUM (40D: Big store). I generally think of an Emporium as a small store with an intense sort of focus, Crazy Dave's Kitchen Lighting Emporium, or Marvels of Parquetry Emporium, or something like that, but I guess this is just another case of the dictionary in my head being out of step with the dictionary the rest of the world is using.

Shout-out to WHOOSH, though. It's just a fun word.

USA Today Crossword - June 17th 2020

When this appeared in my feed last week I was truly tempted to pick up my keyboard and go to work, but I figured that it was pretty likely that someone a little more qualified would leap to the challenge. Rex Parker (as well as being an old internet acquaintance via the spirital blogmother) is the king of angry crossword twitter and I figured his royal seal of approval would be all it would take to get a regular USA Today crossword blog up and running. As if I didn't spend enough time thinking a out crossword every day as it is.

Sadly, a week of enjoyable USA Today crosswords later and I haven't seen any evidence of a new blog appearing just yet, so in the meantime thought it might be fun to try imitating Rex's style for a little while here on the Leaflocker and share my enjoyment of the puzzle that has recently become a staple of my days in quarantine.

<--->

Yes, I'm hot in this" garment / Island whose capital is Oranjestad / Character often said to have been based on Bass Reeves / Tamal wrappers / Company with a duck mascot / "What was I thinking?"

Constructor: Zhouqin Burnikel

Difficulty: I've only been doing this puzzle for a few weeks, so it's hard to say how difficult this one was compared to usual. I'd say it's in the mid-Tuesday NYT range, which is about right for the sort of thing I've come to expect from the USA Today most of the time, and the 8:44 I took is also pretty typical for me for a puzzle completed with my clumsy thumbs.

Theme: WOLF PACK - First word of each of the three theme entries start a phrase completed with the word 'wolf'. 

• LONE RANGER (16A: Character often said to have been based on Bass Reeves)
• TEEN CHOICE AWARD (36A: One of 28 won by One Direction)
• GRAY MATTER (60A: Brains)

Sure, three theme answers doesn't feel like a lot for a puzzle without a revealer, but I've gone over the puzzle twice, and unless false wolf and cheap wolf are phrases this is what we've got. They're all definitely wolves and as a nice bonus they triggered flashbacks to a certain Michael J Fox movie that seemed to be constantly being played on Australian TV during my childhood in the '90s, so...thanks I guess?

I didn't notice the theme at all during the solve, but I did notice that the keystone One Direction clue was accompanied by a LIAM at 46 down, so I was expecting to find the names of the rest of those early-teens heartthrobs as an easter egg, but was sadly disappointed that in a grid with a LOU and a LOIS there doesn't seem to be a LOUIS hiding anywhere. If this wasn't going to be five-year-late OneD tribute puzzle, then why not use someone more current, like Taylor Swift, who has almost as many wins, or BTS, who won some awards in 2019?

That minor quibble aside, the grid was full of the good stuff that we've come to expect from the Agard-edited USA Today puzzle: Easy fill that doesn't require two many second guesses (I had START instead of RESET for a while) but avoiding a lot of the usual crosswordese dross even if there was an OWIE or two along the way, with a decent chance of the solver learning something along the way. I'd never met Yes, I'm Hot in This or Oranjestad, but they both seem like things to know about.

Clunkers: I'm not a big fan of AH I SEE, but the crossings were all pretty straight forward, so that's all good. As a non-Usonian I tend to trip up a little on brandnames, too, but since EARLE seemed inevitable AFLAC came together nicely, and a few years of buying the grape juice for communion meant that WELCHS was a gimme. Some things just don't change even on the other side of the Atlantic, it seems.

Word of the Day: SCOOTED (25A: Slid while seated) Simple, elegant, and could never be anything other than SCOOTED. Just the word itself brings back happy memories of cafeterias and camps back in the days when we spent time in the same place as other people.

There should probably be a picture or video clip or something, but I'm not going to subject you all to the highlight of 80's cinema that was Teen Wolf and my reference library of music leaves a little to be desired. So uh....