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Alright everyone, welcome back to Let's Play Zeus: Master of Olympus. I apologize again for the delay. With that said, let's get Mission 4 rolling.




Once again, we're preparing for a colony mission, same materials as before. Not an issue, that stuff can all be set aside at any time. We are, however, being given our first quest in this LP! Exciting!



Also, for establishing our shithole of a colony we are award with a commemorative monument that is virtually indistinguishable from all the other commemorative monuments!

Joking aside, it's always nice to get more monuments as they are one of the strongest positive appeal modifiers in the game, and we're gonna need them!



As requested, here is a picture of Cerberus strutting his stuff. He's a good doggie, and every now and then Hades gives him a break from keeping the dead inside the underworld to wander around our city and scare the shit out of the peasants and remind them of their mortality.

BUT ISN'T HE JUST THE CUTEST LITTLE PUPPY!



So at this point I'm still sitting around being a useless fuck, waiting for the game to get off it's lazy ass and give me this quest. I ran across Hades taking a stroll and decided to talk with him a bit. Unlike Zeus, he's all business. No time for idle chitchat.



Poseidon continues to be a self-important fuck, bragging about himself and his domains. But whatever, it's cool, he only gave me a super cool present.



But it seems our chat did jog Poseidon's memory. Just some minor detail you know, like how when he built Troy's walls, he put some artifact in the city that would prevent it from ever falling. Nothing major, but if we want to defeat them, we should probably nab it.



Thanks for the heads up Poseidon.



There's only one man who could complete this task, and that's Odysseus! So we need to build a Hero Hall for him to reside in. I go and stick it up in the corn fields, because I assume Davros wouldn't want to have the crazy fuck living near his palace. I mean, the idiot already was sowing salt around the fields of his own palace.



He does have a list of demands I must meet before he even thinks of showing up though. Most of them are already met, but apparently he wants some hoity-toity nobles to chill with when he's not off stealing Palladiums. So I guess that means I have access to elite housing now. I guess that's a good thing, boats can't go everywhere after all.

He also wants me to be super popular, because Odysseys doesn't hang out with unpopular nerds.



So I guess it's time to being construction of my elite housing district. Problem is that at this point, space is sort of becoming a valuable commodity. The only place I really have enough room to stick some noble's housing is in the island meadow, so that's what I do. Not like I need anymore farms at this point. Now, noble's aren't filthy mud-eating peasants. They demand nice things! The food, fleece, and oil that made the normal citizens so happy is just the bare necessities for these guys, and so to provide them with those goods AND the finer things in life, a grand agora must be constructed! It functions exactly the same as a regular agora except that it has room for six vendors, rather than just three.

"But Zengetsu," you say, "Couldn't you just build too normal agoras?"

And you know what I have to say to that. Yes, but why the fuck would I do that, you retard.



Also, our first year's tribute roles in from our new colony and vassal. Pergamum sends useless fucking statues that I can't even sell to anyone, while Ascania sends me cold, hard silver. Needless to say, Pergamum is the useless son whom I hate and relegate to the the shitty side of the table. Ascania is alright though, I like cash. Sure I have a ton of it, but it's a lot more useful than shitty worthless statues.



And then I noticed that some of my citizens were getting torn apart by wolves in the new distribution district for the nobles. So I built some pillars to close off access to the roads to the wolves. God damn are my citizens a bunch of big babbies. "Oh, Davros, we don't have any food. Davros, we need clean water! Davros, a wolf tore out my husbands throat in a crowded, city street!"

Wish they would all just grow a pair.



Anyway, after setting up a suitable noble's district, I place their housing. They are all of the most basic level, called a Residence. They need food, fleece, olive oil, and access to three different types of culture. In return they do jack shit except pay taxes, and not even very much of those. Needless to say, I won't be keeping them at this level for very long.



They of course move into my awesome fucking city very quickly and proceed to walk around being the fat, useless, sacks of shit they are. God damn it, they make me sick just looking at them.



About this time, Argos comes and begs me for some wine for an unknown reason. I'm sure it's something stupid, but whatever, the city has an assload of wine that I'm not really doing anything with at the moment, so they can have some and my wineries can actually have some room to put their new stock.



But back to the nobles! If they're going to live in my city and suck up a bunch of workers for their cultural and material demands, they are damn well gonna earn their keep, and towards that end, I build an armor vendor on the grand agora, who runs to the nearest storehouse full of the stuff and takes it back to be distributed.



But at least Odysseus is happy with the number of upper-class folks in the city now.



With a bit of armor on hand now, the nobles upgrade their homes into Mansions. Each provide us with 2 armored foot-soldiers called Hoplite! We now have the ability to wage war on cities with sea access rather than just shaking our fists impotently at them from the water's edge. Always a nice thing.



Now, one issue I had with the noble district is that I was already running at full employment when I needed to set it up. I made due by sending a couple of Trireme crew home, but I'd much rather have them manned than not. So it's time to build more housing. Problem is, as said above, space is getting scarce, so I'm forced to build a slightly different styled neighborhood. Good news is that this will likely be the last one I need to put up, so I just cram it in behind the harbor district and Poseidon's Temple.



Also, Pergamum continues to prove itself useless by asking me for military aid. You dense motherfuckers, you have temples to both Zeus AND Athena. They will smite the shit out of any invaders. Also, you're the only source of friendly bronze for our allies aside from Sparta who has a magic well of armor.



But I guess they are my shitty colony. I should probably do something. This must be how Zeus feels about Ares. I send them one company of soldiers. That's all they're getting.

I would have sent some boats as well, but they made the mistake of being landlocked. So no boats for them.



So my troops march off to go save Pergamum's sorry ass.



As Habor District - Part 2 continues to grow, the city breaches the 5,000 person threshold. This is actually a really large city, I don't think many of them will end up getting this large if my memory is serving me correctly.



And then Pergamum somehow manages to get defeated by Troy, despite having a temple to both Zeus, Athena, and having an extra company of soldiers sent from their parent city.



Whatever, guess that means we need more soldiers. That means the nobles need wine. A wine vendor is given a spot on the grand agora and he drunkenly wobbles his way to the storehouse to pick some up and distribute it.



Also, Lyrnessus continues to demonstrate that they haven't quite grasped the idea that demands for money should be backed up with a show of force. Good try though, I almost clicked Dispatch before realizing you weren't an ally. Still, a symposium coulda been cool.



Properly sloshed now, the nobles upgrade their homes into Manors! They also each purchase another 2 suits of armor, meaning that each home now provides us with 4 troops! We now have the potential to field 4 eight man companies. Not too shabby. This is also as far as they can be upgraded this mission since I don't have access to horse ranches. Ah well, it'll have to do.



Reaching the decision that no amount of money is enough money, I use some of the excess labor lying around to set up some mints. We don't have enough silver deposits to really make good use of many of them, but hey, free money.



The fourth company is not at full strength yet, but I don't really care, so I send them off to retake Pergamum, cause damn it, that's my city and I'm not letting those dirty Trojan bastards take my shitty useless tribute. It's fucking mine, and I will tell them to take it home each yeah cause I don't want them, NOT YOU!



So they march off to do their thing, and I go and check out my mints, which Hades has been having a field day blessing. Hooray for free money.



Whatever, I didn't want that colony anyway.

I assume Zeus got off his lazy ass after a long night out partying with Dionysus and noticed an army in Pergamum and decided to do some good ol' fashioned smiting while Athena sat in the background shaking her head sadly.



And then Troy decides to fuck with Ascania. Awwww helllll no, nigga. You are not messing with my favorite vassal. So I send all my boats to go protect my favored son. See Pergamum, he gets lots of defenders and you got one shitty company. Know your place.



But my popularity still remains steady at high, instead of the needed great. Hmmmm...

Well, I guess I could lower taxes a bit. People like when you do that, right?



Apparently the answer is yes, so I send summons for the crazed hero to come visit my city. We have work for him.



And here he is in all his bearded glory.



Ascania manages to manage a proper defense and I'm happy that they prove themselves more competent then Pergamum, even without the king of the Gods and a Goddess of war backing them up.



Speaking of the red-headed stepchild, I suppose it's time to go kick out the Trojans are bring him back into the fold. I send Odysseus along because fuck him, he's not gonna sit here lazing around in the city doing nothing. Same with those good for nothing nobles, they gotta work.



And they manage to retake the colony so that I may continue to tell them they they give shitty tribute for many years to come. It's good being Tyrant.



The fabled Wheat races continue to be a proud standing tradition in Aulis as well, because everyone wants to put their wheat in that ONE granary.



Even when some of the others are damn near empty, or ACTUALLY empty. So I ask Poseidon to bail me out since the distribution network is retarded now. He's a bro about it though and agrees to help me out.



A little bit of waving around of the trident.



And poof, a granary full of fish! He's like Jesus!



So our victorious troops come home to much applauding and women throwing themselves at them, and I let them enjoy it. Except for Odysseus. He's still got stuff to do. So he gets sent to go steal that Palladium thing that is apparently vital to our entire war effort.



And oh boy does he ever steal the everliving shit out of it.



So with our quest done, we just need to set aside the goods for the colony. Not a big deal, we've had enough for them since the beginning of the mission.




And that wraps up mission 4. Next mission we will be going to colonize Tenedos, which should be fun as it actually has pretty good goals for a colony mission.

Also, it's time for voting again!

Things to be voted on:

TAX RATE FOR THE NEXT THREE MISSIONS
A NEW MANDATE
THE NEXT CAMPAIGN

I'd like to have the tax rate and mandate decided within 24 hours of this post. The campaign vote will end whenever I finish up this one, so has no definite end date, but probably within the next 2-3 days. Also, please remember that the mandate doesn't necessarily have to be for THIS campaign. Since there are less than three missions left, it could also be applied to the first level of the next campaign, although it will likely have to be fairly general if that's the case.