Gather, Storm!

All right, now I am sold on the Gathering Storm extension of Civ VI.

I was playing a game as Wilfrid Laurier of Canada. I was running a two-track strategy, aiming for either a Cultural or a Diplomatic victory. The Khmers, under Jayavarman VII, were aggressively pursuing a Religious victory, and at one point were pouring evangelists into Canada, trying to convert my Catholic subjects to Buddhism. (He had already done the same to Queen Kristina's Swedish Protestants.) There are restrictions on Canada's warmaking capacity, and I was having difficulty fending off the intruders. (The conversions didn't directly affect my game plan, but I didn't want to give Jayavarman a leg up on *his*.)

Then the World Congress met, and I was able to persuade them to give permission for me to unleash my army on the evangelists without declaring open war on the Khmers (which last would be difficult, given the constraints I mentioned). With that permission, I quickly drove them out and restored Catholic predominance in my empire.

The Khmers were pesty all game. At one point, they declared war on Sweden and captured one of their cities; Kristina appealed for international help, and I was able to use my diplomatic clout to, again, get WC permission. Kristina's crossbowmen provided cover for my knights as they assaulted the city; they drove out the Khmers, and restored the city to Sweden. Kristina was appropriately grateful, which proved useful later on.

Starting to get the hang of this, I am.

Orcas

Another neat tweet from The CryptoNaturalist:

"Somewhere, there are orcas. I’m in my little gray house in Ohio surrounded by the stale, staticky air of winter indoors, but somewhere there are orcas. It’s an easy fact to forget. It’s easy to shrink your world to what you can see. But thankfully, somewhere, there are orcas."