Building a bank in Civilization 7 is a good way to earn a little extra gold in your cities. You might also get build a bank as an optional, narrative objective as part of the Precious Metals quest over the course of your game especially if youre pursuing an Economic Legacy Path.Our Civilization 7 guide will tell you what you need to research to unlock banks and the requirements for how to build a bank.How to unlock banks in Civilization 7Banks are an Exploration Age building, so youll have to advance out of the Antiquity Age before theyll even become an option.Banks are unlocked by researching Urban Planning in the Exploration Age Tech tree. Youll find it almost all the way to the right, just before Future Tech. That means youll need to research almost the entire tree before you can start building banks. At minimum, youll need to research Astronomy, Cartography, Heraldry, Feudalism, Guilds, Shipbuilding, Education, and Architecture first.How to build a bank in Civilization 7Banks can only be built in cities, not in towns. They require quite a bit of production to get built somewhere around 250 to 260 Production, depending on how your town and civilizations Happiness figures in. Once built, itll start generating a base of at least +5 gold per turn with additional gold available based on location and neighboring tiles.Upkeep and maintenance on the bank will cost 3 Happiness per turn from your town.For more Civilization 7 guides, heres how to increase your Production, Happiness, and Food yields, plus a list of all yields and how they work.

An Economic Victory in Civilization 7 is a little more Machiavellian than the other victories hence why Machiavelli is such a good leader for it. Through the ages, youll work hard to create strong diplomatic partnerships with other civilizations in order to enrich them and, more importantly, yourself.In this Civilization 7 guide, were going to give you a broad idea of how to get an Economic Victory and then give you an age-by-age walkthrough on how to make it happen.How to get an Economic Victory in Civilization 7In an Economic Victory, youll be going for a wide variety of objectives, making it a bit different than something like a Military Victory. But what it all really boils down to is diplomacy and ensuring that youre trading with as many people as possible to get richer and richer and richer.In the beginning of the game, youre just looking to gobble up as many resources as possible. You can do that by expanding your own empire and trading with other civilizations when you encounter them.Things get a little more complex later in the game, once you reach the Exploration Age and have to start worrying about treasure fleets. Here, youll need to expand onto different continents in order to bring treasures home, enriching yourself with exotic goods from distant lands. Finally, youll end up building a rail line and moving goods around the world in order to become the first ever railroad tycoon.The important thing to remember about an Economic Victory is that you are rich as hell. That might sound obvious, but if money is your main focus, you can stack up a lot of it very quickly as the turns roll on. Throw your weight around by building high yield buildings or even buying expensive units to quickly win a war with your allies. Use your vast wealth to further improve the lives of your citizens, and itll come back to you tenfold.The wealth and diplomatic power you generate over the course of the game will help you establish a World Bank Office in every capital city in the world, which is exactly what you need to do to win.Economic Victory walkthrough in Civilization 7As described above, an Economic Victory is all about making that money and spreading your wealth through your empire and the empire of others. That can make it a little tricky, and its got some weird mechanics going on in some of the ages.Below, were going to give you a bit of more structured advice for each age to help you push through the games objectives and complete the Economic Legacy Path, which will help guide you to completing the World Bank in the Modern Age.Antiquity AgeBefore we get started, heres a snapshot of what the Antiquity Age looks like for an Economic Victory:Study Code of Laws in the Civics treeBuild a merchant and create a trade routeUse the Improve Trade Relations Diplomatic ActionSlot 20 resourcesIn the Antiquity Age, you have one of the simplest objectives in any of the Legacy Paths. All you need to do is have a combined 20 resources slotted into your various towns and cities by the end of the age. Now, you have to do a bit of research to get there, and there are ways to fumble it, but chances are you mightve accidentally gotten most of the way through the Economic Legacy Path going for other victories before.When the game first starts, youll need to rush to the Code of Laws in the Civics tree, which will allow you to build a merchant and establish trade routes with other civilizations. This is critical, as itll both net you gold and access to other civilizations resources.But youll want to do more than just trade to secure your resource empire. Make sure you take your settlers even your first one and place them near resource tiles. Expand your empire rapidly, in order to claim some of these resources around the maps. (Getting a scout early is advisable here to look for other civilizations and, more importantly, valuable resource nodes.)Try to avoid wars during this age if you can, as they are money sinks. Instead, use your Influence to improve your trade relations with as many civilizations as possible, which will increase your relationship with them, netting both of you some gold, and increasing the number of trait routes you can have with them.You should also be training and buying merchants in your cities, as well as upping your towns Production so theyll send you back Gold.Once you slot 20 resources in, youll finish the Economic Legacy Path and start with an Economic Golden Age, which gives you the incredible bonus of allowing you to keep all cities as cities when you transition to the Exploration Age.Exploration AgeBefore we get started, heres a snapshot of what the Exploration Age looks like for an Economic Victory:Research Cartography and AstronomyResearch Shipbuilding and Shipbuilding MasteryBuild a settlement in a distant landBuild a fishing quay in a distant land settlementImprove Treasure Resources in a distant landScore 30 Treasure Fleet Points by capturing treasure fleetsYour punishment for a straightforward Antiquity Age is a convoluted Exploration Age. Things start out pretty simple here, and quickly get complex and confusing.At the start of the age, you need to focus on getting your civilizations shipshape and ready for ocean travel. Buy some Science buildings with your vast fortune and expedite Shipbuilding and Master Shipbuilding. Then make some settlers and send them across the ocean to various different parts of the world. Scout boats are great here.Youll need to look for treasure resources in these distant lands, build a settlement near them, and then improve them by spending a population on them to build a mine, farm, etc. You then need to build a fishing quay that connects the settlement to your homelands fishing quay. And then you need to wait for some time. Eventually, a treasure fleet will spawn, and youll need to escort it back to your home port and deposit it.When you deposit a treasure fleet, you get one point for every treasure resource thats in the settlement it came from. You need 30 treasure fleet points to complete this Legacy Path. Yikes.This is a very time-consuming process, and its a little finicky. So to maximize your likelihood of success, there are two things you can do.First: ABE always be expanding. Send as many settlers as you can to as many foreign areas as you can. And try to place your foreign settlements next to two or more treasure resources, so that your treasure fleets are worth more points when they finally spawn. The earlier you do this in the age, the better.Second: Be a pirate. If you buy yourself a powerful navy fleet which you should be able to do, since you should have a lot of gold at this point you can actually steal other civilizations treasure fleets and bring them back to your city instead. This can get you in a bit of trouble, obviously, as youll be getting yourself into conflicts. But with enough boats, you can build yourself a nice little pirate fleet.Once you finally accumulate all those treasure points, the age will come to an end. If you make it to the end of the Legacy Path, youll once again be able to keep all of your cities once you transition to the Modern Age.Modern AgeBefore we get started, heres a snapshot of what the Modern Age looks like for an Economic Victory:Research Industrialization in the Tech treeBuild a rail station Research Mass Production in the Tech treeBuild enough rail stations to connect three settlements by railBuild a factorySlot factory resources and earn 500 Rail Tycoon PointsSend the Great Banker to every capital in the world and establish a World Bank OfficeIn the modern age, you have another complex path to victory, although its a lot less frustrating than treasure fleets. This time, you get to become the worlds first (and best) railroad tycoon and eventually establish the World Bank.To start off, you need to research Industrialization in the Tech Tree, which is pretty early on. Even so, buy some Science buildings if youre lagging behind, as youll want as much time as possible once youve unlocked the rail station. You should build a rail station in as many of your settlements as possible, as itll upgrade your roads to rails.Next youll need to research Mass Production to unlock the factory, which is a bit further into the Science Tech Tree. While youre doing this, get started buttering your neighbors up and increasing your relationship with them by sending them gold and improving your relationships. Try to avoid any wars, as youll want to maintain a positive relationship with as many other civilizations as possible in order to help you out later.Once youve unlocked the ability to build a factory, put one in every one of your settlements. This will allow you to slot special factory resources that youll find around the map. These resources behave very similarly to other slotted resources, but they can only go in your special factory slot.Once you slot at least five factory resources, youll be off to the races on trying to become a railroad tycoon. Every turn that you have resources slotted into your factories, youll gain Railroad Tycoon Points. The thing is, you need 500 such points to finish the Legacy Path and start in on your victory. This is basically just time consuming, but you can make it go faster by building more factories and settlements. The more resources you have in your factory slots, the more points youll get per turn. While you wait, keep accumulating wealth and Influence, but be a little frugal with both, as youll need them soon.After youve earned 500 Railroad Tycoon Points, youll gain a new unit: the Great Banker. This unit is about to become the most important person in your society, and youll need to move them to each players capital city and have them use the Establish World Bank Office action in each. This action costs both Gold and Influence, and its more expensive depending on how much a civilization hates you.Accumulate funds and Influence, and move your little Monopoly man around the map until youve established a World Bank Office in every city capital in the world. Once youre done, youll instantly win an Economic Victory.For more Civilization 7 guides, read our guides to all Legacy Paths and all victories or our detailed walkthroughs on how to get an Culture Victory, a Military Victory, or a Science Victory.

In recent daysin response to directives from the Trump administrationthousands of federal agency web pages have been deleted or altered to remove research, reports, and references to everything from vaccines to environmental policy initiatives. According to The New York Times, more than 8,000 pages have disappeared from the websites of agencies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Census Bureau, the Department of Justice, and the Food and Drug Administration (to name a few). In other cases, sites are still accessible but have had language related to diversity, gender, and climate change scrubbed. There are a number of efforts from scientists, researchers, journalists, and advocacy groups to compile and save information that has been removed from federal websites (or is at risk). For example, CDCGuidelines.com has downloadable PDFs of documents on topics like contraception, LGBTQIA+ health, and intimate partner violence, while the Public Environmental Data Project has replicated the Council on Environmental Quality's deleted Climate & Economic Justice Screening Tool. The Harvard Dataverse is another repository for public data, while the End of Term Archive preserves government websites at risk of changing or being lost in transition between presidential administrations. You can also find deleted pages yourself using the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, which scrapes and archives websites across the internet to create a digital information repository. You can enter a specific URL (if you know it) or search specific collectionssuch as .gov websites and .gov PDFsusing keywords. How to read deleted websites with the Wayback MachineOn the Internet Archive's main page, enter the URL of the page you want to read into the Wayback Machine search bar. When the results appear, hover over any calendar date with a blue circle and select a time from the pop-up, which indicates when a snapshot of the page was taken. Depending on the page you're searching for, you may need to navigate back into 2024. Alternatively, locate the collection search bar at the bottom of the page, enter keywords, and select a collection from the drop-down. The Wayback Machine has collections for .gov pages and PDFs as well as COVID and end-of-term data.

We may earn a commission from links on this page.For the past few months, Ive had two salt shakers in my kitchen. One is Morton Salt Substitute, which is potassium-based, and I use it for the first few shakes of salt when Im seasoning a dish. The other is regular table salt, which I use at the table. Now the World Health Organization is recommending that more of us try salt substitutes, and not just in the name of lowering sodium. Potassium is good for us, and its an easy way to get more in our diet. Morton Salt Substitute, 3.12 oz, 2 pk (Limited Edition) $11.98 at Amazon Get Deal Get Deal $11.98 at Amazon Benefits of potassium-based saltIf youve ever tried to lower your sodium intake, youre probably familiar with low-sodium or no-sodium salt substitutes. One potential benefit is, of course, that they give you an easy way to lower your sodium intake if you do a lot of your own cooking. Sodium can contribute to high blood pressure and other health conditions, so the World Health Organization recommends that most of us keep our sodium intake under 2,000 milligrams per day. (The U.S. recommendation is a bit more generous, at 2,300 milligrams.)But this isnt just about sodium. When it comes to heart health, most of us get more sodium than recommended and not enough potassium. Potassium is another mineral that our body needs, and consuming more of it has been found to reduce risks of cardiovascular disease. In this study, for example, people who switched to a potassium-based salt had fewer strokes, heart attacks, and deaths during the study than people who kept using a regular sodium salt.We normally get potassium in our diet from fruits and vegetables. Potassium salt shouldnt replace that, but it can be a good extra source of the mineral. According to the National Institutes of Health, adult women should get at least 2,600 milligrams of potassium per day, and adult men at least 3,400.Downsides of potassium-based saltImportantly, potassium supplementation is not for everyone. If you have kidney disease or impaired kidney function, or if youre taking a medication that changes how your body processes potassium, you may want to avoid these salts. (Your healthcare provider can tell you more.)How does potassium salt taste?The people promoting salt substitutes for health tend to wave away concerns about flavor. Most people wont notice the difference, they say. They may be right, but there is a difference.Potassium salts have a subtly different flavor than regular sodium-based table salt. Sprinkle a little on your hand and lick it, and youll see what I mean. Its still salty, and it doesnt taste bad or anything, but its not quite the same.In large amounts, potassium-based salt substitutes can taste slightly metallic or bitter. When companies make low-sodium versions of their products, they know to use a mix of potassium and sodium salts, so thats what I do at home.I use my salt substitute at the beginning of a recipe, when Im browning meat or sauting onions. It contributes a general saltiness to the dish. The next time I add salt, its usually the sodium kind. I figure Im getting a roughly 50/50 balance, and then the salt shaker I bring to the dinner table is regular old table salt.If thats too complicated, you can just mix both types of salt in the same container. Or buy a salt substitute like Morton Lite, which is a mix of sodium and potassium salts. And if you need a long-term review to convince you it will actually be fine for daily use, one of the largest studies on salt substitutes found that, after five years, 90% of participants were still happily using their salt substitute.

The Zenfone 12 Ultra, announced today, is ASUS's latest flagship smartphone, and much like its competitors, it leans hard into AI.Thanks to a Snapdragon 8 Elite, the Zenfone 12 Ultra can perform AI tasks offline and online through the cloud, including transcribing audio, summarizing articles and documents and providing real-time interpretation on calls for supported languages. It can also use Circle to Search much like other Android phones. The onboard AI is powered by Metas Llama 3 8B language model, which works without an internet connection.The Zenfone 12 Ultras FHD+ AMOLED display measures 6.78 inches and has a standard refresh rate of up to 120Hz under normal operation, and up to 144Hz while gaming. A rear tri-camera system handles photo and video and consists of a 50-megapixel Sony Lytia 700 sensor with a six-axis gimbal stabilizer, a 32MP telephoto lens and a 12MP ultrawide lens with a field of view of 120 degrees. Theres also a 32MP RGBW front camera for selfies. AI software enhancements can ensure people or pets stay at the center of videos, and can apply bokeh effects to portraits and enhance voice clarity while recording videos.A standout with this new Zenfone is its 5,500mAh battery, which promises more than 26 hours of use. It's also Qi 1.3 compatible. Additionally, the smartphone supports eSIMs, making connecting to the internet effortless. WiFi 7 support will let users take advantage of high-speed networks if available.The Zenfone 12 Ultra retails for 1,099.99, and there's a limited-time launch offer of 999.99 in Europe from February 6 to 28. It comes in three colorways: Sage Green, Ebony Black and Sakura White. US and UK launch dates havent been announced yet.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/asuss-zenfone-12-ultra-leans-heavily-into-ai-063040420.html?src=rss

In recent years, the push to ban smartphones in schools has picked up, with advocates citing everything from improving focus to creating a safe environment. Now, a new study out of the UK investigates the effectiveness of these policies on social media use and overall well-being with interesting results. The study, published in The Lancet Regional Health - Europe journal, included 1,227 individuals aged 12 to 15 from 20 schools with restrictive phone policies and 10 that permitted phone use.Researchers didn't find a link between restrictive school policies and lower phone or social media use and improved well-being. Notably, individuals unable to use their phones at school still used their devices the same amount of time on weekdays as their counterparts. So, they still had the same amount of potentially negative time on their phones per day, just at a different time of the day (assuming no sneaky use at school). These results are significant for advocates of school bans to consider, though primarily demonstrate the benefits of a more holistic plan to reduce adolescents' smartphone and social media use throughout the day.The study's authors note their research didn't look at how restrictive phone policies at school can impact instances of bullying or time engaging in face-to-face interactions. It also doesn't examine the difference between varied types of restriction or how long these policies have been in place.The UK government has been a strong proponent of banning smartphones in schools, announcing guidance in February 2024. The guidance called for schools to create policies that worked best for them, but outlined a few options including banning any smartphones on school premises. Other suggestions involved students handing in their phones upon arrival or storing them in lockers.The US, France and more countries have also taken steps to ban smartphones in schools. New York Governor Kathy Hochul and California Governor Gavin Newsom are among the proponents of smartphone restrictions in schools.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/uk-study-says-school-phone-bans-dont-affect-students-total-screen-time-130048601.html?src=rss

Former PlayStation boss Shuhei Yoshida has revealed the first game for the unreleased Nintendo PlayStation console.

OpenAI reveals new fonts, logos and other branding elements Tto mark ten years since it was founded.

Rodeo FX spearheaded the action-packed imagery in Kraven the Hunter with Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Well-known for its skillset, the outfit successfully delivered adrenalizing sequences which incorporated seamless effects along with raw action. This VFX saw scenes of vicious battles and action chase through Londons streets brought the character world alive with utmost realism. The chopper chases, huge explosions, and buildings collapsing were carefully crafted to enhance the mayhem, and gunfire effects gave an edge to the action. Compositing work by Rodeo FX played a crucial role in combining live-action elements with digital effects, creating a seamless and immersive experience. Their innovative work not only heightened the tension but also proved their ability to adapt to the dynamic needs of a high-stakes, action-driven narrative. The result is a visually captivating experience that perfectly complements Kravens ferocity and the films gripping storyline.The post Kraven the Hunter VFX Breakdown by Rodeo FX appeared first on Vfxexpress.