Chapter 20: Some Roads Lead to Rome
With all the Migrants settled into cities now, there wasn't much for Gaiseric to do for a while. Running a country wasn't nearly as interesting as building one. But nevertheless, there were things to do. The workers had to be ordered around, things had to be built in the cities, and the raiders had to explore. A couple did so on the road that was to the West, heading both North and South along it. A couple ventured into the swamps and forests to the North and East, to see what they could find. They did send word that the swamps weren't very livable, although there were plenty of locations that could one day make decent cities.
The Furs outside Zucchabar were connected to the city by road in 333. The workers would work on connecting it to other cities now.
The Raiders going North on the road found it soon reached an end. However, in 334, a bit to the West of the road, they noticed what appeared to be some kind of blue border, probably with people there.
The Raiders in the Swamps found a similar border to the East of the edge of the swamps, although it was Purple, not Blue.
Contact was made with the Blue people in 336. They called themselves the Angles and Saxons, although everyone just called them Anglo-Saxons, since that was much shorter. There leader was a man named Hengest. Gaiseric went to meet with him to see if he had anything to trade, but soon found that no such trade was possible. The Anglo-Saxons had slightly more money than the Vandals, and had also invented simple boats that could be used to navigate coastlines. As the Vandals had no coastline, this technology was completely useless to them, and they had nothing to trade for it anyway.
The Purple people couldn't be reached yet, but news of them came to the Vandals, first. In 337, they built a city just to the South of the Roman cities of Aquincum and Vindobona, near the border of West and East Rome. They'd earlier built a city at the mouth of the Danube River, right on Eastern Rome's borders, but this was pretty much in the middle of several Roman cities. That they'd been allowed to get there was a sign of the times, of how weak Rome had become. For that matter, how did they get there? the Vandals couldn't see the area they occupied, but this city seemed kind of isolated.
They were reached in 338 when the Raiders reached their borders. They called themselves Visigoths, led by Alaric. It appeared the Goths had split into two groups, the West and the East. This was the Western Group.
The Visigoths had no tech lead on the Vandals, and also no more gold- they were pretty much exactly the same.
And to the West, the Raider going South on the road encountered another tribe, this one wearing Pink. They had sent a Raider and Migrant on the same road, and the two ran into each other. They were the Franks, lead by Clovis. Like the Visigoths, Gaiseric thought they were settling a bit far from home.
They also didn't have any technologies the Vandals didn't, but they were considerably richer.
However, even if the Vandals couldn't do any trading at this time, others could. The Vandals woke up one morning in 340 and found that 3 new groups of people were now in contact with them, having been traded the contact from others. They were the 2 Roman Empires led by Emperor Constantine and Empress Theodora, and the Sassanid Persians, the latest of the long line of dynasties that sprang up to rule that area. This one was led by Shapur. They were all significantly more advanced than the Visigoths, or any of the other "barbarians" that inhabited Northern Europe, although the Sassanids were a bit behind the Romans.
They also received word that now everyone had developed more advanced forms of Masonry, and the Franks had both boats and an Alphabet of the type that the Vandals had been trying to develop. Where did they get all this from?
The Sassanids asked the Vandals for a trade of Maps of their territory in 341, although they wanted some gold for it. Gaiseric didn't care that much where they were, so he refused. He noted that they knew two more groups that he didn't know about- the Ostrogoths, the eastern Goths, and the Celts, once powerful in Western Europe and now confined to part of the British Isles.
The two Roman Empires also requested such a trade. Gaiseric refused, as they already had a map of the entire Empire, so it would be pointless.
In more interesting news, research on an Alphabet was finished that year. The Vandals now could write symbols on stuff, if you ignored the fact that they didn't yet know how to write. They'd make sure to work on that.
To the East of the Visigoths, some Raiders met another group of raiders wearing Brown in 342. These were the Ostrogoths, led by Theodoric. They didn't yet have an Alphabet or any other technology, not even the Masonic techniques that everyone else had, and they weren't terribly rich either, although they had some nice Furs.
Speaking of which, Gaiseric decided to go teach the Visigoths the Alphabet they'd just invented in exchange for Masonry.
He probably could have also traded it to someone to get Sailing, but as they still didn't have a coastline, that didn't seem like a very good idea.
In 343, Raiders saw the Franks and Anglo-Saxons build some new cities, the Franks with the earlier seen Migrant/Raider group, the Anglo-Saxons a bit out of their view on the Baltic sea coast.
This was about all that happened for a while. The remainder of the 340's were largely uneventful, just business as usual. Nothing really of note happened for a while.
In 351, both of the Goths advanced a bit further into the field of barbarianism, and developed Marauders, stronger than the earlier Raiders, armed with Iron swords rather than axes. The Vandals wanted to get this, and soon, but first they'd have to get Iron, and get something that could be traded for it. The Visigoths didn't lack any technology the Vandals had, and while the Ostrogoths didn't have an Alphabet yet, this wasn't really considered a fair trade, so the Vandals would have to wait to get Marauding.
Gaiseric's Domestic Advisor seemed highly worried when she ran into his room in the Palace in 353. She brought the news that a strange affliction had struck the citizens of Cartennae. Black spots were appearing on their bodies, and they suffered from several other horrifying symptoms. The city's population shrank considerably either from deaths due to this plague or people fleeing the city to escape the disease. The military in the city was thankfully not infected, but made sure to leave before they could die from it. It was hoped that this plague could be prevented from spreading.
It couldn't. Two years later, in 355, the disease had spread to Lilybaeum to the South. It was suffering similar effects, and the military similarly got the hell out. People all over the country were worried. Would this new disease spread more? How many more people could it kill? They were all doomed!
Or so they thought. The plague vanished from both cities as quickly as it started in 357. The military re-entered the next year, and the cities would slowly have to build up their population again.
Not much else happened in this time period, aside from the Anglo-Saxons and Franks sending angry complaints about Vandal Raiders going through their land.
In 359, this period of things happening to the Vandals that were bad finally ended, and good things started happening. First, the road to the Iron near Saldae was finally finished. And then, the Vandals finished learning how to Write. Better yet, nobody else knew how to Write, but knew other things, so the Vandals could do plenty of trading now.
And in 360, trade they did. They first went to Frankia, and told them they'd trade words for numbers. The Franks had developed Mathematics recently, and said they could use it to make stuff, like Catapults. They had to pay some gold to the Franks for this, but it was hoped they'd get more gold from selling technology to others.
They then went to the Visigoths and traded this new knowledge in exchange for how to ride Horses. They got most of the gold they'd paid to the Franks as payment for the Visigoths, so it seemed fair. While they were there, they also decided to do some contact trading- the Vandals introduced the Visigoths to the Anglo-Saxons, and the Visigoths introduced the Vandals to the Celts. Now knowing more about Horses, they saw some just to the North- they'd make sure to go up there soon.
Gaiseric then went to go meet the Celts, and their leader, Brennus. But first, he stopped to meet with the Anglo-Saxons. He taught them how to Write and do Math, and they showed the Vandals Marauding in return, and paid some gold. They could now build the better Iron-armed soldiers everyone else had, which was good.
And when he met the Celts, he traded his newfound knowledge of Math to them for how to Sail. It wasn't really useful to the Vandals yet, but it had some use. They now had technological parity with all of the other barbarians, and even were ahead of a few, although they were all still behind the Sassanids and Romans.
Now that they could build better soldiers, they went about upgrading some of the ones they already had to Marauders, although they only had the gold and Barracks to do this a couple of times in 360.
Someone traded contact to the final group the Vandals didn't know about yet to the Vandals in 361. This group was the Huns. So they'd reached Western Asia already. That wasn't very good. Luckily, they weren't going to go fight any of the other barbarians in the area- yet, at least.
It was noticed around this time that the Sassanids were in a period of Anarchy, and were switching to an Imperialist Government. This caused every barbarian in the world to wonder why the hell they did that, when Barbarianism was perfectly fine, and probably better.
In 363, some Raiders observed that Anglo-Saxon raiders had gone off to fight... something... and later returned. They didn't know it yet, but it is now thought that that was some Frankish army unit. They directly observed the Franks and Anglo-Saxons fighting in 365, when the Franks killed an Anglo-Saxon Raider unit and captured some workers. They don't know when the war started, or when it will end.
In 366, the Vandals finally managed to build some more cities with recently-built Migrants, building Cagliari in the large gap that existed between several of their cities...
And Aleria, to the North near the Horses. They would be connected by road as soon as possible.
The next few years were largely uneventful, at least for the Vandals. They watched the Franks and Saxons continue to fight, and also build cities ever closer to the Vandals. The Ostrogoths and Visigoths were also starting to cramp the Vandals for space. The Visigoths even built in isolated city North of the Ostrogoths, in an area that the Vandals had actually really wanted. What the hell were they even doing up here, and why do they build so far from home anyway? If this continued, the Vandals would run out of space soon- and have no option left to expand but fighting someone.
They might be able to exploit the war to the West to fight one of them after being weakened by war. Currently, the Franks seem to be winning. They seem to have more units, but Gaiseric isn't sure. They're certainly winning more battles. A fairly sizable group of Raiders and Marauders burned an Anglo-Saxon city of an unknown name in 373, with military to spare. As the Vandals have the weakest military in the world right now, they'll have to build up a bit before they can hope to fight against anyone.
They got something that will probably aid that in 381- they finished research on Pillaging. They now could build the Pillagers, even better than Marauders. They could even enslave some of who they fought as workers to send back to the Vandals. Now, they'd have to build some...
That same year, many other nations had developed a Code of Laws for their citizens to follow and figured out how to make Maps, navigate the Seas, and build better Ships capable of offensive combat, so 382 promised to be a year of trading.
But before that, the Vandals added a 10th city to their empire, Panormus, on the West back of the Oder river near its source. It also was close to valuable source of Iron. They already had another, but it might have some use in trade.
And the Vandals went right to trade now. As everyone but the Franks, Ostrogoths, and Celts either also had Pillaging or couldn't be traded Pillaging, their options for trade were limited. They decided to trade it to the Celts, as, being on a different landmass, they weren't nearly as much of a threat to the Vandals if they decided to use these Pillagers offensively. From them, the Vandals learned the secret of Map Making, and also got a map of the Celts' territory.
Map Making was also owned by most, although the Franks and both of the Goths didn't have it. The Vandals traded it to the Visigoths for a Code of Laws and a map of their territory, with nothing else included as nothing else could be included.
They then realized they needed to know more of the map, so they asked for the Ostrogoths' World Map rather than their territory map. Map Making was considered a fair and highly appropriate trade for this.
They had managed to get the Territory Maps of the Huns and Sassanids at some point, so having that was nice.
Having run out of things to trade for, they noticed that the Franks had a Worker for sale. The Vandals wanted some Frankish slaves, so they traded all of their Map info and added the worker into the deal.
And that was pretty much it for the year. It finished with some more map trades with the Visigoths and Celts.
The new additions to the map revealed much. The Vandals could now see pretty much all of the territory and some other bits of land from everyone else. All the better to conquer you with! They'd make sure to build some Pillagers soon. They hoped they wouldn't be needed for a while, but sadly, that was probably just wishful thinking.
