The Conquests
- Thread starter choxorn
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Chapter 44: Exploration and Gunpowder
One curious thing that was noted by the Dutch who knew a bit about how Magellan's Voyage worked was that the Frigates it made had weapons that required something they called "Gunpowder." The problem was that nobody but them seemed to have any idea what Gunpowder actually was.
At least, not until Spain and Portugal had discovered it at the end of 1513. Apparently it was a strange powdery substance that could be lit on fire to create explosions. They'd come up with a couple of military uses for this, in the form of small tube-shaped objects called "Muskets" that fired small pellets at high enough speeds to put large holes in many objects, like, say, humans. The Frigates being made by Magellan's Voyage seemed to have similar weapons, only... bigger.
Speaking of ships, the Caravels continued exploring in 1514, not that it seemed like there was much to explore. They found pretty much nothing but Ocean and a tiny island or two.
Gunpowder spread to France at the end of the year. It seemed that they'd researched a new technology for how to keep money safe, make money off of making money, and make some people a lot of money, and traded it to Spain for Gunpowder. They improved a bit on the Muskets to make their Musketeers better at defense. No doubt, they were clearly still scared of the Dutch.
And with good reason. Although it appeared that nobody else in the Netherlands even knew what Gunpowder was, the Magellan's Voyage had given them a Frigate. When sailing it a bit and showing it off, someone noted that a combination of explosions from the guns on it and mirages sometimes made it look like it was flying, and called the ship the "Flying Dutchman."
Some Colonists had finally got ready to colonize in Antwerp in 1515, so they boarded the HNMS Amsterdam and it finally went West, with a bunch of bored Pikemen who'd been sitting in the ship for the past several years.
Holland continued its Northward journey, and found a weird group of islands near South America that they called the Galapagos, other ships continued exploring, and Flying Dutchman headed West to join them in exploring.
This was followed by a period of not much happening, as William had nothing to do but get his ships to keep moving and his workers to keep improving his land and his people to keep working it. Then, on November 21, 1516, France again demonstrated their aggressive ways by declaring war on Spain. William didn't really care about this, but maybe it would keep them busy for a while.
It appeared that they had been emboldened by the knowledge that they were about to finish Leonardo's Workshop and upgrade units more easily. Problem was, they didn't actually have anything to upgrade right now (Pikemen don't upgrade to Musketmen/Musketeers in this scenario)
Spain followed up 1 year later with the creation of Copernicus' Observatory in Madrid, but that had only technological benefits, not military benefits. Maybe they could use it to research something strong enough to kill France's Musketeers.
At roughly the same time, the Dutch scientists had finally figured out from learning from other countries who'd already researched it and Magellan's Voyage: How to make Gunpowder and Muskets. They still didn't know how to make Frigates, though, nor did anyone else. Magellan's Voyage is weird.
In 1518, the scientists decided to take a look at who else in Europe had the Saltpeter needed to make Gunpowder work. They quickly realized that everyone had it but Portugal, although Spain hadn't built a road to their source yet (making it unusable) and the English didn't even know what Gunpowder was- meaning that for the moment, only the Dutch and French could do anything with it. With France's Musketeers, they probably could claim to be the strongest land military force in Western Europe and not have any real challengers to that claim.
There were a couple of sources in the Americas, too, notably in the Aztec Empire and just outside the Iroquois borders near Niagara Falls, but no American civilization was anywhere close to figuring out what Gunpowder was.
HNMS Amsterdam had reached North America, right outside of New Amsterdam, in fact. They could have continued South into the Caribbean, but upon realizing that someone needed to get back to Antwerp soon to get the next Colonizers, as they didn't yet have any other ships that weren't several thousand miles to the South. So the Colonists got off the boat in the unclaimed region between new Amsterdam, Jamestown, and Salamanca and the Carrack returned East.
The Colonists finished building the city of Fort Orange there in 1519.
The other countries in Europe weren't really doing anything at the moment, a trend that would continue for several years. Sure, France and Spain were fighting, but not much in that war was actually happening. Sure, the normal stuff was happening, but that's just the normal stuff.
And not much was happening in the Netherlands either. Magellan's Voyage built another Frigate, and the other ones continued exploring, but that was it. They even found some notable things- Sintmaria explored the entire Southern Edge of the world from Africa to the Strait of Magellan in 1520, Holland reached the area Northwest of the Aztecs known as "California" and started exploring parts of the North American coast that the Dutch knew nothing about in 1521, and the city of Amsterdam started building a Navigation School to make their ships faster, simply out of a lack of much else to build. But nobody really thought most of this was important.
What was important was the actual colonization. the ship HNMS Amsterdam had returned to Antwerp and left again with Pikemen and Colonists in 1522, this time heading for the resource-rich Caribbean.
Holland found some Silver and Gold in California in 1523, seeing something that the Explorers had already seen a long time ago. Now their journey would take them into the mysterious Northwest North America that the Dutch hadn't even explored inland of yet.
Some bad news came at the end of 1524, when the other countries of Europe finally did something interesting for the first time in about 10 years: Portugal built the city of Porto Novo in a resource rich part of Northern South America that the Dutch had been eyeing for some time. They wished they could have settled there instead.
But oh well, there was nothing that could be done, and they were far more interested in gaining the Gold and Spices farther to the North, on the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola.
But it would still be a few more years before Amsterdam would bring Colonists there.
In the meantime, the other ships continued exploring. Holland complained that they'd found the Western edge of the world, or at least a part of the Pacific Ocean they wouldn't travel through, and there weren't any trade wind routes in the pacific. They also found the area in North America they'd just explored to be pretty rainy despite having lots of Furs and Fish.
Speaking of Furs, there were plenty of furs in an area near the Spanish city of Hispaniola, but too far outside the city for them to make use of it. They build another in the area in 1525- but also too far away from the Furs to be useful, instead grabbing Horses a bit to the West. Which was fine, but Spain already had plenty of Horses, they hardly needed more.
The Dutch scientists again researched something other people already had in 1526, the one France had gotten first and traded for Gunpowder, the one they called "Banking". Apparently, it got them a lot more money.
Holland continued its Northward journey and found a lot of islands and cold mountains, as well as some Iroquois Mounted Warriors, who were a bit far from home. Sintmaria and Orange finally finished exploring the South Atlantic in 1527. They decided to head home and upgrade to Carracks.
Back on the home front, the citizens of Brussels complained that the other two cities in the Netherlands had Universities and they wanted one, too. They'd actually been building one for some time, but it would take a really long time to build. Luckily, the Dutch happened to be drowning in money at that moment, and said "Okay, here, have some money to rush a University." It's good to have 1000 gold coins that you can spend on stuff like this...
Holland finally reached the Northern edge of North America (at least, as far Northwest as they could possibly go), a region they called "Alaska," and headed South into the unexplored mass of the Pacific Ocean in 1528. They didn't know if there was much of anything there or not, but it couldn't hurt to look, and they had little else to do. Flying Dutchman, which was hanging around near the Strait of Magellan at the time, decided to join them.
Amsterdam also reached Cuba, and the Pikemen and Colonists on board got off. They noticed some Carib Archers right next to them that didn't look very friendly. Amsterdam also unloaded some Explorers in Florida, who noticed a distinct lack of barbarians anywhere. Maybe the Iroquois and Aztecs killed them all.
Back in the Netherlands, William was very happy, because his workers had finally finished improving all the land in the Netherlands to what he wanted, a task he'd set them on nearly 40 years ago. With that done, they boarded an unnamed Carrack in Antwerp and set sail for the New World to improve the land there.
As expected, the Carib Archers attacked the Pikemen in December. As expected, the Archers left the battle with a few very sharp objects sticking out of holes in their bodies. And dead.
Meanwhile, in England, big changes were happening. A couple of people had started raising some protests about the corrupt practices of the Catholic Church a few years ago. They'd quickly gained a lot of followers, and the Protestants, as they were called, in England, overthrew the Catholics and made the government Protestant. And they'd done this all in about 2 or 3 years. Lucky them, that's a pretty short revolution. Probably because everyone else went along with it in the government out of not wanting to lose their jobs, money, or lives.
But the Dutch didn't care much about what the English were doing unless it affected them, and this didn't really seem to. What they cared about was the city in Cuba they'd just built, named Wiltwyck:
They were colonizing at almost the same rate as Portugal (they've built 3 cities since the beginning of the game, so have I), and they didn't even have the benefit of free Colonists that Portugal was getting.
With expansion this fast and lots of free ships, the Dutch were sure that it would only be a matter of time before they could start using those ships for things other than exploring and ferrying people across the Ocean...
One curious thing that was noted by the Dutch who knew a bit about how Magellan's Voyage worked was that the Frigates it made had weapons that required something they called "Gunpowder." The problem was that nobody but them seemed to have any idea what Gunpowder actually was.
At least, not until Spain and Portugal had discovered it at the end of 1513. Apparently it was a strange powdery substance that could be lit on fire to create explosions. They'd come up with a couple of military uses for this, in the form of small tube-shaped objects called "Muskets" that fired small pellets at high enough speeds to put large holes in many objects, like, say, humans. The Frigates being made by Magellan's Voyage seemed to have similar weapons, only... bigger.
Speaking of ships, the Caravels continued exploring in 1514, not that it seemed like there was much to explore. They found pretty much nothing but Ocean and a tiny island or two.
Gunpowder spread to France at the end of the year. It seemed that they'd researched a new technology for how to keep money safe, make money off of making money, and make some people a lot of money, and traded it to Spain for Gunpowder. They improved a bit on the Muskets to make their Musketeers better at defense. No doubt, they were clearly still scared of the Dutch.
And with good reason. Although it appeared that nobody else in the Netherlands even knew what Gunpowder was, the Magellan's Voyage had given them a Frigate. When sailing it a bit and showing it off, someone noted that a combination of explosions from the guns on it and mirages sometimes made it look like it was flying, and called the ship the "Flying Dutchman."
Some Colonists had finally got ready to colonize in Antwerp in 1515, so they boarded the HNMS Amsterdam and it finally went West, with a bunch of bored Pikemen who'd been sitting in the ship for the past several years.
Holland continued its Northward journey, and found a weird group of islands near South America that they called the Galapagos, other ships continued exploring, and Flying Dutchman headed West to join them in exploring.
This was followed by a period of not much happening, as William had nothing to do but get his ships to keep moving and his workers to keep improving his land and his people to keep working it. Then, on November 21, 1516, France again demonstrated their aggressive ways by declaring war on Spain. William didn't really care about this, but maybe it would keep them busy for a while.
It appeared that they had been emboldened by the knowledge that they were about to finish Leonardo's Workshop and upgrade units more easily. Problem was, they didn't actually have anything to upgrade right now (Pikemen don't upgrade to Musketmen/Musketeers in this scenario)
Spain followed up 1 year later with the creation of Copernicus' Observatory in Madrid, but that had only technological benefits, not military benefits. Maybe they could use it to research something strong enough to kill France's Musketeers.
At roughly the same time, the Dutch scientists had finally figured out from learning from other countries who'd already researched it and Magellan's Voyage: How to make Gunpowder and Muskets. They still didn't know how to make Frigates, though, nor did anyone else. Magellan's Voyage is weird.
In 1518, the scientists decided to take a look at who else in Europe had the Saltpeter needed to make Gunpowder work. They quickly realized that everyone had it but Portugal, although Spain hadn't built a road to their source yet (making it unusable) and the English didn't even know what Gunpowder was- meaning that for the moment, only the Dutch and French could do anything with it. With France's Musketeers, they probably could claim to be the strongest land military force in Western Europe and not have any real challengers to that claim.
There were a couple of sources in the Americas, too, notably in the Aztec Empire and just outside the Iroquois borders near Niagara Falls, but no American civilization was anywhere close to figuring out what Gunpowder was.
HNMS Amsterdam had reached North America, right outside of New Amsterdam, in fact. They could have continued South into the Caribbean, but upon realizing that someone needed to get back to Antwerp soon to get the next Colonizers, as they didn't yet have any other ships that weren't several thousand miles to the South. So the Colonists got off the boat in the unclaimed region between new Amsterdam, Jamestown, and Salamanca and the Carrack returned East.
The Colonists finished building the city of Fort Orange there in 1519.
The other countries in Europe weren't really doing anything at the moment, a trend that would continue for several years. Sure, France and Spain were fighting, but not much in that war was actually happening. Sure, the normal stuff was happening, but that's just the normal stuff.
And not much was happening in the Netherlands either. Magellan's Voyage built another Frigate, and the other ones continued exploring, but that was it. They even found some notable things- Sintmaria explored the entire Southern Edge of the world from Africa to the Strait of Magellan in 1520, Holland reached the area Northwest of the Aztecs known as "California" and started exploring parts of the North American coast that the Dutch knew nothing about in 1521, and the city of Amsterdam started building a Navigation School to make their ships faster, simply out of a lack of much else to build. But nobody really thought most of this was important.
What was important was the actual colonization. the ship HNMS Amsterdam had returned to Antwerp and left again with Pikemen and Colonists in 1522, this time heading for the resource-rich Caribbean.
Holland found some Silver and Gold in California in 1523, seeing something that the Explorers had already seen a long time ago. Now their journey would take them into the mysterious Northwest North America that the Dutch hadn't even explored inland of yet.
Some bad news came at the end of 1524, when the other countries of Europe finally did something interesting for the first time in about 10 years: Portugal built the city of Porto Novo in a resource rich part of Northern South America that the Dutch had been eyeing for some time. They wished they could have settled there instead.
But oh well, there was nothing that could be done, and they were far more interested in gaining the Gold and Spices farther to the North, on the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola.
But it would still be a few more years before Amsterdam would bring Colonists there.
In the meantime, the other ships continued exploring. Holland complained that they'd found the Western edge of the world, or at least a part of the Pacific Ocean they wouldn't travel through, and there weren't any trade wind routes in the pacific. They also found the area in North America they'd just explored to be pretty rainy despite having lots of Furs and Fish.
Speaking of Furs, there were plenty of furs in an area near the Spanish city of Hispaniola, but too far outside the city for them to make use of it. They build another in the area in 1525- but also too far away from the Furs to be useful, instead grabbing Horses a bit to the West. Which was fine, but Spain already had plenty of Horses, they hardly needed more.
The Dutch scientists again researched something other people already had in 1526, the one France had gotten first and traded for Gunpowder, the one they called "Banking". Apparently, it got them a lot more money.
Holland continued its Northward journey and found a lot of islands and cold mountains, as well as some Iroquois Mounted Warriors, who were a bit far from home. Sintmaria and Orange finally finished exploring the South Atlantic in 1527. They decided to head home and upgrade to Carracks.
Back on the home front, the citizens of Brussels complained that the other two cities in the Netherlands had Universities and they wanted one, too. They'd actually been building one for some time, but it would take a really long time to build. Luckily, the Dutch happened to be drowning in money at that moment, and said "Okay, here, have some money to rush a University." It's good to have 1000 gold coins that you can spend on stuff like this...
Holland finally reached the Northern edge of North America (at least, as far Northwest as they could possibly go), a region they called "Alaska," and headed South into the unexplored mass of the Pacific Ocean in 1528. They didn't know if there was much of anything there or not, but it couldn't hurt to look, and they had little else to do. Flying Dutchman, which was hanging around near the Strait of Magellan at the time, decided to join them.
Amsterdam also reached Cuba, and the Pikemen and Colonists on board got off. They noticed some Carib Archers right next to them that didn't look very friendly. Amsterdam also unloaded some Explorers in Florida, who noticed a distinct lack of barbarians anywhere. Maybe the Iroquois and Aztecs killed them all.
Back in the Netherlands, William was very happy, because his workers had finally finished improving all the land in the Netherlands to what he wanted, a task he'd set them on nearly 40 years ago. With that done, they boarded an unnamed Carrack in Antwerp and set sail for the New World to improve the land there.
As expected, the Carib Archers attacked the Pikemen in December. As expected, the Archers left the battle with a few very sharp objects sticking out of holes in their bodies. And dead.
Meanwhile, in England, big changes were happening. A couple of people had started raising some protests about the corrupt practices of the Catholic Church a few years ago. They'd quickly gained a lot of followers, and the Protestants, as they were called, in England, overthrew the Catholics and made the government Protestant. And they'd done this all in about 2 or 3 years. Lucky them, that's a pretty short revolution. Probably because everyone else went along with it in the government out of not wanting to lose their jobs, money, or lives.
But the Dutch didn't care much about what the English were doing unless it affected them, and this didn't really seem to. What they cared about was the city in Cuba they'd just built, named Wiltwyck:
They were colonizing at almost the same rate as Portugal (they've built 3 cities since the beginning of the game, so have I), and they didn't even have the benefit of free Colonists that Portugal was getting.
With expansion this fast and lots of free ships, the Dutch were sure that it would only be a matter of time before they could start using those ships for things other than exploring and ferrying people across the Ocean...
Last edited:
Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
Excellent update!
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
Chox, any updates soon? I just noticed it's been a while since anyone posted here.
Chapter 45: Iberian Issues
Despite the voyage of Bartolomeo Dias giving Portugal lots of people willing to go out and colonize new places, they had somehow not done very much colonizing for a while, and as a result, been looked on by many as weak, which they pretty much were. But that was due to change, and fast. Because they still had a lot of colonists, and they were beginning to get enough ships, gold, and military forces to actually send them out colonizing...
...But William and the Dutch had more pressing concerns in 1529. At that time, Portugal's 9 cities still made them the largest, but the scattered nature of those cities and their weak military force gave the Dutch other things to worry about. Like, the fact that the Dutch were starting to fall behind technologically, courtesy of their small size and the strange propensity for their non-English European neighbors to simultaneously make big technological breakthroughs, like of a Colonization technology in 1530 that allowed the building of plantations to take advantage of some of the newly-discovered plants in the New World. The Dutch were still a long way away from getting anywhere in their technological research into better soldiers, and nothing to trade for it, or for the English religious ideas that could possibly be used to trade for Colonization.
Another thing to worry about was the poor state of development of the Dutch Colonies, but that they could do something about: Specifically, they sent some Workers over to Cuba and spent a lot of money to build a Harbor in Wiltwyck, the city on Cuba.
And then there was the steadily rising power of the primitive civilizations in the New World. They were all far behind in technology, but steadily advancing. Both the Iroquois and the Inca would enter the Middle Ages in the early 1530's. Their resource problems would not plague them for very long, as the Iroquois built a city and claimed some Iron in the marshy area north of the peninsula of Florida in 1529, and the Aztecs claimed some of the Horses in the Great Plains as their own in 1530.
But for all the problems the Dutch faced, they succeeded in some areas, too. For instance, Amsterdam finished work on a Navigation School in January of 1531, giving their ships greatly enhanced movement. They also got free explorers, but didn't exactly need that for much.
Among other things, this let their Worker-carrying Carrack reach Cuba that much faster, and let their exploring ships explore that much more Ocean. HNMS Holland, then off the coast of California, explored the Western edge of the world, while HNMS Flying Dutchman, then near Patagonia, explored the Southern edge. The New World Explorers, then in the Rocky Mountains, headed into the unexplored Northwest of North America.
It was a little after that the Dutch and the rest of Europe finally started taking note of Portugal's massive surplus of Colonists, due largely to the fact that they started using them, to build 3 new cities- 1 in the Eastern Caribbean, and 2 in West Africa- between 1531 and 1534. The Dutch paid especially close attention to Bahia, the city they built on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in 1531, as it gave them some Fish and Spices the Dutch had been eyeing for a while.
The fact that they, Spain, and France had all researched naval technology to let them build the Frigates the Dutch had long been getting for free in 1533 didn't help matters much. The Dutch really needed that technology- having lost their monopoly on Frigates, the least they could do was at least be able to build them at the same rate as their neighbors. But they still had nothing to trade for it.
At least France and Spain might hopefully exhaust a lot of their newfound naval might fighting each other. Nobody had really paid attention to this war for a while, due to the endless stalemate that had happened. It gained more attention when France, noticing that it was hard to win against an opponent they were so close to in power, decided to try to convince other nations to join them against Spain. In 1533, "Other Nations" meant the Inca and English:
Followed by the Iroquois in 1534:
The Dutch didn't particularly care about Spain or France or their war, though.
One of the things they did care about was their ocean explorations, such as the recent discovery of the Southwestern Corner of the World by HNMS Flying Dutchman, and its subsequent turn North to meet up with the Holland somewhere on the Western map edge. Others seemed to care, too, and asked for trades of map knowledge. The Dutch ignored all of them until Portugal offered one. The Dutch didn't particularly want to give them much, but as their map was just open ocean and Portugal's contained useful information, they agreed after Portugal agreed to give them some money. Portugal's map was valuable, revealing to the Dutch a lot of West Africa and South America, and inexplicably, Northern North America. How the Portuguese got that map, they'll never understand.
Thanks to this map, the Dutch Explorers finished their map of North America in 1536, except for some uncrossable tundra. They immediately thereafter disbanded, as the Dutch didn't feel like paying them anymore and they had little use at this point.
They, could, however, use ships, like the Caravels Orange and Sintmaria, which finally returned home that year and were upgraded to Carracks.
In the meantime, France continued really hating Spain, fighting a battle against them in Normandy at the beginning of December in 1535, using Longbowmen against Spanish units the Dutch couldn't actually see. So far, it's the only Spanish-French Battle they've even partially witnessed. Of course, the French still hated Spain, so they got another war ally against them in 1537.
Once again, the Dutch opted to care more about the Portuguese than this, as the Portuguese had just built a city in the Bahamas Islands, both grabbing more stuff and making Wiltwyck start feeling surrounded. The 13 cities they now owned made them more than twice as big as the Dutch- and everyone else not named France or Spain, for that matter.
At least the Dutch could still build colonists fast enough to avoid completely falling behind. The ones they built in 1538 boarded the HNMS Sintmaria, ready to go to the New World. After considering several possible destinations with his advisors, King William opted to send them to Patagonia to finally get the Dutch a source of Horses, the lack of which had placed them behind their European neighbors for far too long. With Horses, they could finally build Knights.
Meanwhile, Holland and Flying Dutchman met each other on the Western Edge of the World, and started exploring other parts of the Pacific. On Easter, 1539, they found a small island full of strange statues that they lazily opted to name "Easter Island" after the day they discovered it. They found another small island a bit to the Northeast a bit later. Both islands are pretty small and seem practically worthless.
France continued hating Spain in 1539, and got the Aztecs to join them in their fight, making Spain at war with everyone in the New World- and everyone but the Dutch and Portuguese in the Old World, for that matter.
In other news, Amsterdam finally finished construction on a Bank that finally lifted the Dutch Government's Budget out of deficit spending, and the Mayans began work on a wonder called the "Temple of the Sun" (Universal Suffrage + Battlefield Medicine)
Portugal seemed to be not caring about the Spanish War just as much as the Dutch, despite it happening right next to them, and built their 14th city in Northern South America in 1541. Someday, the Dutch hoped to be able to do something about this, aside from waiting for their ships to move around, their cities to finish building things, and their workers to finish cutting trees down.
Their hopes got partially realized in 1544, when a Dutch team of scientists happily showed up at the royal palace with an announcement that they'd come up with better ways to do things with some of their military and create better Pike-like weapons for a new force of paid "Swiss Mercenaries."
Better yet, they could now trade their knowledge. They finally had a technology nobody else had that they could trade for all the recent technological breakthroughs. And the fact that nobody else had it made it appear that the others would give a lot for it. France traded them both the Colonization and the Naval technologies researched in the early 1530's, along with a lot of gold and a map.
Portugal refused to give the Dutch the Metallurgic technologies they had just come up with to build advanced artillery units they called "Cannons" that were capable of blowing giant holes in solid stone walls, but they did give them a lot of gold. Fair enough. The Dutch didn't really like giving the Portuguese and French a stronger military, but they could never use the technology to the same effect that the Dutch had, and the Dutch could use some of Portugal's gold to upgrade their Pikemen to Swiss Mercenaries.
The Dutch, armed with their new Colonial knowledge, took a quick look at the Caribbean to see where all the Sugar and Tobacco they previously didn't know about was.
(There's also some Tobacco directly under Belem)
Portugal also clearly noticed the Sugar and Tobacco sitting unclaimed in Western Cuba and built the city of Ilheus there in 1544. Their "Must Kill" Rating just went up a few notches in the mind of the Dutch.
In other news, the Iroquois finally made the first progress of anyone in the Spanish War, capturing the Spanish city of Santo Domingo, the central city of Spain's 3 cities in North America.
The Dutch got slightly annoyed at England when they built a city in Florida in 1545, but they didn't care about it nearly as much as they cared about Portugal's cities in the Caribbean. They were even less annoyed when England and France continued expanding into the region the French called "Quebec." And they certainly cared more about their colonists finally reaching Patagonia in 1546, and finishing work on the city of Fort Nassau in 1547.
The city was somewhat unusually built directly on top of the Horses. Ordinarily, they'd just build the city a bit off of the Horses, but they needed the Horses as fast as possible, and to that end, they built Fort Nassau directly on top of the Horses, and used their massive money reserves to hurry up the building of a Harbor there in 1548.
To the west, Holland and Flying Dutchman nearly finished completely mapping the Pacific, and would soon return home. Hopefully, they'd avoid trouble from anyone along the way, like the Pirate Ships the Portuguese had recently employed to fight nations they weren't at war with, a ploy that would work had anyone else actually researched the same technology at that point.
Have the Dutch mentioned they don't like Portugal yet?
And has France mentioned they don't like Spain? They attempted to convince the Dutch to join them in their crusade against the Spanish in 1548, but the Dutch couldn't be convinced. Perhaps they could join forces against both Portugal and Spain in the future...
...a future that was due to come a lot faster now that the Dutch harbor in Fort Nassau meant they finally had Horses, and their roads in Cuba meant they finally had Spices. They were fast becoming more capable of fighting Portugal... and fast running out of reasons not to, especially with the Portuguese claiming pretty much everything they wanted to expand into.
Portugal was a threat, plain and simple. A Threat they would eventually have to deal with...
Despite the voyage of Bartolomeo Dias giving Portugal lots of people willing to go out and colonize new places, they had somehow not done very much colonizing for a while, and as a result, been looked on by many as weak, which they pretty much were. But that was due to change, and fast. Because they still had a lot of colonists, and they were beginning to get enough ships, gold, and military forces to actually send them out colonizing...
...But William and the Dutch had more pressing concerns in 1529. At that time, Portugal's 9 cities still made them the largest, but the scattered nature of those cities and their weak military force gave the Dutch other things to worry about. Like, the fact that the Dutch were starting to fall behind technologically, courtesy of their small size and the strange propensity for their non-English European neighbors to simultaneously make big technological breakthroughs, like of a Colonization technology in 1530 that allowed the building of plantations to take advantage of some of the newly-discovered plants in the New World. The Dutch were still a long way away from getting anywhere in their technological research into better soldiers, and nothing to trade for it, or for the English religious ideas that could possibly be used to trade for Colonization.
Another thing to worry about was the poor state of development of the Dutch Colonies, but that they could do something about: Specifically, they sent some Workers over to Cuba and spent a lot of money to build a Harbor in Wiltwyck, the city on Cuba.
And then there was the steadily rising power of the primitive civilizations in the New World. They were all far behind in technology, but steadily advancing. Both the Iroquois and the Inca would enter the Middle Ages in the early 1530's. Their resource problems would not plague them for very long, as the Iroquois built a city and claimed some Iron in the marshy area north of the peninsula of Florida in 1529, and the Aztecs claimed some of the Horses in the Great Plains as their own in 1530.
But for all the problems the Dutch faced, they succeeded in some areas, too. For instance, Amsterdam finished work on a Navigation School in January of 1531, giving their ships greatly enhanced movement. They also got free explorers, but didn't exactly need that for much.
Among other things, this let their Worker-carrying Carrack reach Cuba that much faster, and let their exploring ships explore that much more Ocean. HNMS Holland, then off the coast of California, explored the Western edge of the world, while HNMS Flying Dutchman, then near Patagonia, explored the Southern edge. The New World Explorers, then in the Rocky Mountains, headed into the unexplored Northwest of North America.
It was a little after that the Dutch and the rest of Europe finally started taking note of Portugal's massive surplus of Colonists, due largely to the fact that they started using them, to build 3 new cities- 1 in the Eastern Caribbean, and 2 in West Africa- between 1531 and 1534. The Dutch paid especially close attention to Bahia, the city they built on the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico in 1531, as it gave them some Fish and Spices the Dutch had been eyeing for a while.
The fact that they, Spain, and France had all researched naval technology to let them build the Frigates the Dutch had long been getting for free in 1533 didn't help matters much. The Dutch really needed that technology- having lost their monopoly on Frigates, the least they could do was at least be able to build them at the same rate as their neighbors. But they still had nothing to trade for it.
At least France and Spain might hopefully exhaust a lot of their newfound naval might fighting each other. Nobody had really paid attention to this war for a while, due to the endless stalemate that had happened. It gained more attention when France, noticing that it was hard to win against an opponent they were so close to in power, decided to try to convince other nations to join them against Spain. In 1533, "Other Nations" meant the Inca and English:
Followed by the Iroquois in 1534:
The Dutch didn't particularly care about Spain or France or their war, though.
One of the things they did care about was their ocean explorations, such as the recent discovery of the Southwestern Corner of the World by HNMS Flying Dutchman, and its subsequent turn North to meet up with the Holland somewhere on the Western map edge. Others seemed to care, too, and asked for trades of map knowledge. The Dutch ignored all of them until Portugal offered one. The Dutch didn't particularly want to give them much, but as their map was just open ocean and Portugal's contained useful information, they agreed after Portugal agreed to give them some money. Portugal's map was valuable, revealing to the Dutch a lot of West Africa and South America, and inexplicably, Northern North America. How the Portuguese got that map, they'll never understand.
Thanks to this map, the Dutch Explorers finished their map of North America in 1536, except for some uncrossable tundra. They immediately thereafter disbanded, as the Dutch didn't feel like paying them anymore and they had little use at this point.
They, could, however, use ships, like the Caravels Orange and Sintmaria, which finally returned home that year and were upgraded to Carracks.
In the meantime, France continued really hating Spain, fighting a battle against them in Normandy at the beginning of December in 1535, using Longbowmen against Spanish units the Dutch couldn't actually see. So far, it's the only Spanish-French Battle they've even partially witnessed. Of course, the French still hated Spain, so they got another war ally against them in 1537.
Once again, the Dutch opted to care more about the Portuguese than this, as the Portuguese had just built a city in the Bahamas Islands, both grabbing more stuff and making Wiltwyck start feeling surrounded. The 13 cities they now owned made them more than twice as big as the Dutch- and everyone else not named France or Spain, for that matter.
At least the Dutch could still build colonists fast enough to avoid completely falling behind. The ones they built in 1538 boarded the HNMS Sintmaria, ready to go to the New World. After considering several possible destinations with his advisors, King William opted to send them to Patagonia to finally get the Dutch a source of Horses, the lack of which had placed them behind their European neighbors for far too long. With Horses, they could finally build Knights.
Meanwhile, Holland and Flying Dutchman met each other on the Western Edge of the World, and started exploring other parts of the Pacific. On Easter, 1539, they found a small island full of strange statues that they lazily opted to name "Easter Island" after the day they discovered it. They found another small island a bit to the Northeast a bit later. Both islands are pretty small and seem practically worthless.
France continued hating Spain in 1539, and got the Aztecs to join them in their fight, making Spain at war with everyone in the New World- and everyone but the Dutch and Portuguese in the Old World, for that matter.
In other news, Amsterdam finally finished construction on a Bank that finally lifted the Dutch Government's Budget out of deficit spending, and the Mayans began work on a wonder called the "Temple of the Sun" (Universal Suffrage + Battlefield Medicine)
Portugal seemed to be not caring about the Spanish War just as much as the Dutch, despite it happening right next to them, and built their 14th city in Northern South America in 1541. Someday, the Dutch hoped to be able to do something about this, aside from waiting for their ships to move around, their cities to finish building things, and their workers to finish cutting trees down.
Their hopes got partially realized in 1544, when a Dutch team of scientists happily showed up at the royal palace with an announcement that they'd come up with better ways to do things with some of their military and create better Pike-like weapons for a new force of paid "Swiss Mercenaries."
Better yet, they could now trade their knowledge. They finally had a technology nobody else had that they could trade for all the recent technological breakthroughs. And the fact that nobody else had it made it appear that the others would give a lot for it. France traded them both the Colonization and the Naval technologies researched in the early 1530's, along with a lot of gold and a map.
Portugal refused to give the Dutch the Metallurgic technologies they had just come up with to build advanced artillery units they called "Cannons" that were capable of blowing giant holes in solid stone walls, but they did give them a lot of gold. Fair enough. The Dutch didn't really like giving the Portuguese and French a stronger military, but they could never use the technology to the same effect that the Dutch had, and the Dutch could use some of Portugal's gold to upgrade their Pikemen to Swiss Mercenaries.
The Dutch, armed with their new Colonial knowledge, took a quick look at the Caribbean to see where all the Sugar and Tobacco they previously didn't know about was.
(There's also some Tobacco directly under Belem)
Portugal also clearly noticed the Sugar and Tobacco sitting unclaimed in Western Cuba and built the city of Ilheus there in 1544. Their "Must Kill" Rating just went up a few notches in the mind of the Dutch.
In other news, the Iroquois finally made the first progress of anyone in the Spanish War, capturing the Spanish city of Santo Domingo, the central city of Spain's 3 cities in North America.
The Dutch got slightly annoyed at England when they built a city in Florida in 1545, but they didn't care about it nearly as much as they cared about Portugal's cities in the Caribbean. They were even less annoyed when England and France continued expanding into the region the French called "Quebec." And they certainly cared more about their colonists finally reaching Patagonia in 1546, and finishing work on the city of Fort Nassau in 1547.
The city was somewhat unusually built directly on top of the Horses. Ordinarily, they'd just build the city a bit off of the Horses, but they needed the Horses as fast as possible, and to that end, they built Fort Nassau directly on top of the Horses, and used their massive money reserves to hurry up the building of a Harbor there in 1548.
To the west, Holland and Flying Dutchman nearly finished completely mapping the Pacific, and would soon return home. Hopefully, they'd avoid trouble from anyone along the way, like the Pirate Ships the Portuguese had recently employed to fight nations they weren't at war with, a ploy that would work had anyone else actually researched the same technology at that point.
Have the Dutch mentioned they don't like Portugal yet?
And has France mentioned they don't like Spain? They attempted to convince the Dutch to join them in their crusade against the Spanish in 1548, but the Dutch couldn't be convinced. Perhaps they could join forces against both Portugal and Spain in the future...
...a future that was due to come a lot faster now that the Dutch harbor in Fort Nassau meant they finally had Horses, and their roads in Cuba meant they finally had Spices. They were fast becoming more capable of fighting Portugal... and fast running out of reasons not to, especially with the Portuguese claiming pretty much everything they wanted to expand into.
Portugal was a threat, plain and simple. A Threat they would eventually have to deal with...
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Pieman
Prince
Good update. I think I hear the drums of war pounding in the distance...
Chapter 46: Naval Power
The plan was simple: Build up the military a bit, send them to the Caribbean, then cause Portugal some serious problems. They'd get France and England on their side by agreeing to fight Spain, which would let the Dutch not have to worry much about their own defense on land in Europe. They could even send some of the Medieval Infantry they already had over to the Caribbean to fight, and would do that once they got some ships to do so.
Actually pulling it off would be the hard part, and it would be a lot harder if France and England didn't view Spain as much of a threat as they did in 1549. And they were certainly winning. Late in the year, the French took the Spanish city of Barcelona, near the border between the two, and burned it to the ground.
In the field of issues the Dutch had to deal with now rather than a few years into the future, there was a group of colonists and musketmen in a boat near the Dutch North American colonies, without a set destination: They were planning on going to one of the small islands in the Caribbean, or part of North America, perhaps. In the end, it was decided to send them to a part of the North American coast with lots of Tobacco that was in a gap between Iroquois cities and the English colony in Florida, as Tobacco was something a lot of people wanted. The need for it was lessened when some of it spontaneously started growing near Fort Orange in the Spring of 1551, but more couldn't hurt, and it was a nice location anyway.
So the colonists and musketmen disembarked their ship in that area, which contained a lot of tobacco. They elected to settle on top of one of the sources of the valuable plants to take better advantage of the river and coastline that was also there. And thus, in 1552, construction on the city of Willemstad was finished.
In other news, the last little bit of the Pacific was finally discovered by HNMS Holland, which proceeded to head back into the Atlantic. It would make sure to stop at Fort Nassau to upgrade itself to a Carrack.
The Carib Islanders had long held a camp in central Cuba that their Archers had defended for decades. But then the borders of Portugal's colony, Ilheus, expanded enough to engulf the camp. With nothing left to defend, the Archers elected to attack the Dutch Pikemen nearby defending workers trying to clear a jungle. The brief battle ended very poorly for said Archers and very well for the Dutch Pikemen.
The Dutch Pikemen were now able to retreat back into Wiltwyck, no longer needing to defend the workers. And at least they knew they could hold off some attacks, which Portugal would surely send their way as soon as the war started, although they could certainly use more defenders in Wiltwyck. Hopefully, the Medieval Infantry, Trebuchets, and Knights soon to arrive in the area could keep the offense enough against Portugal that Portugal would be unable to mount a counter-attack.
And it wouldn't be too much longer. In 1554 3 units of Medieval Infantry and 1 of Trebuchets reached Willemstad, where they elected to stay until the beginning of the war, as they could easily reach the Portuguese cities of Ilheus and Belem as soon as the war started from there, and staying in Willemstad was slightly stealthier, less dangerous, and certainly faster than going down to Wiltwyck. In 1555, 3 units of Knights and 1 of Trebuchets left the Netherlands. They would soon arrive in Willemstad, and the war could begin.
Speaking of war, the Spanish continued to lose theirs badly. On November 14, 1554, the Spanish city of Hispaniola, in the Great Lakes Region, was captured by the English.
And although it would be a while before the war against Portugal could start, it was obvious that the Dutch were itching to begin it, and it even began to appear that Portugal was also wanting war, after an incident off the coast of South America in the Fall of 1555. The Frigate HNMS Flying Dutchman, still on its way back from exploring the Pacific, encountered a Pirate Ship off the coast of South America, quite near several of the Portuguese colonies. Said Pirates attacked the Dutchman, which returned fire and sank the Pirate Ship with little damage to itself. But they were obviously Privateers, in the employ of some nation, even if they didn't fly the flag of any nation, and seeing as how Portugal was the only nation currently capable of using Privateers, it had to be them. Knowing this just angered William and the Dutch further, and made them hope they could start the war sooner. But they knew they needed to get the Dutch forces to the Caribbean first; they could not start the war before they were ready.
The Flying Dutchman reached Wiltwyck in 1557, where it would get repairs from the light damage it sustained in the battle against the Portuguese Privateers, and then be used in the war against Portugal with many other Frigates. The final preparations were almost done. After the Knights finally arrived in Willemstad in 1558, some final defenses were rushed and existing units upgraded, the forces that would attack mobilized, and the Dutch forces in Willemstad and Wiltwyck general prepared for war. They could finally start it next year.
To start it off, some envoys of the Dutch visited Lisbon in 1559 with some absurd demands they knew the Portuguese would refuse. When the inevitable refusal happened, the Dutch envoys let Portugal know they were now going to war.
The Dutch, on their escape from Lisbon, happily reported this news, and then hurried to go get others to their side. First, and most important was France, who was somewhat difficult to convince- just declaring war on Spain wasn't enough for them, but doing that and giving them some gold was, which the Dutch considered acceptable.
The English were a little easier. They just wanted to know how to field the Professional Armies the rest of Europe was fielding, and were happy to even throw some gold into the deal in addition to declaring war on Spain.
Finally, just to ensure their North American colonies didn't have to deal with anything, the Dutch envoys went to Salamanca, capital of the Iroquois, and requested their help. They were by far the easiest to convince- the Iroquois merely desired the knowledge of the massive map that the Dutch knew. Fair enough.
With the whole official "starting the war" business taken care of, the Dutch military gleefully went about the "Taking control of the Caribbean" part, starting with Ilheus, Western Cuba. The Dutch really needed to control all of Cuba as fast as possible. To that end, they deployed a lot of Frigates. The Cannons of the Frigates Antwerp, Devastator, Dominator, Flying Dutchman, and William bombarded Ilheus until the 2 units of Pikemen defending it were just clinging to life. They would stop clinging shortly thereafter as 2 units of Medieval Infantry amphibiously walked out of their Caravels to kill them and take Ilheus for the Netherlands. The Infantry didn't even take any damage, and captured a worker group in the city as a bonus.
The Knights, unable to attack from the sea as the Infantry had, simply took their boat to the island Belem was on and went into the Jungles outside the city, capturing a worker. Unfortunately, the Jungles were too thick for them to bring their Trebuchets with them as they had originally planned.
The Dutch Military, happy at their early victories, nonetheless expected a Portuguese counter-attack to occur any day. To further lessen the odds of the attack happening in Europe, they stationed a Frigate in the English Channel to block any ships that would attempt to come through, and fortified another in the North Sea. The North Sea one would not be able to actually block anything, but it could at least see whatever was sent at the Dutch coming well before it actually reached them.
And yet no attack ever came. The Portuguese, as far as the Dutch could tell, didn't do anything at all, aside from getting the Aztecs, who weren't much of a threat, to declare war on the Dutch.
Better yet, the Tobacco Plantation in Ilheus produced a highly valuable Tobacco Treasure, making Ilheus's capture good timing. Now if only they could get it back to Europe...
As the Dutch had faced little resistance in Ilheus and no counter-attack the previous Fall, they could get right back into crushing Portugal in 1560. The Frigates again fired their cannons at a Portuguese city, this time Belem, until they could fire no more. This time, the results weren't as great, as Belem had three defending units, and they weren't all Pikemen. They also had one unit of Swiss Pikemen, only stronger than regular ones on Offense, and Musketmen, which were very strong at everything. Even so, the bombardment had weakened them greatly. Knights charged in from the Jungles and killed the Pikemen and the Swiss Pikemen, and then Medieval Infantry came off of the boats to kill the Musketmen. Belem had fallen, and the Dutch even found and captured a Portuguese treasure in the city.
Portugal again didn't make any attacks on the Dutch at all that year. Could it possibly be that they weren't as strong as the Dutch had originally thought, or were they just taking a while to get their forces ready for war?
Spain made a pitiful attempt to get out of the wat they were stuck in in 1560, by signing a peace treaty with the Iroquois, which could only serve to slightly increase the chances that their final North American city would escape capture.
In January, the usual month of scientific discoveries these days, of 1561, the Dutch scientists seemed especially happy, because they had finally perfected the technology required for them to employ Privateers, like the ones Portugal was already using.
This could even the playing field a bit, although Privateers, being weaker than Frigates, weren't particularly useful against someone they were already at war with. They could be used against non-Portugal foes, but William had a better idea: Trade the knowledge of them to get stuff from England and France. And they were more than willing to give the Dutch stuff. Though England still refused to trade Protestantism, they were more than happy to trade the technology of Metallurgy, which the Dutch really needed for upgrading their Trebuchets to Cannons. The French had no techs aside from Metallurgy, but tons of gold, which the Dutch considered to be a fair enough trade for the knowledge of how to make Privateers.
Speaking of Cannons and ships, the Dutch still had plenty of Cannons on their Frigates, and those Frigates were still more than capable of bombarding the crap out of Bahia, Portugal's final Caribbean city on the island of Puerto Rico. A few of the shots were absorbed by the Carrack in Bahia's harbor, but the 2 Pikemen units defending it still took a lot of damage- more than enough for the 2 Medieval Infantry units who attacked shortly after to wipe them out with ease and take the city.
The war had taken a while to get started, but now, after just a few short years, the entire Caribbean had come under control of the Dutch, and Portugal was reeling, thanks to the massive naval power all of the Magellan-provided free Frigates had given the Dutch and a few Medieval Infantry and Knights. The power of a strong navy triumphs.
Time will tell just how completely Portugal will be devastated by the Dutch Frigates...
The plan was simple: Build up the military a bit, send them to the Caribbean, then cause Portugal some serious problems. They'd get France and England on their side by agreeing to fight Spain, which would let the Dutch not have to worry much about their own defense on land in Europe. They could even send some of the Medieval Infantry they already had over to the Caribbean to fight, and would do that once they got some ships to do so.
Actually pulling it off would be the hard part, and it would be a lot harder if France and England didn't view Spain as much of a threat as they did in 1549. And they were certainly winning. Late in the year, the French took the Spanish city of Barcelona, near the border between the two, and burned it to the ground.
In the field of issues the Dutch had to deal with now rather than a few years into the future, there was a group of colonists and musketmen in a boat near the Dutch North American colonies, without a set destination: They were planning on going to one of the small islands in the Caribbean, or part of North America, perhaps. In the end, it was decided to send them to a part of the North American coast with lots of Tobacco that was in a gap between Iroquois cities and the English colony in Florida, as Tobacco was something a lot of people wanted. The need for it was lessened when some of it spontaneously started growing near Fort Orange in the Spring of 1551, but more couldn't hurt, and it was a nice location anyway.
So the colonists and musketmen disembarked their ship in that area, which contained a lot of tobacco. They elected to settle on top of one of the sources of the valuable plants to take better advantage of the river and coastline that was also there. And thus, in 1552, construction on the city of Willemstad was finished.
In other news, the last little bit of the Pacific was finally discovered by HNMS Holland, which proceeded to head back into the Atlantic. It would make sure to stop at Fort Nassau to upgrade itself to a Carrack.
The Carib Islanders had long held a camp in central Cuba that their Archers had defended for decades. But then the borders of Portugal's colony, Ilheus, expanded enough to engulf the camp. With nothing left to defend, the Archers elected to attack the Dutch Pikemen nearby defending workers trying to clear a jungle. The brief battle ended very poorly for said Archers and very well for the Dutch Pikemen.
The Dutch Pikemen were now able to retreat back into Wiltwyck, no longer needing to defend the workers. And at least they knew they could hold off some attacks, which Portugal would surely send their way as soon as the war started, although they could certainly use more defenders in Wiltwyck. Hopefully, the Medieval Infantry, Trebuchets, and Knights soon to arrive in the area could keep the offense enough against Portugal that Portugal would be unable to mount a counter-attack.
And it wouldn't be too much longer. In 1554 3 units of Medieval Infantry and 1 of Trebuchets reached Willemstad, where they elected to stay until the beginning of the war, as they could easily reach the Portuguese cities of Ilheus and Belem as soon as the war started from there, and staying in Willemstad was slightly stealthier, less dangerous, and certainly faster than going down to Wiltwyck. In 1555, 3 units of Knights and 1 of Trebuchets left the Netherlands. They would soon arrive in Willemstad, and the war could begin.
Speaking of war, the Spanish continued to lose theirs badly. On November 14, 1554, the Spanish city of Hispaniola, in the Great Lakes Region, was captured by the English.
And although it would be a while before the war against Portugal could start, it was obvious that the Dutch were itching to begin it, and it even began to appear that Portugal was also wanting war, after an incident off the coast of South America in the Fall of 1555. The Frigate HNMS Flying Dutchman, still on its way back from exploring the Pacific, encountered a Pirate Ship off the coast of South America, quite near several of the Portuguese colonies. Said Pirates attacked the Dutchman, which returned fire and sank the Pirate Ship with little damage to itself. But they were obviously Privateers, in the employ of some nation, even if they didn't fly the flag of any nation, and seeing as how Portugal was the only nation currently capable of using Privateers, it had to be them. Knowing this just angered William and the Dutch further, and made them hope they could start the war sooner. But they knew they needed to get the Dutch forces to the Caribbean first; they could not start the war before they were ready.
The Flying Dutchman reached Wiltwyck in 1557, where it would get repairs from the light damage it sustained in the battle against the Portuguese Privateers, and then be used in the war against Portugal with many other Frigates. The final preparations were almost done. After the Knights finally arrived in Willemstad in 1558, some final defenses were rushed and existing units upgraded, the forces that would attack mobilized, and the Dutch forces in Willemstad and Wiltwyck general prepared for war. They could finally start it next year.
To start it off, some envoys of the Dutch visited Lisbon in 1559 with some absurd demands they knew the Portuguese would refuse. When the inevitable refusal happened, the Dutch envoys let Portugal know they were now going to war.
The Dutch, on their escape from Lisbon, happily reported this news, and then hurried to go get others to their side. First, and most important was France, who was somewhat difficult to convince- just declaring war on Spain wasn't enough for them, but doing that and giving them some gold was, which the Dutch considered acceptable.
The English were a little easier. They just wanted to know how to field the Professional Armies the rest of Europe was fielding, and were happy to even throw some gold into the deal in addition to declaring war on Spain.
Finally, just to ensure their North American colonies didn't have to deal with anything, the Dutch envoys went to Salamanca, capital of the Iroquois, and requested their help. They were by far the easiest to convince- the Iroquois merely desired the knowledge of the massive map that the Dutch knew. Fair enough.
With the whole official "starting the war" business taken care of, the Dutch military gleefully went about the "Taking control of the Caribbean" part, starting with Ilheus, Western Cuba. The Dutch really needed to control all of Cuba as fast as possible. To that end, they deployed a lot of Frigates. The Cannons of the Frigates Antwerp, Devastator, Dominator, Flying Dutchman, and William bombarded Ilheus until the 2 units of Pikemen defending it were just clinging to life. They would stop clinging shortly thereafter as 2 units of Medieval Infantry amphibiously walked out of their Caravels to kill them and take Ilheus for the Netherlands. The Infantry didn't even take any damage, and captured a worker group in the city as a bonus.
The Knights, unable to attack from the sea as the Infantry had, simply took their boat to the island Belem was on and went into the Jungles outside the city, capturing a worker. Unfortunately, the Jungles were too thick for them to bring their Trebuchets with them as they had originally planned.
The Dutch Military, happy at their early victories, nonetheless expected a Portuguese counter-attack to occur any day. To further lessen the odds of the attack happening in Europe, they stationed a Frigate in the English Channel to block any ships that would attempt to come through, and fortified another in the North Sea. The North Sea one would not be able to actually block anything, but it could at least see whatever was sent at the Dutch coming well before it actually reached them.
And yet no attack ever came. The Portuguese, as far as the Dutch could tell, didn't do anything at all, aside from getting the Aztecs, who weren't much of a threat, to declare war on the Dutch.
Better yet, the Tobacco Plantation in Ilheus produced a highly valuable Tobacco Treasure, making Ilheus's capture good timing. Now if only they could get it back to Europe...
As the Dutch had faced little resistance in Ilheus and no counter-attack the previous Fall, they could get right back into crushing Portugal in 1560. The Frigates again fired their cannons at a Portuguese city, this time Belem, until they could fire no more. This time, the results weren't as great, as Belem had three defending units, and they weren't all Pikemen. They also had one unit of Swiss Pikemen, only stronger than regular ones on Offense, and Musketmen, which were very strong at everything. Even so, the bombardment had weakened them greatly. Knights charged in from the Jungles and killed the Pikemen and the Swiss Pikemen, and then Medieval Infantry came off of the boats to kill the Musketmen. Belem had fallen, and the Dutch even found and captured a Portuguese treasure in the city.
Portugal again didn't make any attacks on the Dutch at all that year. Could it possibly be that they weren't as strong as the Dutch had originally thought, or were they just taking a while to get their forces ready for war?
Spain made a pitiful attempt to get out of the wat they were stuck in in 1560, by signing a peace treaty with the Iroquois, which could only serve to slightly increase the chances that their final North American city would escape capture.
In January, the usual month of scientific discoveries these days, of 1561, the Dutch scientists seemed especially happy, because they had finally perfected the technology required for them to employ Privateers, like the ones Portugal was already using.
This could even the playing field a bit, although Privateers, being weaker than Frigates, weren't particularly useful against someone they were already at war with. They could be used against non-Portugal foes, but William had a better idea: Trade the knowledge of them to get stuff from England and France. And they were more than willing to give the Dutch stuff. Though England still refused to trade Protestantism, they were more than happy to trade the technology of Metallurgy, which the Dutch really needed for upgrading their Trebuchets to Cannons. The French had no techs aside from Metallurgy, but tons of gold, which the Dutch considered to be a fair enough trade for the knowledge of how to make Privateers.
Speaking of Cannons and ships, the Dutch still had plenty of Cannons on their Frigates, and those Frigates were still more than capable of bombarding the crap out of Bahia, Portugal's final Caribbean city on the island of Puerto Rico. A few of the shots were absorbed by the Carrack in Bahia's harbor, but the 2 Pikemen units defending it still took a lot of damage- more than enough for the 2 Medieval Infantry units who attacked shortly after to wipe them out with ease and take the city.
The war had taken a while to get started, but now, after just a few short years, the entire Caribbean had come under control of the Dutch, and Portugal was reeling, thanks to the massive naval power all of the Magellan-provided free Frigates had given the Dutch and a few Medieval Infantry and Knights. The power of a strong navy triumphs.
Time will tell just how completely Portugal will be devastated by the Dutch Frigates...
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Toxicman007
Custom User Title
The Dutch Empire is looking good, Chox!
mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
Well then, congrats on taking out the Portugese from the Caribbean! Are you gonna be trying to take down the Aztecs, too, since they're also at war with you?
Chapter 47: El Dorado
With the formerly-Portuguese Caribbean firmly under Dutch control, it was time to head South and take or destroy the colonies the Portuguese held on the South American coast. While most weren't particularly valuable, taking out Portuguese colonies always had to be a good thing. It might not hit them as much as attacking their more valuable and larger colonies in the Mid-Atlantic, but it was something. At the very least, the Dutch armies would have to take Porto Novo, a large and somewhat valuable South American colony just south of Cuba. William would order them to go there next.
In the meantime, Portugal still seemed to be having trouble mounting any form of counter-attack, aside from trying to get the Aztecs to fight for them. The Aztecs declared war on the Iroquois at Portugal's request and also sent one of their tiny Curragh boats to land an invasion force on Cuba- consisting of one unit of Jaguar Warriors, right near Ilheus. They weren't at all threatening to the city itself, although the workers outside building a road would have to be defended.
In 1562, William, not wanting to interrupt the workers' vital mission of connecting Ilheus to Wiltwyck by roads, just sent a unit of Pikemen that had been defending Wiltwyck onto a Carrack to guard them. Not the most elegant solution, and it left Wiltwyck totally undefended, but Wiltwyck was under no danger of being attacked and they didn't have a better one. The Dutch also moved some other units around either to prepare for things or to deal with how thinly spread their units were. They'd need reinforcements eventually.
Luckily, Portugal's colonies were defended so poorly that they didn't really need reinforcements yet. Porto Novo, for instance, the only truly valuable colony the Portuguese had in South America due to the several nearby resources, was defended by one measly unit of Pikemen. To the invasion force that took Bahia in 1561, it was a piece of cake. Said force sailed south, let the Frigates HNMS Antwerp, William, and Devastator bombard the crap out the Pikemen, and sent in a unit of Medieval Infantry to mop up the few survivors who didn't die from the bombardment.
Having taken Porto Novo, the invasion force, with many fresh Knights still in tow, noticed some Colonists just outside of the city's borders. They would take them if they could, but that would be difficult given the hilly terrain and thick jungle, unless the Colonists wandered out into a Grassland where the Knights could catch up.
In other pressing matters, the Portuguese had several undefended Carracks sailing around in the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel. Why they weren't defending their Carracks is a mystery, but even so, the Carracks were a threat that had to be dealt with, as the Dutch had no way of knowing where they were headed or what their cargo was. Even if the Dutch Frigate blockading the English Channel gave them some protection, it was hardly full protection. The Carracks would have to be sunk.
The Frigate HNMS Interceptor, true to its name, went after the Carrack in the Bay of Biscay, and intercepted it. And by "Intercepted," I mean "fired cannons at until it was a very, very dead ship." Another Frigate, the Brussels, attempted to do the same to the Carrack in the English Channel, and instead ended up as the "very, very dead" ship, while the Carrack was only mostly dead, but still slightly alive. Sadly for the Carrack, it's not hard to go from "Mostly" to "All" dead, and the Dutch Carrack Sintmaria promptly turned the Portuguese Carrack "All Dead", although it took plenty of damage doing so.
Like they had the previous year, the Portuguese again spent the Fall and Winter of 1562 doing nothing but sail ships around. The Aztecs, meanwhile, once again did do things. The Jaguar Warriors on Cuba lead a charge against the Swiss Mercenaries defending Ilheus, screaming "CHARGE!!!" for a few minutes, until the Swiss countered by stabbing the Jaguar Warriors with Pikes until the Jaguar Warriors screamed "RETREAT!!!" and did exactly that, barely escaping into the Forest outside of Ilheus.
Perhaps deciding that this wasn't the best course of action, the Aztecs came to the conclusion that a better course of action would be to recruit some help. So their emissaries went a bit to the South, to Chichen Itza, to get some help from the Mayans in the war against the Dutch.
Shortly after this, the Inca requested a Map Trade. William decided to accept after given some money, as it was nice to not have everyone in the New World hate him.
The beginning of 1563 came with the news that the Dutch had built their first Privateer, which had been named "Adventurous." Now to see if these Privateers could be useful against Portugal, or, heck, anyone.
The Dutch Frigates and even the Dutch Carracks were certainly useful in the war. An unnamed Carrack near Cuba proved that by sinking the really slow Aztec Curragh that had brought the Jaguar Warriors to Cuba. Then 4 Frigates proved that by bombarding the Portuguese city of Sao Salvador do Congo, a bit to the East of Porto Novo. Again, Medieval Infantry walked out of the Carracks to mop up the surviving Pikemen of the bombardment, the same model for city-capturing that had proven highly successful several times already, now having captured 5 cities in 5 years. Or rather, captured 4 and razed 1, as Sao Salvador was far too small to capture.
It was unlikely they could add a 6th city to that total in 1564, as they didn't have any more available Medieval Infantry, but that was still pretty good.
For the third consecutive year, the Portuguese spent the end of 1563 doing nothing, and the Aztecs doing something, but not much. Specifically, the Aztec Jaguar Warriors elected to commit ritual suicide by attacking the Swiss Mercenaries defending Ilheus again, who were more than happy to kill the Jaguar Warriors.
Despite the battle of Ilheus being an easy victory, it greatly energized the Dutch, along with the production shortly thereafter of the Dutch's first "Treasure" of Tobacco in Wiltwyck (although the Dutch had already captured some from Portugal). Many of the Dutch really wanted gold and were driven by the knowledge that there was a lot of it in the New World. And thus, the period of time after the Battle of Ilheus came to be known as a "Golden Age," a time of great prosperity. And Gold.
They were in particular driven by stories of a legendary city of gold, known to the Spanish and Portuguese as "El Dorado." Although William doubted the existence of such a city, there was plenty of real gold in the Mayan and Aztec Empires that could easily be taken. In particular, the city of Yaxchilan, to the South of Porto Novo, had lots of gold and was easy to take. The Dutch Knights would make sure to go there at some point.
1564 was not that point, though, as the Dutch Army was spread really thin and needed to heal. The Dutch Navy, on the other hand, wasn't, although it got little done anyway. The Caribbean Frigates, with nothing else to do, bombarded the Cape Verde Islands, showing there were several Swiss Pikemen there, meaning that would be a difficult thing to take. The Interceptor bombarded the Portuguese mainland, hoping to deprive the Portuguese of their Horses. They failed at this task.
Of slightly more interest was the Pirate Ship Adventurous, which came across the Spanish Carrack Isabella and attacked it. After a brief sea battle, the crew of Adventurous boarded the Carrack, defeated the crew, and added the Isabella to the Dutch Privateers' Pirate Fleet.
The Navy and Privateers' good fortune would not continue into 1565, though. They started the year out on a high note, With the Frigate Dominator taking a break from bombarding Cape Verde to sink a Portuguese Caravel, but the ships near the mainland had no such success. They encountered the two Portuguese Frigates NRP Henry and NRP Salvador escorting a Carrack. The HNMS Interceptor attacked the Henry, foolishly assuming the Portuguese Frigates would be as easy to sink as the Caravels and Carracks they had sunk earlier. As a result, the Interceptor was completely destroyed. The Privateer Isabella and the newly built Privateer Black Pearl tried to avenge the Interceptor, and although they did light damage to Henry and Salvador, both were sunk. The Adventurous wished to join the battle and sink at least one of the damaged Portuguese Frigates, but it wasn't fast enough to get there. Nor was it fast enough to ever do anything else. The French Frigate Francis sunk the Adventurous in the winter of 1565. So far, these Privateers haven't been nearly as effective as the Dutch had hoped.
1566 began with the good news that the Infantry and Knights were now close to ready to fight again, but they were still spread a bit thin trying to either defend what they had or put down revolts. They desperately needed reinforcements and Swiss Mercenaries to hold the cities they currently owned.
And they certainly weren't powerful enough to attack the Cape Verde Islands, as the Frigates Bombarding it revealed 3 units of Swiss Pikemen defending the city, which the Dutch Army didn't really have the resources to defeat right now. The Fleet opted to go south and attack Seguro, the last Portuguese city on the North Coast of South America, which might be more vulnerable. When they got there, they saw that the English agreed with their plans, as there was a unit of their Medieval Infantry outside the city, ready to attack.
Back on the mainland, the HNMS Endeavor tried to pick up where the Interceptor left off in its mission to bombard Portugal's Horse Source. Like the Interceptor before it, the Endeavor failed.
The English Infantry attacked Seguro in October, 1566, and were predictably stabbed to death by the Swiss Pikemen defending the city. The Portuguese, perhaps emboldened by their recent victories, were spotted by the Endeavor sending a Knight to attack something on their border with Spain. Like all the other recent attackers, this Knight died.
In other news, the Tobacco Plantation in Fort Orange produced another "Treasure", and many more cities would do the same in the next few years, making William wish he had enough troops to actually take them back to Amsterdam. He was able to send the one in Fort Orange on its way back with some excess Swiss Mercenaries in the North American Colonies and some crafty ship maneuvering, but he had plenty more in the Caribbean that weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
The Dutch Army's offensive finally got going again in 1567, with a large combined force of Knights, Infantry, and a Trebuchet going to attack Palenque, hoping to gain control of the city's valuable resources and canal connecting the two Oceans. The terrain and weird coastline prevented them from getting there yet, but some Infantry were able to walk out of the Carrack carrying them to kill some Spearmen fortified outside the city.
Meanwhile, the Frigates bombarded Seguro, causing massive damage to the Swiss Pikemen and regular Pikemen in the city. The Medieval Infantry on the Carrack that was with them proceeded to kill all of the Swiss Pikemen, but they were heavily injured and the regular ones still stood. They didn't have any more units with them, so Seguro would remain Portuguese... for a while.
Endeavor made the third Dutch attempt to deny Portugal Horses, and it became the third failure.
The Iberian War made the first progress it had made in a while in November, 1567, when England captured Veracruz, the final city the Spanish had in North America. Not much progress, as that city was worthless, but still progress, and maybe now the English and Iroquois could get to fighting things that were actually useful for them to fight.
The Dutch Scientists entered William's palace on January 2nd, 1568, to bring 2 pieces of good news: One, that they had researched a method for properly extracting things like gold, silver, and gemstones from the hills and mountains they resided in and turning them into great treasures, like what they were already doing with Tobacco, Sugar, and Spice Plantations.
But that wasn't all they came to tell William: They also said that the completion of this research had led to a new age: A rebirth of the old ideas of "Science and Knowledge and stuff is awesome." A Renaissance.
Knowing that seemed to give the Dutch more motivation, in addition to the motivation they already had from the Golden Age. They took this attitude in the Battle of Palenque. The terrain had prevented aid from the Trebuchets, but the Frigate HNMS Dominator was eager to provide assistance, causing light damage to one of the two Spearmen units defending the city. The higher numbers would make Palenque more difficult to take than the bombarded-to-death Portuguese cities the Dutch had attacked earlier, but the fact that the Mayans could only wield poor armor and primitive obsidian-tipped spears for defense made it a lot easier. Said spears and ancient armor were no match for the Knights who attacked and killed one of their units, nor were they a match for the Infantry who killed the other to finish the job. Palenque was captured, as were the two worker groups that had hoped to avoid the Dutch by hiding in the city.
The capture of the city revealed another unit of Mayan Spearmen fortifying to the West. Why they hadn't opted to actually be in the city was a mystery, but whatever led them to do that, the Spearmen became target practice for the Trebuchets and Mace-Swinging practice for the Medieval Infantry that killed them.
This freed up HNMS Orange, the Carrack that had ferried the Infantry to the city, to sink a Mayan Curragh that was hanging around near the city.
The Frigates, having retreated from Seguro to escort the Carrack and almost-dead Infantry back to friendly territory, made a brief to stop to bombard Rio Grande do Sul, a just-built Portuguese city near the ruins of Sao Salvador do Congo, and Endeavor again failed to bombard the Portuguese Horse Source. This, combined with Portugal having built a massive number of cities recently, prompted William to seek some advantage they could get. They first tried to see what the Mayans and Aztecs would give for Peace, but the Mayans wouldn't talk and the Aztecs wouldn't even accept an even Peace Treaty, despite being the clear losers in the war.
So William, unable to decrease the number of his enemies, decided to add an ally: The Inca, the only civilization currently uninvolved in the war. His first attempt to do so was met with a reminder by his advisors that he didn't actually have an embassy with the Inca, meaning that was impossible. So first he established one...
...And then he asked the Inca what their price would be for aiding the Dutch against Portugal. The Inca wanted some technology to get them closer to the advanced nations of Europe. The Dutch decided this was a fair enough trade, and taught them a bit about religion- not useful knowledge, but still knowledge, nonetheless.
With that done, it was hoped that the Inca could do something about Portugal's endless expansion, at least in South America, and curb the great power Portugal still had- even with their losses, they'd expanded enough in South America and Africa that they actually had more cities than they'd had when the war started.
In October, the English decided that the isolated North American cities were the only parts of Spain they actually wanted, and the rest of Spain was crap, so they signed a peace Treaty.
While William was mildly annoyed by this, he didn't care all that much.
A couple of Dutch Knights had camped outside of Yaxchilan in 1569. They didn't particularly like the terrible conditions of the jungle here, which kept them from moving quickly or even having artillery support, but there was gold, and they liked that. The first of the two units attacked the city, killing one of the Spearmen units within, but at the cost of almost killing them, due to having to cross a river and go uphill to fight. The second now hesitated. They had the opportunity to kill the Spearmen and take the city- but then they might be injured enough to allow the Quetzal Bowman outside to just walk in, shoot some arrows at them, and retake Yaxchilan right back. Not wanting that to happen, they instead opted to go kill the Quetzal Bowman. As the Bowman were outside the city, this was a much easier battle, and the Knights killed the Bowmen with no problems.
A bit to the east, the 4 Dutch Frigates Devastator, Flying Dutchman, Antwerp, and William encountered a smaller Portuguese fleet, consisting of the two Frigates Oporto and Providence and a Carrack. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the Interceptor, they chose to bombard the ships from a range with their cannons rather than attack them. The bombardment caused some damage to both of the Portuguese Frigates, but the Dutch were left without any ships to sink them with. So they instead just partially blocked the Portuguese, trying to force them to go in a certain way.
It wasn't a complete blockade, though, so the Portuguese fleet just went around them and headed Northwest to... somewhere.
Portugal and Spain both seemed to be getting tired of the war that year, as both asked for peace with the Dutch. William might have considered it, but he had agreements to fight them to commit to, and he wasn't about to break them. The war against Portugal and Spain would continue.
The Iroquois had been at war with the Aztecs for 8 years now, and nothing more than the occasional small battle had happened. But that all changed on December 13, 1569, when the Iroquois broke through the Aztec force defending the large city of Calixtlahuaca and captured it. This had the added bonus of making all of their territory contiguous, as Santo Domingo, the city they had captured from Spain, was no longer isolated.
In 1570, the force that had taken Palenque was considered healed enough to go after the next target: Sao Sebastio, a Portuguese city on South America's Northwest coast. Taking advantage of the canal through Palenque they now owned, the Dominator sailed south and bombarded the city's defenses, followed by a Carrack carrying two units of Infantry, which killed the two corresponding Portuguese Pikemen units to destroy the city.
The Knights camped outside Yaxchilan hoped to make a similar breakthrough there, and it seemed they succeeded after killing the Spearmen defending it. But alas; the Mayans had killed some of the city's population to rush out another unit of Spearmen. The Dutch were now out of units to attack with, as both units of the Knights there were too heavily injured to fight. So they were forced to retreat.
The Frigates Antwerp, Devastator, and William again bombarded the Portuguese fleet, this time knocking NRP Oporto and NRP Salvador down to half of their structural integrity, forcing them to leave the Carrack vulnerable to attack. The Flying Dutchman took the opportunity to do just that, but greatly underestimated the Carrack, and the fact that the Oporto and the Salvador could still offer defensive bombardment. Flying Dutchman was shot full of cannon balls and sunk into Davy Jones' Locker.
But even so, the Portuguese fleet was too damaged from the shelling of the past two years and the attack to continue where it was going. It retreated into Rio Grande do Sul to heal in the Fall of 1570. Antwerp, Devastator, and William responded to this in 1571 by blockading the only way out of Rio Grande do Sul, and shelling the ships until they were even closer to death than they already were.
A newly arrived Knight at Yaxchilan that year attacked the unit of spearmen that had just barely held the city the previous year- only to find another, similarly rushed spearmen unit still holding the city, and the Knights no less injured and every bit as forced to run away to heal.
In better news, HNMS Endeavor finally succeeded at destroying the roads that were giving Portugal access to Horses, after having forgotten that task several times, and a unit of Swiss Mercenaries from Fort Orange arrived in Amsterdam, carrying a huge amount of Tobacco with them, which made some people very wealthy, and some other people dead of lung cancer. But the wealthy part is more important.
And better yet, more reinforcements were finally starting to arrive in the New World, which would make the Dutch Army's job a lot easier.
A newly built Dutch Privateer, the Going Merry was sailing through the English channel in late 1571 when it ran into another Pirate Ship... or rather, not a pirate ship, as the English inexplicably chose to give their pirate ships national colors, making them identifiable but somehow better. They called them "Elizabethan Sea Dogs," and called this one Nemesis. It attacked the Going Merry, but was repelled and sunk. But the battle caused significant damage to the Dutch Privateer, which was soon after the battle sunk too, by the English Frigate HMS Diamond.
It was around this point when William decided that maybe building more Privateers was pointless if they were just going to get sunk all the time. At the very least, building them in Europe was pointless. They might be able to get more out of building them in the Caribbean, where there weren't any non-Dutch ships to sink them.
He became completely convinced of this, when, in April of 1572, the Privateer Orangebeard was sunk trying to attack another Sea Dog, the Revenge.
Endeavor, on its way South in 1572 to bombard other things, encountered a Portuguese Carrack off the coast of Spanish Canary Islands. The crew of Endeavor cheerfully turned the Carrack into a large amount of fragmented wood.
Back at Rio Grande Do Sul, a few Medieval Infantry in Carracks off the coast prepared to attack. They would kill the Pikemen in the city and sink the Portuguese fleet that had caused them so much trouble. The Frigates blockading the city didn't bother to bombard, assuming the ships would take all of the hits and make it pointless, a fatal wrong assumption. At least, it was fatal for the first wave of Medieval Infantry who attacked the city and found themselves skewered on Pikes. The second wave killed one of the Pike units defending the city, but there were still more defenders left. Later bombardment for the heck of it revealed the Portuguese fleet hadn't healed at all yet, and they totally could have bombarded the Pikemen first. Huh.
And they had healed a bit in 1573, preventing the bombardment from the Frigates from having much of an effect on the defenders. But the Cannon the Dutch had brought to the city did have some effect, weakening the remaining Pikemen unit enough for some Knights to kill them easily. Only a unit of Longbowmen remained in the city- a piece of cake for the remaining Medieval Infantry unit who killed them.
The Mayans requested peace with the Dutch a bit after that. William thought it over with his advisors and replied that they'd have peace when the Dutch had Yaxchilan.
Unfortunately, that wouldn't happen in 1574, as an unintentional mis-order had delayed some Knights who were going to take it by a year. On the bright side, the Dutch did have lots of Frigates and new units available that had arrived in the past few years. They made sure to spread the Swiss Pikemen around to defend the new cities they had captured, and prepared their Cannons, Medieval Infantry, and Knights for attack. They decided the best target for attack was the tiny islands in the Mid-Atlantic the Portuguese held, and their colonies in West Africa. It would hit Portugal a lot harder than attacking them in South America would, and the Inca would probably get around to that eventually anyway.
So the Dutch Military spent 1574 doing nothing but move units around and have a few Frigates bombard the Cape Verde Islands a few times.
The Inca did get around to finally attacking Portugal in 1574, but not quite in the way the Dutch had wanted- they captured the Portuguese city of Seguro, while the Dutch would have preferred them razing that or the cluster of Portuguese cities in the area Portugal called "Brazil" to the South of them. Oh well, they decided it was better than the Inca doing nothing.
The warlike Aztecs also decided they didn't care about any obligations they had with Portugal, they were going to declare war on them at the suggestion (and presumably, Bribe) of England.
The Knights were finally ready to attack Yaxchilan in 1575. Pressed forward by the knowledge of Gold, they greedily slaughtered the defending Spearmen and captured the workers to try to get to it. Unfortunately, the Mayans had rushed so many of their citizens into Spear-building over the past few years of fighting that there was nothing left of the city. Oh well, they didn't have gold, and despite the legends they heard about the city of El Dorado, their own eyes showed there definitely wasn't any city made of it in the vicinity, but at least they had 3 groups of slave Workers.
At Cape Verde, the Frigates offshore bombarded the Swiss Pikemen defending the city constantly... only for it to have no effect at all on them. The Medieval Infantry offshore sighed and prepared to charge into the city. The first two units to attack met a grisly fate; total destruction at the hands of the defenders. But they did severely weaken the two units they had attacked, bringing the third and final unit out to defend Cape Verde. For whatever reason, this unit was less capable of fighting the Medieval Infantry that attacked it, and it was wiped out. A 4th unit and 5th unit of Infantry followed into the city, killing the two units of Swiss Pikemen that had survived the earlier battles, and driving Portugal out of the Cape Verde Islands.
The Dutch then decided it was a good idea to have the cannons they had brought with them bombard the Spanish Caravel offshore, and get the HNMS Holland, a Carrack, to attack it. This, sadly, ended with HNMS Holland being sunk by a surprisingly tenacious Caravel.
Shortly after this, William realized that although he didn't have Yaxchilan, neither did the Mayans, and he couldn't think of any good reason to continue fighting them. So he set up a meeting with Smoke-Jaguar and offered peace to the Mayans for some gold. The Mayans, not wanting any more losses or destruction, happily accepted the treaty.
With the Mayans out of the war and the Aztecs now fighting Portugal, the Dutch could now focus more on Portugal. with the new reinforcements they had, that was a lot easier for them to do.
It would only be a matter of time before the Portuguese Empire crumbled, just as quickly as it had been created.
With the formerly-Portuguese Caribbean firmly under Dutch control, it was time to head South and take or destroy the colonies the Portuguese held on the South American coast. While most weren't particularly valuable, taking out Portuguese colonies always had to be a good thing. It might not hit them as much as attacking their more valuable and larger colonies in the Mid-Atlantic, but it was something. At the very least, the Dutch armies would have to take Porto Novo, a large and somewhat valuable South American colony just south of Cuba. William would order them to go there next.
In the meantime, Portugal still seemed to be having trouble mounting any form of counter-attack, aside from trying to get the Aztecs to fight for them. The Aztecs declared war on the Iroquois at Portugal's request and also sent one of their tiny Curragh boats to land an invasion force on Cuba- consisting of one unit of Jaguar Warriors, right near Ilheus. They weren't at all threatening to the city itself, although the workers outside building a road would have to be defended.
In 1562, William, not wanting to interrupt the workers' vital mission of connecting Ilheus to Wiltwyck by roads, just sent a unit of Pikemen that had been defending Wiltwyck onto a Carrack to guard them. Not the most elegant solution, and it left Wiltwyck totally undefended, but Wiltwyck was under no danger of being attacked and they didn't have a better one. The Dutch also moved some other units around either to prepare for things or to deal with how thinly spread their units were. They'd need reinforcements eventually.
Luckily, Portugal's colonies were defended so poorly that they didn't really need reinforcements yet. Porto Novo, for instance, the only truly valuable colony the Portuguese had in South America due to the several nearby resources, was defended by one measly unit of Pikemen. To the invasion force that took Bahia in 1561, it was a piece of cake. Said force sailed south, let the Frigates HNMS Antwerp, William, and Devastator bombard the crap out the Pikemen, and sent in a unit of Medieval Infantry to mop up the few survivors who didn't die from the bombardment.
Having taken Porto Novo, the invasion force, with many fresh Knights still in tow, noticed some Colonists just outside of the city's borders. They would take them if they could, but that would be difficult given the hilly terrain and thick jungle, unless the Colonists wandered out into a Grassland where the Knights could catch up.
In other pressing matters, the Portuguese had several undefended Carracks sailing around in the Bay of Biscay and the English Channel. Why they weren't defending their Carracks is a mystery, but even so, the Carracks were a threat that had to be dealt with, as the Dutch had no way of knowing where they were headed or what their cargo was. Even if the Dutch Frigate blockading the English Channel gave them some protection, it was hardly full protection. The Carracks would have to be sunk.
The Frigate HNMS Interceptor, true to its name, went after the Carrack in the Bay of Biscay, and intercepted it. And by "Intercepted," I mean "fired cannons at until it was a very, very dead ship." Another Frigate, the Brussels, attempted to do the same to the Carrack in the English Channel, and instead ended up as the "very, very dead" ship, while the Carrack was only mostly dead, but still slightly alive. Sadly for the Carrack, it's not hard to go from "Mostly" to "All" dead, and the Dutch Carrack Sintmaria promptly turned the Portuguese Carrack "All Dead", although it took plenty of damage doing so.
Like they had the previous year, the Portuguese again spent the Fall and Winter of 1562 doing nothing but sail ships around. The Aztecs, meanwhile, once again did do things. The Jaguar Warriors on Cuba lead a charge against the Swiss Mercenaries defending Ilheus, screaming "CHARGE!!!" for a few minutes, until the Swiss countered by stabbing the Jaguar Warriors with Pikes until the Jaguar Warriors screamed "RETREAT!!!" and did exactly that, barely escaping into the Forest outside of Ilheus.
Perhaps deciding that this wasn't the best course of action, the Aztecs came to the conclusion that a better course of action would be to recruit some help. So their emissaries went a bit to the South, to Chichen Itza, to get some help from the Mayans in the war against the Dutch.
Shortly after this, the Inca requested a Map Trade. William decided to accept after given some money, as it was nice to not have everyone in the New World hate him.
The beginning of 1563 came with the news that the Dutch had built their first Privateer, which had been named "Adventurous." Now to see if these Privateers could be useful against Portugal, or, heck, anyone.
The Dutch Frigates and even the Dutch Carracks were certainly useful in the war. An unnamed Carrack near Cuba proved that by sinking the really slow Aztec Curragh that had brought the Jaguar Warriors to Cuba. Then 4 Frigates proved that by bombarding the Portuguese city of Sao Salvador do Congo, a bit to the East of Porto Novo. Again, Medieval Infantry walked out of the Carracks to mop up the surviving Pikemen of the bombardment, the same model for city-capturing that had proven highly successful several times already, now having captured 5 cities in 5 years. Or rather, captured 4 and razed 1, as Sao Salvador was far too small to capture.
It was unlikely they could add a 6th city to that total in 1564, as they didn't have any more available Medieval Infantry, but that was still pretty good.
For the third consecutive year, the Portuguese spent the end of 1563 doing nothing, and the Aztecs doing something, but not much. Specifically, the Aztec Jaguar Warriors elected to commit ritual suicide by attacking the Swiss Mercenaries defending Ilheus again, who were more than happy to kill the Jaguar Warriors.
Despite the battle of Ilheus being an easy victory, it greatly energized the Dutch, along with the production shortly thereafter of the Dutch's first "Treasure" of Tobacco in Wiltwyck (although the Dutch had already captured some from Portugal). Many of the Dutch really wanted gold and were driven by the knowledge that there was a lot of it in the New World. And thus, the period of time after the Battle of Ilheus came to be known as a "Golden Age," a time of great prosperity. And Gold.
They were in particular driven by stories of a legendary city of gold, known to the Spanish and Portuguese as "El Dorado." Although William doubted the existence of such a city, there was plenty of real gold in the Mayan and Aztec Empires that could easily be taken. In particular, the city of Yaxchilan, to the South of Porto Novo, had lots of gold and was easy to take. The Dutch Knights would make sure to go there at some point.
1564 was not that point, though, as the Dutch Army was spread really thin and needed to heal. The Dutch Navy, on the other hand, wasn't, although it got little done anyway. The Caribbean Frigates, with nothing else to do, bombarded the Cape Verde Islands, showing there were several Swiss Pikemen there, meaning that would be a difficult thing to take. The Interceptor bombarded the Portuguese mainland, hoping to deprive the Portuguese of their Horses. They failed at this task.
Of slightly more interest was the Pirate Ship Adventurous, which came across the Spanish Carrack Isabella and attacked it. After a brief sea battle, the crew of Adventurous boarded the Carrack, defeated the crew, and added the Isabella to the Dutch Privateers' Pirate Fleet.
The Navy and Privateers' good fortune would not continue into 1565, though. They started the year out on a high note, With the Frigate Dominator taking a break from bombarding Cape Verde to sink a Portuguese Caravel, but the ships near the mainland had no such success. They encountered the two Portuguese Frigates NRP Henry and NRP Salvador escorting a Carrack. The HNMS Interceptor attacked the Henry, foolishly assuming the Portuguese Frigates would be as easy to sink as the Caravels and Carracks they had sunk earlier. As a result, the Interceptor was completely destroyed. The Privateer Isabella and the newly built Privateer Black Pearl tried to avenge the Interceptor, and although they did light damage to Henry and Salvador, both were sunk. The Adventurous wished to join the battle and sink at least one of the damaged Portuguese Frigates, but it wasn't fast enough to get there. Nor was it fast enough to ever do anything else. The French Frigate Francis sunk the Adventurous in the winter of 1565. So far, these Privateers haven't been nearly as effective as the Dutch had hoped.
1566 began with the good news that the Infantry and Knights were now close to ready to fight again, but they were still spread a bit thin trying to either defend what they had or put down revolts. They desperately needed reinforcements and Swiss Mercenaries to hold the cities they currently owned.
And they certainly weren't powerful enough to attack the Cape Verde Islands, as the Frigates Bombarding it revealed 3 units of Swiss Pikemen defending the city, which the Dutch Army didn't really have the resources to defeat right now. The Fleet opted to go south and attack Seguro, the last Portuguese city on the North Coast of South America, which might be more vulnerable. When they got there, they saw that the English agreed with their plans, as there was a unit of their Medieval Infantry outside the city, ready to attack.
Back on the mainland, the HNMS Endeavor tried to pick up where the Interceptor left off in its mission to bombard Portugal's Horse Source. Like the Interceptor before it, the Endeavor failed.
The English Infantry attacked Seguro in October, 1566, and were predictably stabbed to death by the Swiss Pikemen defending the city. The Portuguese, perhaps emboldened by their recent victories, were spotted by the Endeavor sending a Knight to attack something on their border with Spain. Like all the other recent attackers, this Knight died.
In other news, the Tobacco Plantation in Fort Orange produced another "Treasure", and many more cities would do the same in the next few years, making William wish he had enough troops to actually take them back to Amsterdam. He was able to send the one in Fort Orange on its way back with some excess Swiss Mercenaries in the North American Colonies and some crafty ship maneuvering, but he had plenty more in the Caribbean that weren't going anywhere anytime soon.
The Dutch Army's offensive finally got going again in 1567, with a large combined force of Knights, Infantry, and a Trebuchet going to attack Palenque, hoping to gain control of the city's valuable resources and canal connecting the two Oceans. The terrain and weird coastline prevented them from getting there yet, but some Infantry were able to walk out of the Carrack carrying them to kill some Spearmen fortified outside the city.
Meanwhile, the Frigates bombarded Seguro, causing massive damage to the Swiss Pikemen and regular Pikemen in the city. The Medieval Infantry on the Carrack that was with them proceeded to kill all of the Swiss Pikemen, but they were heavily injured and the regular ones still stood. They didn't have any more units with them, so Seguro would remain Portuguese... for a while.
Endeavor made the third Dutch attempt to deny Portugal Horses, and it became the third failure.
The Iberian War made the first progress it had made in a while in November, 1567, when England captured Veracruz, the final city the Spanish had in North America. Not much progress, as that city was worthless, but still progress, and maybe now the English and Iroquois could get to fighting things that were actually useful for them to fight.
The Dutch Scientists entered William's palace on January 2nd, 1568, to bring 2 pieces of good news: One, that they had researched a method for properly extracting things like gold, silver, and gemstones from the hills and mountains they resided in and turning them into great treasures, like what they were already doing with Tobacco, Sugar, and Spice Plantations.
But that wasn't all they came to tell William: They also said that the completion of this research had led to a new age: A rebirth of the old ideas of "Science and Knowledge and stuff is awesome." A Renaissance.
Knowing that seemed to give the Dutch more motivation, in addition to the motivation they already had from the Golden Age. They took this attitude in the Battle of Palenque. The terrain had prevented aid from the Trebuchets, but the Frigate HNMS Dominator was eager to provide assistance, causing light damage to one of the two Spearmen units defending the city. The higher numbers would make Palenque more difficult to take than the bombarded-to-death Portuguese cities the Dutch had attacked earlier, but the fact that the Mayans could only wield poor armor and primitive obsidian-tipped spears for defense made it a lot easier. Said spears and ancient armor were no match for the Knights who attacked and killed one of their units, nor were they a match for the Infantry who killed the other to finish the job. Palenque was captured, as were the two worker groups that had hoped to avoid the Dutch by hiding in the city.
The capture of the city revealed another unit of Mayan Spearmen fortifying to the West. Why they hadn't opted to actually be in the city was a mystery, but whatever led them to do that, the Spearmen became target practice for the Trebuchets and Mace-Swinging practice for the Medieval Infantry that killed them.
This freed up HNMS Orange, the Carrack that had ferried the Infantry to the city, to sink a Mayan Curragh that was hanging around near the city.
The Frigates, having retreated from Seguro to escort the Carrack and almost-dead Infantry back to friendly territory, made a brief to stop to bombard Rio Grande do Sul, a just-built Portuguese city near the ruins of Sao Salvador do Congo, and Endeavor again failed to bombard the Portuguese Horse Source. This, combined with Portugal having built a massive number of cities recently, prompted William to seek some advantage they could get. They first tried to see what the Mayans and Aztecs would give for Peace, but the Mayans wouldn't talk and the Aztecs wouldn't even accept an even Peace Treaty, despite being the clear losers in the war.
So William, unable to decrease the number of his enemies, decided to add an ally: The Inca, the only civilization currently uninvolved in the war. His first attempt to do so was met with a reminder by his advisors that he didn't actually have an embassy with the Inca, meaning that was impossible. So first he established one...
...And then he asked the Inca what their price would be for aiding the Dutch against Portugal. The Inca wanted some technology to get them closer to the advanced nations of Europe. The Dutch decided this was a fair enough trade, and taught them a bit about religion- not useful knowledge, but still knowledge, nonetheless.
With that done, it was hoped that the Inca could do something about Portugal's endless expansion, at least in South America, and curb the great power Portugal still had- even with their losses, they'd expanded enough in South America and Africa that they actually had more cities than they'd had when the war started.
In October, the English decided that the isolated North American cities were the only parts of Spain they actually wanted, and the rest of Spain was crap, so they signed a peace Treaty.
While William was mildly annoyed by this, he didn't care all that much.
A couple of Dutch Knights had camped outside of Yaxchilan in 1569. They didn't particularly like the terrible conditions of the jungle here, which kept them from moving quickly or even having artillery support, but there was gold, and they liked that. The first of the two units attacked the city, killing one of the Spearmen units within, but at the cost of almost killing them, due to having to cross a river and go uphill to fight. The second now hesitated. They had the opportunity to kill the Spearmen and take the city- but then they might be injured enough to allow the Quetzal Bowman outside to just walk in, shoot some arrows at them, and retake Yaxchilan right back. Not wanting that to happen, they instead opted to go kill the Quetzal Bowman. As the Bowman were outside the city, this was a much easier battle, and the Knights killed the Bowmen with no problems.
A bit to the east, the 4 Dutch Frigates Devastator, Flying Dutchman, Antwerp, and William encountered a smaller Portuguese fleet, consisting of the two Frigates Oporto and Providence and a Carrack. Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the Interceptor, they chose to bombard the ships from a range with their cannons rather than attack them. The bombardment caused some damage to both of the Portuguese Frigates, but the Dutch were left without any ships to sink them with. So they instead just partially blocked the Portuguese, trying to force them to go in a certain way.
It wasn't a complete blockade, though, so the Portuguese fleet just went around them and headed Northwest to... somewhere.
Portugal and Spain both seemed to be getting tired of the war that year, as both asked for peace with the Dutch. William might have considered it, but he had agreements to fight them to commit to, and he wasn't about to break them. The war against Portugal and Spain would continue.
The Iroquois had been at war with the Aztecs for 8 years now, and nothing more than the occasional small battle had happened. But that all changed on December 13, 1569, when the Iroquois broke through the Aztec force defending the large city of Calixtlahuaca and captured it. This had the added bonus of making all of their territory contiguous, as Santo Domingo, the city they had captured from Spain, was no longer isolated.
In 1570, the force that had taken Palenque was considered healed enough to go after the next target: Sao Sebastio, a Portuguese city on South America's Northwest coast. Taking advantage of the canal through Palenque they now owned, the Dominator sailed south and bombarded the city's defenses, followed by a Carrack carrying two units of Infantry, which killed the two corresponding Portuguese Pikemen units to destroy the city.
The Knights camped outside Yaxchilan hoped to make a similar breakthrough there, and it seemed they succeeded after killing the Spearmen defending it. But alas; the Mayans had killed some of the city's population to rush out another unit of Spearmen. The Dutch were now out of units to attack with, as both units of the Knights there were too heavily injured to fight. So they were forced to retreat.
The Frigates Antwerp, Devastator, and William again bombarded the Portuguese fleet, this time knocking NRP Oporto and NRP Salvador down to half of their structural integrity, forcing them to leave the Carrack vulnerable to attack. The Flying Dutchman took the opportunity to do just that, but greatly underestimated the Carrack, and the fact that the Oporto and the Salvador could still offer defensive bombardment. Flying Dutchman was shot full of cannon balls and sunk into Davy Jones' Locker.
But even so, the Portuguese fleet was too damaged from the shelling of the past two years and the attack to continue where it was going. It retreated into Rio Grande do Sul to heal in the Fall of 1570. Antwerp, Devastator, and William responded to this in 1571 by blockading the only way out of Rio Grande do Sul, and shelling the ships until they were even closer to death than they already were.
A newly arrived Knight at Yaxchilan that year attacked the unit of spearmen that had just barely held the city the previous year- only to find another, similarly rushed spearmen unit still holding the city, and the Knights no less injured and every bit as forced to run away to heal.
In better news, HNMS Endeavor finally succeeded at destroying the roads that were giving Portugal access to Horses, after having forgotten that task several times, and a unit of Swiss Mercenaries from Fort Orange arrived in Amsterdam, carrying a huge amount of Tobacco with them, which made some people very wealthy, and some other people dead of lung cancer. But the wealthy part is more important.
And better yet, more reinforcements were finally starting to arrive in the New World, which would make the Dutch Army's job a lot easier.
A newly built Dutch Privateer, the Going Merry was sailing through the English channel in late 1571 when it ran into another Pirate Ship... or rather, not a pirate ship, as the English inexplicably chose to give their pirate ships national colors, making them identifiable but somehow better. They called them "Elizabethan Sea Dogs," and called this one Nemesis. It attacked the Going Merry, but was repelled and sunk. But the battle caused significant damage to the Dutch Privateer, which was soon after the battle sunk too, by the English Frigate HMS Diamond.
It was around this point when William decided that maybe building more Privateers was pointless if they were just going to get sunk all the time. At the very least, building them in Europe was pointless. They might be able to get more out of building them in the Caribbean, where there weren't any non-Dutch ships to sink them.
He became completely convinced of this, when, in April of 1572, the Privateer Orangebeard was sunk trying to attack another Sea Dog, the Revenge.
Endeavor, on its way South in 1572 to bombard other things, encountered a Portuguese Carrack off the coast of Spanish Canary Islands. The crew of Endeavor cheerfully turned the Carrack into a large amount of fragmented wood.
Back at Rio Grande Do Sul, a few Medieval Infantry in Carracks off the coast prepared to attack. They would kill the Pikemen in the city and sink the Portuguese fleet that had caused them so much trouble. The Frigates blockading the city didn't bother to bombard, assuming the ships would take all of the hits and make it pointless, a fatal wrong assumption. At least, it was fatal for the first wave of Medieval Infantry who attacked the city and found themselves skewered on Pikes. The second wave killed one of the Pike units defending the city, but there were still more defenders left. Later bombardment for the heck of it revealed the Portuguese fleet hadn't healed at all yet, and they totally could have bombarded the Pikemen first. Huh.
And they had healed a bit in 1573, preventing the bombardment from the Frigates from having much of an effect on the defenders. But the Cannon the Dutch had brought to the city did have some effect, weakening the remaining Pikemen unit enough for some Knights to kill them easily. Only a unit of Longbowmen remained in the city- a piece of cake for the remaining Medieval Infantry unit who killed them.
The Mayans requested peace with the Dutch a bit after that. William thought it over with his advisors and replied that they'd have peace when the Dutch had Yaxchilan.
Unfortunately, that wouldn't happen in 1574, as an unintentional mis-order had delayed some Knights who were going to take it by a year. On the bright side, the Dutch did have lots of Frigates and new units available that had arrived in the past few years. They made sure to spread the Swiss Pikemen around to defend the new cities they had captured, and prepared their Cannons, Medieval Infantry, and Knights for attack. They decided the best target for attack was the tiny islands in the Mid-Atlantic the Portuguese held, and their colonies in West Africa. It would hit Portugal a lot harder than attacking them in South America would, and the Inca would probably get around to that eventually anyway.
So the Dutch Military spent 1574 doing nothing but move units around and have a few Frigates bombard the Cape Verde Islands a few times.
The Inca did get around to finally attacking Portugal in 1574, but not quite in the way the Dutch had wanted- they captured the Portuguese city of Seguro, while the Dutch would have preferred them razing that or the cluster of Portuguese cities in the area Portugal called "Brazil" to the South of them. Oh well, they decided it was better than the Inca doing nothing.
The warlike Aztecs also decided they didn't care about any obligations they had with Portugal, they were going to declare war on them at the suggestion (and presumably, Bribe) of England.
The Knights were finally ready to attack Yaxchilan in 1575. Pressed forward by the knowledge of Gold, they greedily slaughtered the defending Spearmen and captured the workers to try to get to it. Unfortunately, the Mayans had rushed so many of their citizens into Spear-building over the past few years of fighting that there was nothing left of the city. Oh well, they didn't have gold, and despite the legends they heard about the city of El Dorado, their own eyes showed there definitely wasn't any city made of it in the vicinity, but at least they had 3 groups of slave Workers.
At Cape Verde, the Frigates offshore bombarded the Swiss Pikemen defending the city constantly... only for it to have no effect at all on them. The Medieval Infantry offshore sighed and prepared to charge into the city. The first two units to attack met a grisly fate; total destruction at the hands of the defenders. But they did severely weaken the two units they had attacked, bringing the third and final unit out to defend Cape Verde. For whatever reason, this unit was less capable of fighting the Medieval Infantry that attacked it, and it was wiped out. A 4th unit and 5th unit of Infantry followed into the city, killing the two units of Swiss Pikemen that had survived the earlier battles, and driving Portugal out of the Cape Verde Islands.
The Dutch then decided it was a good idea to have the cannons they had brought with them bombard the Spanish Caravel offshore, and get the HNMS Holland, a Carrack, to attack it. This, sadly, ended with HNMS Holland being sunk by a surprisingly tenacious Caravel.
Shortly after this, William realized that although he didn't have Yaxchilan, neither did the Mayans, and he couldn't think of any good reason to continue fighting them. So he set up a meeting with Smoke-Jaguar and offered peace to the Mayans for some gold. The Mayans, not wanting any more losses or destruction, happily accepted the treaty.
With the Mayans out of the war and the Aztecs now fighting Portugal, the Dutch could now focus more on Portugal. with the new reinforcements they had, that was a lot easier for them to do.
It would only be a matter of time before the Portuguese Empire crumbled, just as quickly as it had been created.
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Wow, it's been three weeks since my last update... I kind of forgot, especially with the thread's low activity.
Seriously, guys, post in the thread some more. It reminds me to play this, it spaces out the updates a bit so we don't have a bajillion pictures on one page, which means that if you comment more, the load times will go down. And most of all, it's hard for me to get motivated to write this story if there's no visible signs that anyone is reading it or seems to care much about it.
So come on, post something!
Even if it's spam it might get me to update the story more often. 
Seriously, guys, post in the thread some more. It reminds me to play this, it spaces out the updates a bit so we don't have a bajillion pictures on one page, which means that if you comment more, the load times will go down. And most of all, it's hard for me to get motivated to write this story if there's no visible signs that anyone is reading it or seems to care much about it.
So come on, post something!
Even if it's spam it might get me to update the story more often. MTB4884
Emperor
Please post the next chapter as soon as you can! I'd like to see whether and/or how the Portuguese are defeated, and I'm sure many others in the CivIII S&T forum are keeping an eye on this fine tale as well.
mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
Well, I am assuredly reading every update of this story diligently. It's just that I can, by the rules of posting etiquette, only really reply once until someone else replies as well. Could we get a view of the victory screen, see how many turns are left and who's in the lead for most of the things (assuming it's not you, of course.)?
One Victory Status Screen, coming right up. I'll even throw in a shot of the Histographs.
I'm leading in Victory Points by a large margin, but the Portuguese and Aztecs are threatening me with culture. I'll have to deal with them.
Spoiler :
I'm leading in Victory Points by a large margin, but the Portuguese and Aztecs are threatening me with culture. I'll have to deal with them.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
Nice looking update there! Every time I think "oh dear, Chox has abandoned the thread", you post an update. Are you going to take over Portuguese Africa?
By the way, are you going to use that odd little exploit I found and take some native American techs?
By the way, are you going to use that odd little exploit I found and take some native American techs?
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
The lulz.
Inexist
Chieftain
This story is amazing, I would never have been able to devote to playing and winning the scenarios in order. 
Pieman
Prince
Boy it's been a bit since I last checked this. Nice work, as always. I admire how much effort you put into your writing, it must take some amount of time to do.
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