Episode 2: Mr.China Man and the scribe archers.
Are you guys ready for another action packed episode from the awesome realm of RandomLand?
In this episode: More pointless and silly talking of Cows! and Horses! We will also introduce a THIRD! animal but more importantly; Asoka develops his liking for looting and destruction a step further and unleashes his lumberjack hordes upon his unsuspecting neighbors.
Here's what happened:
In the first episode we concluded with a screeny of the glorious lumberjack horde marching toward the border with China. We were also just done researching the technology of Horse!back riding. It has come to our attention that it would possibly have been wiser to venture in the realm of hunting and archery first. We could not help it, our folk was too eager to learn how to ride the pretty horses! as Cows! do not like it when you try to ride them. It is not really going to matter in the long run though as we were too busy training axemen.
In the following turn, Asoka receives some bad news from back home. The overlooking of birth control policies degenerated in overpopulation and civil disorder in one of our city! Asoka promptly corrects the situation by sending farmers to work in the mines and the insurgents soon die of famine. You can also see a band of archer scribes from Isabella. I allowed them in the territory so they can witness and record how i spread awesomeness through Randomland.
While the mighty horde of axemen marches toward China, our early move of building a monument in honor of Horses! pays off. This is of great strategic value to Asoka who can now move close enough to the border to prepare a sneak attack.
In the year 1300 B.C, also called turn 108 by some historians, the "Hello China" team is standing ready at the border. The idiot Qin Shi huang (aka Mr.China Man ) has left a vulnerable worker right next to my ready to move army. I will capture him as a bonus. You can also see Isabella's scribe archers rushing in to have a chance to witness the fateful events.
I summon Qin Shi huang to tell him i am coming in to burn his civilization and reap the l00t.
5 Axemen vs 2 archers = burning pile of rubble + 138 gold. Shangai is now history. I also ordered my trusty warriors to enslave the unsuspecting worker. All this only cost us 1 axeman and we have more coming. I was lucky there because i was helped by barbarians who softened the Chinese town defenses for me the turn before.
In the meantime my Ottoman watch party hone their skills on the plentiful roaming barbarians. Better I than the archers up there in Istanbul.
Same thing over at the nearly completed Horses! road, plentiful barbarians are nice enough to give my lumberjacks some training. Isabella's scribes arrive just in time to witness some Ludicrous looting!
After thoroughly burning the countryside we hit a wall at the China Man's capital. Our tacticians devalued our chances of winning to just next to 0%. We are happy enough to move on to burn and loot some more instead. Just to make sure china stays prehistoric for some more time. We are also about done mastering Archery and the Horses! road is completed, we will soon start producing the very latest in military technology, Horse!archers!
Here we are using the spoil of war to rush the research of Fishing, so we can start producing some yellow metal out of the water.
In the meantime China starts pumping out swordmen in substantial quantity and attacks my axemen. I fend off the attacks not without some casualties and manage to burn some more farms. Having burned enough stuff for now, we offer him a Peace treaty. He obviously agrees.
The action catapults my 3 surviving axemen out of chinese territory, near a northern pass that leads to an alternate way to our other buddy Suleiman. How... Convenient!
At this point i cant help but to point out that RandomLand is a rather rich and plentiful place. Just look at all the goodies!
It was a perfect landing place for a greedy megalomaniac.
In the meantime we have been busy killing some barbs and producing some chariots over at the capital region. Our troops mess around a newly build Ottoman colony, trying to find a way in.
Our brave lumberjack veterans attack their defenses and despite favorable odds only manage to bloody themselves. The survivors decide to camp here and wait for reinforcements. We also start researching the delicate art of pottery, which will somehow allow us to build tax paying suburbs around our cities. So far the spoil of war has allowed us to keep research fueled but we need to prepare for the future.
Here we received results from a general survey of the world military powers, considering we have been busy pumping out military for centuries, the results are not really unexpected.
By turn 125 our first glorious Horse!Archers are ready for battle. With their help we manage to burn to the ground the nasty settlement of Bursa. Sorry, forgot to make a screeny of the fateful event.
In the year 775, our new army, led by the first Horse!archer prototype meets with the veterans from the China war. They merge together and decide they would make a glorious attack on one of the two remaining Ottoman cities. Of course, Isabella's scribe bowmen are here, out of their mind the idea of missing any of this!
The city of Edirne keeps pumping out archers like crazy while the inglorious ottoman capital only has 3 bowmen keeping watch. They also have a band of workers trying to repair damage from our earlier raid.... But ... wait... what is it that i see???? Huge Four legged animals with big horns!?!! Helliphants! "QUICK!" Urges Asoka! Grab this Capital! We need them big pretty Helliphants! FTW!
Highly motivated by their new found love of Helliphants! The Stack of Death moves toward the pathetic seat of Ottoman power.
What must happens happened, it was a bloody battle and cost us many strong warriors, but Istanbul fell... Suleiman flees to the backward village of Edirne while we celebrate our victory and cuddle some Helliphants! The great event triggered the rise of a mighty general at our capital and some of our warriors manage to capture 2 workers from Suleiman, bringing our total Fast worker count to Six!
We also celebrate the completion of Stables in our capital, other cities are following the example, preparing for the next wave of bloodthirsty hardened Horse!Archers that would terrorize the whole of RandomLand for centuries to come.
Now, well, uh, this... was it not a crazy epic run for glory? I am pretty amazed by what we managed so far. But the underside of the medal is that India also has a few internal problems it needs to fix if it wants to compete with the other big guys out there who BTW have more points than us!
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Ok what now: Population caps, no religions, need for more gold if we want to sustain research. Many difficulties are ahead. We also think it is time to expand from our own. Shall we build a settler to colonize the great flood plain at the west, or shall we sent them to gather the Colorful beads that grow in the mountains south of Istanbul? Those would allow us to raise population by +1. We shall call them M&Ms. Because they bring two things : Money&Merriness! Despite their unconditional love of Horses! Cows! and Helliphants! our folk are going to need more lovable things to stay happy and grow.
What to do next will be an important decision, you guys can counsel Asoka with your wisdom, Asoka has not yet grown mad enough to totally ignore his peers.
To be continued...
) quite popular, I thought it deserved a Brand new better Introduction! 
If you are curious, i am actually a native French Canadian, aka a Quebecker!
