JalNES II: Quicker and Easier

I just noticed a problem with the stats. Vanga doesn't have an economy.

Yeah. That made writing orders interesting.

Oh, shush. I was tired at the time. It's been fixed in the new stats.

Update Six: No Land could Stand Before their Arms​

Unable to participate in the booming naval economy due to Sumbiti dominance, Karanu became increasingly focused on agriculture and war. Existing trends within Karanu culture continued, leading, to a greater extent than the rest of the Indus area, to the development of a semi-feudal division of society between landowners and peasants. The upper layers of society, in the absence of a sizable merchant class, contracted: only the king, high priests, and various advisors who tended also to be regional governors were set above the landowners and peasants. This naturally led to a shift of power from the king to regional powers--indeed, civil wars, in which various warlords sought to seize the national government for themselves, seem to have been fairly common during the 14th century, judging from the number of sites where inscriptions claiming a city to be capital of all Karanu have been found.

By 1300, the state seems to have re-stablized into a tight federation, similar to the arrangement in Mykenai in Greece, in which a high king was elevated over regional rulers. An interesting difference, though, was that Karanu ceased to have an official capital--instead, the high king and his entourage travelled between all the various regional capitals. The major cause of stabilization, apart from shear exhaustion, was the creation and drastic enlargement of a true national military, distinct from regional milita, which served as a means of escape and advancement for peasants otherwise bound to their land. The increase in influence of the military caused the Karanu culture to become markedly more agressive and militaristic than their neighbors. A first step was a series of campaigns to reclaim the cities along the coast near the Sumbiti borders, which had during the chaos of the previous century become more closely affiliated with Sumbiti than Karanu. This was followed by the decisive defeat of the already-fading Harappan Empire, allowing Karanu to expand further up the Indus and possibly sparking a precipitous Harappan decline, to the point that the city itself was abandoned by 1200 BC. This, however, satiated only briefly the Karanu lust for war.

As the merchants of Sumbiti gained ever-increasing wealth from the state's superiority and overseas colonies, they simultaneously gained power within the government. The royal family eventually became a series of figureheads controlled by merchants and admirals, who increasingly pushed the state towards protecting its overseas trade interests. Early Iron Age epics written several hundred years later tell of a series of legendary merchant-explorers such as Senbari, the Seeker, said to have first established trade with Babylon. A fragmentary text tells of a great fleet sent to conquer the lands of the Far West for Sumbiti; though probably allegorical, recent expeditions have revealed a massive shipwreck in the Persian Gulf.

This naval focus, however, meant that much less attention was paid to domestic matters. Popular domestic uprisings occurred sporadically throughout the period, only to be put down by the growing professional army, composed mainly of archers. These revolts intensified greatly after the monarchy's failure to intervene in the Karanu reconquest of its coastal lands, which were seen by many as rightfully Sumbiti, in the centuries-old tradition of "liberating" cities dissatisfied with their former rulers.

In 1267, a major revolt in Sutkagen-Dor succeeded briefly in overcoming the garrison there. Sumbiti prepared the by-now standard naval blockade followed by an invasion, but the proceedings were interrupted by a huge Karanu army sent to "liberate" their ancient allies. Rather than challenging Sumbiti naval superiority, the Karanu chose an overland march, arriving in the city in time to change the Sumbiti naval assault from a certain success to an extremely risky maneuver. War between the two powers seemed inevitable...but much to the displeasure of the common people, Sumbiti merchants convinced the monarchy to reluctantly accept a peace agreement making Sutkagen-Dor a neutral, unaffiliated state. This preserved the flow of trade, though it reduced the amount that Sumbiti coffers benefited from it.

Of course, the nominally neutral state strongly favored the Karanu, though they tolerated the Sumbiti traders, many of whom had settled in the city and ensured its continued economic importance. Karanu continued openly to prepare for war, and when in 1230 they officially annexed Sutkagen-Dor, the Sumbiti monarch was essentially forced to declare war rather than risk a popular uprising. Thus, indeed, the two states went to war.

The outcome of the conflict, though, did nothing to resolve the tensions. Karanu managed through bribes and other persuasion to persuade Lothal not to aid Sumbiti and to spark uprisings in the Aryan-majority southeastern cities of Sumbiti. Sumbiti totally destroyed the combined navies of Karanu and Sutkagen-Dor and occupied the entire Karanu coast. Simultaneously, however, the Karanu army, travelling inland, managed to seize Shlobi and hold it against repeated naval assaults. The Sumbiti regained control over the coastal lands between Shlobi and the Indus; in return, they lost Lothal as an ally and had to recognize Sutkagen-Dor's alliance with Karanu, though they managed to force it to stay seperate.

Thus the dawn of the 12th century saw continual preparations for war, as both sides sought to remedy the mistakes of the previous conflict. Sumbiti, seeking a definitive advantage, began to train possibly the world's first war elephants, while Karanu, confident in its army's superiority, focused on ensuring that its armies could be adequately supplied during the next decisive campaign.


The fall of Harappa, barely noticed by the cultures of the Indus, had major ripple effects for the Ganges states. The flow of trade from the west was curtailed, though certainly not halted, by the lack of organized states between the two great rivers. In the absence of major trade to create thriving city-states and large merchant classes, the states of the lower Ganges focused more on expansion and agriculture. Vanga, the closest to the fertile lands of the Delta, found itself in an advantageous position, which it took advantage of by gradually incorporating the delta over the course of the late 14th and early 13th centuries. In exchange for grain, the older states up the Ganges river spread their culture to Vanga, most notably the caste system, the adoption of which in the core territories helped ensure economic stability, and the introduction of writing and the first Ganges literature. Relations with Kosala foundered, culminating in the seige and capture of Campa in the mid-13th century. Ultimately, Kosala proved unable to control the entire population and reach of the Ganges down to the delta, and Campa soon regained independence; in the same manner, by 1200 Vanga itself, centered around a capital far upriver from the delta, began to have trouble controlling the peoples indigenous to the delta, who outnumbered their rulers to the northwest.




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Mykenai's gradual expansion continued over the course of the 14th and 13th centuries, pushing slowly northward and beginning to settle the Ionian coast. The socioeconomic structure, consisting of a warrior aristocracy ruled by kings subservient to a high king, remained mostly unchanged, growing more or less centralized depending on the individual Mykenian rulers.

It is, of course, possible, though not widely discussed among in today's archaeological community, that Mykenai could have undergone more change, for apart from brief Phoenician records noting the existence of the entity they were trading with, the only glimpse of Mykenai's society is provided by the famous Homeric epics, the Iliad and Odyssey, along with a host of lesser works that survive only in fragmentary form. It is hardly necessary to recount the famous tales, concerning the wrath of Achilles and the cleverness of the Phoenican prince Odysseus, who began as a simple merchant trading between the two warring armies and, impressed by the glory of Agamemnon and Diomedes, joined the Greek cause, conceived the famous Trojan horse, and married into the royal family of Ithaca. But the basic events of the seige of Troy, or Wilusa as it was known to the Hittites, is corroborated in Hittite and Phoenician sources, as well by archaeological excavations. We know that Troy was burned to the ground in 1208 BC, and that the attack on the city was led by the powerful high king of Mykenai, Agamemnon, who convinced his neighboring warlords to join in the assault. We know that shortly after his return, Agamemnon was murdered by a conspiracy between a branch of the royal family and other warlords, sparking a period of disorder and decentralization. Finally, we know that within a decade, Mykenai itself had been plundered by the Dorians.

The Dorian invasion, though likely perpetrated by a distinct people, is associated with the various invasions of the Sea Peoples and Philistines, who also used iron weapons, in the great series of migratory pulses known as the Bronze Age Collapse. In 1208, we know, Mykenaian culture was intact; yet by 1200 the great Hittite and Mitanni empires had been totally destroyed, and trade throughout the Mediterranean had nearly collapsed. The onslaught of the Sea Peoples was not limited to their land forces: Zubria was overrun and the great naval forces of the League were destroyed by the shear numbers of the Sea Peoples.


Prior to the invasion of the Sea Peoples, the 14th and 13th centuries were a period of much-needed stability for the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean, isolated for the most part from the continual wars over Mesopotamia. As it had done for centuries, Phoenicia drifted from the orbit of one great power to another, paying tribute when necessary but largely concerning itself with affairs to its west. League traders maintained control over the markets of Zubria and Minoa; for an extended period before the Mykenaians colonized Ionia, they controlled Aegean trade as well, and continued to exert influence there even after Mykenaian expansion, as can be seen from their extensive trade with both beligerants in the Trojan War. This gradual civilizing of the Western Anatolian coast, through Hittite, Minoan, and Phoenician influence, was the most significant new market for the League; though some adventurous merchants traveled further, bringing back reports of an island larger than Minoa, the risk of such a journey during this period still outweighed the fairly insignificant reward. For the most part, then, the Phoenicians continued on in the manner they were accustomed to, which was not by any means a bad style of life for the rich and increasingly literate and erudite merchant class.

The advent of peace in Egypt, on the other hand, had far-reaching consequences for Men-nefer. Over the years, the three major powers reached a de facto peace agreement, in which they divided amongst themselves the lands of the Nile; by 1300 this goal had been accomplished and borders had largely stabilized: Men-nefer had expanded south as far as Nen-nesu, Asyut south to Abdju, and Thebes (known to the Egyptians as Niwt-imn) as far as Swenet and the First Cataract, encompassing the city of Bernike. In the absence of a threat to the south, some of the finest works of art of the ancient Near East, most notably the sculptures and temples glorifying Ptah. Also during this time, Men-nefer expanded its empire east along the Mediterranean coast as far as Sin, as well as establishing a coastline on the Red Sea.

While some merchants from Tamiat challenged their Phoenician counterparts, the economic efforts of Men-nefer were mostly focused on gaining control over the Red Sea. During the 13th century, Men-nefer's merchants competed furiously with those of Thebes, which controlled two convenient Red Sea ports in central locations, but merchants from both nations regularly travelled to the Gate of Tears at the far southern extent of the Sea to trade with the Sabaeans, on the eastern side of the strait, and the people of Punt, on the western side.


But, it must be stressed, the invasion of the Sea Peoples placed these gains in great danger. The latest set of invaders of Mesopotamia were not, unlike the Babylonians, Hittites, Mittani, or even the Hyksos, primarily interested in empire-building or plunder, but in the land itself; they came to settle lands already occupied, and they were absolutely fanatic in pursuing this goal. When their onslaught destroyed the Hittite and Mittani empires, the Phoenician League was unable simply to transfer their tribute to a new set of vassals. Despite the extant defensive measures, Gebal and Berut were overrun before effective resistance could be organized and the city-states become more unified; just as they had flowed around determined resistance by the syncretic culture and population based around Carchemish, a contingent of the Sea Peoples besieged Tyre and Sidon, while most of the force circled around them, taking Akko and Dor on the way towards the fertile lands of the Nile, the ideal place to build a new civilization.

In the same manner, the great naval fleets that gave the Sea Peoples their name for the most part bypassed Knossos and Rhodes, the two main Minoan strongholds; but the fertile lands of Zubria were too great a prize to ignore, despite the aforementioned resistance from the Phoenician navy.

As the 12th century dawned, then, there remained only a few points of civilization, isolated by the great tide of the Sea Peoples: the sputtering remnants of Phoenicia, Minoa, and Carchemish; Babylon, spared thus far only because of the more tempting target of the Nile, but facing its own problems from the rebellion of Elam in the southeast; and finally, still unscathed, Men-nefer and the other Nile states, about to face the full wrath of the Sea Peoples, by land and by sea.



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Much of China's future was to be determined by the collapse of the Wei and its ramifications. In 1395 BC, the same year as the Yu dynasty was proclaimed by a Zhou-ethnicity splinter state, Xoluc Guo Changchao, the emperor of Guo led an assault on hugely successful assault on Wei, succeeding in capturing land as far west as Chang'ang and the bank of the Yellow River. A decade later, the Yu, equipped largely with dagger-axes, imitations of Yue designs, managed to conquer the remaining Wei lands west of the river, ending the dynasty. Tensions quickly rose between the two nations--though they had cooperated, if tacitly, in destroying the Wei, the Yu claimed Chang'ang as their ancestral capital, while the Guo had no intention of giving up their gains. Over the next generation, the Guo beat back repeated assaults by the Yu and their barbarian allies, the Shan, who were later annexed into Yu.

Guo's invasion of Wei had signalled a further tip towards Xoluc in the already fragile balance of Guo Dualism. Mass persecutions of non-Xoluc worshippers were necessary to hold the swathes of land taken from Wei, and the persecutions naturally extended to Xola-worshippers within Guo itself. Around the middle of the 13th century, the periodic uprisings against the Xoluc establishment were brought to a head by a growing shift in power from the aristocrats, who maintained a certain minimal respect for the peasants who worked their land, to the emperors, who had no such qualms. Violent uprisings in old Wei allowed the Yu to seize control of the lands surrounding Chang'ang; meanwhile, the eponymous Xola splinter state formed on Shandong Peninsula, based in Yantai.

Though periodic wars were fought between Guo and their neighbors over the rest of the 14th and 13th centuries, the borders remained essentially fixed; the Great Ditch, a massive earthworks defense project built by the Yu in the mid-13th century, parts of which still survive to this day, guaranteed that the prevailing borders would remain barring the downfall of one of the dynasties. Boht of the major dynasties turned to more peaceful projects: Yu carried out a great expansion of its infrastructure, and it was during this period that the great jade sacrificial urns were produced; Guo, meanwhile, began for the first time to seriously challenge Yue's naval dominance of the Yellow Sea.


As in the case of Mykenai, little is known about the development of Yue throughout the 14th and 13th century, but quite a lot is known about its state in 1200, from the preserved memoirs of one an unusually candid member of the Imperial Court. In 1200, in the tradition of overly expansionist states everywhere, Yue was decaying on the outside while simultaneously rotting on the inside. For the most part, the various peoples of Yue had no common religion; this was exacerbated by the significant presence of slaves from southeast Asia. Yue thus lacked a cultural element holding it together; the only common object of worship was the Divine Emperor himself, who was naturally worshipped to a greater or lesser degree depending on the distance from Guiji.

The rigidity of the caste system also sucked vitality from the nation. Only slightly above the large class of slaves, both indentured and permanent, was the peasant caste, comprising the vast majority of the state, made up of poor city dwellers and rural farmers. This entire structure essentially supported a much smaller learned class, made up of successful merchants, scholars, nobility, and members of the Emperor's Will. The only large example of class mobility was the shuffle between serfdom and indentured servitude; it was nearly unheard of for a peasant, lacking resources, to become literate and enter the nobility, and almost as hard to become a full member of the Emperor's Will, rather than a conscripted soldier. Thus Yue at the turn of the century had an oppressed peasantry supporting a disinterested monarch, who had effectively ceded most powers to the merchant nobility and the military.



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OOC

Koguryo has now been NPCed.

I moved the invasion of the Sea Peoples up by 25 years so it coincided with the end of the update. This forced me to push up the Trojan War by 25 years as well. Deal with it.

Story Bonuses
Sumbiti: No significant loss of trade
Yu, Guo: these two essentially canceled out, but they ensured that neither state collapsed

Random Bonus
Most Pessimistic about their nation: NK/Vanga. Reward: success!

Best Orders: Daftpanzer and Azale.

Next Deadline: Saturday 8/2, 9 PM EST.

OOC: Hmm... This does work out to historical settings jal, I like it And now, it's our time to play

Can I rejoin this as a new civ?

Good update! Good Dynasties!

? only my state and Yue had innovations?
Hello people of the Yellow River. Would you like terrancing or hard work tilling the land and irrigation for rice?

You pegged Yue society perfectly Jal! I am most pleased

I Bet you are going for a dynastic revolution like mine or a REVOLUTON as in an interested ruler.

Charles Li said:

I Bet you are going for a dynastic revolution like mine or a REVOLUTON as in an interested ruler.

Click to expand...

Or I might be going for a bloodless, pragmatic coup so I can destroy you and your extremely similar name YU

Oh dear oh dear... there will be trouble. Time to dial up my Egyptian friends I think!

Curses! Foiled again!

Well, at least Yu has a chinease name: it means Jade Mr-kill-your-similar-name Yue. Besides. A switch to a cousin changes it to Shi, 'silk' which he endoursed from mistake in a hunting trip by a hunter into a massive industry. I have Dynasty!

I love this, the only Chinease that actually Have regular dynasties. Last King doesn't do Reproduction, line dies, Advisors dial up a general cousin and Boom, he takes in a fabric similar to wool but much better discovered by a hunter's mistake and BAM! You have no reason to kill me.

Neverwonagame3 said:

Can I rejoin this as a new civ?

Click to expand...

Of course.

@Charles Li: the innovations stat generally records what someone specifically noted in their orders to spend money on. It's what a state has above and beyond the average. Admittedly, I should probably remove some of the older entries...

Flow into the Future

Titled, 'My Raise to the Throne'
in the Memoirs of Zuan Yuan Zi, first king of the Shi Dynasty.

I, Zuan Yuan Zi, will tell you the story of the Shi raise. I must tell you the linage before me and the implications.

Two generations ago, the Queen gave birth to twins before dying. The King refused to remarry for grief and retreated into a hunting shack to the north. The Elder brother. Zuan Gu Ren, Ruled in regeant to Zuan Fu Yu, the eldar twin and true to the throne by the king's demand. When Zuan Fu Yu became 25, Zuan Gu Ren Ceded power to his brother and moved on to manage the Western Territories for him before he is competent enough. Eventually, this generation ended. The Son of Zuan Gu Ren became the advisor of trade. The son of Zuan Fu Yu became the King. The son of Zuan Hu Tu became a general in the army.

The son of the King, Zuan Hai Zi, refused to marry to thank the God of Yuvan Mountain, who is thought to have saved his life when a tiger jumped on him then bowed. When he died young due to a severe cold I, son of Zuan Hu Tu, became King. When the news came to me I immediately prayed to my ancestors. For my Grand Mother who died in the birth of my father. For my Father for quietly accepting his fate on the border of Guo.

A few years into my rule I started a tradition of traveling the country every 5 years, I arrived in a Hunter's house. Outside a few sheep are traveling arround when suddenly, the hunter ran into the house from the hills.

"I've Got It!", cried the hunter, "The great ansestors and spirits saw fit to make this Moth Egg fall into my tea water and dissemble! Look! The threads of the Heavenly Fabric!*"

"So it is!" cried his wife, "Stop crying about such nonsense and get that buck for dinner, our son is in the fields planting the rice for this year so..."

"My Ma'am tell her husband to take it back for... the King?", I said.

She gasped and called the Hunter. Then, I told her to spin it... as she did it glowed. I sighed and said, "Your family will be honored forever. You have discovered the thread, please, lead me to the tree from which it fell."

Then, they lead me there. I looked up and saw a few leaf-worms^ spin into the Moth egg. Then, it fell as the hunter said, "Its that one!"

Over the next years he lead parties to collect data on these silk worms. At the end of my reign and as I write my Memoirs the first clothes of silk now cloth my son as he was sworn to the throne. Interestingly, my elder son refused to do it, insead taking a liking to recover first person histories. I know my young son will rule fairly into the future. May we all be remembered!

*Known as Silk hereafter, or Shi in the Zhou language.
^Catapillers

OOC: But silk has been invented a long, long time ago!

I'll take the westernmost of the cities in the Syrian area not Sea People-conquered.

Ugarit/Nerverwonagame3
[Any colour]
Ugarit
Government: Monarchy
Economy: Primarily agricultural
Military: Large/Uses a conventional mxied force of infantry, archers, and cavalry
Culture: Deliberately tries to keep out any Sea People influences, following to the best of their ability the culture of the Old Hitties (status of nobility is usually justified on Hittite blood). While they do not consider some races superior to others, they do have proto-nationalistic beliefs based around races (Hitties, Sea Peoples, Egyptians, Akkadians, and Mitani are the major races in their mentality in that order. The Phonecians and Hurrians they believe to be races almost extinct).
Description: At the beggining of the onslaught of the sea peoples, the city of Ugarit was a tributary state of a Hittite power, which was smashed in a war with the Sea Peoples. The ruler of said Hittite power for a while ruled nowhere (during this period, he vowed to destroy the Sea Peoples), but later managed to exploit instability in Ugarit to take control.
(OOC: A bit of the Freudian excuse trope here, but given what jalapeno_dude said earlier about realism I think that's okay)

OOC: What about Phoenicians?

Okay, I'll modify that.

Alex, your people interested in some aid from egypt in order to start some fires their, or are they busy on being their knees?