The Democratic Caliphate.

READ THIS POST BEFORE YOU GO ANY FURTHER
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13632356&postcount=733




Narrative:
The First Fitna was the greatest trial among the Muslims, with Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan threatening the leadership of Ali Ibn Abi Talib because the latter did not ensure justice for the murdered Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan.

In a surprising turn of history, the two people agreed to meet each other on the Battle of Siffin, where instead of fighting with each other, they opted for reconciliation, preferring it over shedding the blood of Muslim brothers.

This gave Ali a better chance to solve the Khawarij problem. While the Khawarij were convinced not to try to assassinate Ali, they did have an excellent proposal: They insisted that any Muslim could be the leader of the Muslim community.

Before Ali died, he reorganized the political structure of the Muslim Community so that each city had an elected leader, and these leaders congregate in Mecca every year. These leaders are responsible for discussing issues within the community and electing a new Caliph every now and then.
"For it is the will of God to rule by consultation." -Random Muslim dude.

Chapters:
Rule of Boutros
The Duarchy: Balashi and Alemayehu
Trade Relations and an Unfortunate Death
Alemayehu's Vengeance
Era of History
Resignation
The M1 Abram of Allah
Armament
Colonization and Jihad
Horde of the Rashideen
Smuggling Supplies into Zanzibar
War Against Ethiopia
The Reign of Balayzi: Part 1
The Reign of Balayzi: Part 2
Council of 1006 A.D Part 1
Council of 1006 A.D Part 2
Seljuk Invasion, 1069 AD
Defence of al-Anadol
Battle of Manzikert, Different Victors
Post-War Developments
Chinese Expansion into Persia
The Ummah: A Viking Perspective
Pax Islamica, Part 1
Pax Islamica, Part 2
Al-Ummah, Bedoun al-Khalifa (The Ummah without the Caliph) Part 1
Asr al-Istikshaf: Al-Ajtaqa wal-May (Epoch of Exploration: The Aztecs and Mayans)
Leaving the Old World
The Sacrifice of Missionaries
The Locals of Yu'Qataan: Chapter 1
The Holy Roman Emperor overthrown by the Muslims
The Locals of Yu'Qataan: Chapter 2
Invasion of the Andes
At-Ta'un al-Aswad
Moorish Invasions, Mongolian Conquests
Espionage in Habasha and Trade Deals
Domestic News
Collapse of the Ethiopians
Just so there isn't confusion, take a look at this spoiler:







Here is our current situation: The Rashidun Caliphate has expanded to engulf the Levant, Egypt and Mesopotamia. Bordering us are two neutral nations, Byzantium and Ethiopea. The Byzantine-Sassanid Wars resulted in a huge Byzantine empire that has engulfed Persia and restricted all forms of peaceful outward expansion.

Muslim Council, who will you elect to lead the Muslims for the next nine turns?

Here are your options:

Abdul-Rahman, Menes:
An Egyptian convert to Islam, his hometown of Abu Simbel was raided constantly by Abyssinian warlords in the south. He has lost his mother in one of those raids.

Plans:
-Strengthen the defences of the nation, by constructing walls and training archers.
-Declare war on Ethiopia to ensure North Africa is safe.
-Develop superior weaponry (Engineering).

Method of Rule:
-Willing to use slavery to accomplish his tasks.
-Concerned only with fortifying Egypt, while allows outside cities more flexibility. (Meaning I can control them my-self)

Abdul-Farouq, Boutros:
A Syrian convert to Islam, he is a wealthy man who made his riches by trade. He travelled around Byzantium, and is very aware of their culture.

Plans:
-Develop trade relations with Byzantium, to access their trade routes.
-Build marketplaces and wealth, while reducing deficit spending.
-Attain knowledge of sailing technology, to find new trading partners and to protect our seas.

Method of Rule:
-Willing to use slavery to accomplish his tasks.
-Not very militaristic; will place troops in defensive positions, and might disband an army if he sees it fit.
-Wants better trade across the whole empire, and will start projects in various important locations (Count Mecca as one of them.)

Abdul-Ghafur, Umar:
A Muslim from Mecca who has seen the Messenger. He is a religious man who wants to improve literacy in the Muslim Community so that everyone can read the Qur'an.

Plan of Action:
-Wants to build schools in cities with major populations.
-Wants to start developing a more efficient material to write books (Paper).

Method of Rule:
-Isn't too fond of slavery; will rarely use it.
-Focused more on domestic than international affairs.

So there are your three options! I will check to see the winner tomorrow, and then start playing my turns.

Abdul-Rahman, Menes

Wow, each one has equal votes so far.

Sorry that they have crappy plans guys. The most obvious plan is to attack Byzantium and build military, but what's the point of redoing what almost everyone else has already done? I want to make a unique story, and that involves coming up with new ways to play the game.

For those militaristic people out there, don't worry. We will have a warmonger every now and then. If Boutros is not selected or he is unsuccessful, war with Byzantium will be inevitable.

Could I please have everyone post their votes in bold, please?

Done. Yeah, that's why I choose Boutros. He looks interesting and I'm bored of Arab-Byzantine Wars. I think Arab-Tamil wars could be more interesting lol.

Abdul-Farouq, Boutros, but only if we're unable to obtain sailing (and thinking further, calendar) via trading. Is anyone willing to play the trade ballgame with you?

If no, Abdul-Ghafur, Umar

Just attack Byzantium. It is too strong and it closes your way to Persia and India. If you don't do that it will be impossible to conquer it later. You can go and conquer Ethiopia before Byzantium, so Menes. He will conquer Ethiopia and discover pikes that counter the byz UU.

Abdul-Farouq, Boutros

Imagine Byzzies and Arabs living life in peace!

Abdul-Farouq, Boutros

Can you change you details with the name of the elected? I mean the name of the leader...

Why isn't this on S and T???

I've abstained from commenting so far on both this and Royal Tenenbaum's IAARs (Interactive After Action Reports for those uninitiated in Civ4S&T)
but these threads probably ought to be moved to the proper subforum (Civ4S&T). Could we get a moderator, maybe Leoreth to move these?

On the topic of the game itself, I have no idea how you guys are going to survive both the Seljuks and the Mongols seeing how Menes only has one vote.
Or rather, he's the closest thing to a candidate who will pledge to spam Camel Archers.

This is still DoC discussion, TD. We don't want no non-DoC members saying what we should do since DoC is so different from other games, as well. In fact, these type of threads help DoC, as it makes you think of a civilization in super-depth from both gameplay, historical, and theoretical perspectives. I'm just about to launch up my reboot of the American voting system again.

This DoC thread is the only place I look on this website. If this was moved I wouldn't want to look at it. If mine was moved I wouldn't want to update it. Keeping threads that people want to keep in the DoC forum keeps people playing DoC. I don't know why you would want to irritate all of us and move it even though none of us want that, especially since you aren't a participator.

Abdul-Rahman, Menes
An unprotected land is a land not worth protecting

Royal Tenenbaum said:

This is still DoC discussion, TD.

Click to expand...

Actually, Civ4S&T is specifically where these type of threads go, as they are IAARs.
The type of mod used is inconsequential. You realize that stories or IAARs done in HotK, GEM or C2C don't go into the respective subforums of the mod. These shouldn't either.

Other AARs, IAARs and Feuds from vanilla, BtS, Warlords, as well as all stories done on mods in Civ4 such as, RFC, FFH, and DoC included all go there.
If you check Civ4S&T now, there are quite a few DoC stories there already,
further reinforcing my point.

Royal Tenenbaum said:

In fact, these type of threads help DoC, as it makes you think of a civilization in super-depth from both gameplay, historical, and theoretical perspectives. I'm just about to launch up my reboot of the American voting system again.

Click to expand...

That doesn't make any sense. You just used WorldBuilder to remove all Old World civs, which fits the theoretical bill, but contradicts the gameplay one.
There is gameplay depth in the Domination, Strategy Discussion and UHV threads because the
point of those threads is to share and discuss the methods used to achieve victory without tampering with the scenario to the player's favor.

Royal Tenenbaum said:

This DoC thread is the only place I look on this website. If this was moved I wouldn't want to look at it. If mine was moved I wouldn't want to update it. Keeping threads that people want to keep in the DoC forum keeps people playing DoC. I don't know why you would want to irritate all of us and move it even though none of us want that, especially since you aren't a participator.

Click to expand...

If it was moved, you'd just check the My Account tab and directly go into your list of subscribed threads there as well.
It won't be as if you lost the subscription to the thread if it gets moved.
Whether I'm perceived as being "irritating" or not is not part of this conversation.
The point at hand is that this is not the proper subforum for this type of thread.

Royal Tenenbaum said:

We don't want no non-DoC members saying what we should do since DoC is so different from other games, as well.

Abdul-Rahman, Menes
An unprotected land is a land not worth protecting

Click to expand...

This isolationism is honestly bizzare and illogical to me, considering that everyone aside from Leoreth was a "non-DoC" member originally.
Many people here originally came from other parts of the forum, like Tachywaxon from Strategy & Tips, strijder20 & myself from Stories & Tales, Jusos & blizzrd from vanilla RFC and more.
If new players from other parts of the forum gain an interest in DoC, that's better for development as a whole because newer members can bring fresh perspectives.
And I say this with the full knowledge that I would potentially disagree with them on many subjects pertaining to balance, but I welcome it because it keeps development sharp.
A number of visitors have already come here to DoC specifically because of S&T after having read mrrandomplayer's AARs.

Just to add in to the whole debate, I do not mind where this thread is placed, as long as I get to keep it somewhere.

As I said again, from a strategic point of view, the three plans suck. I don't want to give a victory story, many people have already done that. By making mistakes, I can also produce more interesting narratives.

But yeah, Menes is perhaps the best choice for warmongers. Both Ethiopia and Byzantium are Catholic. If I attack one, I will most probably provoke the others. He also is mainly concerned with projects in Egypt, and his policies won't affect other places. That means I can then build Camel Archers in other cities.

Yeah, I am not advocating for the lock of this thread.
Only moving it to the appropriate subforum.

While I'm here, I shall cast my lot for Abdul-Rahman, Menes as well.

For more information about how I make the names, the first name is an "Islamic" name (Usually one of the many versions to say, "Servant of God), and the last name is a stereotypical name of a person from the country of origin.

As the Empire expands, it will include more people from different areas. There will be a 1/50 chance that an ethnic group that I fought with in a term will spawn an electable leader in the next term.

For example, if I fight with the Ethiopians, there is a 2% chance that the next list of choosable leaders will have a person of Ethiopian origin.

I'll probably include women as electable leaders as well, since they are Muslims as well. Maybe only when the political stability is at a certain point (Maybe +10)

I will actually look over the ratio of ethnic groups in my empire and that will help me find out the ethnicity of the leaders. Who doesn't like diversity?

In my opinion, we should have a sub-subforum DoC S&T to post and store every stories, scenarios, challenges, etc that's DoC-related. Civ4 S&T is too general, and like Royals, this is most often the only subforum in this website that I read.