[RFC Dawn of Civ] The Alternative History of France

Hi, Civ-addicted people .

I've been lurking for many, many hours in these threads - specially these literary ones about our great empires , and, as an History fan, always wondered about writing some interesting stuff to post here...

Then, today, specially on these days that I'm planning a Civ-withdrawal to deal with more urgent stuff (real life just DOWs on our Civ-addiction), I was back at the Dawn of Civilization gaming, with French, and tried something odd (specially when knowing what lies just some turns ahead) - about picking those starting troops to get hands over the barbarian Frankfurt before Germans did so

After some turns of "Your troops are joining the enemy in their war of liberation!" annoyance and some diplomatic ruse, I've get an interesting result: the point of divergence which starts this Alternate History.

Welcome to S&T!



We won't eat you, of course.

If anyone tells you that they are more epic than I am, they are lying. Especially if that person's name is Tambien.

"Then, it's peace, at least" - said Louis of France, staring at the hollowed coffers of the Royal Treasure.

That was extremely costly to the French Kingdom - but was a good deal after all. Embroiled in a fierce war against the Viking warriors in the north, the (so-called) Holy Roman Empire considered good to take some gold from France and settling peace. And the Kingdom could hold that nice conquest just east of our Capitol.

Germans may never know (or never forgive?) the fact that we get the Vikings after them, luring the Northern Axemen with secrets of riding horses and running their churches - and this saved our new Kingdom from further harm.

Now, it's time to work hard to enjoy our new resources - and turning the Kingdom to an Empire.

Then, first post done!!

Critics and suggestions VERY welcome

I REALLY didn't know how often I can be updating the thread, but I'll try to do this as often as possible

Thanks for viewing

Subbed.

Good luck!

I suggest conquering Italy next, shouldn't be too hard...right?

Welcome to the Forums!

Welcome to S&T, and great start!

MoreEpicThanYou said:

Welcome to S&T!



We won't eat you, of course.

If anyone tells you that they are more epic than I am, they are lying. Especially if that person's name is Tambien.

Click to expand...

I swear you have that on permanent copy-and-paste.

Subbed.

subbed

General Olaf said:

Welcome to S&T, and great start!



I swear you have that on permanent copy-and-paste.

Click to expand...

I think you're richt

@heitorcccp: Welcome to the forums, and can't wait to see your story!

@METY: Why do you always have to start with the same, creepy message?

Welcome! Ignore the false messages of METY! I AM MORE EPIC!

Anyway, I believe he DOES have it on copy+paste or saved as a document or something.

If anyone tells you that they are more epic than I am, they are lying. Especially if that person's name is Tambien.

Click to expand...

and welcome to the subform

In the next post(s), I'll be laying the Second Chapter of this story: how the French people developed and endured the years of peace - and hard work - to get their nation in the run for glory

The country is beginning to take form. With the years – and sacrifices - of the war against Holy Romans being more and more forgotten by new generations of French, the daily petty stuff of the peaceful civilian life were the sole worrying of the French lay people. The class of the “warriors”, though still governing the country, weren’t demanding all the nation’s food and stuff to maintain itself.



“It….it works!” said Pierre, the village’s vicar, while writing down – clearly and neatly – his stuff for the next month of masses.
Nothing special, except by the fact he realized that he didn’t needed the parchment that had cost him not much less than an eye or a hand. He was writing on a stuff that could be produced basically from mashed wood – and there was plenty of wood in that hidden village on the central France. Blessed the day that he didn’t just got to the village’s new mill just to bless it; he really had to realize that the wood stranded under the millstone, specially when dried after a rain, REALLY resembled a not-so-bad piece of parchment.
Without even dreaming about it, he started a truly revolution in the French way of storing and passing on information. Later, peoples around the world would praise the almost-mythical Father Pierre as the inventor of Paper.



With the growing of the burgeoning French cities, the shortage of goods and places begun to be sensed – specially by the lowly and poor classes of the Kingdom. After a fire that destroyed most of their houses, some of these poor devils from Bordeaux went north, seeking new lands to live and – with some blessed luck – prosper. Then, at far-north of the French western coast, they found a place that, if not would allow for a big city like their former one, could turn into a peaceful place to live from fishing and some handcrafting. Brest was just born.



In a similar way, people from Francfort departed the city and settled on the still half-wild plains of Ardennes, founding Aix-le-Chapelle.

The world was not dead, either. Just as the French Kingdom itself was born more than a century before, peoples in the Italic Peninsula have reorganized to create their own kingdom, after centuries of warlord rule after the Roman Empire’s demise. The new Italian Kingdom was based in Rome, just as their ancestral state. The leaders of France – at least their men at the South – saw this as a very reason to spend on walls and warriors, just in the case…



“What? Is this kind of HERESY pardonable in our Kingdom???” the infuriated Bishop of Besançon roared in the cathedral’s main hall.
“Sir… it’s ll true. Our brothers and sisters in Aix-le-Chapelle are going wayward and embracing that…sect….” trembly said the young and terrified acolyte
“KILL THEM ALL! NO HEATHEN LIKE THEM HAS THE RIGHT TO LIVE!” the Bishop shouted, at the verge of apoplexy. “I WANT THE PREACHER OF THE DOOMED SECT BROUGHT HERE TO…”
“What’s going on here, Most Reverend?” a man with some armor and a very fancy sword asked quietly.
“MY KING! People are conspiring against the True Faith just north of here, Your Highness. You MUST, as our great defensor of the f….”
“Stop the sanctimonial chat, My Bishop. Instead, why not sending your own preachers and Fathers to them, until now simply UNKNOWN there, to let them find about the True Faith?”



Excerpt from a old compendium of French Medieval History:

“In a time of great rebelliousness, unhappiness and abrogation of the Faith, some people prove their value at the defense of the Righteous Path. Our great Saint Marcel Légaut from Rouen is one of them, and dedicated his life to the strengthening of the Faith, ending up as the Bishop of Besançon. 24/09 is still held as St Légaut’s day in France, an official rest day for Christian French.”

“The defense of the True Faith always rewards it’s followers. Our King of Kings, the Emperor Jean III, is now deciding the whole Catholic future alongside the Pope. Nothing can stop our Kingdom to be the home of the Glory and Sainthood.”



Despite being a center for Catholic faith and conservative power in Europe, new – and shocking – ideas were just beginning to take form at the minds of some French most cultured people. The Wheel of History is really bound to never stop.




“People wailing and crying everywhere. Well, not exactly: in some places, there wasn’t anyone left to cry and mourn for the dead. Corpses stayed unburied for days and days, because either too many of them were coming to be properly interred at once, or the people due to care for their burial were also awaiting theirs’ in the piles. The Pest, as that deadly blast was to be known, killed and maimed almost everyone, everywhere. Rich or poor, strong or frail, old or child: no one was surely safe from that merciless disease. The Empire endured several years of persistence and resurgence of the “killing blast”, until being completely rid of that.”
Unfortunately, it was the historical mark, alongside the creation of new institutes of learning – the very first Universities – of the Renaissance in France.



The Time of Peace, unfortunately, was not due to be eternal. Great changes – both internal and external – were to take place, and the Kingdom of France will get it’s first real test - and will either reassert it’s leadership in Western Europe, or succumb to ignominious death.

For today

Chapter III already played , to be posted MAYBE tomorrow, maybe a little after - it depends on the time I'll get home

Thanks for your support and viewing!

I can't see the pictures in chapter II: part II and III