Grimjacks Tale:
(4000)
After a long and fruitless treck through wildernes, paradise is reached. The river Po runs with fresh water out of the hills,
large flocks of cattle roam the nearby grassland and large quantities of wild wheat grows to our south. Ample clay ( bonusgrass), while not next
to the river is nevertheless close by. This is where we will set down our roots. OUr intrepid scout despite our farmers grumbling insists on
checking out the view from the hills to our east before allowing us to build anything. Reporting empty ocean, it is time to set roots. MOscow
is built. From the scout towers, another river is seen to our west. It is prompty named Volga after its discoverer. Free at last from the burden
of carrying provisions, the farmhands go look at the strange creatures grazing to our north.
Having led us this far, our most revered elder leader sheds his mortal coat and finally dies. NO effort will be saved to preserve his hallowed bones.
( Research set to Ceremonial burial at max. This is because I wouldn't want our scout to pop the cheapest tech. Alphabet held some lure also.)
Revelling in the bounty of this new homeland, we will train another scout that can discover more of this fine land.
(3950) Seeing the beautiful creatures languishing without nearby water, our farmhands decide to help out and dig some ditches, Transporting water
to the cattle, in order for them to grow more plentiful. ( If irrigation happens before pop growth, Moscow will grow in five instead of in six. )
Seeing more hills and jungle to the east our scouts are taken by the grandiose landscape and heads in this direction.
( This is debatable, as he would be able to cover more ground should he head across the open terrain, but then the next scout would have to cross
the hills/jungle to our east, and he would be even later. )
(3900)
In the jungle to the east our scout finds another tribe living in the jungle below the hills. Much speculation occurs, but
in the end, it should be obvious from our lack of warriors that we are a peaceful people, and much partying could occur.
(3850) It is the Huns.
arty:, Unfortunately our revered Speaker will not tolerate any mixing of blood, and the huns are abandoned to their own fate in
to their fate in the jungle, never to be seen again. ( I thought about trekking the settler to MOscow and disbanding him there, but decided it would violate the spirit of the rules, while not the
letter. )
(3800) Much jungle and hills to our east is seen as our SCouts follow the coastline.
(3750) After much labor, our farmhands have finished irrigation, and now Moscow will be bigger in one turn instead of two. Another scout have stepped forth from our
curious population. He will be sent to scout out our northwest. We are getting a little restless now with the growing population, and we decide to produce an 'honour' guard
of brave axemen. The fine cattle are still drawing lots of traffic. In order to make it easier on the populace, a road is ordered.
(3700) A momentuos turn of the century. Our eldest roaming hunters have found fallen stars in the jungle. ( gems ). The western explorers found a hunting party of axemen
from another tribe calling themselves Chinese. The Chinese are tough traders. They say they will teach our hunters to hunt with bow and arrows, if we teach them to build
vases and also how to make spears. Since we are dubious of such a trade the Chinese also throw in enough gold to smelt into 10 coins. Our hunters dazzled by the sight of
so much gold is convinced to close the deal.
Finally, we have to decide where to put our next generation to work on. There are two choices. Our farmers insist that we will get more babies from making beer from the wheat
growing next to the river. This will also help our soothsayers that are still debating on how to go about preserving our most revered dead chieftain.
ON the other hand, while the Chinese looks friendly now, they will be able to reach our city before we have finished the honor guard, should we not work the area where
there may be made flint axes. ( Chinese are four turns away. Working bonus grass lets me complete warrior in three. )
Checking closely, I see that we may be able to start out cutting and harvesting wheat, and later switch to cut flintstones and still make the warrior if the chinese decide
to look threatening. Not all people are happy about the changes as we grow though, so we order a large portion of our treasury to go to pacifying our own people.
Ungrateful peeps.
(3650) Wheat gambit works, as the Chinese warriors steps south instead of east.
(3600) Our farmers demand more water for their crops, and we dispatch the farmhands to the wheat. Good timing on this, since they just completed the road on the cattle.
We decide to send our western scouts on a circular detour around MOscow, to scout for a possible second city. There are many promising sites, but still much land we have not
discovered. We do have an urgent need to find new civilizations also. Decisions decisions. The fact that there are a lot of jungle and hills to our northwest may have been
one of the deciding factors.
(3550) Despite our farmers protests, our farmhands feel that they ened a road first, in order to better be able to server the people.
( We are at +5 food. Since irrigation would not put us at +7, irrigating now would waste valuable worker turns.)
(3500) Another turn of growth. We complete our honor guard which are promptly ordered to parade up and down our streets. We discover our citizens behave like children.
Just because the newcomers ended out playing with the clay, our farmers also wanted to play. I promptly marched them right back to the wheat. The chinese warrior may have found
new resolve, as he now heads towards our borders. In a clever move, we therefore move our borders to grab more land. We will also not be fooled by the chinese. IN order to further
scare them, we order up a new squad of honor guards.
(3450) Sure enough, the chinese are right now just outside our border, gazing enviously upon our plentiful people. Pretending we do not see him, we do nothing.
Our eastern almost forgotten hunters finally see what they believe to be the end of the jungle. Spirits pick up at the prospect of finally being able to travel.
Just in case teh chinese have come to trade, I ask him what he wants. Seems like he has nothing new to teach us. We still doesn't have anything he wants enough
to part with the knowledge of Masonry, or laying bricks as he calls it. He boasts of his combat prowess in dispersing barbarians though as he shows us all his gold.
(3400) Our trainees may have scared the chinese warrior away, as he now heads south again. Our eastern hunters makes contact with a fearsome man called Ragnar of the Scandinavians.
He also knows the secrets of 'Laying Bricks', He will not teach it to us in exchange for Secrects of making spears though. NOt even if I also gives him all our money.
He would like to sell us secrets of Ceremonial Burial though. Since our soothsayers tells me they are on the verge of a breakthrough, I politely decline.
Sigh, now we know why the chinese didn't was so smug. They also now know the Secrets of Ceremonial Burial.
Over the howling protests of the priests, we cut their funding. Over much grumbling, they tell me they will be finished on time anyway.
The cries of the Priests where like a soft music compared to the cries of the farmers as we MINED the wheatfields. ( We will be at +5 food. We will not get to +7 food,
might as well mine the wheat. )
(3350) Having experienced so much, we would like to remember it for all time. We tell our soothsayers to come up with a method to solve this. ( Alphabet pursued. Having two militaristic
civs close by, I think they will research Iron and Horseback for us.) We find the borders that belong to the Vikings. We do nto see their city though. ( Capital found then. )
(3300) We are truly a prosperous people. Moscow is now by far the largest city in the world. ( size 4 ) We also have two warriors patrolling the streets. It is now time to spread the word
of Russian supremacy. We order settlers to come forward. We discover that we have payed out money to lazy bums. We discover we have been paying salted bills to the beermakers. Ever since
the road to wheat was built, they have salted their bills. We now rectify this wrong. ( Luxes lowered to 10 %. Sorry missed the opportunity to lower luxes after road was built.)
Scouts discover that Vikings have more than one city. We are even more determined to start building new cities. Some advisors mumble something about a house called 'Granary', but we veto
that. We need a settler NOW. We can possibly build a granary afterwards.
(3250) We decide to send our scout through the Viking lands, hoping he wont notice.
(3200) Neither the Chinese, nor the Vikings would trade the Secrets of Masonry to us for our 25 gold.
(3150) Vikings spot our troops, and we are ordered out. Looks like he has grabbed the northeastern part of the island as his.
Our farmhands are now building a road on a bonus grass. This will help our settler to move, as well as generate more income. Idea being that he should mine it next.
He should move and road/mine the bonus grass on the river next, as this will get us more money.
(3100) Mined wheat is finished at the same time as Moscow grows even larger. We will have to renegotiate the deal with the beermakers. Ack, this will deplete our treasury, but I go ahead anyway.
(3050) Vikings are trying to trap our scout, but he cleverly evades them by traversing into Viking lands once again. See an unguarded Viking settler. He is growing fast now.
For next ruler, should we continue with this save:
Keep Moscow at +5 food. After settler, I suggest Granary, since that would let us build settlers faster now that we are starting
to mine the bonus grass. Look at my feeble attempt at a dotmap to see where I thought the settler should head. Do get a warrior escort for the settler, as
there may be a Chinese warrior lurking about in the mists to our east.
Seems like our revered SPeaker have tempered our great starting place with removing all luxuries
Priority is to explore further into the black near MOscow, as there may be a luxury there. Both AIs are up Masonry on us, but
they are bound to research something really soon now. I do not know if they have contact though. I was perhaps a bit too cautious about teh Chinese when I built the second warrior instead of a settler, but I didn't want an early war with a militaristic civ.
Grimjack.
Save:
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