Copa's DSC: The Philosopher

[Optical]

​

Pericles woke up.

In a sweat.

He'd had the dream again. It was always the same. The end was near... and then he woke up, deperately craving a glass of water and the smell of incense in the brazier.
Maybe he'd been wrong about being the king of the Civfanatics. Perhaps, somebody else should be leading his people.

Five minutes later, the tribe's fishmongers and tradesmen were awoken by a sharp scream, followed by a sickening crunch. After a brief, precursory glance in the direction of the Philosopher's house, they got up and began their daily business. In the town of Thunderfall, that was how it worked. A new Philospher would always turn up. Sometimes, they thought, having a mad king was the only possibility.

 

[Red_Spy]

good start!

 

[Optical]

OK, so this story is my entry for Copaczin's Deity Story Challenge. I won't try to explain the idea behind this - I'll leave that to Copaczin:

The Sun rises over the year 2011. Since time immemorial, the Civ Fanatics have lead a nomadic life. Now, they are finally ready to settle and begin their own Story Challenge Thread.

Copaczin, The Civ4ST Elders have assigned you to be the Starter of the Storytelling Games. The Civ Fanatics have mastered the technologies of Writing and Computers. Your people have vested absolute power in you, trusting you to build a Story Challange to stand the test of time!

Take a guess as to which one of those sentences came from Red_Spy.

For those of you who haven't read pages 3 and 4 of The Journey of Ten Fails, and thus have no idea what this thread is about, read them here: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422403&page=3

Finished reading? Good.

So apparently, I was assigned the honor of starting a Deity-Level "Story Challenge".
The basis is simple (kind of) : I shall create a map, pick options and so forth, and post a Worldbuilder save. Those wishing to take part in the challenge will then download it, play it out (remember to press Print Screen to take screenies ), and then write the best story they can based on what they've done. It can be Drama, Comedy (pick comedy), romance (if you've read "An Iberian Love Story"), or any other genre you can imagine. Then post it in this thread!

The Rules, so far, are:

1. Play on Deity (in case anyone hasn't caught on by now).
2. If you are planning on joining, Play a decent amount of your game before reading other's entries. It is recomend that you meet all the ai's and explore most of the map before reading, so there won't be any spoilers..
3. Help me come up with more rules.

We'll start by coming up with the specifics (if any) of what people should be doing. An idea I had would be to create a "Directive" for yourself, which would serve as a "main goal", and dictate how you react to other civilizations. For example, players whose Directive was Wealth would try to create a trade empire and take control of as many resources as they could, and a Directive of Faith would be to spread your religion to as many cities as possible, and be hostile to anyone following heathen gods.
This is just an idea, however.

Once we have some guidelines down, I will create a map and post its save. I intend to make a world where you won't be conquered in 50 turns (Like the original Journey of a Thousand Fails ), but will nonetheless meet a significant challenge. It is, after all, part of the title.

Bonus points for having a Promo Poster for your story.

The game settings:

Alright, here we go.

Seeing as everyone's posting ranking lists (With me always at the bottom ), I decided to get around to making the map (As you know, I only do things on Fridays). I won't reveal the map options because I don't want to give anything away, but I can tell you 3 other things:

1. All victories enabled except time.
2. Choose Religions, No Vassals, and Random Personalities checked.

Spoiler :

(This was done to add customization options to the game, prevent hyper-powers from forming, and to make the game more unpredictable, respectively)

3. If you've read a certain story and it's fan-made spin off, you might find a few familiar faces

If anyone doesn't know how to play the file, ask the Noble's Club . If you use Vista, like me, just put the file in C:\Users\(Your Username)\Documents\My Games\beyond the sword\Saves\WorldBuilder. Then just fire up the game, load your favorite mod (or not), play scenario, and away you go!

One fan suggested making your own thread for your story. I would suggest doing something like "Copa's DSC: (Clever Title)".

I'm also adding Bonus Points in two areas:

1. Having a Directive you attempt to follow (See 1st page)
2. Promo Posters (Using the Jersey Shore Picture will result in Negative Points)

Spoiler :

Disclamer: Copaczin is not responsible for any curbstomps that may occur while storytelling. Play at your own risk.

And here's my rule:

The Kingdom of the Mad Philosopher
Kingdom: Revolt to HR ASAP and stay in it all game.
Madness: We are not allowed to expand beyond [number of Challenge stories] cities. So ATM, this is 3 4 5 7, I think.
Philosopher: The main priority of the game is GP points and Great People. Especially Great Scientists.

 

[Civ'ed]

4 not 3

 

[Optical]

I know; I'll edit it as the number of stories increases.

 

[Optical]

Ok. Have played 120 or so turns, and I only have one thing to say: I hope that damn AI's not Shaka.

 

[Optical]

Chapter 1: Aris
Part 1: Cloak and Shadow​

Aris walked into the grove just outside Thunderfall uncertainly. He’d received the strange message the day before, asking him to come to the clearing and wait for a hooded man. To Aris, this didn’t seem very odd at all. He had a good imagination and things like this seemed to happen to him daily. This one, however, did seem real. There’d been a messenger - he’d made sure he wasn’t imagining his presence, interrogated him thoroughly.
As he sat in the grove he wondered what purpose the hooded man might have for him. People craved attention too much, he mused.

Slowly, he became aware of a presence behind him. He swivelled round, at what seemed to him to be a fast pace. There before him was a man, wearing a grey hooded cloak. Then, the man spoke.
“Congratulations, Aris,” said the man in a quiet, gravelly voice. “The Council of Elders have selected you to be the new leader of our tribe. Only the most intelligent, wisest young men are even considered for the position. Think of it as a great honour. That’s fitting, because it is.” Aris only nodded. “Go to your house and collect your belongings. You are expected at the Philosopher’s house on the morrow, at the crack of dawn.”

As Aris left, he thought he saw a dark shape moving slowly through the trees. Had he been thinking clearly, he might have been suspicious. In his heady stupor, however, he dismissed it as unimportant. After all, he’d just become the most powerful person in the known world. Hadn’t he?
The shadow knew what Aris was thinking. The shadow also knew that Aris was wrong. There was only one king in this tribe - and that was him. The shadow smiled wryly. Pirro had done his job well.

 

[Optical]

Edited OP and added my promo poster

 

[Yoshiegg737]

Yay, promo poster

 

[Optical]

Chapter 1: Aris
Part 2: Lies and Trickery​

Business went on as usual for the people of Thunderfall. There had been rumours - that the new Philosopher was a boy of only sixteen; that his mother cried every night, stricken by the effective loss of her son. Those rumours were ignored: with every new Philosopher before, there had been similar, and stranger, rumours. The real rumours on people’s minds were those of another tribe; speculation said this tribe lived in the east, in the lands of ‘Aegypt’.

All this worked out as an advantage for the Council of Elders. With everybody discussing the rumours, they were free to meet in the grove outside Thunderfall. As Pirro the fishmonger stomped irritably into the grove, the meeting begun.

“Looks like this’n ‘ll last longer than th’ last,” grunted one, who had just come from attending to the new Philosopher.
“By which you mean...” inquired Pirro.
“He’s not going mad! I mean, he is, he’s completely insane. One loaf short of a picnic. Nutty as a fruitcake. But the dream’s not getting to him!”
“Look. We knew there’d be risks, choosing someone this young...” began another Elder.
“Risks. Not complete failure! If we can’t make him a gibbering idiot in the next few years, we’ll be found out! There’d be a price on all our heads!”
“...but the dream may come to him yet. We’ve never tried this on anyone under twenty-five before, you know that,” replied the Elder.
“Okay, so we’ll just have to be a bit more careful with this one,” said the head Elder. “Any other news?”
“Apart from these nonsense rumours about Aegypt? Only one thing that I c’n think of,” replied Pirro.
“Take care of the mother,” chuckled the final Elder evilly, and with obvious delight. “Can’t have her gossiping, can we?”
“That’s your job,” said the head Elder. “The rest of us don’t get involved in the more... unpleasant tasks.”
“As you wish, Head Elder,” replied the unsavoury elder. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

The Elders filed out of the grove. Pirro; the Philosopher’s attendant; the reasonable Elder; the head Elder. Last out of the circle of trees was the unsavoury one. Dressed in blacks and dark greys, he left out the back path, chuckling to himself.

“Hehehe. My pleasure...”