LoR - Trading Masters

Gresharas · Mar 11, 2010

Hi everyone and welcome to my second Civ tale!

Once again I will play with the lastest installation of Phungus420's Legens of Revolution. I strongly raccomend it for any civfanatic, especially for those who enjoy Rye's and revolution-like mods.

Comments, critics, rotten vegetables and life-size statues are welcome.

Since the game is running, I will welcome any suggestion about HOW to play from you readers, plus a spicy extra - read the "self-imposed conditions" spoiler bellow.

Aaand here we go with

The Settings

Civilization: Portugal
Leader: Henry the Navigator [Fin / Imp]

Map:

I will play a slightly worldbuilded version of Rye's Worldmap, Enlarged Europe.

Mayor map changes include:

Spoiler :

Game settings:

Spoiler :

Victory conditions:

Spoiler :

No, there is no error in the spoilered part. That's it. Life sucks.

Exceptional self-imposed conditions:

Spoiler :

Gresharas · Mar 11, 2010

Chapter I
A nice spot on the ocean.

Some say that the ocean is awe-ispiring.

Some say that the ocean remind us of the dangers of nature.

Others argue that from strong waves, strong men are born.

But in 4'000 BC Henry really don't have time for such things, because it's hard enought to bring home some food for your family without wasting all day in pointless wondering. Still, do not him wrong: he's not what you would call a simple or unimaginative person, but rather a practical one.

So the first task of his rule was to improve Lisbon fishing fleet.

As time passed, the new fleet took sail and the Portuguese tables were plenty of fish. Foretelling a population boost, Henry began works for more stable settlement. Spare fishermen were trained as builders and new stonecarving tools were perfectioned.

He organized an expedition, with a triple goal. To explore the land, find a good spot to colonize and then begin preparation for a proper monument and burial site for all brave fishermen that never returned from their job.

Althrought impractical, the last task was a necessary one, with strong roots deep in the heart of the portuguese people. Those of the brave fathers and sons was a perilious job, and they alwais had high respect among their families.

The Portuguese might be increasing in numbers, but life wasn't easier. As their knowledge of land and sea expanded, so did Henry's understandement of the future of his people. As they were pressed between the ocean and the inland tribes two path unfold in front of him: to wage war to the spanish, or to better understand the hidden law of the sea.

Henry thought deeply about his people chances and after much investigation he decided in favor of peace: the inland tribes were stronger and better armed, with deep knowledge of the deadly bow. He delibered the sea to be the future. A wide ship was committed, and research begun on strongest materials to help the carpenteer job - Still, apparently, the land was poor of workable metals.

Onche the new ship was built, a wave of entusiasm stride the capital. Families enlisted to leave the overcrowded Lisbon for the distant shores over the tumultous channel of Gibraltar. A smal band of warriors enlisted for city garrison and the expedition took sails.

In the meantime, the mainland was exploited for resources. The great burial in the city of Oporto was still in progress and all unecessary resources were harvested to haste the yob. Horses were used for long range communication and cattle herds were gathered to feed the carpenthers and do heavy duty transportation.

Yet, in those years the heart of the people stood light. No man was induced to work over his capacity nor his intentions and the growing families were still ruled by the oldest, more experienced members of society when, finally, the city of Marrakech was founded.

But problems piled upon problems. Day after day the inland tribes grow powerful and hungry for land. Small fields were lost to wandering farmers, yet Henry did not took action against them. The lives of his fellow tribesmen were short enought, and those fields were mostly unsettled. Of course not all Portuguese liked this decisions. In particular the people of Marrakech distrust his judgement and secretly spoke of indipendence and begun training their own soldiers in the fashion of the inland tribes.

But then came the day in wich the last stone of the mighty Pyramid stood high in the skyes of Oporto, a memento to all good men, past, present and future, those good fathers that gave their lives for the wellbeing of their families. The Portuguese rejoiced and wave on identity run among them as they stood united once again.

New ships, strong enought to sustain the weaves of the channel without constant maintenance improved the commerce between all settlements, long lost families were reunited. Such was the enthusiasm that Henry committed to the jobless massons of Oporto a new project, this time in Lisbon: a sky-hight lighthouse to offer guidance to all Portuguese travelers lost in the gray nights of the ocean.

End of chapter I.

Tomorrow or Saturday I might be able to post a new one.

If you have any suggestion, please consider the following points:

Spoiler :

Gresharas · Mar 12, 2010

Chapter II
Love in Marrakech

Apparently, not everybody loved peace as the Portuguese did but, when Hannibal presented himself at the doors of Marrakech with a little army, found the portuguese all but unwary and unarmed. This could need a little, explainatory flashback.

After the big Lighthouse of Lisbon, Henry took a deep breath and analized the situation: on east the Portuguese expansion was contained by the small and stretched Spain. Little was known of them except that they really enjoyed running up and down with hundreds of fancy chariots.

As fun as this might look, Henry would be pleased if you try to sleep a couple of nights with an over-rolling whelled neightbour and then reconsider this with him.

On the other hand, the colony of Marrakech was isolated from the mainland and hard-pressed by not one, but two different, belligerent and pretty big civilizations.

In the end he ordered to stop al productions and reform the Portuguese army. Army that, it is necessary to point out, enlisted two archers in Marrakech and ONE warrior for each inland city. Praised be any divine power that stopped down Napoleon and Isabella to become trigger-happy in the time Henry was building his two wonders.

Truth to be said, he was extremely lucky. In the meanwhile that he was researching IW in the desperate attempt to find at least SOME metal anywere on his empire, Silver and Bronze spawned spontaneusly near Oporto. Just like that. POP! Silver and a very few years later POP! Bronze. Henry blessed any and all known deity and dropped IW in favor of more civilized technology.

This might also explain why in a couple of years the (totally unaware of any reasonable religious tech) Portuguese Cities self-converted to Christianity one after the other.

Anyway, back to the start, one unhappy day Hannibal looked at Marrakech and decided that it would've be a LOVELY idea to conquer it. Especially since Hatepshut had just ended kicking his sorry, invading 455.

Lucky for us that Henry build those new defenses, right?

Wrong.

Mansa press-ganged Portugal from the south, pillaging all that could be found on the Atlante Mountains.

After a siege and the following chase, Henry went a little more "Look, Mansa, it's already a god-forsaken DESERT. No need to pillage it, you friggin dunbass" and a little less "Peaceful, reasonable, enlightned leader of the Hippie Nation".

Peace was finally made and eneryone was happy again, except Henry the Backstabbed and Marrakech, wich stood starving and without a single improved tile in sight.

Most civilization would have invaded those pesky neightbours, but Henry was pressed by more important matters. He traded many goods with distant civilization, selling smoked fish for pigs, spices and deer meat. It was wort the deal, as the Portuguese economy thrived and soon there where more than half a million Portuguese people around the world. Mostly involved in trade affairs.

Now, one could reason that, weighted the possibilities, weighted the military and economic might of the Portuguese, weighted the fact that we all share the same religion, Hannibal would have understood that declaring war to Marrakech was a bad move.

Wrong again. A few years after he was back with LESS warriors than before. and since he was beaten by Portuguese spearmen he tought smart to invade with a single Numidian.

No other troop was seen invading. A single numidian. All other troops camped outside Utica and made no single move for all the war. Once the single invader was killed, Carthage made peace once again.

Henry felt necessary to weep in pity for the recently deceased Hannibal's brain.

End of Chapter II

Spoiler :

Gresharas · Mar 13, 2010

Chapter III
Knock Knock!

We left Henry in the aftershock of three invasions. His people spent a lot of time rebuilding the african coast improvements, replenishing the ranks of the army, and in a full-fledged baby boom.

The portuguese applyed to each task faithfully:

- Population surplus was incentivated to migration on two newfound islands on the edge of the endless ocean, founding Guimaraes and Coimbra. Not exactly productive marvels, but this actually improved the GNP by the sheer, brute force of new trade routes.

- Two new world wonders begun production. The marvelous, refreshing Hanging Gardens provided a nice boost to turism and healt, while the ecclectic Leonardo da Vinci built all by himself a colossal Merchant statue in Lisbon. Land prices around it dropped in an heartbeat because of his constant shadow.

- Henry started building an invading army. No loger will he suffer the surname of "Backstabbed". He preferred by far to be called "the Wise". So he started enlisting horsemen and catapults, perfectioning the art of lightning warfare.

Spoiler :

At this point, just a few years from the planned attack on Hannibal, diplomacy ignited. Fuelled by the fact that everyone was christian and thus everyone was friend with everyone else, everyone declared war on someone.

Obviously this mess was started by Catherine.

Cath declared on Alex

Julius declared on Cath

Julius declared war on Alex

Nappy declared on Cath

Mehemed declared on Alex

Hatty eclared on Alex

Izzy declared on Alex

Shaka declared on Izzy

Hannibal declared on Shaka

Eliza declared on Shaka

And it continues like this untill almost everyone except Mansa had declared on someone, and almost everybody asked Henry to declare to someone else.

Henry declared to Alex [dogpiling is easy job] and Shaka, just to make people happy, and not a single unit left Portugal. There was some commotion near Marrakech, some pastures were burned by Impi spearmen, but after a few years people made pace once again and nothing changed since nobody conquered anything.

One year later, near Marrakech, Mansa showed up at Henry's summer palace.

Mansa: "Knock Knock!"

Henry: "Who? What? Why, it's Mansa! Hey Mansa, you old chum! Wazzup?"

Mansa: "Backstab time!"

**Mansa declared war**

Henry looked downhill to Mansa's elephants, looked in the backyard to his "Hannibal invasion force" and raised a single eyebrow.

There was a little commotion, the army was rewarded with a lot freshly carved ivory and everyone moved south to Timbuktu.

The war started reasonably well. Timbuktu was conquered.

Gao was burned in a Legio X blitz.

Walata, the marvelous city build on the all-desert coast was burned as well in a rare act of kindness.

Niani was conquered by a full-force invasion of swordmen and elephants.

And Mansa finally killed after a long siege.

Henry shurely hope that he's not going to rise somewere else in the future due to rebellions or otherwise it will extremely hard to keep the ivory coast in line. One could bribe the locals only a few times before they go on a self-righteous rampage.

Besides, the addiction of Chicken Pizza to the Portuguese Republic is a nice touch.

Do mind, the war was not easy. Supply line were really long, with only Oporto really kicking in troops at a decent rate. But Oporto is in northern Spain!

In the meantime that the army was south conquering, Europe ignited again, and some troops were required to secure Portugal borders.

Mansa bribed Julius against Henry, and Julius besieged Oporto for a few years.

Then when the romans retreated, Lizzy declared on Nappy, asked for Elizabeth assistance and Elizabeth asked for Henry's.

Then again Nappy asked for Cyrus's who declared on everyone else.

Everyone went on rampage, burned cottages over half europe and the whole thing went to hell when Nappy vassalled to Cathy.

By sheer luck Henry had made peace with Cyrus and Nappy a few years sooner. Now diplomacy is really worsening because everyone asking to him to declare on Nappy again, but doing so it will mean declare on Cathy... and she's BIG!

To made things worse - yes, Henry didn't imagined it to be possible - Elizabeth had completed the Apostolic, declared herself Pope [!!!] and is now asking all sort of funny stuff on the christian world. Wich is to say, the 90% of known world.

End of Chapter III

Spoiler :

Gresharas · Mar 14, 2010

Interlude!
Happy girls not included

On the Portuguese:

After Henry converted to Christianity, there was a brief time of political trouble after which the Portuguese Republic was born.

In essence, each city was governed by a Small Council of elders, ruled by two rappresentatives. One of them made function of cancellor in the motherland, while the other seated in Lisbon High Council. Rappresentatives exchanged seats every six months to keep track of popular will. It worked relatively well and most cities elected highly skilled craftmen, carpenteers and the like as their rulers.

Henry, of course, was Lifetime President of the Republic. Being him apparently immortal nobody worried about a rule of succession.

It is also worth mentioning that the portuguese where extremely religious people and, in fact, most priest were only half-time sheperds of men and full-time smiths.

Spoiler :

Yet, nobody really cared if you were muslim as long as you don't started complaining for NOT being able to vote for your own rappresentative. Or as Henry once told them: quit complaining, you could be living in Madrid.

On other fronts our beloved nation was a bit retrograde. There are no distinct rules about labor, commerce nor internal affairs. At least slavery was illegal and that's more than one could hope in all other countries.

On Europe:

Life in europe sucks, and sucks hard. The luckyer were monarchies or duchy based upon slave labor, oppressive religion rules and a complex and utterly stupid rules about dinastics. Who's son of who, who's gonna rule after he died, no you can't kill him.

Spain was seen by Portuguese as a friendly waste of space, sort of a 800 Kilometers whide, 1600 Kilometers long wall against the Romans and the Russians.

Roma was big, influential and armed to the teeth. Better to stay on their good side. And they won the game with a religious victory. Bad news pal, we didn't care about that stuff!

Russia was mean, in a Catherine on steroids way. They are the biggest bully around, with massive armies, massive economy and hell's know how a perfectly cooperative population. Henry guessed it must have something to do with keep them in line with Ladies of Negotiable Affection.

Germans were a waste of space, forgettable in any way possible, if not by the fact that they are the main trade partner of the Portuguese and keep Russia as far as possible from the ocean. Henry would probably have liked a line of mountains in the place of the Germans, but at least they had good money.

England was rich, small, not too well armed and extremely friendly. The fact that they are an island keep our merchants happy because they could charge an extra on all goods for "transport issues".

Nobody give a damn about the other puny nations.

Overall review:

GNP: Ok, we did produce about 30% more gold than the average country. We're rich. Still, we suspect Julius to have a LUDICROUS amount on money incoming from his Christian Shrine, and Cath must have someow cottaged half or Russia as well. We're going to left beyind on the tech race by those two. And then someone suspected the Colossus + Financial combo to be broken. Seriously. Henry will now be forced to run to Economics just to keep in line with those guys.

Production: Stack o' doom incoming here. Luckly we're on the defense, so we can probably keep the pace. Plus, most other countries are way less productive than us, wich mean we can expand easly if needed.

Soldiers: here's the good news. We're garrisoned 4 Longbows, 3 Pikemen, 3 Crossbows in each critical city. Cathy and Julius have less than twice our troops, so defending might be feasible.

Population: we're LOW on population, our empire is made almost of <5 cities. That's extremely bad news. And Russia have 8 millions people around. Eight millions. ARGH.

Export/Import: THIS is what really make Henry furious. He's the Trade Master yet someone is selling more goods than him. A LOT more goods than him. We MUST rectify!

End of Interude.

Spoiler :

Gresharas · Mar 17, 2010

Chapter IV
A brave, new and quite expensive world!

After much consideration, Henry took a few people, put them on boats of new design and sent them thowards destiny. Well, which kind of destiny was unclear, at first, but since the economy back home was stagnating, some families volountered and after a long, boring voyage took shore on a small, nice island in the Unknown West.

The expedition was considered a success: the colony was nice, rich in fish and althrought with small land at disposal to farm them, several local plants proved edible and... quite spiced. Perfect for food conservation on long sea travels, Henry thought. Everyone else simply liked to put them in a brand new, hot meat sauce.

In years, the small colony grew and attracted more settlers. Exploration reiceived more founds than ever, and the world was proved to be cylindrical. Quite the feat! Many people gathered in a new island discovered slightly more west than the first colony, harvested some more spicy plants and had a lot of fun mixing them with strong liquor. That proved even more fun than exploration, so Henry, on popular demand, financied a new expedition on the newfound continent.

The first couple of years went well. The people settled Panama, started working the land and built a nice channel to bypass the long, extremely boring voyage southward.

Then, from the mountains, came the natives. Lot of them. The forest were crawling with painted, aggressive savages. Our brave colonists fought gallantly and where all killed, the city put to fires. It was quite a shock or the Portuguese, since those natives had no reason to attack, Panama was unsettled and unclaimed, wasn't her?

Being Henry a calm, reasonable and composed person, he did his homeworks, collected some taxes, convinced some strongwilled colonist to give the adventure another try and sent them back to Panama. With six crossbows, six longbows and four pikemen divisions.

Strictly peacekeeping forces, of couse. Surely those natives had their reasons, maybe they felt insulted somehow. Maybe the first colonist did something wrong and said something wrong. No need to worsten the situation.

Since there weren't enought ships, the trebuchets waited in Lisbon for the next ferry. With very reasonable knights and very calm, composed elephants.

Spoiler :

Gresharas · Mar 19, 2010

Chapter V
Doom and Gloom

Ocean travel can be very boring, since it takes a lot of time in the middle of, well, nothing. A lot of nothing, mostly blue.

Thinking about it afterward, it might have not been a good idea to try to conquer the savages with a seasick army. Or to underestimate the military productivity of TWO whole continents left in the hands of the barbarians for, say, five thounsand years.

The portuguese army took shore near Panama and moved. On the whole, there were six trebuchets, ten knights wings and fourteen shock elephants. Plus three crossbows, three pikemen and four longbows divisions already in place and ready to escort the army north to Tenochtitlan.

As said, the war didn't went well. Just after the mountain pass of Panama opened the
Yucatan plains. Here, the natives stroke with countless numbers. Literally. Mostly longbows, and a lot of them died against portuguese forces, but they never stopped coming until all of the invading force was wiped out.

After the battle, the natives marched until were in sight of Panama. This time, they weren't numberless. There were only twenty longbow divisions, mostly extremely skilled veterans. They wiped out the crossbow vanguard of Panama, and the city was left with only seven portuguese division in it. Still, for no known reason, they never attacked Panama herself. They retreated beyond the Yucatan pass and where never seen again. Henry never felt the case to ask them why.

To make matters worst, Henry's personal advisors come to him one night.

"Master" they said, "we're sorry to wake you, but there are important matters to discuss!"

Henry, yawning, hastly make himself presentable and went to the meeting.

"First" the advisors continued "we gahter that your majesty know about our recently mastered the secrets of economy and modern, yes?"

"Yes, of course" aswered the portuguese leader "a great feat. And? I don't want to become impolite, but it's 4 o'clock and I run a very busy schedule tomorrow. Quit to the point."

"Well, your majesty, with economics we mastered all those fancy graph. A lot of servants liked the idea and started drawning some. At first nobody had understood a thing about them, but then one of our generals took our power graph, or something like that. He wasn't pleased."

"Aaand?" Henry asked, his look containing little patience "Neither am I, right now. What is with that?"

"Right. To the point. Sorry. Well, our relative power after the whole Yucatan affair went flat. Dead flat. We lost almost half of our total strenght. So our general suggested we strenghten our defences before some other european leader grasped what's happening."

"Right, good idea, go on, now I can get to sleep before any of you bore me with some other obvious decision?"

"Well, no. I mean, if it please youor majesty, no. Actually, we asked our friendly neightbours to close all borders with europe. HER borders, actually. We thought it would have been a good defensive move, keeping our economy running in the meantime."

"It is! Marvelous, you're not totally inefficient. I might not fire all of you for waking me in the middle of the night! That's, if I can now go get some sleep? Immediatly? Can I, right?"

"Ehm... no sir. We got a caravel for you, in the docks. It, well, it might be that you need to go on it. Fast. Really fast. Like, right now."

"Ah. And why must I, if I, supreme and immortal cancellor, might humbly ask to my, what's the word?"

"Servants, sir?"

"Right! Excellent! Why, please, I must be ordered to flee my capital by my SERVANTS?"

"Because Kublay Khan is under the walls, asking for your head."

"Yeah, right, he and what army?"

"His army, actually. Quite big, we reckon. An hundred divisions. Maybe less. Who knows? We didn't thought it to be safe to stare out of the walls for too long. Looks like our friendly, spanish waste of space had refused to close borders with him. It sorted out, because Kublay was already in Madrid, ready to invade."

"She... he... you... I might feel the urge to take that caravel after all. Good, se ya all in Marrakech, people. Good work, keeping me alive and everything."

"Uh, yes, right, that other minor thing. Marrakech's under siege as well, sir."

"Right. Marrakech. By the Khan as well, I suppose?"

"Hannibal, actually."

"Good. Our OTHER friendly waste of space. Thrice backstabbed by him, now. Remember me, why he's still alive?"

"No attack troops, sir?"

"Good. No troops. Good luck defending Lisbon. It's all in your very skilled hands now. America, here I come!"

Gresharas · Mar 26, 2010

Chapter VI
Every man, woman and child.
Or whatever else could be used as a last resort projectile.

Praised be our sponsor, the chicken pizza pan-african brand, but the Khan conquered Lisbon taking the castle with impunity and no actual siege. He simply overrun the twenty defending division with numbers.

Still, if the war was short, the resistance was long and bloody. The population of Lisbon proudly fought the invasor, and where exterminated in the process. In Marrakech, Hannibal was defeated by the small, veteran army that conquered Mali. Then the army was lifted to Lisbon shores with several ferries and meet under Lisbon with a new, remarcably UNhappy army drafted by the occasion. Every man, woman, child, dog, horse, cat, sheep and/or slightly warlike animal was armed to the teeth and sent to the front.

This ragtag army meet the invasor in the still riotting Lisbon and attacked the Khan reinforcement, then the Khan himself in the city. The battle was pretty damn blood and only the Legio X survived the day. After a few african draft, the city was taken back.

The casualty rate was something like 1:1 by the lask of proper Portuguese assault troops. The funereal, pyramidal monument of Oporto was never meant to host so much dead heroes, but on the other side there was a sudden drop in house prices in Oporto, so most of them where simply converted to cemeterial monuments, shifting the importance of the city from "productive marvel" to "turist-scaring ghost town". It was hardly a surprise when no new citizen actually asket to move in Oporto for several centuries to come.

But hey, the Khan asked for peace, Hannibal was dogpiled by Zara and Ramesses and Henry could finally return in his Palace!

...

Wait, what palace? The one burned down in the riots?

Spoiler :

W|M · Apr 3, 2010

Can you rename Oporto to Porto please? Porto is its real name, and it makes more sense (It means Port).

LoR - Trading Masters

Gresharas

Rabbit of Caerbannog

Gresharas

Rabbit of Caerbannog

Gresharas

Rabbit of Caerbannog

Gresharas

Rabbit of Caerbannog

Gresharas

Rabbit of Caerbannog

Gresharas

Rabbit of Caerbannog

Gresharas

Rabbit of Caerbannog

Gresharas

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W|M

Immortal

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