- Joined
- Mar 31, 2008
- Messages
- 14,928
All the Lights in the Sky is dead, simply because it was an incredibly boring and isolated start. Usually I play games through but in that case, where I couldn't build anything (having already built everything), couldn't expand, and had no one to kill, I called it a day.
Oh, here's what is what I've been working on. Dig?
--------------
The hunter worked harder than ever. Hunting, true, was a difficult job but after a while, one's muscles at least gets used to it. Building settlements, on the other hand, is new. "Washington" it is to be called. Hundreds of young and middle aged men worked endlessly to build a permanent settlement with their bare hands after centuries of roaming Europe. All of this, under the watchful eye of the God Emperor of the American "Empire".
-----
He watched, as he always have. His eyes darted back and forth, picking out strong workers and filing their faces and name into mental storage. "God Emperor of the American Empire" had some truth to it, he started to realize. Thousands of years ago, the New World, Australia, most of Asia, and everything south of North Africa were wiped out by terrible weapons. Civilization itself, in Europe, had been wiped out but not before the Vaults closed luckily.
The American Emperor fondly remembered when Europe had been a cultured, populated continent. Now, scattered tribes rule thousands of years after the Vaults opened. Something told him that the other Avatars would be making themselves known to their people soon enough since it means that there is a significant enough concentration of human life in an area to awake the sleeping godly avatars. He pitied the poor Avatars in Nigeria, Brazil, China, Australia, and other nations that will never wake again, trapped in a suspended dream.
In the dreams, the Avatars of Mankind learned a few things about how the world will work once they're awake. Their power comes from the power of the people they lead but there's bound to be confusion. Some Avatars are going to outright attempt to kill the others, leading to great and destructive wars. Some will attempt to control most of Europe's resources, gaining an insurmountable advantage over all others, dominating the continent. Some will attempt to build great cities with cultures so powerful, they become psychic beacons powerful enough to sever the links between another Avatar and his people.
No doubt, a few will try to unite mankind under diplomacy while others will flee the planet and branch out into the stars.
The Emperor of the American Empire wondered, "What path will I take?"
------------
Over the course of the next two thousand years, the Emperor taught his people refined hunting techniques, how to build water-sealed pottery using clay found on the banks of the Potomac, mining raw materials from the hills, and archery to strike a bandit dead from afar. Along with the new technologies, he sent out scouts to explore the world and by the time New York is founded in 2160 BCE, the Americans had encountered the Portuguese and Ethiopian Avatars and their people.
Despite the title "God Emperor", the people of America didn't really have a religion and accepted their ruler as someone beyond immortal but not someone divine (as they lack the concept of divinity). A hundred and ten years after the founding of New York, the Barbarian Incursions began.
As the human population grew, Avatars were release, true. However, this depending on a concentrated psychic hotspot, namely something more than scattered small bands of humanity. Early on, those who rejected the Avatars left their homes and families and became barbarians. Despite the title, they weren't exactly technologically primitive and they came in great numbers. The Barbarian Wars in America began in 2050 BCE and would continue until 1480 BCE, nearly six centuries of darkness and fighting marked by a brutal arms race.
As the Americans started fielding archers with stone-tipped arrows capable of ripping through the often unarmored, club-wielding hordes, the Barbarians started to field their own archers and eventually, men in bronze armed with spears. New York almost fell and the countryside was destroyed. For three centuries, the American Emperor was isolated from psychic connections in New York since the roads were no longer safe and travel and trade halted.
However, the Emperor had a plan. During the first century of the wars, he began to build a Great Wall which would encircle the borders. After the Great Wall was completed in 1480 BCE, the barbarian incursions stopped. Some say that the Great Wall is the first formation of a cultural gestalt in that, even as the borders expanded and new cities were founded outside the wall, the barbarians, for whatever reason, could not enter. It is unknown why the other Avatars could not build a similar wall other than the amount of resources and manpower needed. Thousands of slaves and freedmen alike died in the construction and thousands died to fight the barbarians.
It would take four centuries for America to recover economically from the wars.
---------
In 1050 BCE, a woman in Washington had a vision. This would be meaningless had the vision not taken place in front of the Great Monument with hundreds of onlookers in sight. The woman, the Oracle, could snatch snippets from the future and talked to the Emperor about a monarchy. The American Emperor, with her help, help crown the first King of America, a mortal whose line will govern over the realm unless the Emperor sees it fit to intervene. The Emperor believed this would encourage the mortals.
By 810 BCE, the Americans had established a writing system along with establishing trade with peoples from Portugal to the far west on Iberia to the mysterious Romans and Khmer of the great east. With this trade came the idea and sell of slaves for a variety of purposes. Mostly labor, some pleasure, mainly as a sign of wealth.
In 480 BCE, Mohammad Shah of Washington begins the American Golden Age with his ideas on religion and mysticism. The Golden Age is so integral to American development, the calendar changed to revolve around the beginning of the Golden Age. The Golden Age lasted until 130 BCE with the beginning of the New York Slave Rebellion that resulted in hundreds of deaths, economic damage, and further deaths following the King's reprisal against the slave population by forcing many to labor to death building walls around the city. Another rebellion in Washington ended the same way, only with a library.
When the Americans discovered how to work iron in 300 CE, some say the world changed forever though the effects weren't immediate..
-------
King Washington XVI of America had many reasons to be upset but the American Emperor had even more, having actual fought against the barbarians during the Dark Ages. For....has it been thousands of years already? For thousands of years, the barbarians waged war on civilization but as civilization. When civilization created a weapon, the barbarians created their own. However, walls had proven to be a major obstacle. Sure, the countryside could be ravaged but walls turned sieges into a game of waiting for the barbarians lacked the numbers and supplies to hold. Therefore, the barbarians started to build their own cities for without manpower, they could not defeat civilization.
Despite the barbarians inability to enter American lands, they still build cities between American and her closest neighbor, Ethiopia. Over the centuries, the little trade between America and the east had been restricted by the simple fact the barbarians had built a sprawling military empire between the two. Thus, in 1085, America launched a crusade with the expressed goal of bringing the barbarian warlords to their knees...
----------
"They call themselves 'Scythians'. The city is called Scythian. None of this really matters since we have more axes than they have arrows." Commander Joseph Porter smiled, "This is a decent sized settlement, in all honesty. By the looks of it, there are roads that lead off from it...."
The men laughed nervously. Roads meant there are more, doesn't it? Roads usually lead somewhere, after all. Porter, taking the laughter serious, laughed a bit himself, "Our people have not seen war since the Dark Ages. As the legends go, our forefathers had to fight with wooden clubs and stone-tipped arrows against bronze! Look at what we have now." He thrust his iron axe into the air. "Good ol' iron. Our archers? Iron-tipped arrows probably. Do you know what their archers fired tried to use against us when we crossed the river to get a better assault spot? This!" He showed them a stone-tipped arrow. "They may have been dangerous thousands of years ago but they haven't changed in that long either. Look at that town with no walls. There isn't even going to be a siege. This will be a quick, easy battle. But there will be blood and we will lose men..." He finished his speech and then readied them for battle.
Scythian, indeed, did not have walls and wasn't very big, easily smaller than Washington and New York. On paper, they shouldn't lose against an antique, highly outnumbered force. In reality, Porter wondered how many green troops they will lose.
Two units of iron-wielding axe men. Many more units or archers and one unit using bronze tools. That force is the one that shouldn't last long out here but it might through sheer dumb luck. Porter is leading the charge, though and besides, they might shirk through this with minimum loss.
---------
"Jimmy, Earl! Get ready to fly the arrows of war the second you see them charge out from that there tree line, got me?"
Jimmy nodded. Judging by the amount of smoke coming from the forest last night, the enemy is numerous. The Americans applied what the Ethiopians used only a city level it seems. The Ethiopians used the walls to resist invaders and build up forces inside the city for the eventual counterattack. The Americans? They used an empire wide wall. Thousands of years of build-up and a thirst for revenge.
The attack will come this morning; that isn't a secret. Not even debatable. When the enemy crossed the river, the city archers launched arrows at the massed target but there simply isn't enough arrows. The Scythian Warlord took his bodyguards and fled the city, supposedly on a mission to gain more ammunition but unless his people gain Avatars of their own to lead them this very second, this force will win the city.
But Jimmy will draw his share of blood before going down. Oh yes, he will make the enemy bleed. His fellow Scythians whooped as the enemy poured from the forest. Oh, the number of them in gleaming armor and with axes! He drew back the arrow. "Well Earl, he-"
Something whistled past Jimmy's ear, then another, and then another. The sky darkened. Jimmy turned to look for Earl but found an iron-tipped arrow lodged in his jugular. Damn dying for the warlord! Jimmy threw down his bow and arrow and sought cover inside the house he had been standing atop of. For a second, no light entered the house through the slits of windows as the cloud came close to impact. The family he unknowingly was sharing this event with today huddled in a corner and screamed themselves when screams of people caught in the streets were ripped to shreds by hundreds of arrows.
----------
Porter marched into the city at that, a march. He demanded his troops walk, not run, for there would be no battle. Axe in hand, he led a party door to door. The order was simple: If you had taken up arms against the Americans, turn yourself in and live. If you lied or you lied for someone else, there would be no mercy. A woman found that out the hard way when she charged him with a pitiful stone knife. So did her children for simply being her children.
A few of his men were killed by an enterprising archer who found himself quickly outnumbered and overwhelmed. The axe soldiers who captured him didn't bother with the formality of capture and then execution.
-------------
The road from Scythian to the city of Numidian crested a hill and went through a valley. The territory of Numidian was very hilly, very sparsely populated, and very much covered in forests. Commander Porter knows this but doesn't like it for beans. Another thing he doesn't like is having to leave two units or archers back in Scythian for occupation duty but he could live with that for now, given he had more archers he knew what to do with.
American scouts never seen the city of Numidian themselves so Porter had to go see it himself along with the rest of the army. What did he see? A fairly large city on hills compared to the small city of Scythian which was built on a very pleasant, easy to hit plain of grass. On those hills, it would be impossible to sneak up on them even if he moved off the road and into the forested area to the west of the city. The only good news is that there aren't walls. After the last battle, Porter realized he overestimated how numerous and effective the barbarians are. Maybe he'll lose a few more men this time around but the barbarians will fall under numbers soon enough.
---------
The Scythian Warlord, while not an Avatar per-say, was immortal. Somehow. Immortal enough to grant his the wisdom to flee to Numidian to make a stand. The men here were armed with axes of bronze and wore leather armor compared to those poor peasants back in Scythian. Then again, the forces here were still heavily outnumbered despite the population. Tin is rare though and with it, the amount of weapons and armor that can be handed out. Iron may has its problems with rusting and whatnot, but the fact you can churn it out in far greater quantities at lower the cost is a quality of its own.
"The Americans approach from the west!"
Show time.
-------
Arrow volleys worked the last time so why not again? Too bad, Porter thought, he couldn't see the effects as easily as he could back in Scythian. The second he saw the enemy regrouping, he realized it would take a charge to dislodge the enemy. The horns sounded and the thundering feet of hundreds of iron warriors filled his small, narrow definition of the world. The Americans charged up the hill and clashed with the Numidians...and fell in droves.
Running up a hill? Easy. Doing it in armor and in a life-or-death siutation? That's something Porter didn't think of and neither did many. The Numidians, fighting from the comfort of their homes, fought with energetic ferocity. Bronze clashed with numerous iron and it wasn't until the second wave hit that the damned Numidians faltered under the weight.
The bloodletting was great.
--------
For some reason, Jimmy Lee couldn't exactly point out the difference between an American ruler and the Scythian one that is bad. They used him for force labor for a while to help deal with the dead and, in a fashion, forced him and others to gather a lot of the town's wealth to be carted to Washington. Adjusting to inflation and the times, a $1,040,000 worth of wealth moved west.
For weeks, though, the garrison of Americans grew larger and larger until, finally, the first orders from the American Warlord to the east arrived. A unit of their precious axe men had been killed in fighting with another half of a unit decimated. Quickly, and effortlessly, another two units of axe men and four units of warriors began their long march to Numidian (which must've fallen given the orders arrived from a train of movable wealth (another hundred gold bars worth).....
----------
After one year, two barbarian cities have fallen and the wealth looted from the cities tripled the worth of America as a whole. Not only that, but the creation of new markets led to the creation of spread of new ideas, namely Numdiain Christianity which the Emperor and King adopted. Meanwhile, Porter continued the war against the Barbarian State by taking the city of Gondar, an Ethiopian city that fell to barbarians many centuries ago. Not only that, but the city itself had a larger population than even Numidian.
A march east on Hsung-Nu resulted in a key problem soon enough. The supply line...was troubling to say the least. Hsung-Nu is actually closer to Washington than Gondar is to Washington. However, the existing road network didn't work to Porter's advantage since between Washington and Hsung-Nu and Washington is nothing but forests so the only alternative is the long, circling road leading far east, then north, then west again. When the city fell and the wealth arrived back to the Washington and later, New York, three things happened. One, the Pyramids dedicated to the wars of revenge were finished built using barbarian slave labor and freedmen. Second, the monarchy transitioned into a representative government that even granted the people of the newly acquired territories some say. Third, trade with Ethiopia skyrocketed and contact with the east finally became possible.
Hsung-Nu wasn't the last city taken during the War of Revenge but it was the last one not to be sacked. The costs of occupation, brought on upon the terrible infrastructure, led to Porter to institute a policy of razing cities. A Numidian-sized city on the former peninsula of Denmark was destroyed and its people shipped to Hsung-Nu to build structures and infrastructure. Porter eventually returned to Washington a hero and graciously returned to civilian life after decades of conquest and destruction caused, first by the thirst of revenge and then the need for secured expansion. With the near complete destruction of the Barbarian State, however, an Avatar to the west started to rear his head. Conflict continued, of course, as the Barbarian State was not entirely destroyed for decades in Western Europe. The first battles saw massed archers supporting a small number of charging axe men. The latter battles saw swordsmen taking the blunt of combat duty.
--------
The Avatar of Portugal, Joao as he's known, one spring day in 1025 sent an emissary to Washington. The Avatar of the Confucian state and predominant European military power demanded $4,500,000. The Consulate of Washington accepted. The Emperor of America prepared for war. The reason why they two took two different courses is because America could not expand the military much further. Costs were so high that there was nowhere else they could squeeze the money and technological progress began to lag. The Consulate did not want a war yet but the Emperor knew that that wealth will need to return in some way.
Decades later, the Apostolic Palace is built in America for the peaceful dialogue of Christian leaders. At this time, Christianity has spread far but only America and Ethiopia are Christian states. This timed perfectly with the coming war against the heathen state.
-------
Oh, here's what is what I've been working on. Dig?
--------------
The hunter worked harder than ever. Hunting, true, was a difficult job but after a while, one's muscles at least gets used to it. Building settlements, on the other hand, is new. "Washington" it is to be called. Hundreds of young and middle aged men worked endlessly to build a permanent settlement with their bare hands after centuries of roaming Europe. All of this, under the watchful eye of the God Emperor of the American "Empire".
-----
He watched, as he always have. His eyes darted back and forth, picking out strong workers and filing their faces and name into mental storage. "God Emperor of the American Empire" had some truth to it, he started to realize. Thousands of years ago, the New World, Australia, most of Asia, and everything south of North Africa were wiped out by terrible weapons. Civilization itself, in Europe, had been wiped out but not before the Vaults closed luckily.
The American Emperor fondly remembered when Europe had been a cultured, populated continent. Now, scattered tribes rule thousands of years after the Vaults opened. Something told him that the other Avatars would be making themselves known to their people soon enough since it means that there is a significant enough concentration of human life in an area to awake the sleeping godly avatars. He pitied the poor Avatars in Nigeria, Brazil, China, Australia, and other nations that will never wake again, trapped in a suspended dream.
In the dreams, the Avatars of Mankind learned a few things about how the world will work once they're awake. Their power comes from the power of the people they lead but there's bound to be confusion. Some Avatars are going to outright attempt to kill the others, leading to great and destructive wars. Some will attempt to control most of Europe's resources, gaining an insurmountable advantage over all others, dominating the continent. Some will attempt to build great cities with cultures so powerful, they become psychic beacons powerful enough to sever the links between another Avatar and his people.
No doubt, a few will try to unite mankind under diplomacy while others will flee the planet and branch out into the stars.
The Emperor of the American Empire wondered, "What path will I take?"
------------
Over the course of the next two thousand years, the Emperor taught his people refined hunting techniques, how to build water-sealed pottery using clay found on the banks of the Potomac, mining raw materials from the hills, and archery to strike a bandit dead from afar. Along with the new technologies, he sent out scouts to explore the world and by the time New York is founded in 2160 BCE, the Americans had encountered the Portuguese and Ethiopian Avatars and their people.
Despite the title "God Emperor", the people of America didn't really have a religion and accepted their ruler as someone beyond immortal but not someone divine (as they lack the concept of divinity). A hundred and ten years after the founding of New York, the Barbarian Incursions began.
As the human population grew, Avatars were release, true. However, this depending on a concentrated psychic hotspot, namely something more than scattered small bands of humanity. Early on, those who rejected the Avatars left their homes and families and became barbarians. Despite the title, they weren't exactly technologically primitive and they came in great numbers. The Barbarian Wars in America began in 2050 BCE and would continue until 1480 BCE, nearly six centuries of darkness and fighting marked by a brutal arms race.
As the Americans started fielding archers with stone-tipped arrows capable of ripping through the often unarmored, club-wielding hordes, the Barbarians started to field their own archers and eventually, men in bronze armed with spears. New York almost fell and the countryside was destroyed. For three centuries, the American Emperor was isolated from psychic connections in New York since the roads were no longer safe and travel and trade halted.
However, the Emperor had a plan. During the first century of the wars, he began to build a Great Wall which would encircle the borders. After the Great Wall was completed in 1480 BCE, the barbarian incursions stopped. Some say that the Great Wall is the first formation of a cultural gestalt in that, even as the borders expanded and new cities were founded outside the wall, the barbarians, for whatever reason, could not enter. It is unknown why the other Avatars could not build a similar wall other than the amount of resources and manpower needed. Thousands of slaves and freedmen alike died in the construction and thousands died to fight the barbarians.
It would take four centuries for America to recover economically from the wars.
Spoiler :
---------
In 1050 BCE, a woman in Washington had a vision. This would be meaningless had the vision not taken place in front of the Great Monument with hundreds of onlookers in sight. The woman, the Oracle, could snatch snippets from the future and talked to the Emperor about a monarchy. The American Emperor, with her help, help crown the first King of America, a mortal whose line will govern over the realm unless the Emperor sees it fit to intervene. The Emperor believed this would encourage the mortals.
By 810 BCE, the Americans had established a writing system along with establishing trade with peoples from Portugal to the far west on Iberia to the mysterious Romans and Khmer of the great east. With this trade came the idea and sell of slaves for a variety of purposes. Mostly labor, some pleasure, mainly as a sign of wealth.
In 480 BCE, Mohammad Shah of Washington begins the American Golden Age with his ideas on religion and mysticism. The Golden Age is so integral to American development, the calendar changed to revolve around the beginning of the Golden Age. The Golden Age lasted until 130 BCE with the beginning of the New York Slave Rebellion that resulted in hundreds of deaths, economic damage, and further deaths following the King's reprisal against the slave population by forcing many to labor to death building walls around the city. Another rebellion in Washington ended the same way, only with a library.
When the Americans discovered how to work iron in 300 CE, some say the world changed forever though the effects weren't immediate..
-------
King Washington XVI of America had many reasons to be upset but the American Emperor had even more, having actual fought against the barbarians during the Dark Ages. For....has it been thousands of years already? For thousands of years, the barbarians waged war on civilization but as civilization. When civilization created a weapon, the barbarians created their own. However, walls had proven to be a major obstacle. Sure, the countryside could be ravaged but walls turned sieges into a game of waiting for the barbarians lacked the numbers and supplies to hold. Therefore, the barbarians started to build their own cities for without manpower, they could not defeat civilization.
Despite the barbarians inability to enter American lands, they still build cities between American and her closest neighbor, Ethiopia. Over the centuries, the little trade between America and the east had been restricted by the simple fact the barbarians had built a sprawling military empire between the two. Thus, in 1085, America launched a crusade with the expressed goal of bringing the barbarian warlords to their knees...
----------
"They call themselves 'Scythians'. The city is called Scythian. None of this really matters since we have more axes than they have arrows." Commander Joseph Porter smiled, "This is a decent sized settlement, in all honesty. By the looks of it, there are roads that lead off from it...."
The men laughed nervously. Roads meant there are more, doesn't it? Roads usually lead somewhere, after all. Porter, taking the laughter serious, laughed a bit himself, "Our people have not seen war since the Dark Ages. As the legends go, our forefathers had to fight with wooden clubs and stone-tipped arrows against bronze! Look at what we have now." He thrust his iron axe into the air. "Good ol' iron. Our archers? Iron-tipped arrows probably. Do you know what their archers fired tried to use against us when we crossed the river to get a better assault spot? This!" He showed them a stone-tipped arrow. "They may have been dangerous thousands of years ago but they haven't changed in that long either. Look at that town with no walls. There isn't even going to be a siege. This will be a quick, easy battle. But there will be blood and we will lose men..." He finished his speech and then readied them for battle.
Scythian, indeed, did not have walls and wasn't very big, easily smaller than Washington and New York. On paper, they shouldn't lose against an antique, highly outnumbered force. In reality, Porter wondered how many green troops they will lose.
Two units of iron-wielding axe men. Many more units or archers and one unit using bronze tools. That force is the one that shouldn't last long out here but it might through sheer dumb luck. Porter is leading the charge, though and besides, they might shirk through this with minimum loss.
---------
"Jimmy, Earl! Get ready to fly the arrows of war the second you see them charge out from that there tree line, got me?"
Jimmy nodded. Judging by the amount of smoke coming from the forest last night, the enemy is numerous. The Americans applied what the Ethiopians used only a city level it seems. The Ethiopians used the walls to resist invaders and build up forces inside the city for the eventual counterattack. The Americans? They used an empire wide wall. Thousands of years of build-up and a thirst for revenge.
The attack will come this morning; that isn't a secret. Not even debatable. When the enemy crossed the river, the city archers launched arrows at the massed target but there simply isn't enough arrows. The Scythian Warlord took his bodyguards and fled the city, supposedly on a mission to gain more ammunition but unless his people gain Avatars of their own to lead them this very second, this force will win the city.
But Jimmy will draw his share of blood before going down. Oh yes, he will make the enemy bleed. His fellow Scythians whooped as the enemy poured from the forest. Oh, the number of them in gleaming armor and with axes! He drew back the arrow. "Well Earl, he-"
Something whistled past Jimmy's ear, then another, and then another. The sky darkened. Jimmy turned to look for Earl but found an iron-tipped arrow lodged in his jugular. Damn dying for the warlord! Jimmy threw down his bow and arrow and sought cover inside the house he had been standing atop of. For a second, no light entered the house through the slits of windows as the cloud came close to impact. The family he unknowingly was sharing this event with today huddled in a corner and screamed themselves when screams of people caught in the streets were ripped to shreds by hundreds of arrows.
----------
Porter marched into the city at that, a march. He demanded his troops walk, not run, for there would be no battle. Axe in hand, he led a party door to door. The order was simple: If you had taken up arms against the Americans, turn yourself in and live. If you lied or you lied for someone else, there would be no mercy. A woman found that out the hard way when she charged him with a pitiful stone knife. So did her children for simply being her children.
A few of his men were killed by an enterprising archer who found himself quickly outnumbered and overwhelmed. The axe soldiers who captured him didn't bother with the formality of capture and then execution.
-------------
The road from Scythian to the city of Numidian crested a hill and went through a valley. The territory of Numidian was very hilly, very sparsely populated, and very much covered in forests. Commander Porter knows this but doesn't like it for beans. Another thing he doesn't like is having to leave two units or archers back in Scythian for occupation duty but he could live with that for now, given he had more archers he knew what to do with.
American scouts never seen the city of Numidian themselves so Porter had to go see it himself along with the rest of the army. What did he see? A fairly large city on hills compared to the small city of Scythian which was built on a very pleasant, easy to hit plain of grass. On those hills, it would be impossible to sneak up on them even if he moved off the road and into the forested area to the west of the city. The only good news is that there aren't walls. After the last battle, Porter realized he overestimated how numerous and effective the barbarians are. Maybe he'll lose a few more men this time around but the barbarians will fall under numbers soon enough.
---------
The Scythian Warlord, while not an Avatar per-say, was immortal. Somehow. Immortal enough to grant his the wisdom to flee to Numidian to make a stand. The men here were armed with axes of bronze and wore leather armor compared to those poor peasants back in Scythian. Then again, the forces here were still heavily outnumbered despite the population. Tin is rare though and with it, the amount of weapons and armor that can be handed out. Iron may has its problems with rusting and whatnot, but the fact you can churn it out in far greater quantities at lower the cost is a quality of its own.
"The Americans approach from the west!"
Show time.
-------
Arrow volleys worked the last time so why not again? Too bad, Porter thought, he couldn't see the effects as easily as he could back in Scythian. The second he saw the enemy regrouping, he realized it would take a charge to dislodge the enemy. The horns sounded and the thundering feet of hundreds of iron warriors filled his small, narrow definition of the world. The Americans charged up the hill and clashed with the Numidians...and fell in droves.
Running up a hill? Easy. Doing it in armor and in a life-or-death siutation? That's something Porter didn't think of and neither did many. The Numidians, fighting from the comfort of their homes, fought with energetic ferocity. Bronze clashed with numerous iron and it wasn't until the second wave hit that the damned Numidians faltered under the weight.
The bloodletting was great.
--------
For some reason, Jimmy Lee couldn't exactly point out the difference between an American ruler and the Scythian one that is bad. They used him for force labor for a while to help deal with the dead and, in a fashion, forced him and others to gather a lot of the town's wealth to be carted to Washington. Adjusting to inflation and the times, a $1,040,000 worth of wealth moved west.
For weeks, though, the garrison of Americans grew larger and larger until, finally, the first orders from the American Warlord to the east arrived. A unit of their precious axe men had been killed in fighting with another half of a unit decimated. Quickly, and effortlessly, another two units of axe men and four units of warriors began their long march to Numidian (which must've fallen given the orders arrived from a train of movable wealth (another hundred gold bars worth).....
----------
After one year, two barbarian cities have fallen and the wealth looted from the cities tripled the worth of America as a whole. Not only that, but the creation of new markets led to the creation of spread of new ideas, namely Numdiain Christianity which the Emperor and King adopted. Meanwhile, Porter continued the war against the Barbarian State by taking the city of Gondar, an Ethiopian city that fell to barbarians many centuries ago. Not only that, but the city itself had a larger population than even Numidian.
A march east on Hsung-Nu resulted in a key problem soon enough. The supply line...was troubling to say the least. Hsung-Nu is actually closer to Washington than Gondar is to Washington. However, the existing road network didn't work to Porter's advantage since between Washington and Hsung-Nu and Washington is nothing but forests so the only alternative is the long, circling road leading far east, then north, then west again. When the city fell and the wealth arrived back to the Washington and later, New York, three things happened. One, the Pyramids dedicated to the wars of revenge were finished built using barbarian slave labor and freedmen. Second, the monarchy transitioned into a representative government that even granted the people of the newly acquired territories some say. Third, trade with Ethiopia skyrocketed and contact with the east finally became possible.
Hsung-Nu wasn't the last city taken during the War of Revenge but it was the last one not to be sacked. The costs of occupation, brought on upon the terrible infrastructure, led to Porter to institute a policy of razing cities. A Numidian-sized city on the former peninsula of Denmark was destroyed and its people shipped to Hsung-Nu to build structures and infrastructure. Porter eventually returned to Washington a hero and graciously returned to civilian life after decades of conquest and destruction caused, first by the thirst of revenge and then the need for secured expansion. With the near complete destruction of the Barbarian State, however, an Avatar to the west started to rear his head. Conflict continued, of course, as the Barbarian State was not entirely destroyed for decades in Western Europe. The first battles saw massed archers supporting a small number of charging axe men. The latter battles saw swordsmen taking the blunt of combat duty.
Spoiler :
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The Avatar of Portugal, Joao as he's known, one spring day in 1025 sent an emissary to Washington. The Avatar of the Confucian state and predominant European military power demanded $4,500,000. The Consulate of Washington accepted. The Emperor of America prepared for war. The reason why they two took two different courses is because America could not expand the military much further. Costs were so high that there was nowhere else they could squeeze the money and technological progress began to lag. The Consulate did not want a war yet but the Emperor knew that that wealth will need to return in some way.
Decades later, the Apostolic Palace is built in America for the peaceful dialogue of Christian leaders. At this time, Christianity has spread far but only America and Ethiopia are Christian states. This timed perfectly with the coming war against the heathen state.
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