BirdNES 3: When Worlds Collide

[Agent 89]

OOC: Nice update. Also, what is the situation in Kalmar?

IC:To: Henry VIII of England, Pope Gregorious XIII
From: Philip I, Holy Roman Emperor

The words that I hear coming forth from Spain and Portugal sadden me deeply, for the most noble kings of these two countries seek the expulsion of the most pious King Henry from the Catholic Church, over a matter as simple as a small island. Although the treaty may have been breached to the smallest degree, the blame cannot be placed upon the King of England, but upon a few over-eager settlers. And even they cannot be blamed, for they seek nothing more that to spread the word of God to these new lands, something which the King of England has been working at enthusiastically over the last few years. It seems almost a sin to seek the excommunication of such a pious warrior of God over such a trivial matter.

As for the matter of selling weapons to infidels, we fear that here the King of England may have erred. Therefore, we ask that the English refrain from selling weapons and technological assistance to non-Christians in the future, or at least to the Egyptians, being a vassal to the Ottoman Empire, the largest threat to Christendom. However, once again, we do not believe that there are any grounds for excommunication in these actions, as suggested by Spain and Portugal.

To: Pope Gregorious XIII
From: Philip I, Holy Roman Emperor

Father, as a faithful follower of the Church and God, I stand ready to follow you in any course of action you choose to take regarding the recent surge in reformist opinion throughout Europe.

On another matter, though I have been preoccupied since my election with campaigns in the Balkans, I would be most pleased if your Holiness were to do my the honor of crowning me Holy Roman Emperor. Should it please your Holiness to do so, I will travel to Rome as soon as possible.

 

[Birdjaguar]

We have not broken the treaty. (i didn't order the expansion to that small island in my orders)
If english colonists have developed homes there it is not with the blessing and guidance of England's monarch.

(Can't do much about it boys- I never did order it).

If I placed it wrong, it was my error. Show me where you thought you were going.

OOC: Who can I diplo with - still Spain only?

At this point, yes.

OOC: Nice update. Also, what is the situation in Kalmar?

Toteone is taking over Kalmar as of now.

 

[Immaculate]

Bird- its totally cool... i just wanted to take over the whole (BIG) island; obviously impossible to do in one turn.

I am explaining it as being exactly what was written- overzealous colonists wanting to expand English influence and Christendom. Don't worry about a retcon or anything.

 

[Luckymoose]

The island must be traded to Spain.

 

[T_F]

Rules question -- at what colony level ('surviving', etc) is it safe to stop subsidising the colony?

 

[The Strategos]

I am quitting as France. If the new France player wishes to see all my orders for the NES (or for that matter have any questions), they may feel free to PM me.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I am sorry to see you go Strategos.

Once a colony gets to settlement status it should be able to grow slowly on it own baring any unexpected misfortunes.

 

[Immaculate]

sad to see you go strategos

 

[Terrance888]

Chatura bit his lip as he balanced the spring on his thumb. Then, using his other hand, which held a pair of pliers, he carefully pent a hook at the end of the metal piece. Behind him, Kshanto slowly wrapped a thin metal wire around a screw. Chatura blinked his eyes up, and then picked up another small piece: a dog-eared slip of metal, and bent the hoot around it. His little hands worked swiftly with the iron and steal, its lack of strength made up for by its dexterity.

The Master, an Englishman by the name of Jason Smith, walked around the room with his magnifying glass and taking close looks at the matchlocks in various stages of completion. Although usually he will spend his circuit scowling at a misplaced nub or muttering at a minor slight, today he has seen nothing but progress. Indeed, the tough, salty man was outright pleased as he returned to his own workbench, with tools and larger scale models as examples, as well as normal ones he made himself. “Great job, my Bacce, good. Today I will let you finish an hour early and I will let you ask me questions about England and Europe.”

The tension in the apprentice workshop loosened immediately. Although fingers picked, prodded and pushed pieces of metal at equal rates as before, their minds all though about their cherished question to ask the lockmaster. As lock after lock were finished and placed to the right and as boxes of materials were emptied from the right, apprentices, in ones and twos, walked to the courtyard and waited.

The Englishman took the apprentices under a tree, leaned back and said, “Remember, one each. Kshanto?”

“Master… Sir” said the boy, “Why does the Portuguese and Spanish want to take over everything? My minder said that the Spanish have fought in Malacca and the Portuguese has taken over entire islands!”

“A delicate subject, but a good one,” said Jason Smith, “It is because of three things: Religion, Money and Spices. Religion is their ‘Reason’ because they, like all, want to spread their religion. Unfortunately, they, unlike me and my Englishmen friends, want to spread it with fire.

The second reason is Money. Spain and Portugal are not rich like Vijayanagar, although they are powerful. With money, they can take more and more riches from nations like yours and give it to themselves with more and more soldiers.”

“Finally… spice. Ah yes, the addiction that started it all. The Spice trade once passed through India and China to Byzantines, who sold it for the Europeans. When the muslims blocked this, the Europeans can’t get more and price went up. So it is a very easy way to get rich, and a very easy thing to hide under the pretext of spreading religion.”

“Now, Chatura, the bright one. Have you a question?”

“Why does the Spanish and Portuguese spread their Christianity with guns, but you and your Englishmen spread it with love? Is it one religion and who is right?” He said. Although he knew it was dangerous to intrude, he was bursting to answer these questions since the last session.

“That, my Chatura, is a long story. Now, there is a head of the Church called a Pope. He is the head of Christianity. Now, both he and book here” pulls out a bible, “wants to spread this religion and save the world. The pope learned of new worlds and called the Spanish and Portuguese to spread Christianity. But they decided to get rich instead. However, there are those who do follow the book and the pope by what they actually mean, not just what they say.”

The other boys became excited. This religion of the Englishmen is called Christianity? Why is that? What is the book called? What is your language? Where did latin come from?

The day after, they started on another batch of matchlocks. Within, Jesus gained another flock.

 

[Karalysia]

I swear to god if you try to do what I think you're doing I will return to destroy you and the most fantastical and ridiculous abomination you have created. Seriously Birdjaguar, India is just terrible, I mean horrible. You cannot snuff out the most powerful Sultanates of the time in the course of five years and completely ignore the nature of warfare in the region and how it was waged. It would be like allowing France to swallow all of Italy in a single turn when it can't even manage Milan. It doesn't work like that and it's part of the reason I left that region because it pains me on a deep physical level.

It wasn't until the Mughals that there was any meaningful territorial changes. Prior to their arrival most wars were fought in border regions for forts or small slices of territory, this was the case with Vijaynagar and Bijapur who fought for a small region called the Doab. The only time when Vijaynagar made any large territorial gain was with Rama Raya who conquered Bidar or Berar I always forget which. And that resulted in a colition of Sultanates against Vijaynagar which resulted in the Battle of Tailkota where Vijaynagar was crushed and the city burnt.

Want to know why? It's because Vijaynagar sucked. It lost the majority of the wars it fought against Gulbarga and the sucessor Bahamani Sultantantes. And that's because Vijaynagar had inferior/no firearms, lacked decent artillery until later on, had few cavalry, and lacked archers. And before someone, (Abbadon) chimes in and says "But he can change that!" No he can't. Because above all the reasons Vijaynagar lost most of its wars and was constantly forced into paying tribute to the Islamic Sultanates was because of cavalry of which South India has no horses. Thus all horses had to be imported from Arabia through Arab traders and later the Portugese but the supply was never enough and was also insecure when Vijaynagar held Goa they could usually count on shipments but when Goa was lost to Bijapur and later the Portuguese the shipment of horses were pretty much up to the mercy of foreign powers, and Vijaynagar cavalry never up to quality and despite the use of English and Portugese mercenaries by Vijaynagar they were still unable to meaningfully change the situation in the region and the superior Bijapur/Golkonda cavlarymen and their superior Central Asian gunners and larger amounts of artillery were always able to outmaneuver and destroy Vijaynagar armies and raid into Vijaynagar territory forcing them to capitulate and the only reason Vijaynagar survived as long as it did was because they had vast numbers to make up for their losses as well as their wealth which allowed them to buy out their survival. As history showed when the Sultantates put their mind to it, they could almost always put Vijaynagar armies to flight.

Vijaynagar also had a significant number of powerful fedutories like the Polygars, the Nayaks of Tanjore, and Madurai who owed them tribute and were called upon to fight when they needed but in many cases local notables could act independently against Vijaynagar interests, and often Vijaynagar used foreign forces to reduce their more powerful and independent local notables to subjecgation. After all when Vasco De Gama landed it was ostenibly in a Vijaynagar held city, yet he subdued it and Vijaynagar scarcely said a word. Vijaynagar's ability to garner loyalty and extract tax from their territory was signficantly more limited than Bijapur or Golkonda despite the best efforts of Krishnadeva Raya to centralize the state in which he failed because of the entrenched power interests. Bijapur and Golkonda for instance utilized a beuracracy of Brahmin and Muslim landowners, the zamindar system to extract tax and to the Muslims would provide the famed cavalry while the Brahmin's ran the beuracracy and extracted the taxes. A similar system would be used by the Mughals. Vijaynagar was more similar to a European state in that it had royal lands, vassal lands which acted more independently while no such entities existed in Bijapur or Golkonda.

And thus to sum up Vijaynagar should not have been able to destroy Bijapur, Golkonda, nor invade Gujarat, easily one of the wealthiest and most powerful Sultanates as well as the fact that it possessed one of the largest and best navies of the Indian states, far superior to Vijaynagars.


RAAAR!! RAAAR ARRGHH!! HURR!!! HURR! RARGH!!! RARGAH!!

 

[Immaculate]

Oh- this is a very good story Terrance888... quite a nice surprise indeed.

 

[Terrance888]

OOC: Yeah. Well, I read how the real deal went and every war ended with a bit of territorial and special concessions: A strip of land here and there, tribute, vassalage sometimes.

No, I am not going to convert. No I am not going to become a psuedo-european state. Yes, Raya does not care whatever religion is in his state, he just uses it for various advantages and Yes, that is a brief of how he is really like.

Ooh, he also has a perchance for literature.

 

[Toteone]

...

And thus to sum up Vijaynagar should not have been able to destroy Bijapur, Golkonda, nor invade Gujarat, easily one of the wealthiest and most powerful Sultanates as well as the fact that it possessed one of the largest and best navies of the Indian states, far superior to Vijaynagars.


RAAAR!! RAAAR ARRGHH!! HURR!!! HURR! RARGH!!! RARGAH!!

Oooh, I'm not too surprised since you're Indian, the grumpiness inherent the rebuttal and summary are really impressive!

 

[Kraznaya]

RAAAR!! RAAAR ARRGHH!! HURR!!! HURR! RARGH!!! RARGAH!!

There have been more hilarious Indias, though. A recent NES that takes the name of an ethnonym comes to mind. Just face it, no one really cares about the history of your country. :3

 

[Abaddon]

Progress on stats?

 

[LittleBoots]

Bird, unless you desperately me to stay as the Pope, I think I'll switch over to France. I've lost this round of the Reformation already too

 

[Luckymoose]

Bird, unless you desperately me to stay as the Pope, I think I'll switch over to France. I've lost this round of the Reformation already too

We have lots to discuss.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I prefer you as France than Pope given that France is open. Thanks.

That means I get to play Pope, have a heart attack, elect my successor and once again the review that nasty treaty.

Stats will be up soon.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Stats are up except colonies and Banks. They will be up later. I also owe the Aztecs a pm.

 

[T_F]

Stats look wonky - I had almost twice that in income last turn. Am I missing something?