Well, in the Illian vs Malakim game, my capital city, the one I complained about .. had 2 population the entire game
Now, normally this could seem terrible, although since I was forced to Rex it ended up working rather well. I was able to build a settler in 25 turns on average in the beginning, although the process sped up when I researched the techs that increased Patrian Hammers.
YES. the two squares were remnants of patria on a tundra hill, and an ice flatlands with a cottage/town
The second city was my real "capital" with my technology base, I would of built a palace but it would of taken 10-17 turns, instead of 4-6 turns for each hunter. I built the White Hand ritual in my 2 population city however.
Soon after the Neo capital was underway in commerce and population growth, two interesting phenomenon occured. One, an Illian citizen decided to raise one of our wild Ice harpies as a child. This harpy became a great bard, and spread my culture far and wide over the frozen tundra. Soon after, Orthus heard these mystic sounds, and decided to listen from a far. Then, he decided to come from the city, and kidnap the harpy. Her adoptive father picked up a club and was determined to defend her from the beast. They met in the streets outside the Harpy's house. It was an intense battle, and several times the father was knocked down on the ground. However, he was surprisingly agile for his age, and the spectacle grew a crowd. While the father put up a valiant fight, all seemed lost, and then he landed a miraculous blow to the head while Orthus was distracted for a brief moment due to the Harpy girl "Julie" began to sing. The beast was slain, and the father became a hero. He quit his job as a bartender, and became a military trainer and commander. His military squad was the best in the business, and became the sole defender of the burgeoning town, which was becoming the largest Illian city. He named his unit "Julie" after the adoptive Harpy daughter he threw his life on the line to protect.
The Illian defensive organization commitee deemed that this land already claimed by culture was better used as a buffer between the hot headed warm-bloods and the two Illian mother cities. Therefore, 3 sattelite cities were commisioned on the outskirts of this culture bloom, in order to claim fertile city spots and resources. However, barbs had unfortunately settled in one of the commisioned locations, so expansion plans to the west would have to wait until a superior military was established. Luckily the southern most satellite location, the most daring by far, right upon the Malakim borders, was negotiated sucessfully as a pathway to the south, which indeed it was.
If such negotiations had not been made, the aggresive lobbyists of White Handed Incorporated would of activated plan Bravo.- the priest war initiative, and all men and women would go to war production task, while the three winter priests would charge ahead freezing a path to victory .. hopefully catching the Malkim with their pants down, even if their cities were brimming almost as full as their wallets, their economical expansion and greedy territory takeover would most likely have not been fully prepared for the month when the Executive Hand Officer Core was created, which enabled us to field powerful yet experimental followers of the Winter ways.
In the end, we were an intellectually civilized, if culturally barbaric nation, with our society primarily consisting of hunter/gatherer. In the end most of the hunters were sent off to war, while the gatherer's stayed behind to run the city. The hunter's children hunted in their place, and soon, during the Psuedo war against the Grigori, war production was at a tremendous height, and the Illians Icy wallets were emptying like the sinking Titanic was emptying of passengers.
The hunter army alliance was working on borrowed time, as the economy would not last with this men off to war. Public opinion was also begining to grow weary, as the age of service was getting younger and younger, and war terms were growing longer and longer, due to an extensive proportion of the population being sent of to war. The Capital held a particularly pricy toll, as there was not a single Man above the age of 20 left by the time war was upon the Malakim. All were off in the border city, camping out, waiting for orders.
The sneak attack by Illians and Grigori made the Malakim furious. Since Lugus's precept was truth and revelation, the Malakim leader was so deppressed with his not being able to forsee this Illian transgression, that he resigned from office, and secluded himself in a desolated desert cavern. Unfortunately he had not groomed anyone for office, and the new leadership was leaving much to be desiered. Under poor leadership, the southern city was quickly taken, and surprisingly, the Northern city, bordering the Illian motherland, was also taken?! o.O ?! several months after Varn's resignation.
At this point, the eastern half of the Malakim Nation could have been split between the Illians and the Grigori, although most likely the Grigori would have negotiated the lands for themselves, if not giving part to the shadows, who left the war as quickly as they entered. However, instead of doing all of that, The Illians decided the one northern city was enough expansion for the time being, and a return of the men to their homes, as well as a refocus on an expanding rural based economy, would lead the economic reforms of the Global White Hand initiative and perhaps bring the icy Illian peoples into a new age of prosperity and development. While all of this was being handled in the diplomacy sector, the new malakim administration was nowhere to be found for questioning, and so the two armies (grigori and Illian) began a race for the Malakim capital of Golden Leane. It was at this point that I must draw my story to a close, as this is when I, reporter of the Hand, decided to catch a train to the Erebus alliance initiative, and present my story here, at the new Erebus planning and Diplomacy center