The days turned into weeks, and the weeks threatened to stretch out into months. Abraham Lincoln, mad warlord of the American tribes, was nowhere to be seen. Provincial governors did the best they could, keeping Axemen training in the Barracks and crops flowing into the Granaries, but the semblance of normalcy was wearing thin. The lack of central authority threatened to fracture the nation into a quilt of warring city-states.
In fact, Abraham Lincoln had died in his sleep, the result of overexposure to the medicinal root of the ancients, perhaps (Ed. note: See round 1, KotW fans!). He was hastily buried, and the Palace at Washington had become a hothouse of intrigue as petty chieftains strove to gain the throne. Andrew Johnson rose from the squabbling and vowed to complete the work that his predecessor had begun.
Andrew Johnson, though, was no Abraham Lincoln. The country stagnated under his watch, and while he built up a modest garrison in Hermosillo, he shrank from the prospect of war and cravenly kept the peace.
He made ill-advised deals with his neighbors:
Despite the two-faced Sitting Bull sending Spies to steal the secrets of the Compass.
By 930 A.D., Huayna Capac had spread Pacifism to his Mayan vassals and the Old World became a little bit less balkanized:
Johnson, constantly angling for a better deal from Pacal, ended up getting nothing at all from him for Philosophy. And Rome's fall was clear evidence of superpowers emerging on the Eurasian supercontinent. The new American overlord complained bitterly of his failures, but he lacked the will to reverse them.
His debacles continued as
Henry Bessemer was born in Washington:
The Engineer promised to refine Iron into the infinitely more valuable Steel, but he needed some weighty prerequisites (namely Chemistry) to do it. As things stood, he could offer only Engineering, which American Spies were investigating in Poverty Point. Failing to find a better use for him (and not wanting to trigger a Golden Age just yet), Johnson loaded him onto a Galley to complete the Moai Statues in Havana, shaving 85 (!!!) turns off its completion. Cuba would become a useful province yet.
That same turn, we were introduced to the tech-savvy Indians and their backward, if powerful, Persian masters:
This was a weak exchange, at best, but in the wider world, WFYABTA is trivial and, besides, it would only be a matter of time until Darius extorted Optics from Gandhi.
Of course, there is nothing we can have that Sitting Bull cannot simply take:
Well, at least this kept Native America's espionage network busy and lowered the costs for our eventual move on Engineering.
By the time we finally got a Caravel in the water, we received a message that pointed out just how late our start was:
... No matter. Andrew Johnson's reign was pathetic, but it was also thankfully brief. In 1090, as the replacement warlord strolled through the lawns around the Washington Palace, he was brutally assaulted by none other than Abraham Lincoln's half-rotted corpse! It would seem that those ground-up roots were more potent than anyone could have imagined. After taking Johnson to the ground and leisurely consuming his brain, Lincoln shambled back to his throne room and was greeted by thunderous applause (though that may have had just as much to do with the ragged remains of Johnson's head in his hand).
So Lincoln's back, but things feel like they're in a sorry state:
The economy has stabilized a bit, but it's still nowhere near healthy. We have a small army in Hermosillo, but I don't think it's big enough to take Nacogdoches, much less the rest of the continent, and once Sitting Bull gets Feudalism in 6 turns, it's going to be even worse.
We have a few potential trading partners:
But nobody seems willing to give us the world for Optics. I could probably snag Feudalism from Boudica, but that seems to be the best deal on the table right now.
So there we have it. There's no European wars (at least, none involving parties I am familiar with) to exploit, and I don't have a map yet. So I guess the question is whether to focus more on the Old World or on claiming the New. Astronomy is taking forever, but it could be a genuine trade chip (not to mention putting our economy into high gear with trade routes and resource sales). Any advice?