Mistakes Have Been Made III

[Sonereal]

Mistakes Have Been Made I: Growing the Horn, A Viking Story
Mistakes Have Been Made II: Ottoman Troubles

From Sea to Sea to Sea to Shiny Sea

And now for something completely different.


"John! How art thou?"

"Why are you talking about?"

Jimmy smiled, "Sorry, I keep forgetting that people in St. Louis know me."

John shook his head, "Maybe because most of us are from Boston?"

The two laughed at the inside joke. Most of the people were from Boston because no one willingly lives in Boston. Go figure.

St. Louis, a city situated on an island far from the mainland, was booming with building activity. Soon, engineers from Washington and New York will arrive to help with the building of infrastructure but for now, things were all right in the small settlement.
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Tokugawa Ieyasu (no relation) prided himself. The middle-aged man moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia (which he moved to from Suo, Japan). He left behind a nagging wife (his previous two also had been nagging women) and several children to get where he was now. He had been part of the settling party but years of hard work and cunning paid off.

Mr. Ieyasu, as he is called by his workers, sat on the porch of his pleasant manor and rubbed his temples. It had to be noon because it was getting pretty toasty outside. He snapped his finger and a beautiful American woman had a tray with a cup of water ready for him. He nodded his head and tipped her and she walked off briskly under the weight of the perverse stare she knew her bottom was attracting from her boss.

How many slaves did he have? Maybe thirty. Thirty was all his cotton plantation needed. These men were mostly Japanese debt slaves who worked for the eventual goal of being granted citizenship or, if they were over 25, the goal of their children being granted American citizenship for Mr. Ieyasu is a very influential man in San Francisco.
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Atlanta. The City of Sheep and just across the Boston Strait from Boston. Unlike Boston, people liked it here. Larger than the new settlements, old enough to have its own culture, small enough that everyone knew everyone else. Joesph Longstreet, 36, loved the city for those reasons. He owned livestock and had a farm but sheep is the big thing in Atlanta because its wool is the main product to make clothing in the mainland for now.

Joseph Longstreet didn't work alone. His loving wife, Ellen and their six sons and three daughters really helped out around the farm. Another word for Atlanta should probably be Eden for it truly was paradise.
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"Nice haul, Carly!"

Carly Brooks, 15, couldn't believe she heard that from Big Man Jim Radley himself! Of course, she wasn't too surprised....ok, totally surprised!

"Thank you, sir!" She grinned ear to ear. She'd been fishing with her father since the fishing trade picked up in Seattle and became one of the largest sources of fish in America. Young and passionate, she picked up on the trade with her father and went from being just another fisherman's daughter to being a fisherwoman in her own right.

"Big Man" Jim Radley hailed from Philadelphia and was the king of Seattle fishing. To get a compliment from the Big Man meant something to Carly Brooks who lived, breathed, and definitely eat fish.
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"Shuddup!" Justin Thorn punched the rebellious inmate in the gut. God! How he hated Portland. It was nothing more than a prison colony. The prisoner coughed and scampered away. Probably to harass some other guard.

Can't wait to get back to Houston. He thought to himself.
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"See anything?"

"The IJN is normal as always. Another supply ship passed fifteen minutes ago I believe. No mass movement, sir."

"Good," said Admiral David Portkey. "You're new so I'll tell you the same thing I tell every new guy. The Japanese may be our friends today, but we always have to be alert. If the Japanese ever attack, then Los Angeles will be their first target."
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Ron Wesley, 17, trotted along on his wonderful Chicago-bred horse ever alert. He sometimes wondered to himself if Suo looked like Chicago since the land across the arbitrary border looked the same as the rolling hills on his side. His mother, if she knew he was riding Firebolt, would be upset.

She would cry even and then ramble on about someday losing him.
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Father Abraham never understood the appeal of the barbaric gladiator fights of the Boston Amphitheater*. The city, easily the least important on the mainland, boasted having the second grandest amphitheater in America behind Washington. Even New York, a city with far greater relevance, didn't have such a beautiful amphitheater.

But Washington couldn't ever claim not to have as bloodthirsty as a crowd. Bostonians were a savage bunch and every month, slaves and prisoners fought it out in the Amphitheater. Some would win their freedom or citizenship but many....many die. Today was no different. Actual, it was different. Today was the Tournament of Bears.

To see a lightly-armored man with an iron dagger no doubt made with Japanese iron go toe-to-toe with a great black bear wasn't a spectacle to Father Abraham but to the thousands of Bostonians who sat in the cheap seats? He had heard rumors about Boston. About the people. About the way a woman was signing her death warrant if she walked the streets at night. About how the city was more criminal than Portland but to be here filled Abraham's heart with darkness.

This city needed God. Badly.
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*NOT ALL AMPHITHEATERS ARE CALLED THE COLOSSEUM

 

[Sonereal]

The Hall Forum of Philadelphia, despite nearly annually renovations, was too small to accommodate everyone who wanted to show up. There use to be a time where rule by everyone worked but that was back in the day where everyone in Philadelphia knew one another by name. Before the rise of the plantation owners and priests. Of course, the Tribune was still a powerful person in the city.

And why not? Tribune Maxwell's job came from the fact he was the guy that directs conversation and discussion in the City of Brotherly Love and to be fair, the priests and plantation owners don't have much power anywhere on the mainland.

Today's discussion?

"There is growing unemployment in the city. If I had to guess, one in four people here are out of work."

There was a rumble of agreement. Encouraged, Maxwell continued, "In Washington and New York, their forums are open to businesses and both cities have growing oppurtunities for professional craftsmen and engineers. We're a decent-sized city now. We're not like Boston or the other settlements! We have miners and farmers but we have sophistication like the Capital and New York. So, let's follow in their footsteps and expand, aight?"

Cheers! Of course. The 'aight' sealed the deal.
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John Henry may wear an eye-patch but his single eye sees more than the two-eyes of any other man. He was a master and the teenagers working under him were shipwright apprentices. Every three years, he would hand-pick 10 to apprentice under him and just having his name associated with them meant they can get hired at any naval yard in America....or even Japan.

Maybe that's why so many people flocked to New York but that of course wasn't true. That was just John Henry stroking John Henry's ego but damn if he wasn't living better than the cotton plantation owners of San Francisco and his native New York. Families pay big money to send their children to him. Scratch that, middle class families did.

It was a new year and his sharp eye was in full force. He spotted laziness among one student and the next day, he was sent packing....all the way back to Houston. No refunds. In three years, once this batch was out of his hair, he was going to move out.

To Suo probably. The dominance of galleys and triremes were coming to an end and he would soon need to learn how the new Japanese caravels are built. They're pretty big compared to triremes but that wouldn't be a problem.
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And finally there's the city of Washington. A little smaller than New, it stilled housed over a fifth of the entire 4.5 million people of America. What happened in the political parts of the Forum affected the nation as a whole. Always growing, the city boasts being a work of art. Its the only place besides New York where extravagance show of wealth isn't frowned upon.

 

[Kaar]

Now this is one interesting start.

 

[Sonereal]

Now for some screenshots. Yes, the Japanese have a ton of settlers. No, they're not really doing much with them except clogging up the waterways.

Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York make up the mainland. Chicago and Atlanta are honorary mentions since they're growing fast. Chicago has a decent-sized Japanese minority, as does New York. 2,981,543 people.

Seattle and Portland make up the Eastern Cities. Pretty straight forward but Portland is a prison colony while Seattle is a free, and highly profitable, city. Seattle has a sizable Japanese minority. Portland doesn't but for good reasons. 439,100 people

San Francisco and St. Louis make up the Old North. Smaller than other cities, they are still growing. San Francisco is a great source of cotton but is expanding into fishing and maybe even cattle. Most of the Japanese that live here are migrant workers. Mr. Ieyasu being a huge exception. 271,049 people

Buffalo and Miami make up the New North. Not much to say. They have a growing fishing industry but are far....far from the mainland. About a third of one percent of Americans live in this region. 162,630 people

Houston and Los Angeles make up the South. Los Angeles is less of a city and more of a military base with a town built around it while Houston is a smaller version of Seattle. The region has about the same population of the Old North.

*Note: Numbers aren't completely random but there is an intentional margin of error here.

 

[HammerandSickle]

Really awesome. Completely awesome, to be precise.

 

[Sonereal]

I really need to build more troops. An archer an trireme will need to be stationed in Portland just in case but more troops are needed in general. I only have 55,000 troops defending 4.5 million or so people. The problem is that I'm using Japanese iron and neglected on horse tech so if I started building mounted troops, they would just be chariot archers.

Also, in my infinte wisdom, I tried beelining gunpoweder but ran into the problem that writing isn't a required tech anywhere for the progression to gunpowder. Even physics and steel don't require writing.

Finally, I need to stay alligned with Japan. There's probably a runaway AI somewhere but I don't know where. Given that the map is Gigantic, he could be anywhere. The Greeks and Ottomans have already went down....somewhere.

 

[Sonereal]

"Father Abraham, a disciple has arrived from New York with the same news. It seems that temples are springing up across the mainland. Philadelphia, New York, and Washington all now have temples dedicated to various gods including a few heathen religions but its a start."

Father Abraham blessed the disciple and thanked him for the news (and tipped him a few coins for good measure). Hopefully the religious movement will spread here in Boston but Abraham highly doubt that it would finish quickly. City officials are too corrupt and it takes forever to get anything built around here. He looked around the temporary temple he stayed in. An abandon inn a month ago, Father Abraham bought it out and made a few modest renovations. Good enough for him to preach in at least.

Clank, clank, clank.

What in the world was that sound? Abraham opened the wooden doors to the window. After his eyes adjusted to the light, his jaw dropped.

Marching rhythmically and methodically in a tight box formation, troops were marching down the main street of Boston. The sound was their metallic, blue shields occasionally hitting their bronze chest plates. Their helmets sent the sunlight every which direction and their spears were as tall as the soldiers carrying them.

After a few minutes, the last troop marched pass the inn. All of them followed the road leading to the barracks. It's been a long time since he'd seen soldiers march in formation. The local garrison stayed to itself in the barracks or along the walls to the city.

"Wonder where those men are going." Abraham stated to the empty temple.
------

A few days later....

"Yep, Mr. Longstreet. Just telling you what I heard and saw with my own two ears."

Joseph frowned. The boy, young adult, whatever, named Timothy Davis is known for his honesty. He's also known for cracking jokes but his jokes are usually...almost always funny. The look in young Tim's eyes said 'I ain't lying about this'.

"So why did your Pa send you out here to tell me?"

"My pa has a friend who works in the Washington Forum. Nothing fancy, mind you, but he makes a living. He overheard a few officials talking about the Japanese worrying about our expansion or something like that. Do you think it gots to do with Beezeen?"

"Bizen," Joseph corrected, "The city's called Bizen."

"Whatever. Dad says that someday it's going to be called either 'ashes' or 'Freedom Town'." The boy laughed at his dad's joke. Could he really not connect the joke, the troop movements, and barracks being built smackdab in the center of Atlanta?
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Ron Wesley didn't like the wall they were building around Chicago. The dark wall surrounding the modest town that sat on a sea of green grass next to a sea of water looked alien. He knew he wasn't the only one that thought so. As he passed through the temporary checkpoint (the only entrance into Chicago), the guard shrugged his shoulders. "What can you do?" it said.

Life continued as normal in Chicago but at the same time, it didn't. There clearly was something wrong but no one could point out what it was. It wasn't the wall. It was something far greater than the wall.

And far more terrible.

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"They finally finished building that thing, didn't they?"

"Looks like it."

The fort stood on top of a hill near the Japanese-American border. Every since Bizen started up, they had been working on that stone monster called a fort. Heaven knows why.

Mr. Jefferson, an American and lesser cotton plantation owner, sighed, "It has a stable."

"How do you know that?" asked Tokugawa Ieyasu.

"A company of horsemen passed my plantation yesterday heading that way. The guy leading them wasn't happy though. One of the serfs overheard him swearing about the lack of a road."

"A road, eh?" Ieyasu's plantation was so successful because it had been built near a river. A short ferry trip and the goods were immediately in the city ready to be sold. "I don't see the point. Roads cost money. Manpower. And for what? Some fort in the middle of nowhere?"

"My thoughts exactly!" Ieyasu suppressed a smile. Jefferson's plantation was to the north of Ieyasu's and a road would've helped him out greatly. Of course, he didn't think of that. Who would? The American settlers out here don't think that far ahead.

 

[Sonereal]

In the spoiler are...spoilers. And by spoilers I mean world situation. I suggest not reading it if you just want to follow it from the POVs of the characters.

Spoiler :

Japan asked America to stop expanding near Japan. America said ok (since we weren't really) and things went on. Then I checked the demographics and saw that Japan has nearly a 100k troops while I'm edging near 55,000 troops. The Japanese had settled a city north of San Francisco which is why a fort is being built on the hill. Meanwhile (and coincindently), the open borders agreement ended. Has nothing to do with worsening relations given we're still trading cotton for iron (all of America's iron comes from Southern Japan) and horses (which we really don't need).

The troop movements and military projects being built are being put in place to have some defense against Japanese aggression. The plan is if a war breaks out, the IJN will be hopefully be defeated at sea or harrassed long enough for American troops to take Bizen and Suo. Bizen will be razed. Suo is up for grabs depending if it has wonders. If not, its out.

Anyone whose read Mistakes Have Been Made II probably know that I'm pretty crap when it comes to planning offensive wars but this war would be pretty defensive. Suo has a good source of horses which will need to be destroyed if war breaks out.

I'm not maneuvering into war however. A war near Chicago favors an aggressor in battle while a battle in San Francisco favors a defender. If troops land on the mainland, I'm in trouble. Meanwhile, I have several outlying cities so I need to increase the size of my navy greatly soon. Atlanta, Washington and Chicago are being geared to being troop centers while New York, Philidelphia, and later San Francisco will be big navy cities. Atlanta may be some day as well. Right now its my "early warning" station, as is Portland.

Japan and I are still pretty friendly. We both have a research agreement and PoC in place.

 

[Shakira42]

Enjoying the story. I really like the perspective from regular citizens.
Thanks for your efforts.

 

[Sonereal]

Enjoying the story. I really like the perspective from regular citizens.
Thanks for your efforts.

I'm humbled.

In any case (and this has nothing to do with the current playthrough yet), I think that Civ5 has expanded diplomacy in one way I didn't notice before.

It's possible to "demilitarize" a country or at least force it to use mostly self-defense units. Its as simple as demanding the civilization give you all its iron, oil, coal, uranium, etc. This can be pretty interesting in games where I'm not playing to win (this entire Mistakes Have Been Made series so far) since I often times don't like taking out other civilizations but don't want them to get away scotch free.

 

[Sonereal]

Once again, I'm screwed over by the game itself.

The damn thing won't load my save. No, really. It loads for thirty seconds and crashes. There's no reason why it should. I've loaded Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn games much larger and complex than this yet this one decides it won't load despite the fact my computer can run it pretty well.

Until that's fixed and the source is released. I'm just going to hold off with IV. Until then? *shrugs* Fable 3, Fallout: Las Vegas, Call of Duty: Black Ops I suppose.

 

[B-29 Bomber]

Once again, I'm screwed over by the game itself.

The damn thing won't load my save. No, really. It loads for thirty seconds and crashes. There's no reason why it should. I've loaded Rise of Mankind: A New Dawn games much larger and complex than this yet this one decides it won't load despite the fact my computer can run it pretty well.

Until that's fixed and the source is released. I'm just going to hold off with IV. Until then? *shrugs* Fable 3, Fallout: Las Vegas, Call of Duty: Black Ops I suppose.

It's Fallout: New Vegas, mate.

 

[Sonereal]

It's Fallout: New Vegas, mate.

You bumped this thread for that?

Thought, I was probably asking for it leaving it in my sig.

Yeah, I know. I keep saying Las Vegas for obvious reasons.