Update One:
Foundations
c. 500 years
In the northernmost region of this cradle of civilization, the Chenche of the Queki quickly grew tireless of their limited power base and sought to increase it. However, the three dominant Queki cities of the Chenche, Jure, Kokulen, and Aseneik, went about gaining more power in different ways. Jure expanded south/southwest to the river trying to increase their agricultural output, which only marginally increased its population and to a lesser amount than expected. Kokulen also expanded to the river, except to the east, but instead of trying to utilize the possible increase in output a river could provide, they rather built ships, and explored and colonized along the river, even bringing revelation to the Kerana downriver by briefly contacting them.
Aseneik, in shark difference to their neighbors, focus somewhat inwards, developing what land they currently had, refining their agricultural techniques and introducing a new crop, corn, which had been discovered to the northwest. The Aseneik Chenche also made great efforts to convert Jure to Juniljuk, an effort that largely failed until recent events made this much easier. That is because the Aseneik had united the Queki peoples.
Since their formation, each Queki city state conducted raids against each other; however, raids by Aseneik against Kokulen eventually turned into a full scale invasion by more than 7,000 spearmen and assorted support soldiers who gradually overran Kokulen. Aseneik then consolidated its gains, but many Kokulen colonies were neglected, for the Chenche Jure, being wiser than Kokulen, saw that Aseneik aggression would not stop with just Kokulen, and thus preemptively declared war and quickly put the Aseneik capital under siege. However Metilmati Hungut, the Aseneik Chenche, had prepared for such an occasion, and unleashed a new horse driven device that had been recently invented, the chariot, which along with the small garrison of the capital, managed drive off the besiegers, but only was able to simply delay the besiegers from capturing the capital. Help didn’t appear until Metilmati Hungut and the main Aseneik army was able to travel back from the former Kokulen lands and meet the Jure Chenche and Army in the field, which was quickly routed, and the Jure Chenche, who had commanded the army in person, killed. Afterwards, the Jure war effort simply collapsed, with lesser Chenche formerly of Jure declaring their allegiance to Metilmati Hungut and Aseneik.
(-Kokulen, -Jure, -2,500 Aseneik Infantry, -30 Aseneik Chariots, +Conversion of all Queki to Juniljuk)
Now with Queki people united under Aseneik, many are now calling the current period a golden age, as many Kokulen colonies are being reclaimed and with contact Kerana very recently reestablished, profitable trade has began to commence between the two, especially with the economy booming directly as a result of the recent population boom from the advance Aseneik agriculture techniques being spread throughout allowing some peasants to become artisans who along with workmen have begun construction grand temples for the Chenche.
Speaking of Kerana, they for the most part lived alone in the world and slowly developed their economy, most noticeably by fishing the Paavali extensively and by using nearby stone quarries that were discovered to build some of the most magnificent buildings in the world. Chief among these the Epic Mausoleum of Dead Kings, which, although it took over a century to build and compete, is to all who have seen it, most certainly the most beautiful building in the world, and has gone a long way to increase the fanaticism of the Kerana Ancestor Worship. Contact with the Kokulen and later with Aseneik brought revelation to Kerana that there was other civilization in this world, but strangely no major action or change in policy was taken by Kerana, other than starting the already mentioned trade route with Aseneik.
Directly east of the Kerana, the competitive Tsauaod acted quite unknowingly like the Aseneik and focused inward making many of the same improvements in agriculture but also greatly improving their mining techniques. These combined with natural population growth allowed the amount of silver mined out of the mountains to nearly triple, which proved to be extremely lucrative when contact and trade was established with the Havaltai. Recently, small kingdoms and chiefdoms have arisen between Tsauaod and Havaltai and have further increase the profits reaped from trade downriver, and also limited the affect that the wars of the south have had on trade.
I will save these southern wars for last, and instead go to Tsauaod’s distant relatives, the Srebigo, who mined and traded as much as ever. However, the trade proved to be even more lucrative when agriculture was gradually adopted to their mountainous homelands, and they became somewhat self supporting and less grain needed to be imported, but large amounts were still needed to replace the food lost by peasants who instead mined in the copper and tin mines or by the many warriors who frequently raided the tribes and small chiefdoms that gathered around lake Zreva. Soon after when it became obvious that there was soon very little left to plunder around the lake, a rather disorganized occupation of the lands that were once raided began, and eventually the entirety of the coastline was occupied except for what the Vo Lov occupied themselves. Noticeable attempts were also made to explore the Hreva Mountainous, but these and those involved were deemed a failure for only discovering more endless mountains.
(+1 EP for Srebigo due to Plunder)
South of Srebigo, the Vo Lov continued to dominate the vital trade routes between Srebigo and the increasingly large Bronze Age world, especially as contact with Havaltai was made. The Vo Lov slowly expanded southwest along the Kevlea River to the first major fork in the river and around Lake Zreva. Soon, the Council of Olve tried to cut down on corruption, and a large bureaucracy was created as a means to that end, but while corruption has been limited, some say that elements of the bureaucracy itself are corrupt. A side effect of the creation of this bureaucracy is that Vo Lov overall has become very efficient and organized compared to the rest of the known world. This has allowed a new idea of the council, currency, to start to spread rapidly throughout the country, and recently into the trade routes. This has cause trade to reach unprecedented levels, especially when silver from Havaltai merchants was made the standard material of the currency of what was for very long time, the richest nation in the world.
Now, to the southern wars, which seem to occupy the rest of known world, but this is mostly due to the fact, that the chief architect of these wars, the Aivastai (Council) of Havaltai are in the center of it. Initially however, Havaltai peacefully developed internally a agricultural output was increased through new techniques that been discovered here as well as throughout the world, which allowed some of the populace to become artisans, workmen, and engineers. Infrastructure and temples to the Havalta Polytheism were all built, a small bureaucracy created, and the military vastly reformed, which soon allowed it to become the best trained and organized military in the world. It was immediately put to use since Havaltai started to constantly expand along the Kevlea to the north and south, and later to the east when rumors of a western river were investigated and turned out to be true. However, the massive spending required for these advancements nearly bankrupted the Havaltai state, but the development of trade routes with the Tsauaod and assorted smaller countries to the north, with Turdeta and Vo Lov to south, and with the Kelgorohhinth of the east brought Havaltai into the center of three great trade routes in the world, and that is, into most of the trade in the world, and soon the empty treasury was more adequately refilled.
By this point, Havaltai was agreeably the great country in the world, for it soon surpassed Vo Lov if only for its great strategic position in the trade routes, but the Aivastai soon wanted to cement themselves as the greatest power the world has ever seen, and so they went on the warpath. Using the wealth from trade, they financed the largest, best equipped, and best trained military in the world, and sent it out in all directions. To the north and along the Kevlea River, many infant countries were crushed, simply to young and weak to put up much more than a feeble resistance. To the south, the largest force was sent, expanding almost to the first major fork in the river, while raids against Turdeta, Vo Lov, and Srebigo were sent out. Lastly, a major force was sent west to the Paavali River, but this time, the Havaltai soldiers and officers came against the much more organized resistance of the Kelgorohhinth. Here, the first defeat fell upon Havaltai, for the more numerous Inth combined with their better archers allowed them to simply overwhelm the Havalta army and win a strategic victory, though the casualties were very disproportionate. However, instead of retreating, Havaltai simply expanded further up north away from Kelgorohhinth, and still managed to secure connections between the two great rivers. Havaltai is now clearly the superpower of the world, but one wonders how long it can keep up its continuous expansion on all fronts before internal cracks begin to appear?
(-2000 Havaltai Infantry, -500 Havaltai Mounted from all campaigns, -3000 Kelgorohhinth Infantry)
Kelgorohhinth, for their own part expanded rapidly like Havaltai, but instead of strengthening themselves internally, neglected their economy, and the signs have gradually begun to tell. The massive army used to almost quintuple its size around the Paavali and between the mountains to the northwest and southeast have drained the treasury and economy, the latter already weakened by numerous raids from hostile tribes nearby. Many breathed an ironic sigh of relief when victory over the Havaltai aggression was achieved, for over almost a third of the army had been killed and no longer had to be supported, but Kelgorohhinth is still at a turning point. They have a large amount of land and a huge population, but one that is still stuck in agriculture and is beginning to slide towards rebellion, and the large army still burdens the economy, and any attempt to increase it without developing economy first would be most certainly suicidal, yet with hungry powers such as Havaltai and Acolhnahuacatahkushtal nearby, doing so may not be an option. These are indeed troubling times for Kelgorohhinth.
Acolhnahuacatahkushtal had a remarkably similarly policy as Kelgorohhinth, with rapid expansion to the west and north, but had the foresight to invest more in their own economy. They also managed to support their rapid expansion by raiding and plundering from those who couldn’t, Kelgorohhinth. At its peak, one would have thought that most of the Acolhnahuacatahkushtal tribes and confederations were at war with Kelgorohhinth, and perhaps they were, but Acolhnahuacatahkushtal numbers were limited, and occupation was not an option, and eventually the Kelgorohhinth learned to maintain a large border force with Acolhnahuacatahkushtal and the raids died down, but the damage was done to Kelgorohhinth. Recently, some more naval oriented Acolhnahuacatahkushtal tribes, which have made noticeable improvements in ship quality, have either established colonies or simply sailed across the sea to lands neighboring Emitaru but found the land to be no improvement over their homeland, and if anything, more arid.
(+1 EP for Acolhnahuacatahkushtal from plunder)
Emitaru, despite neighboring Kelgorohhinth, has had none of the troubles that are brewing just over the border spill over into their lands, and have peacefully developed their country. Expansion occurred general in all directions, and an extensive road system was built to connect it. Exploration was also made around the mountains to the west, and sightings of a civilized peoples on eh other side of the mountains were made, but no formal contact has been made. Most significantly, the Emitaru made many advances in metallurgy that have inadvertently led to a boom in the creation of magnificent pieces of copper metalworking, many of which fetched a high price on the Paavali Delta trade routes.
Last of all, Turdeta prudently secure its main source of income, the fruits around the south of the Kevlea delta, and soon were able to domesticate them, and thus, the need for the last vestiges Turdeta had of its former hunter gather lifestyle were gone, and the gathers or old slowly melted into society. However this was of little notice to the theocracy, who were concentrating on the tribes along the river to the north who were to be converted to the worship of Gaia, and these tribes were converted easily enough, and were essentially annexed. This however, brought Turdeta into conflict with Vo Lov, which had expanded to the land just northeast of these newly converted tribes, and had the intention of continuing to expand. Armies were raised, and sent to the fork in the delta, even in number, training, and in experience using bronze weapons. Turdeta though, possessed one thing that Vo Lov didn’t, fanaticism for their religion, Triad, which provided enough incentive for the Turdeta Swordsmen to give the final effort that won the decisive battle of the conflict and allowed Turdeta to keep the fork in their possession. Yet, with a large Havaltai army gradually moving down the Kevlea, how long will Turdeta be able to retain control of these lands before blood will again have to be split to keep them?
Notes:
Sorry about the whole orders debacle. I only mentioned it in the first place just to avoid giving some BS excuse to explain why the update had yet to appear. This turn, I’ll give some orders as examples of what to do, overhaul the BT order structure, and explain the setting for this turn in more detail. Also, because I was feeling guilty about it, I was a nice moderater this turn.
The reason Havaltai was so successful this turn was because NK sent the best orders, Havaltai is extremely rich off of trade, as it has 36 trade, compared to Vo Lov, the next highest, with 19, and the fact that this turn was 500 years, which is plenty of time to do things like NK planned.
Something I learned this turn, is that I’m a very slow updater, considering I put about 12 hours of work I put in this. Maybe some of that was because this was my first official update, or because I had a loose guide for doing to update, which needs to be overhauled to, but still, I’m slow.
The deadline for order will be Friday the 17th, at 6:00 AM EST.
Preliminary stats will be up soon, the NPCs have not been put in stats or the map, so they will change, though not by much.
Current Trade Routes:
LPD: Lower Paavali Delta
SKR: Southern Kevlea River
NKR: Northern Kevlea River
UPR: Upper Paavali River
Some of you will notice that you have 0 for available spending, that is because that some of you have large armies with their maintanence costs which are about equal to what your combined domestic and trade economies put out. Decrease the former or increase the latter and you'll have some spending again.
Countries with chariots, like Aseneik, have the prices of 200 mounted units for 1 EP, while other countries who have horsemen have 500 mounted units for 1 EP. Now, you can switch between the two if you want(All countries have horsemen as default), but only if you have both. However, expect knowledge of chariots to defuse south along the trade routes rather quickly.
Lastly, noticed that many of you got ECs(Which are red), and even TCs(Which are green), yet I didn't mention it in the update like I did last update. That was a one time thing, and now I'm just letting the stat calculator auto calculate them like its suppose too, which is hard to explain in the update why they appeared as something other than just economic growth which all are, so I won't even try. This also applies for Religious Centers.
Map: