Red Seas - Archipelago Immortal England

[Waraddict]

"There I would often lie, as the sun went down, and watch the silent growth of another sea, which the stormy ocean of the wind could not disturb - the sea of the darkness. First it would begin to gather in the bottom of hollow places. Deep valleys, and all little pits on the hillsides, were wellsprings where it gathered, and whence it seemed to overflow, till it had buried the earth beneath its mass, and, rising high into the heavens, swept over the faces of the stars, washed the blinding day from them, and let them shine, down through the waters of the dark, to the eyes of men below."

George MacDonald, The Portent​

The queen and her advisers applauded to the performance of the bard. But the queen's applause was polite at best. She hated sunsets for they precede the coming of darkness. She would not ever admit it but she was scared of the dark. A fear coming from her early childhood that she never mastered.

But fear can sometimes be a strong motivation and encourages great things. She rose, a fiery glare in the eyes. Her voice was firm and resolute when she addressed her advisor and the rest of the tribe :

"We Britons from the tribe of England, will build an empire so wide that the sun will never sets on it. Light will shine upon us and darkness will be defeated."

Spoiler :

Archipelago, Standard size, Immortal, Marathon, Legendary resources, Sea level high, Raging barbarians. Patch : unlimited experience from barbarians v2.0

Civ in game : England (me), Ottoman, Polynesia, Byzance, Carthage, Songhai, Denmark, The Netherland.

Hello, one of my first immortal game and my first story. I hope you (and I) will enjoy it. PS, forgive my bad English, its not my native language

 

[Waraddict]

The Britons were in a march at the south east corner of a land mass. A very short river was running into the swamp while the sea around abounded with two rich fishing area. All around grassland except for two plains and two desert tiles. The area was desperately flat except for two hills clutched on the south coast. One, a desert, was home to a number of wild sheep while the other, forested, possessed a gold deposit. In the grassland one tile was hosting wild cattle and another a copper deposit. A lonelz forest could be found on the north west. Finally a lonely tiny island further south , a deseert hill, was harbouring a further gold deposit. A legendary start.

"We should settle here and build your palace Majesty" said one of the advisers.

The queen glared at him menacingly "Our feet are wet from this swamp, the stench is horrid and you want us to settle in this place? No thanks."

Another advisor took the opportunity to show his own greatness : "Her Majesty is right, we should not settle here. The gold hill west of here would be a better location. Settling there would mean a more productive and rich city, not even mentioning that we could exploit a further gold deposit on the island facing the city."

The queen raised an eyebrow as the comments of this second advisor were indeed wise. Nevertheless, the gold hill was at the bottom of the land mass meaning that further development of the city would be impaired by the lack of land. In addition, the gold hill was the only hill of the region that could be mined. Settling on it would definitely improve early development, but at the expense of the long term.

"There is another choice. Moving north to discover more land. The forest north west would be a suitable location. It is coastal and control most of the riches we discovered. We give up the gold island deposit, the river proximity, and we gain all the yet undiscovered land laying north, hopefully some hills, further luxuries or water resources. I admit its a gamble."

Actually the choice of the location of the palace was an early commitment to the way the empire would be expanded. Settling on the south coast would encourage a rapid expansion and the rapid founding of further cities while moving north, would be more of a commitment to the development of a single powerful city.

 

[Waraddict]

In the while the briton warrior discovered some ancient ruins. They contained ancien cultural knowledge that really boosted the english culture.

The queen finally took her decision. "We will move north west and found a city there. The name shall be London. We will research a way to store our food because this seem important to our development and .... we will build a monument to my glorious highness."

Spoiler :

Decided myself for a OCC opening. Might be the wrong choice, i didnt gained any valuable tile compared with the gold hill start.

Some of the adviser were not very pleased by the queen decision. A couple said their mind, implicating that the queen might have made a mistake. In her generous mercy, Elizabeth Glorianna listened politely to them before ordering them to be executed. This served as a lesson to the further advisors to tie their tongue when it had to do with the queen mistakes.

The brave warrior continued exploration and it was rapidly clear that the Britons were isolated on a small island. It also proved that the queen s decision wasnt totally wrong. Still it didnt revive the executed advisors.

Spoiler :

Yeee more luxuries

 

[smallfish]

Nice start. I think you could have settled on that gold hill instead, for better defensive value and two fish plus that sheep

 

[Waraddict]

The next 600 years were very quiet. The citz of Lonfon grew and its frontier expanded to engulf two grassland hosting wild cattle. If it definitly increased the growth rate of London, it did little to speed the constructions within the city. Nothing else much happened. It took ages to build the monument to the queen. About the same time Pottery was finally discovered and the britons started to research a way to store memories more efficient than oral transmission. Under the pressure of her folk, the queen ordered the construction of an Altar to the gods, because with so little happening, the folk needed some strong beliefs. But this took ages too ...

All along everything was going on peacefully and ... as we said slowly. Twice the queen was awake from he long sleep by cultural improvements. The brits adopted the values of ancien tradition and of liberty.

Spoiler :

Damn i hate production weak starts

Finally some rumors coming from outside england reached the realm. Somewhere, someone decided to honor a pantheon of gods. Well if believing in the gods can help them expand their frontier faster, lets hurry the construction of the Altar. Maybe the gods do actually exist and will provide us with some gifts.

 

[Waraddict]

Thanks for reading, Smallfish.

Indeed the gold hill start would have been faster production wise. Turn 43 and my sole source is an unimproved plain

It will be a wonder if i can grab a half decent pantheon.

 

[Waraddict]

As a bearded magician said about a hobbit community, this age was passing slowly and peacefully for the Britons.

The Altar was finished and the construction of a granary was initiated. Before it could be completed, brits researcher agreed on a complicated system of symbol they called writing. The granary project was abandoned to the profit of building a library.


Then the queen decided that it was time to make use of all this gold, copper and animals around the city. She ordered her people to research the matter, starting with the gold. In between the princip of citizenship was established, each dedicating a part of his time to the community, slowly after followed by the discovery of the republic. The queen would have liked his people to work on extracting gold, but they lacked the knowledge of how to do it, so a farm was built on the plain adjacent to the city instead.

Spoiler :

England at turn 90. Finally some



Culture feast !!

When the secrets of mining were finally discovered, the briton worker was send to extract gold while the researchers started to run after cows and sheep in an attempt to domesticate them.

More news from the outside world reached England. Another civilization develloped another pantheon dedicated to the goddess of fertility, while wonders of the ancient world like the pyramids and the Great library were built. A wanderer even managed to cross the seas and reported a comparison of the cultural advances of the existing civilisations. England proved surprisingly good, thank to the early discovery in the ruins.

Spoiler :

All those news from the outside world made Elizabeth and her people curious and after more than a millenia of isolation, an attempt was made to conquer the seas. As sign of the gods approvals, the britons created their own pantheon, choosing to worship the god of sea. And the god of sea smiled to them granting them the knowledge of sailing.

Spoiler :

Woooo ... wonders happen

The library was in between completed, as well as the granary. A trireme was built to go explore the world around England while researcher were activelly working on improving the ships to allow the embarcation of land units.

 

[Waraddict]

The time of isolation is finished as a half naked troop armed with dangerous unknow weapons that can throw small spears in the distance disembark on our coast. They are nevertheless frendly and we exchange embassy with the so called polynesian. We also sell them gold for 337 gold and 4 gpt. With the fresh money we buy a fishboat and improve the fish for a very nice tile production. A couple years later we will exchange a declaration of friendship with them.

Spoiler :

As soon as our trireme is finished we send her on exploration and meet a danish trireme, exchanging embassy at the same time.

Spoiler :

We also discover a couple new landmass, two ancient ruins the Gibraltar wonder. Whereas the sheep hill close from Gibraltar would prove a very nice location for a new city, controlling tree fish, two gold, one sheep and Gibraltar, the absence of any new luxury pose the question of happiness.

Spoiler :

The exploration of Denmark territory reveals a dane army that does not seem to be overgrown : a couple warriors, a couple archer and a single trireme. And they have two new luxuries, whales and wine. Mazbe conquest shall be better that settlement. The queen decide that it is about time to start our empire and impose naval superiority. The Danes are the only threat to us and we shall deal with them, conquering their riches in the process.

After tricking the Danes into buying us copper with the meager treasure they had we declared war on them and send our courageous trireme assaulting the city of Aarhus. After a couple succesful raids spaced with frequent repairs in London, our trireme is promoted and soon, bring us shiny gold with every raid. The danes seem too stupid to properly defend their city with archers.

Spoiler :

Our resercher have finaly found a way to embark land troops and our warrior is send exploring the two ancient ruins our trireme spotted before. In the ruins we find ancient knowledge of trapping, which is not of immediate use and some survivors willing to join our empire.

Spoiler :

Our domestic construction is also improving as we claim with money the fishing area around England and install fishing boats there. Soon we start the production of a lighthouse that will settle our food production. Our settler is now working on domesticating the various animals for a further production benefit.

Spoiler :

Research wise, we have discovered optic, Calendar, and we are now researching philosophy in hope to be able to further increase our research rate. Of course before this research is complete we will have time to built two, maybe tree triremes to establish our naval domination.

Spoiler :

Feel free to comment on this game, indicating what i could have done better for instance. Also at this point would you settle further city without access to additional luxury or not ? I guess i will wait the free settler and settle the sheep hill that would be a great Petra city.

 

[God of Kings]

You do not need to include the "Uploaded with ImageShack.us" tag at the end of each set of pictures. You can remove them, as that distracts the reader from your story.

Otherwise, your story is interesting.

 

[Waraddict]

Four Triremes could be built before the discovery of Philosophy, raising our total number of ships to five. One was lost early in the war against the Dane but the other four survived getting heavilly promoted with pillage III, Healing and even the Embarqued combat for two of them. Countless ennemy trireme, poorly commanded were sank.

Naval war, or should i say continual raiding of the city of Aarthus lasted for over a milenia yielding a reliable revenu from the pillaging of ennemy cities. Two Admiral were born during the war and were sent to explore the ocean long before Astronomy was discovered. Contact and most importantly trade could thereby be initiated with the other civilisations. A number of City states were also discovered.

Spoiler :

Once the war fleet was built, London returned to more peacefull constructions. The national college was built. A temple was bought with the amassed gold. Then came the time for a great project that occupied London for many years. During that time, representation was adopted for the good of the british empire that lived a golden age. Archery and Theology were researched and discovered.

Spoiler :

Further to the adoption of collective rule, the city of York was founded, its frontier rapidly expanded by buying many tiles, only to produce more gold to be sold for more money and more tiles aquisitions. After the completion of the Oracle, London produced several fishing boat to help the newly founded city to devellop faster.

Spoiler :

Then, the empire reached a moment of glory. Meritocracy was adopted by the britons, and a great engineer was born in London. He travelled to York and constructed the Hagia Sophia, giving a boost to the slow develloping pantheon of the god of seas. Religions had already been founded and even develloped around the world. And emerging from the Hagia Sophia, a great prophet took a sea pilgrimmage to London were he found a new religion. The Taoism, professing Ceremonial burial and the the build of Pagoda as a sign of worship of the ancien god of sea.

Spoiler :

Soon, a cornerstone technology for naval warfare would be develloped. Compass will allow a new type of warship that would turn the war from raiding to actual naval invasion. At least that was the plan. The future will say if it worked.

 

[Waraddict]

With the new warships, the mighty galeasses, the briton took a decisive advantage in war. Only tree of the new ships were enough to turn the tide of war. Aarhus falled first and was razed to the ground. Copenhagen resisted a few years more but was eventualy conquered, signing the complete defeat of Harald the Vicking.

Spoiler :

The take of Copenhagen left the Royal Navy without war assignement and for the first time in millenium England knew peace. It didnt lasted long tho ... a few years after Carthage, The Ottoman and Songhai declare war on us while a couple more civilizations denounced us. They probably were scare by the might of our Navy and the anihilation of Denmark.

The take of copenhagen further provided the Empire with wine and a lot of whales wich were sold to the few trade partners we still had. Fortunatly, The Ottoman and Songhai soon realized that wide oceans were separating us and that none of us could do any harm to the others. And we signed peace only to resume our ancient frienship and trades agreements.

Only Carthage decided to push war on us. And they were pretty badly prepared when our researchers discovered Astronomy. Our four trireme were upgraded to caravelles and renamed for the occasion HMS London, HMS York, HMS Nottingham, HMS Hastings. The caravel fleet sailed toward Carthage and the city of Hippo Regius that was taken and razed to the ground before the ennemy forces could reclaim it.

During all this time London and York had been working on our economy and infrastructure. Colisseum, University were built in both city as well as the Circus Maximus in London.

Spoiler :

A great prophet was born and develloped Taoism, only to provide more happiness to the people of England. Soon missionaries converted York, Copenhagen which was a faithless city and Nottingham. With the increase in the available luyuries, a third city was founded close to the ruins of Aarhus. On a much better location, controlling the Great reef barrier, Horses and Copper. The city was small but impacted positively our scientific output.

Spoiler :

Domestic defense was also a matter. Our faithfull warrior was still our only land based troop and the queen decide to remedy this by ordering the garisoning of composite bowmens in every city. Our spies were assigned to protect London from ennemy spies and to steal technologies in Byzantium. He was a great success as he could steal several technologies which let us upgrade the composite bowmens into Longbowmens.

Before we researched Navigation to further set our control of the seas, we researched Iron working as soon we would need the strong metal to upgrade our Galeasses into the mighty Ships of the line. To our dispointment no iron deposit was enclosed in our border. One was even lying just out of reach of York, the other had been engulfed by the city state of Jerusalem. With few years remaining we rushed a settler and founded the city of Hasting. The location was all but nice but the city had a single purpose : provide Iron to the empire. The deposit was poor and could only provide with two Irons.

Spoiler :

That proved enough to upgrade an rename two of our galeasses into the HMS Royal Ark and the HMS Royal Prince. Faced with the might of our new ships, the city of Carthage feel. Delivering to us Silver a a very rich deposit of Iron.

Spoiler :

The city of Hasting was not needed anymore and plans were made to trade it to another civilization. The city was hopeless and had served its only purpose. Now that our Iron supply was insured in Carthage Hasting only took away from the happiness of the empire for no good.