Jason The King
Deity
Update IV
1700bc-1200bc
As the world of civilization matured, a new age began. The Age of Iron would so drastically change the life of man that the years before would hardly be recognizable, lost to the annals of history and legend. With the Age of Iron comes a huge population boom, one the world has never seen before. With more people come more trade, more culture, and more wars. The geography of nations is forever changed by the use of this substance, giving rise to a new world, amongst new possibilities.
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We begin with first use of iron, in 1737b.c. Naaria. Here the isolationist ways of the people have brought about independent development and a strong cultural bond. Within this atmosphere the first use of iron is recorded in the countryside as blacksmiths forge iron farm equipment. The technology is quick to spread to Saxonia, Naaria’s only trade partner, where the practice of forging the metal is put to use for swords and spears. A brief war takes place between the two trade partners, leading to the sacking of Naar and the burning of the grand temple. The Naarians are barely able to repel the Saxons, but have in the process tasted expansionism. Centuries pass before a new unorthodox King named Tschar takes the throne in Naar, building an army of his own and setting forth against the Saxons a second time in 1406 b.c. The campaign is brief; the Saxons easily repel the Naarian green army, and Tschar instead marches north, conquering the sparse Celtic and Nordic tribes along the coast of the Baltic Sea. With the influx of Celtic culture and people within the Kingdom, Tschar is overthrown by his own people upon his victorious return to Naar and a more orthodox king is reinstated on the throne in 1464 b.c., where descendents remain today. Naaria again returns to isolationism, this time without any trade at all. The systematic removal of the remainder of Nordic and Celtic tribes from the new land in the north has brought stress upon the integrity of the nation, but the people are strong and unified, their culture unique, and their motives strong.
Meanwhile to the east barbaric tribes begin appearing using crude iron weapons and riding horseback. This new danger has prompted the construction of mighty forts along the eastern border, designed by the famous temple-builders of Naar, and so far have proven very worthwhile against the raging Huns and Turks.
Finally having the upper hand on the Celtic barbarians that raid the land, Saxonia enters a period of rapid expansion from 1390b.c. to the present, conquering huge tracks of land to the west, eventually reaching the Rhine River.
It was at this point when the Celts collectively realized their trouble. A charismatic young Celt, now known as Barille the Uniter, came to fame during this time after winning several battles with the Saxons in his tribe near the Rhine. His work would soon take him away from the Rhine and instead all across what is known as Gaul, uniting the individual Celtic tribes into a Gaulic Confederation. The new centralized power has helped civilize some of these Celts and has even organized an army. The wars still rage with the Saxons, the Celts relying on sheer numbers and will-power to keep the Saxons at bay.
At the same time, connections between the mainland of Europe and the British Isles increase dramatically, leading to the formation of a well-traveled trade route linking the Saxon coastal towns to cities like London and beyond.
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Just a few hundreds miles north the British Isles sit, almost completely in their own little world, beset with their own problems. The last of the Celts on the main island were conquered by the Scots in 1654, and for almost 300 years since the British and Scots have been at war. Bent on dominating the island, the Scots have undertaken campaign after campaign against the British, once breaking through and even besieging London before a plague decimated their troops and they were forced to withdraw. It was in this atmosphere that the first outside contact was made with the Isles, a raid by Norsemen on the eastern coast of the Scots in 1330. It wasn’t the fact that the whole village was destroyed, its people murdered, that caught the attention of the Brits and Scotts, it was the iron axes and spears used by the marauders to destroy the garrison. Only ten years passed before another, much larger raid reached the coast of Britain, burning a large fishing village and killing nearly five hundred defenders. At this point the Scotts and Brits decided to stop bickering and instead focused on the origin of these mysterious people.
The Norsemen began a full out invasion of the island in 1304, pouring into the gently rolling hills of the southern part. Britain was unprepared for such an onslaught, and was systematically defeated in every major encounter. London was soon captured, the King dethroned, and a new Norse kingdom proclaimed under the Norse king, Harold II. The Norse reigned for almost 50 years before a combined Scottish and Irish force, now equipped with the same iron technology the Norse possessed, defeated the Nordic army at the Battle of Cambridge. By now, though, the small British population is dwarfed by the Norse settlers who came in droves from Norseland, so the British king installed by the Scotts and Irish failed to hold power for more than five years. Instead a new King, of Norse descent, has proclaimed the Kingdom of Jorvik in former British lands, and has broke off all political ties with the Norse.
The Éire in the meantime enjoy their new found unity after striking a deal with the major Irish dissidents and forming a confederation with power based in Dublin. The Confederation got off to a shaky start, including a civil war lasting nearly a decade before a King was reinstalled with basic powers for keeping the Confederacy united. From 1400 on, the Éire enjoyed quick economic growth, mostly fueled by increased trade with their larger neighbors to the east. When the Norse came in 1304, the Éire were quick to claim neutrality. It wasn’t until Scotland was under pressure that Éire formed an alliance with the Scotts and helped push the foreigners out of Britain. The Confederation now has opened up trade with the Jorvic, and has even had limited contacts with the Saxons and Gauls.
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As we move south, across the Great Pyrenees Mountains and into the plains of Iberia, we enter a part of the world that has seen the most rapid population growth over the past centuries. Early in 1600s the two civilized nations, Spain and the Balearic Kingdom, both armed with superior iron weapons and armor, finally defeated the Tartessian menace once and for all, conquering the lands and enslaving the inhabitants. Upon this victory, Spain especially increased in power, dominating the whole of the peninsula and even as far south in Africa as to the Atlas Mountains.
Such a powerful kingdom, so widespread and yet still so primitive, could not last for long. Internal squabbles, frontier rebellion, and a small war against the Ligurians all contributed to the fracturing of the empire into separate states across Iberia and North Africa. Most still retain their Spanish ruling class, with millions of Tartessians, Fez, Berbers and others still under the power of a Spanish monarch.
After the fracture in 1480, Spain proper went through a major reformation. Three weak kings in a row led to the falling of Veran dynasty and the rise of the world’s first true republic, headquartered in Sevilla, and aptly named the Republic of Sevilla. The government is made up of elected officials from each province tied together in a small court, where they must come into agreement for various taxes, laws, and other things related to running a nation. Of course only rich, land-owning Spaniards make up the electorate, but it was essentially a republic.
United by their new faith in the republic, the army marched north in 1394 to begin re-conquering their lost provinces. The break-away city of Madrid was their first target, the smallest of the rebellious provinces, and the weakest choice. The Army of the Republic, as it was soon called, met the Madrid partisans at the border – and suffered a humiliating defeat. Inept generals, bad geography, untrained soldiers and the weather all contributed to the loss of the battle, the Republic suffering thousands of losses, but even worse, the loss of support from its army and people. A counterattack launched by Madrid destroyed what was left of the Army of the Republic in 1392. The war cost Sevilla its northern, fertile frontier and ended up leading to the downfall of the Republic in 1375.
The next hundred and fifty years was a time of chaos in Spain, with a different government rising in Sevilla every ten years, sometimes more frequent. It wasn’t until 1211 when a young Spaniard by the name of Eduardo came to power, seizing the throne from a 2-year-old Senate and uniting the army under his command, claiming ancestry from the almost forgotten Veran blood. With new found morale and courage, the army marched north, defeating the Madrid army decisively and re-conquering what was lost almost two centuries before and accomplishing what the Republic failed to do – the capturing of Madrid. Renaming his country to the Eduardian Empire, Eduardo continued his war into neighboring Castile, capturing the capital of Salamanca within a year and decisively defeating the Castilian army three times since.
The rest of the former-Spanish kingdom consists of Navarre, a mostly Basque-nation tucked in the far north, and Aragon in the north-east. Of all the former provinces, the small Kingdom of Aragon has done the best, having the highest Spanish-to-native population ratio, and retaining strong contacts with the Balearic Kingdom in the form of a lucrative trade agreement. In Africa, the Kingdoms of Ceuta (in the west) and Cabro (in the east) remain. The Kingdom of Ceuta, named after the large Spanish-settled city of Ceuta, retains most of its trade with the Eduardian Empire, while Cabro, named after the man who liberated the country and became its first King, has drifted more towards the Balearic sphere.
The history of the rest of the Western Mediterranean is dominated by the wars of Liguria and the Balearics. Already at the beginning of the 1600s the Ligurians began competing for dominance over the Latin and Etruscan city-states of the Italian peninsula, though still lacking any serious power or resources to outdo the Balearics. During the 1500s, though, while the Balearics were busy with wars in Iberia and Africa, the Ligurians launched a campaign a hundred years in the making, marching along the coast and conquering the first Etruscan city-state, throwing off trade with the Balearics. Not having the ability to counter-act with their responsibilities lying elsewhere, the Balearics turned a blind eye.
In 1430 the Ligurians again launched a campaign, this time against the Latin city-state of Rome, which had grown quite independent and culturally-advanced compared to even Liguria. The campaign was initially a success, but this time the Balearics had the power to respond, sending an army to Rome and defeating the Ligurians in 1421. In the years following the defeat in Rome, Liguria concentrated on expanding its control over Celtic lands to the east and west, outside of the Italian peninsula, and so avoiding the attention of the Balearic Kingdom. The tribes were conquered easily enough, though the Ligurians were still limited by the daunting Alps to the southern region.
After consolidating their power and reinforcing their ranks with Celtic warriors, the Ligurians again launched an invasion of Rome, the city now having grown to immense proportions, its culture highly influential in both the Balearics and Liguria. Nosotoism, a highly-influential religion stemming from the Romans has spread across the region, completely engulfing the Ligurians and the eastern provinces of the Balearics. The Roman language and writing is also standard in almost all trade transactions throughout the Ligurian and Balearic world, even stretching to the Kyprisian sphere, though we’ll talk about them a bit later. In any case, Rome became a highly-desired target, attracting the Ligurians a second time, and again becoming the battleground of the two great powers in the region at that time. In 1321 the Second Battle of Rome took place, this time the sides a little more even. Though still superior on the sea, the Balearics lacked the numbers in their army that the Ligurians had mustered, being forced to retreat after heavy losses to the southern half of the peninsula. Rome, again in Ligurian hands, proceeded to prosper in any case. Tensions still remain high to this day between Liguria and the Balearic Kingdom, and with the again-rising Eduardian Empire, who’s to say what will happen next in this small corner of the world?
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At the port of Palermo, a Kyprisian trading ship takes us east, back towards the beginning of civilization and into the waters of the Kypris Empire. The eastern Mediterranean has seen its share of wars and plagues, so lets us begin.
We start with the Greeks, who, before 1700, dominated the Aegean. Possessing the largest gathering of cities in the world, the Greeks were adept well adept at trading and building mathematics. It was the Macedonians, though, who made the first move. A large campaign in 1620 captured Thebes and besieged Thens, the capital of Grease. The army had already been routed, and it seemed that Thens would fall, only being supplied with food from sea and barely holding on. It was then that the Greek diplomat Armenis created the Delphi League, an alliance between Grease and Troy. Together the Trojans and Thenians pushed back the Macedonians and restored normal borders before making peace.
Three centuries passed with relative peace. Thens prospered as the major cultural center in the eastern Mediterranean, influencing even Kypris and mighty Yamkhad with its language and art. But alas, the peace would not last. Macedonia, sitting idly and preparing for nearly three centuries, descended once more upon Greas, this time burning to the ground both Thebes and Delphi, and threatening to even burn Thens itself. The city was once again besieged in 1301, and with the Trojans busy elsewhere and Kypris remaining neutral, the Greeks were alone. It was then that again the Greeks were sparred disaster, as a terrible plague swept across Macedonia and northern Grease, killing hundreds of thousands, and causing internal collapse in Pella. The Macedonians were forced to retreat and the Greeks pursued. With the Trojans finally able to aid once more in 1298, a joint army invaded Macedonia and captured Pella, its population seriously decreased. Macedonia soon collapsed, falling within the Greek realm.
But there was still not to be peace just yet. While the Greeks were fighting Macedon in the later part of the 1300s, Troy was unable to help because she was under attack by the Racedonians in Anatolia. A highly expansionistic Racedonia had been growing and expanding, but her history will be detailed in relation with Yamkhad at a later time. The war left Troy devastated economically, and forced the collapse of the Delphi League after the destruction of Macedonia. That is why when Racedonia invaded Greek Macedonia in 1258, the Trojans sat out.
The war went bad for the Racedonians, but even worse for the Greeks. The territory was almost inhospitable, let alone grounds for major battles and housing large armies. On top of that, the Macedonian Plague again reared its ugly head in the midst of the fighting, severely reducing both armies by thousands. Both Thens and Ranopolis realized the pettiness of further fighting and signed a monumental peace treaty in Troy, creating the Kingdom of Thrace as a buffer nation. Thrace would not be allowed to enter into any military agreement with either Grease or Racedonia, nor any other outside power, and would not be allowed to expand its borders by any means. The creation of Thrace in 1231 has so far kept the peace, but how long will both countries play by their own rules? Will the recuperation of the Trojans underwrite the Treaty of Troy?
In 1700 the Yamkhad Empire was arguably the strongest, most powerful Empire in the world. Held together by a Hurrian elite class and governed by a King and the Charioteers, the Empire stretched from the northern Mersinians to the border of Judea, from the Mediterranean to the Baybalonians. Even an empire as powerful as the Yamkhads falls, and so did the Yamkhad, collapsing due to overstretchment and internal squabbles, much like the Spanish in the west. Most of the conquered land was given up back to the barbarians, or turned into small independent states, ruled by individual Charioteers or warriors who were granted land in exchange for fighting for Yamkhad in earlier years.
But let us start from the beginning. Yamkhad, past its zenith in the 1700s, was on a rapid decline during the 1600s. Petty kings, strong special interests, outside invasion all culminated in the complete dissolution of the kingdom by about 1610, when the kingdom was so stratified that it ceased to be a kingdom at all, but more resembled numerous successor tribes and petty city-states. This dark period persisted for almost a hundred years, until in 1512 when a Mitanni warrior by the name of Aikatarna ceased control of Halab and proclaimed himself the first emperor, or “Samrag” of the Halaban Empire. Utilizing the new reformist Teshup cult that has been spreading like wildfire across the eastern Mediterranean as a uniting force, Aikatarna imposed a revolutionary code of laws and government upon Halab and the surrounding territories he controlled.
Possessing a new army and being at the seat of the Teshupian holy city, Aikatarna proceeded to create himself an empire. From Halab, the Samrag brought his army north; reconquered most of the lands lost to the Mersinians, and even fought the Racedonians for control over Tilal, an important military location in the northwest. From the north, Aikatarna campaigned southeast, reaching the Tigris and Euphrates at about the same time southern Babylon had fallen to the Hadhramis, people from Hadhramaut, a rapidly rising kingdom from the deserts in the south. The Hadhramis possess very skilled camelry, quick infantry, and numerous soldiers. Their empire stretches along the Red Sea coast all the way to the capital, Hadhra in the far south of the Arabian Peninsula. It is the largest empire on Earth, partly due to its ease of governance and the sparsely populated countryside.
Aikatarna now, in 1491, controls an empire that stretches from the high Caucus mountains in the north, to the city of Babylon in the east, to the Judean border in the south and the Kyprisian trading waters in the west. It was then that Aikatarna finally turned his attention south against the ever-resilient Judeans, annoying the Halabi map of the region. With an army of almost 20,000 men against a meager 5,000 Judeans, the Halabi were poised to win a momentous victory. That is, before the Hadhrami attacked and sacked Babylon, and a combined Kyprisian-Judean alliance defeated Aikatarna’s army in the Levant, even before it could respond to the Hadhrami. In 1489, Kypris, annoyed at the subtle trade war going on with Halabi merchants in the Aegean and Nile, and insulted when Halabi forces did not aid the surrounded Kyprisian colonists in Anatolia, and also due to a militaristic king on the throne, finally decided to join with the Judeans and Hadhrami in a campaign to bring down the Halabi.
With the destruction of his army and the invasions of both the Levant and Mesopotamia regions, Aikatarna decided on the best course of action was to return to Halab and make some diplomatic rules. Immediately dispatches were sent to Egypt and Mennafor, the only neutral nations left still friendly to Halab. The response from Egypt was saddening, but it seemed Mennafor had been waiting for a chance to strike at Kyprisian colonies so annoyingly close to her borders. And so with an agreement in place, a Mennafori army marched across the Suez peninsula, capturing Jerusalem and executing the Judean king. The kingdom immediately fell into anarchy, the Judean army disintegrated, and the Kyprisians pulling back to reinforce their African colonies. That just left the Hadhrami.
Now an old man, Aikatarna had just one campaign left in him. Raising a second Halabi army, Aikatarna rushed his 22 thousand men across the desert to the lush river valleys of Mesopotamia, where mere levies were holding off thousands of Hadhrami camel riders. Equipped with Greek-made pikes and spears, Aikatarna’s army pushed back the bulk of the Hadhrami south of Babylon. Aikatarna died just days after making peace with Hadhramaut, establishing his kingdom as the greatest in the world once more at 1481.
The next two hundred years saw the empire first prosper, especially after normalizing relations with Kypris. The cult of Teshup, or Teshupism as it is becoming to be known, prospered, spreading across boundaries to the Nile and Aegean worlds, even being practiced by a minority of Balearics on the island of Sicily. Hurrian, as the people of Halab and greater Yamkhad are known, law and culture was also greatly spread, especially in Babylon and Mesopotamia, where it almost completely replaced the old traditions. In Jerusalem, Yamkhad traditions fused with the semetic beliefs already in place, forming a hybrid system based on both the primitive Yahwehism of the Judeans and the spreading Teshupism. It was soon that Halab became a cultural capital for a set of customs and religion that spread across a whole subcontinent.
However, in the later half of the 1300s and coming into the 1200s, increased wars with the Bedouins of the barbaric Arabic lands and the never-content Hadhrami was taking its toll on the huge empire, which was already under stress from its sheer size. Again the Hurrians collapsed onto itself, though this time it had made an impact on the conquered peoples. Various Hurrian successor states broke free from Halab in the early 1200s, most notable of those is Yaarpha (the Hurrian word for the successor state in former Judea), and Purattu, a Hurrian kingdom based from the rebuilt city of Babylon in Mesopotamia. Halab also remains a rather powerful kingdom.
But what of the Mennafori and Egypt? After the Halabi Empire became weak enough, Kypris again entered war with the Mennafori, intent on retaking its African colonies. An alliance with the Egyptians was all it took, Memphis was captured by the Kyprisians in 1289, and then ceded to Egypt with a promise to honor Kyprisian colonies throughout the Mediterranean and continue to make Kypris Egypt’s number one trading partner. And thus began the new era of a united Egypt. That was, until 1248 when an invasion from Kush was unstoppable. The Kushites, aided of course by Hadhrami economic support and technological weapons, pushed north, capturing Thebes and many other important Egyptian cities. Unable to defeat the Kushites, a treaty was signed, effectively promising the Kushites nearly half of all Egyptian revenue in return for peace.
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After crossing the crushed Indian nations, we come to the far East, where most history is dominated by only a few nations, and even fewer ethnicities. Unlike Europe and the Middle East, most of China’s history is of the slowly growing bronze-age empires, iron technology still not finding its way to the Far East.
The most fought-after commodity in the Far East is the possession of trade routes. Trade is the ultimate commodity, with three nations competing over trade rights within the region. The first, China, is also the first to turn its back on trade and instead on building armies. In 1640, the Emperor of China, very vengeful against the Zu dominion for trying to push Chinese merchants out of the Choson, builds the region’s first offensive army. By 1630, the Zu had been defeated, and was barred from trading with the Choson.
The next hundred years saw the expansion of both China and Zu nations, though the Zu concentrated mostly on coastal lands. It was by about 1540 that the Zu had secured the last of the islands surrounding the Choson and had made contact with the Ainu and Kyushu, two small yet growing Japanese nations. Trusting the first people to contact them, the Japanese almost exclusively trade with the Zu Dominion, largely ignoring later Chinese attempts to establish trade relations.
By 1500 all of Taiwan had been conquered by the Zu. A brief war between Nanchao and China had distracted attention away from the Zu Dominion when trade relations were once again established with the Choson of Korea. In 1477 another annoyed Chinese emperor again raised an army and attacked the Zu Dominion, demanding the withdrawal of Zu merchants from the Choson. This time, though, the Zu were able to hold their ground, forcing a treaty that allowed minimal Zu appearance in the Choson ports to be signed.
By 1450, Taoism had easily infiltrated every national border, even the Zu dominion, by way of Chinese missionaries. Though the religion has very little to do with the government or ruling class, Taoism serves as a uniting force, stabilizing most of the Far East nations, largely in contrast to the rise and fall of nations in the west.
During this time Gai Nal had been peacefully trading, only rarely expanding, and keeping to itself. It was the Khmer who attacked Gai Nal southern regions, completely destroying anything the Gai Nal had to counter with, and enforcing Khmer rule over land that was mostly inhabited by Gai Nalians. In any case, Gai Nal had no power to respond, and instead settled for a peace treaty that would pretty much isolate Gai Nal from any trade or contact with Khmer or any other nation to its south. So instead Gai Nal looks north, strengthens its ties with the Chinese and Zu, and even founds a colony on a far off island not yet named.
Meanwhile another nation arises between the Gai Nal and the Zu dominion, created out of a treaty after yet another war between the Zu and Chinese, this time involving Nanchao as well who intervened on part of the Zu. The Chinese, this time victorious, wrote the treaty, creating this new coastal nation out of Zu and Nanchao lands, named the Han Dominion. Almost a puppet state of the Chinese, the Han have yet to enter trade with anyone except the Chinese, and is for the most part an isolationist, Taoist nation.
NOTES FROM THE MOD:
Next update will be a week from coming Saturday – hopefully. I will be on vacation, but should be back to then. And the updates should be back to normal size.
So far just spend your income points as you were spending the economy points of last turn. Red cities and blue cities on the map give you an extra income point and is NOT shown in the stats, so add yourself.
Will add culture descriptions to Asian nations when I get back. Sorry for the short part on all the Asian nations, even though they are the most active in the thread, I chose to do you guys last regrettably, and since I ran out of time, I had to do the most hasty job. I will make it up to you next update.
1700bc-1200bc
As the world of civilization matured, a new age began. The Age of Iron would so drastically change the life of man that the years before would hardly be recognizable, lost to the annals of history and legend. With the Age of Iron comes a huge population boom, one the world has never seen before. With more people come more trade, more culture, and more wars. The geography of nations is forever changed by the use of this substance, giving rise to a new world, amongst new possibilities.
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We begin with first use of iron, in 1737b.c. Naaria. Here the isolationist ways of the people have brought about independent development and a strong cultural bond. Within this atmosphere the first use of iron is recorded in the countryside as blacksmiths forge iron farm equipment. The technology is quick to spread to Saxonia, Naaria’s only trade partner, where the practice of forging the metal is put to use for swords and spears. A brief war takes place between the two trade partners, leading to the sacking of Naar and the burning of the grand temple. The Naarians are barely able to repel the Saxons, but have in the process tasted expansionism. Centuries pass before a new unorthodox King named Tschar takes the throne in Naar, building an army of his own and setting forth against the Saxons a second time in 1406 b.c. The campaign is brief; the Saxons easily repel the Naarian green army, and Tschar instead marches north, conquering the sparse Celtic and Nordic tribes along the coast of the Baltic Sea. With the influx of Celtic culture and people within the Kingdom, Tschar is overthrown by his own people upon his victorious return to Naar and a more orthodox king is reinstated on the throne in 1464 b.c., where descendents remain today. Naaria again returns to isolationism, this time without any trade at all. The systematic removal of the remainder of Nordic and Celtic tribes from the new land in the north has brought stress upon the integrity of the nation, but the people are strong and unified, their culture unique, and their motives strong.
Meanwhile to the east barbaric tribes begin appearing using crude iron weapons and riding horseback. This new danger has prompted the construction of mighty forts along the eastern border, designed by the famous temple-builders of Naar, and so far have proven very worthwhile against the raging Huns and Turks.
Finally having the upper hand on the Celtic barbarians that raid the land, Saxonia enters a period of rapid expansion from 1390b.c. to the present, conquering huge tracks of land to the west, eventually reaching the Rhine River.
It was at this point when the Celts collectively realized their trouble. A charismatic young Celt, now known as Barille the Uniter, came to fame during this time after winning several battles with the Saxons in his tribe near the Rhine. His work would soon take him away from the Rhine and instead all across what is known as Gaul, uniting the individual Celtic tribes into a Gaulic Confederation. The new centralized power has helped civilize some of these Celts and has even organized an army. The wars still rage with the Saxons, the Celts relying on sheer numbers and will-power to keep the Saxons at bay.
At the same time, connections between the mainland of Europe and the British Isles increase dramatically, leading to the formation of a well-traveled trade route linking the Saxon coastal towns to cities like London and beyond.
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Just a few hundreds miles north the British Isles sit, almost completely in their own little world, beset with their own problems. The last of the Celts on the main island were conquered by the Scots in 1654, and for almost 300 years since the British and Scots have been at war. Bent on dominating the island, the Scots have undertaken campaign after campaign against the British, once breaking through and even besieging London before a plague decimated their troops and they were forced to withdraw. It was in this atmosphere that the first outside contact was made with the Isles, a raid by Norsemen on the eastern coast of the Scots in 1330. It wasn’t the fact that the whole village was destroyed, its people murdered, that caught the attention of the Brits and Scotts, it was the iron axes and spears used by the marauders to destroy the garrison. Only ten years passed before another, much larger raid reached the coast of Britain, burning a large fishing village and killing nearly five hundred defenders. At this point the Scotts and Brits decided to stop bickering and instead focused on the origin of these mysterious people.
The Norsemen began a full out invasion of the island in 1304, pouring into the gently rolling hills of the southern part. Britain was unprepared for such an onslaught, and was systematically defeated in every major encounter. London was soon captured, the King dethroned, and a new Norse kingdom proclaimed under the Norse king, Harold II. The Norse reigned for almost 50 years before a combined Scottish and Irish force, now equipped with the same iron technology the Norse possessed, defeated the Nordic army at the Battle of Cambridge. By now, though, the small British population is dwarfed by the Norse settlers who came in droves from Norseland, so the British king installed by the Scotts and Irish failed to hold power for more than five years. Instead a new King, of Norse descent, has proclaimed the Kingdom of Jorvik in former British lands, and has broke off all political ties with the Norse.
The Éire in the meantime enjoy their new found unity after striking a deal with the major Irish dissidents and forming a confederation with power based in Dublin. The Confederation got off to a shaky start, including a civil war lasting nearly a decade before a King was reinstalled with basic powers for keeping the Confederacy united. From 1400 on, the Éire enjoyed quick economic growth, mostly fueled by increased trade with their larger neighbors to the east. When the Norse came in 1304, the Éire were quick to claim neutrality. It wasn’t until Scotland was under pressure that Éire formed an alliance with the Scotts and helped push the foreigners out of Britain. The Confederation now has opened up trade with the Jorvic, and has even had limited contacts with the Saxons and Gauls.
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As we move south, across the Great Pyrenees Mountains and into the plains of Iberia, we enter a part of the world that has seen the most rapid population growth over the past centuries. Early in 1600s the two civilized nations, Spain and the Balearic Kingdom, both armed with superior iron weapons and armor, finally defeated the Tartessian menace once and for all, conquering the lands and enslaving the inhabitants. Upon this victory, Spain especially increased in power, dominating the whole of the peninsula and even as far south in Africa as to the Atlas Mountains.
Such a powerful kingdom, so widespread and yet still so primitive, could not last for long. Internal squabbles, frontier rebellion, and a small war against the Ligurians all contributed to the fracturing of the empire into separate states across Iberia and North Africa. Most still retain their Spanish ruling class, with millions of Tartessians, Fez, Berbers and others still under the power of a Spanish monarch.
After the fracture in 1480, Spain proper went through a major reformation. Three weak kings in a row led to the falling of Veran dynasty and the rise of the world’s first true republic, headquartered in Sevilla, and aptly named the Republic of Sevilla. The government is made up of elected officials from each province tied together in a small court, where they must come into agreement for various taxes, laws, and other things related to running a nation. Of course only rich, land-owning Spaniards make up the electorate, but it was essentially a republic.
United by their new faith in the republic, the army marched north in 1394 to begin re-conquering their lost provinces. The break-away city of Madrid was their first target, the smallest of the rebellious provinces, and the weakest choice. The Army of the Republic, as it was soon called, met the Madrid partisans at the border – and suffered a humiliating defeat. Inept generals, bad geography, untrained soldiers and the weather all contributed to the loss of the battle, the Republic suffering thousands of losses, but even worse, the loss of support from its army and people. A counterattack launched by Madrid destroyed what was left of the Army of the Republic in 1392. The war cost Sevilla its northern, fertile frontier and ended up leading to the downfall of the Republic in 1375.
The next hundred and fifty years was a time of chaos in Spain, with a different government rising in Sevilla every ten years, sometimes more frequent. It wasn’t until 1211 when a young Spaniard by the name of Eduardo came to power, seizing the throne from a 2-year-old Senate and uniting the army under his command, claiming ancestry from the almost forgotten Veran blood. With new found morale and courage, the army marched north, defeating the Madrid army decisively and re-conquering what was lost almost two centuries before and accomplishing what the Republic failed to do – the capturing of Madrid. Renaming his country to the Eduardian Empire, Eduardo continued his war into neighboring Castile, capturing the capital of Salamanca within a year and decisively defeating the Castilian army three times since.
The rest of the former-Spanish kingdom consists of Navarre, a mostly Basque-nation tucked in the far north, and Aragon in the north-east. Of all the former provinces, the small Kingdom of Aragon has done the best, having the highest Spanish-to-native population ratio, and retaining strong contacts with the Balearic Kingdom in the form of a lucrative trade agreement. In Africa, the Kingdoms of Ceuta (in the west) and Cabro (in the east) remain. The Kingdom of Ceuta, named after the large Spanish-settled city of Ceuta, retains most of its trade with the Eduardian Empire, while Cabro, named after the man who liberated the country and became its first King, has drifted more towards the Balearic sphere.
The history of the rest of the Western Mediterranean is dominated by the wars of Liguria and the Balearics. Already at the beginning of the 1600s the Ligurians began competing for dominance over the Latin and Etruscan city-states of the Italian peninsula, though still lacking any serious power or resources to outdo the Balearics. During the 1500s, though, while the Balearics were busy with wars in Iberia and Africa, the Ligurians launched a campaign a hundred years in the making, marching along the coast and conquering the first Etruscan city-state, throwing off trade with the Balearics. Not having the ability to counter-act with their responsibilities lying elsewhere, the Balearics turned a blind eye.
In 1430 the Ligurians again launched a campaign, this time against the Latin city-state of Rome, which had grown quite independent and culturally-advanced compared to even Liguria. The campaign was initially a success, but this time the Balearics had the power to respond, sending an army to Rome and defeating the Ligurians in 1421. In the years following the defeat in Rome, Liguria concentrated on expanding its control over Celtic lands to the east and west, outside of the Italian peninsula, and so avoiding the attention of the Balearic Kingdom. The tribes were conquered easily enough, though the Ligurians were still limited by the daunting Alps to the southern region.
After consolidating their power and reinforcing their ranks with Celtic warriors, the Ligurians again launched an invasion of Rome, the city now having grown to immense proportions, its culture highly influential in both the Balearics and Liguria. Nosotoism, a highly-influential religion stemming from the Romans has spread across the region, completely engulfing the Ligurians and the eastern provinces of the Balearics. The Roman language and writing is also standard in almost all trade transactions throughout the Ligurian and Balearic world, even stretching to the Kyprisian sphere, though we’ll talk about them a bit later. In any case, Rome became a highly-desired target, attracting the Ligurians a second time, and again becoming the battleground of the two great powers in the region at that time. In 1321 the Second Battle of Rome took place, this time the sides a little more even. Though still superior on the sea, the Balearics lacked the numbers in their army that the Ligurians had mustered, being forced to retreat after heavy losses to the southern half of the peninsula. Rome, again in Ligurian hands, proceeded to prosper in any case. Tensions still remain high to this day between Liguria and the Balearic Kingdom, and with the again-rising Eduardian Empire, who’s to say what will happen next in this small corner of the world?
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At the port of Palermo, a Kyprisian trading ship takes us east, back towards the beginning of civilization and into the waters of the Kypris Empire. The eastern Mediterranean has seen its share of wars and plagues, so lets us begin.
We start with the Greeks, who, before 1700, dominated the Aegean. Possessing the largest gathering of cities in the world, the Greeks were adept well adept at trading and building mathematics. It was the Macedonians, though, who made the first move. A large campaign in 1620 captured Thebes and besieged Thens, the capital of Grease. The army had already been routed, and it seemed that Thens would fall, only being supplied with food from sea and barely holding on. It was then that the Greek diplomat Armenis created the Delphi League, an alliance between Grease and Troy. Together the Trojans and Thenians pushed back the Macedonians and restored normal borders before making peace.
Three centuries passed with relative peace. Thens prospered as the major cultural center in the eastern Mediterranean, influencing even Kypris and mighty Yamkhad with its language and art. But alas, the peace would not last. Macedonia, sitting idly and preparing for nearly three centuries, descended once more upon Greas, this time burning to the ground both Thebes and Delphi, and threatening to even burn Thens itself. The city was once again besieged in 1301, and with the Trojans busy elsewhere and Kypris remaining neutral, the Greeks were alone. It was then that again the Greeks were sparred disaster, as a terrible plague swept across Macedonia and northern Grease, killing hundreds of thousands, and causing internal collapse in Pella. The Macedonians were forced to retreat and the Greeks pursued. With the Trojans finally able to aid once more in 1298, a joint army invaded Macedonia and captured Pella, its population seriously decreased. Macedonia soon collapsed, falling within the Greek realm.
But there was still not to be peace just yet. While the Greeks were fighting Macedon in the later part of the 1300s, Troy was unable to help because she was under attack by the Racedonians in Anatolia. A highly expansionistic Racedonia had been growing and expanding, but her history will be detailed in relation with Yamkhad at a later time. The war left Troy devastated economically, and forced the collapse of the Delphi League after the destruction of Macedonia. That is why when Racedonia invaded Greek Macedonia in 1258, the Trojans sat out.
The war went bad for the Racedonians, but even worse for the Greeks. The territory was almost inhospitable, let alone grounds for major battles and housing large armies. On top of that, the Macedonian Plague again reared its ugly head in the midst of the fighting, severely reducing both armies by thousands. Both Thens and Ranopolis realized the pettiness of further fighting and signed a monumental peace treaty in Troy, creating the Kingdom of Thrace as a buffer nation. Thrace would not be allowed to enter into any military agreement with either Grease or Racedonia, nor any other outside power, and would not be allowed to expand its borders by any means. The creation of Thrace in 1231 has so far kept the peace, but how long will both countries play by their own rules? Will the recuperation of the Trojans underwrite the Treaty of Troy?
In 1700 the Yamkhad Empire was arguably the strongest, most powerful Empire in the world. Held together by a Hurrian elite class and governed by a King and the Charioteers, the Empire stretched from the northern Mersinians to the border of Judea, from the Mediterranean to the Baybalonians. Even an empire as powerful as the Yamkhads falls, and so did the Yamkhad, collapsing due to overstretchment and internal squabbles, much like the Spanish in the west. Most of the conquered land was given up back to the barbarians, or turned into small independent states, ruled by individual Charioteers or warriors who were granted land in exchange for fighting for Yamkhad in earlier years.
But let us start from the beginning. Yamkhad, past its zenith in the 1700s, was on a rapid decline during the 1600s. Petty kings, strong special interests, outside invasion all culminated in the complete dissolution of the kingdom by about 1610, when the kingdom was so stratified that it ceased to be a kingdom at all, but more resembled numerous successor tribes and petty city-states. This dark period persisted for almost a hundred years, until in 1512 when a Mitanni warrior by the name of Aikatarna ceased control of Halab and proclaimed himself the first emperor, or “Samrag” of the Halaban Empire. Utilizing the new reformist Teshup cult that has been spreading like wildfire across the eastern Mediterranean as a uniting force, Aikatarna imposed a revolutionary code of laws and government upon Halab and the surrounding territories he controlled.
Possessing a new army and being at the seat of the Teshupian holy city, Aikatarna proceeded to create himself an empire. From Halab, the Samrag brought his army north; reconquered most of the lands lost to the Mersinians, and even fought the Racedonians for control over Tilal, an important military location in the northwest. From the north, Aikatarna campaigned southeast, reaching the Tigris and Euphrates at about the same time southern Babylon had fallen to the Hadhramis, people from Hadhramaut, a rapidly rising kingdom from the deserts in the south. The Hadhramis possess very skilled camelry, quick infantry, and numerous soldiers. Their empire stretches along the Red Sea coast all the way to the capital, Hadhra in the far south of the Arabian Peninsula. It is the largest empire on Earth, partly due to its ease of governance and the sparsely populated countryside.
Aikatarna now, in 1491, controls an empire that stretches from the high Caucus mountains in the north, to the city of Babylon in the east, to the Judean border in the south and the Kyprisian trading waters in the west. It was then that Aikatarna finally turned his attention south against the ever-resilient Judeans, annoying the Halabi map of the region. With an army of almost 20,000 men against a meager 5,000 Judeans, the Halabi were poised to win a momentous victory. That is, before the Hadhrami attacked and sacked Babylon, and a combined Kyprisian-Judean alliance defeated Aikatarna’s army in the Levant, even before it could respond to the Hadhrami. In 1489, Kypris, annoyed at the subtle trade war going on with Halabi merchants in the Aegean and Nile, and insulted when Halabi forces did not aid the surrounded Kyprisian colonists in Anatolia, and also due to a militaristic king on the throne, finally decided to join with the Judeans and Hadhrami in a campaign to bring down the Halabi.
With the destruction of his army and the invasions of both the Levant and Mesopotamia regions, Aikatarna decided on the best course of action was to return to Halab and make some diplomatic rules. Immediately dispatches were sent to Egypt and Mennafor, the only neutral nations left still friendly to Halab. The response from Egypt was saddening, but it seemed Mennafor had been waiting for a chance to strike at Kyprisian colonies so annoyingly close to her borders. And so with an agreement in place, a Mennafori army marched across the Suez peninsula, capturing Jerusalem and executing the Judean king. The kingdom immediately fell into anarchy, the Judean army disintegrated, and the Kyprisians pulling back to reinforce their African colonies. That just left the Hadhrami.
Now an old man, Aikatarna had just one campaign left in him. Raising a second Halabi army, Aikatarna rushed his 22 thousand men across the desert to the lush river valleys of Mesopotamia, where mere levies were holding off thousands of Hadhrami camel riders. Equipped with Greek-made pikes and spears, Aikatarna’s army pushed back the bulk of the Hadhrami south of Babylon. Aikatarna died just days after making peace with Hadhramaut, establishing his kingdom as the greatest in the world once more at 1481.
The next two hundred years saw the empire first prosper, especially after normalizing relations with Kypris. The cult of Teshup, or Teshupism as it is becoming to be known, prospered, spreading across boundaries to the Nile and Aegean worlds, even being practiced by a minority of Balearics on the island of Sicily. Hurrian, as the people of Halab and greater Yamkhad are known, law and culture was also greatly spread, especially in Babylon and Mesopotamia, where it almost completely replaced the old traditions. In Jerusalem, Yamkhad traditions fused with the semetic beliefs already in place, forming a hybrid system based on both the primitive Yahwehism of the Judeans and the spreading Teshupism. It was soon that Halab became a cultural capital for a set of customs and religion that spread across a whole subcontinent.
However, in the later half of the 1300s and coming into the 1200s, increased wars with the Bedouins of the barbaric Arabic lands and the never-content Hadhrami was taking its toll on the huge empire, which was already under stress from its sheer size. Again the Hurrians collapsed onto itself, though this time it had made an impact on the conquered peoples. Various Hurrian successor states broke free from Halab in the early 1200s, most notable of those is Yaarpha (the Hurrian word for the successor state in former Judea), and Purattu, a Hurrian kingdom based from the rebuilt city of Babylon in Mesopotamia. Halab also remains a rather powerful kingdom.
But what of the Mennafori and Egypt? After the Halabi Empire became weak enough, Kypris again entered war with the Mennafori, intent on retaking its African colonies. An alliance with the Egyptians was all it took, Memphis was captured by the Kyprisians in 1289, and then ceded to Egypt with a promise to honor Kyprisian colonies throughout the Mediterranean and continue to make Kypris Egypt’s number one trading partner. And thus began the new era of a united Egypt. That was, until 1248 when an invasion from Kush was unstoppable. The Kushites, aided of course by Hadhrami economic support and technological weapons, pushed north, capturing Thebes and many other important Egyptian cities. Unable to defeat the Kushites, a treaty was signed, effectively promising the Kushites nearly half of all Egyptian revenue in return for peace.
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After crossing the crushed Indian nations, we come to the far East, where most history is dominated by only a few nations, and even fewer ethnicities. Unlike Europe and the Middle East, most of China’s history is of the slowly growing bronze-age empires, iron technology still not finding its way to the Far East.
The most fought-after commodity in the Far East is the possession of trade routes. Trade is the ultimate commodity, with three nations competing over trade rights within the region. The first, China, is also the first to turn its back on trade and instead on building armies. In 1640, the Emperor of China, very vengeful against the Zu dominion for trying to push Chinese merchants out of the Choson, builds the region’s first offensive army. By 1630, the Zu had been defeated, and was barred from trading with the Choson.
The next hundred years saw the expansion of both China and Zu nations, though the Zu concentrated mostly on coastal lands. It was by about 1540 that the Zu had secured the last of the islands surrounding the Choson and had made contact with the Ainu and Kyushu, two small yet growing Japanese nations. Trusting the first people to contact them, the Japanese almost exclusively trade with the Zu Dominion, largely ignoring later Chinese attempts to establish trade relations.
By 1500 all of Taiwan had been conquered by the Zu. A brief war between Nanchao and China had distracted attention away from the Zu Dominion when trade relations were once again established with the Choson of Korea. In 1477 another annoyed Chinese emperor again raised an army and attacked the Zu Dominion, demanding the withdrawal of Zu merchants from the Choson. This time, though, the Zu were able to hold their ground, forcing a treaty that allowed minimal Zu appearance in the Choson ports to be signed.
By 1450, Taoism had easily infiltrated every national border, even the Zu dominion, by way of Chinese missionaries. Though the religion has very little to do with the government or ruling class, Taoism serves as a uniting force, stabilizing most of the Far East nations, largely in contrast to the rise and fall of nations in the west.
During this time Gai Nal had been peacefully trading, only rarely expanding, and keeping to itself. It was the Khmer who attacked Gai Nal southern regions, completely destroying anything the Gai Nal had to counter with, and enforcing Khmer rule over land that was mostly inhabited by Gai Nalians. In any case, Gai Nal had no power to respond, and instead settled for a peace treaty that would pretty much isolate Gai Nal from any trade or contact with Khmer or any other nation to its south. So instead Gai Nal looks north, strengthens its ties with the Chinese and Zu, and even founds a colony on a far off island not yet named.
Meanwhile another nation arises between the Gai Nal and the Zu dominion, created out of a treaty after yet another war between the Zu and Chinese, this time involving Nanchao as well who intervened on part of the Zu. The Chinese, this time victorious, wrote the treaty, creating this new coastal nation out of Zu and Nanchao lands, named the Han Dominion. Almost a puppet state of the Chinese, the Han have yet to enter trade with anyone except the Chinese, and is for the most part an isolationist, Taoist nation.
NOTES FROM THE MOD:
Next update will be a week from coming Saturday – hopefully. I will be on vacation, but should be back to then. And the updates should be back to normal size.
So far just spend your income points as you were spending the economy points of last turn. Red cities and blue cities on the map give you an extra income point and is NOT shown in the stats, so add yourself.
Will add culture descriptions to Asian nations when I get back. Sorry for the short part on all the Asian nations, even though they are the most active in the thread, I chose to do you guys last regrettably, and since I ran out of time, I had to do the most hasty job. I will make it up to you next update.
...along the Yangtze river. 
