StKNES5: A New Lease on NES

[Kamilian]

Update 7 - 1800 BCE

Spread of the disease throughout Babylononia has diminished the fighting will of most of the Babylonian army, and the Emperor of Babylononia. Soldiers have been decimated and many high priests call this plague a curse sent by the gods to punish for the attacks on Armenians.
In a meeting in Yerevan, the Georgians and Azeris met with the Babylonians to negotiate a peace treaty.
The terms of the Yerevan Treaty are as such:
1. Babylononia cedes West Armenia-Proper, including Yerevan, to Georgia.
2. Babylononia cedes East Armenia-Proper to Azerbaijan.
3. Babylononia pays 1 economy point tribute to each Georgia and Azerbaijan per turn for 5 turns.
4. Babylononia signs a Non-Aggression Pact with Georgia and Azerbaijan.

However, the plague persists and spreads into Israel very quickly, through which the disease begins making a mark on the Kingdom of the Mamelukes, with some isolated cases in the Suez.
BABYLONONIA: -1,200 people
ISRAEL: -1,400 people
MAMELUKES: -100 people

Dacian troops back off from the Slovak border on account of the Slavo-German Pact. A war with three countries would destroy Dacia.

The Brisbane League is reformed into the Australian Commonwealth. The Tribal Supreme Council is transformed into the first Senate of the Commonwealth, with admittance being opened by selective election. The first country to adopt a semi-democracy, with a certain suffrage limits. Though slavery has not been outlawed, and women are still just mothers and wives and housekeepers, it nevertheless increases a sense of belonging and community.
Tribes along the eastern shore eagerly join this new Commonwealth, as well. The expedition sent to reach the Western shore of Australia has not made it there, yet, though, after having to turn back to the new city of Melbourne for re-supplying.
BRISBANE LEAGUE ---> AUSTRALIAN COMMONWEALTH: Confidence +1, Government becomes "Ancient Democracy".

In Malagasy, a massacre has occurred! The Tribal Council slain! People's confusion and fear was somewhat calmed by Giio, the man that had proclaimed himself new Emperor of Malagasy. The Tribal Council had been dissolved, and now one man would rule, efficiently and quickly - such was the news that spread across the sea from Madagascar to Beiraland.
But not all are following along.
In Beiraland, riots have broken out. None of the tribes like the notion of losing the power they had in favor of one single individual. They have declared independence from the Toliara government, as the Union of Beiraland, bringing a new Tribal High Council within their own land.
Loyalist troops have, of course, clashed, and certain pockets of Beiraland have actually sworn allegiance to Emperor Giio. But most Beiraland has seceded.
MALAGASY LOSES MOST OF COLONY ON THE AFRICAN MAINLAND, WHICH BECOMES THE UNION OF BEIRALAND

Increase of farmlands in Portugalian Iberia means an increase of food means an increase in population! With constant increase of farming what is possible near Madrid, harvests are growing and plentiful, encouraging the Potugalians to have larger families!
Expeditions have also made it as far as the Roman island of Malta. Along the way, the Portugalians have established a seaport for trade - Cagliari - on the island of Sardinia. In the Balearics between Iberia and Sardinia, small harbor towns have also been set up.
The first road in Europe has also bene constructed between Lisbon and Porto. Internal exchanges and bartering have been made more secure and safer now, since merchants and buyers don't have to find their own dangeours alternate routes but actually have a path to follow now.
In Morocco, the North African colony, temples dedicated to Iberian gods have been built to promote Portugalian values among the local Berbers. In Tangier, however, one of the new temples was stoned by traditionalistic Berbers, who shouted in their tongue, presumably cursing the heathen temple.
PORTUGALIA: Population boost, Economy level up by one.

Zoroastrianism spreads into some of the disease-ravaged parts of Babylononia as people begin to curse their former gods and see the Persian faith as a possible way of soothing and salvation. About 15% of the Babylonian population is now Zoroastrian.

A peace treaty is signed between the Mamelukes and Benghazi due to soldiers’ unwillingness to fight as a disease looms closer and closer.

Tatar War begins between Irkutsk and Tataria. Clashes occur across the border, in a war of attrition with neither side keeping what they gain.
TATARIA: -200 troops
IRKUTSK: -200 troops

Philosophical and military breakthroughs push Travancore into the Iron Age! The new knowledge of technology spreads all across the area that Travancore dominates and has explored. The expeditions to the Indus Valley and Indochina spread it even further, propelling Mumbai, Afghanistan, Nepal, Siam, and Malaysia.
TRAVANCORE, NEPAL, MUMBAI, AFGHANISTAN, SIAM, AND MALAYSIA: ALL ENTER INTO IRON AGE.

Story Bonuses
MALAGASY: +1 Education point
BYZANTIUM: +1 Confidence

New Contacts
Portugalia and Rome
Dacia and Dalmatia
Crimea and Dacia
Crimea and Byzantium
Byzantium and Georgia
Azerbaijan and Persia
Malaysia and Nihon
Travancore and Nepal
Travancore and Afghanistan
Travancore and Siam
Travancore and Malaysia
Travancore and Mumbai
Beiraland and Malagasy
Beiraland and Zambia
Kiev and Muscovy
Silesia and Brandenburg

NPC Diplomacy
From Crimea
To Byzantium:
NAP?

From Georgia
To Byzantium:
NAP?

AZERBAIJAN AND GEORGIA SIGN NAP

DACIA AND CRIMEA SIGN NAP

From Malaysia
To Nihon:
NAP?

From Nepal, Afghanistan, Siam, Malaysia (individually)
To Travancore:
NAP?

From Mumbai
To Travancore:
We propose a deal: You take eastern India; We take western India.

OOC
Stats aren’t done, at all. Sorry. Will do tomorrow.

No orders from Azale means Mamelukes are NPC.
If MjM does no orders this turn, Babylononia will be NPC.

New thing with cities. You may have noticed that your established cities have returned to the previous, larger size on the map. That is because from now on, there will be larger cities which will be that big, and smaller towns, which will not have names, and will more often rise on their own, w/o you needing to say “build this town”. Some towns may evolve into larger cities, at which point they will gain a name.
I do this cuz there is so many cities to be put on the map, and there is a character limit in the posts, so…
Smaller towns will be represented on the map as small squares.

You may have noticed that by my CFC name there is no longer a “1” at the end – that’s because I asked Thunderfall for name change and got him to drop the “1”, which I added when I first joined because at the time there seemed to already be a “Kamilian” on the boards. But now that person apparently is no longer here so now I’m just Kamilian instead of Kamilian 1.

 

[Kamilian]

Update 7 - 1800 BCE

 

[tommy_toon]

I was expecting to expand farther with all those troops on the european mainland, oh well. At least it can't be considered a "colony" anymore.

 

[Jason The King]

Woot, awsome update kamilian! Story and orders to follow.

 

[Jason The King]

The Journey of Arsenio

Part One – Lisbon

Excited and curious, Arsenio busted out from the stone house and onto the balcony in front of it, which also served as a walkway to other houses on either side of his, and the roof of the house below. Such was the way Lisbon was built, along a hillside facing the sea, with stone houses built in a way as it would serve a staircase for a giant. Each house was made of either stone or wood (wooden houses were only on the top, obviously) and had only one room, which served as the sleeping, eating, and lounging quarters for a family of usually three or four. Where there were gaps between houses, ladders were placed for ascending or descending the different levels. Arsenio was not a rich man, he had only just begun his life as a merchant, and so his house was near the bottom, almost in the slums but not quite. And where he wanted to go was clear at the top, near the nobility palaces and the marketplace.

It was a warm day, not a cloud in site, with birds gliding overhead and the endless fighting of the waves and coast filled the air. The fresh scent of the sea water mixed with pão quente, or hot bread, which was the food of the common folk and baked outside, hungered Arsenio. But he had no time to wait and sample the food, he was on his way to a massive gathering in the marketplace plaza, where a caravan was being set up. He had saved up for three months for the arrival of this certain caravan.

Reaching the first ladder, Arsenio hurriedly propelled himself up with two or three steps bypassing a little child. As he reached the top, he took little notice of the signs of a more prosperous level. He failed to be offended by the expensive decorations outside the homes here, such as carpets, plants, and candles. Instead, he continued on, to the next ladder, named Bras Ladder, after a Portuguese King who had built the next set of houses for his nobles. Long since been replaced, these large houses are now homes to Lisbon’s second-rate merchants, those who were moderately successful.

Continuing on, Arsenio climbed four more ladders, each leading to a more vibrant, clean, and prosperous level of homes. He also noticed each time that the houses were getting fairly larger and more modern, until at the top he noticed that the stone was painted vibrant colors, and the luxurious wooden homes were painted as well, usually depicting some battle the noble had fought in, or inscriptions from a sentence of praise from a king or someone else important. Having little time to explore now, Arsenio continued on to the marketplace, which was only a few hundred feet away. The streets were now wider, as they were not placed on top of homes, and the merchant was found on the corner selling goods illegally, trying to bypass the marketplace fee. Again, Arsenio ignored these distractions; he was getting pretty good at ignoring things.

Finally, Arsenio turned a familiar corner and was embraced by the energetic marketplace plaza, which was full of merchants who set up shops this morning, selling items from all over Portugal and Morocco. But Arsenio had not been saving for months just to buy some rusty jewelry that everyone in Lisbon owned. No, he had been waiting for what was at the end of the plaza, the furthest from him. From here, he saw four white men, much more white then any Portuguese, begin setting up a table and banner, which on it said, in poor Portuguese handwriting, ROMAN GOODS. It was only the second caravan of its kind, and was from the distant lands that Portuguese sailors had just made contact with.

Finally making his way to the white merchants, Arsenio had his first glance at the wonders of the Roman world. The first piece that caught his eye was the fine goblets, made of gold and silver that stood next to a bottle of red liquid. Arsenio soon asked,

“This. Please, tell me what this is,” he asked, pointing to the bottle that contained the red liquid. The white man quick looked over to a Portuguese woman who stood next to him. Nodding her head with a smile, she replied, “This is Roman drink. They call it wine, made from grape. It is very good.”

Shaking his head in wonderment, Arsenio asked how much it cost. “Four denari,” she replied, never taking her eyes off of the customer. Picking up the bottle, Arsenio took a quick smell of the liquid and put it back. Such a sour and stale smell could never be a product of a good drink he though to himself. Continuing on, he came upon a gold necklace, with Roman insignia on it. He soon bought this for a woman he had his eye on that was usually on the same caravan route as he was to Porto. She would be happy, he thought, of wearing something not many other Portuguese women had. Moving down the table, he began to smell the strange produce that hung in a net at the side of the table. In Portuguese, signs near each told the identity of it. He ended up buying, with the rest of his savings, two olives and about twenty grapes.

Pleased yet broke, Arsenio began to meander his way back to the cliff. He had in his pocket a gift for a beautiful woman and dinner for tonight. But before he ate that night, he decided to save the luxury food until tomorrow, when he would be departing on a caravan to Porto. The day soon turned to night, and soon enough, Arsenio fell asleep alone in his small stone room.

 

[blackheart]

To: Nepal, Afghanistan, Siam, Malaysia (individually)
From: Travancore

We agree to your deal of a NAP.
---
To: Mumbai
From: Travancore

We propose something radically different... Our two governments join together and unite to create a peaceful and harmonic union!

 

[Kamilian]

Stats and cities and trade is all done on front page.

Update will be on Wednesday which means you all have a full week to do orders. If I get all orders before that time passes, of course I will update earlier.

Sheep, you can only invest one econ point into increasing economy per turn.

Symphony D., you overspent. I didn't bring down your economy point because I knew it was a misunderstanding of the trade bonus stuff. OK, here is how it is: You can't spend using the trade bonuses until you actually have the trade noted in the stats, like I'm doing now. In other words, in the first bracket of the Economy stat, it is "x+y", meaning x is the default amount of EP that the Level offers, and y is the amount of EP that you just got from the trade. If you do not use that extra trade EP, then it will be automatically "deposited" into increasing economy, so if you don't use 2 trade EPs, those 2 points will go into the second bracket, bringing you that much closer to the next Economy Level.
So basically, NOW you have 6 EP to spend, Symphony, since it's Stable 3+3/1/4 for your (Nihon) stat. But next turn, you won't have the 3 EP from trade to spend. Yes, I know I told you something else earlier. But I also said I may revise the trade rule to make it more useful, and this is the revision.
That goes for everyone now.

I may also decrease the amount of troops you all can get per EP in regards to proportion to population, since it's getting to be way too easy to get super-armies and for some nations, by now it's as if half the population is in the Army and Navy, which is way too much. I don't know how I will edit it, but it will change.

 

[Kamilian]

From Mumbai
To Travancore:
Our governments are not compatible. We rule by religion, while your oligarchy is not of high priests and high priestesses.
We will not join you.

 

[Finmaster]

From Byzantium
To Georgia and Crimea:
We only agree to NAP if you will start a trade route with Byzantium.

 

[tommy_toon]

From Eire
To Gutan Empire and Brandenburg
We wish to set up a trade route with you so that our nations may prosper and grow.

To France
We have realized the lies of the natives and will now agree to a NAP with you, if you still wish for one.

 

[Jason The King]

To Rome
From Portugalia

Both of our nations have much to offer each other. Would it be possible to sign a peace treaty and a pact of non agression, and also a trade pact? This will allow our nations to both grow simultaneously and without complications.

 

[Kamilian]

OOC: Also, I will probably now make trade every third turn instead of every other turn, since with this recent change of the use of trade bonus, it has to be balanced out.
But now, a little something...

Spotlight Kitakyushu​

Kitakyushu, one of the major cities of Nihon. Since its founding, it has grown tremendously and is the trade hub of the Empire of Nihon.

At first glance, it actually looks like a quaint little provincial town... However, Kitakyushu is much more than that. With a population of 1,000, it is the second most-populated city of Nihon, after the capital, Kyoto. It also boasts the most cosmopolitan society in all of Nihon. With the merchant ships that come from and go to Shanghai, Korea, and Beijing come immigrants from those countries. These immigrants, at first looked on by the indigenous Nihonese with some aloofness and weariness, are now welcome and an integral part of the city's economy and society. It would be impossible, in this atmosphere, for Kitakyushu's cultural venues to remain purely indigenous. The Chosons and Chinese have added a bit of their own customs here and there, and even as one looks at the mansion that is home to the Imperial Governor, one is no longer looking at just Nihon but a beautiful amalgam of Beijing, Korea, Shanghai, and Nihon.

Being the trade hub of Nihon, it makes sense that the markets of the city are always bustling and loud. Though a coin currency has been introduced, it is not yet in wide circulation, and the old barter system persists; it may persist for at least a century even after the currency becomes commonplace. Not only do the city-dwellers visit the markets, but also peasants and farmers from nearby. Unfortunately for the countryfolk, because they are still more ignorant due to lack of accessible education in much of the countryside near Kitakyushu, they are not uncommonly taken advantage of by the generally more-educated cityfolk. On occasion a farmer manages to wise up to the trick being played on him and a fight ensues, ranging from verbal to physical, between him and the merchant. Some of Kitakyushu's upper class come to the markets just to see if any conflict has broken out, and they egg on the fighters, as an entertainment.

Also, many Nihonese who wish to settle in the new islands to the south that the navy explores and acquires every few years pass through Kitakyushu to stop and take one last look at the beauty of the land where the Nihonese Empire first began, and at how it had grown to be so accomodating to neighbors. It is with this sense of cosmopolitanism that many of the Nihonese settlers leave for the new territories and manage to cooperate with whatever indigenous population may be found there. It provides for terrific relations with locals and thus higher chance of prosperity and lower chance of revolt.
Not all, of course, view neighbors as equals. But surely, this is only true with those that have not seen the harbors of Kitakyushu with their foreign merchant ships, the marketplaces with their active multi-lingual barter, or appendages to Nihonese culture by the cultures from the mainland called "Asia"...

If Kitakyushu's mentality permeates all of Nihon, then surely relations with neighbors will never sour, and Nihon will bask in the prosperity and diversity that would result - and has resulted in Kitakyushu - from such terrific and extensive inter-ethnic cooperation.

 

[blackheart]

To: Mumbai
From: Travancore

I don't see how we couldn't form a compromise somewhere.. perhaps all members of the current council will remain on a new council?

 

[Sheep]

Australian Commonwealth Orders

Continue to accept more tribes into the Commonwealth
Try and send the expedition to the westerners again with many tribute.
Continue to invest all economy points back into the economy to grow the economy.
Send an expedition to the island of New Guinea and land near RL Port Morsbey. Set up a trading colony and begin to teach the natives there of the beauty of Australian democracy and civilisation. Help them to set up a civilisation of their own, and encourage peaceful relations with them as somewhat vassals of Australia on the island.

 

[tommy_toon]

OOC: Nooooooooooo!!! Just when I'm setting up a trade the rules might change, Gah! Just my luck. Maybe I'll wake up tomorrow and none of that will be true

 

[Kamilian]

never mind this - it was a doublepost

 

[Kamilian]

Sorry.
But this way the trade will be more useful, since you get more economy points to spend.
And I mean I had to balance it by making it every 3 turns now instead of 2, because if I kept the time interval the same, then it would be way too easy to just grow economy by not using the bonus econ points from the trade all the time.
And we all can't have that, can we?
Sorry for the constant rule changes. I realize it's creating confusion but there is nothing else I can do if I want to keep it fair and balanced.

 

[Kamilian]

From Mumbai
To Travancore:
Perhaps we can negotiate some way to compromise directly (hint: AIM). But we so far do not really see a way yet.

From Georgia and Crimea (individually)
To Byzantium:
Agreed.

From Gutan Empire and Brandenburg (individually)
To Eire:
Agreed.

From Rome
To Portugalia:
NAP and trade would be great.

 

[Giio]

From Malagasy
To Beiraland:
We are greatly dissapointed by the fact you have abandoned the Malagsy People. We have a proposition, Beiraland rejoins Madagascar and shall be defended when the Zulu invade your country.

PS Whens the next update?

 

[Kamilian]

From Union of Beiraland
To Malagasy:
We can defend ourselves.

OOC: Wednesday, since I apparently won't get all orders earlier than that.
BTW, nice story Jason. Forgot to mention earlier.