The Conquests

Hi, everyone! It's been a while since I last did a story, so I thought I'd do another one. I had this idea a while ago to play through all 9 of C3C's Conquests and write a story about them, so I am doing that now. I haven't decided what civ I want to do for all of them yet, I'll figure that out when I get to them.

I'm not playing with any crazy variants like I was in my last story, they will just be normal games, aside from the fact that they're the Conquests.

The settings will be whatever the settings for the scenario are, I can't change those, except for the difficulty, which will be set at Monarch.

So, to begin now, I'll go start, by playing the First Conquest, the Mesopotamia one. Probably as Egypt or Mycenae, I haven't decided yet. Not Phoenecia, they're too easy and I've already won as them two or three times.

Index:

Spoiler Links to all chapters :

Part One, Mesopotamia
Prologue: River in the Desert
Chapter 1: The First Thousand Years
Chapter 2: New Discoveries
Chapter 3: The Bronze Age
Chapter 4: Fighting the Barbarian Hordes
Chapter 5: Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Chapter 6: Phoenicia Delenda Est
Chapter 7: And Egypt Feels Fine
Postgame
End of Part One

Part Two, Rise of Rome
Prologue: The Hills Have Wines, And More
Chapter 8: Forever War
Chapter 9: Gains Reversed
Chapter 10: It Got Worse
Chapter 11: Reconquista
Chapter 12: Pyrrhic Victories
Chapter 13: Bloody Friday
Chapter 14: Plans, Anarchy, and Anarchic Plans
Chapter 15: It Was All Luck
Chapter 16: Desert Storm
Chapter 17: This Is Sparta
Chapter 18: I Hope This Works
Chapter 19: So Close Yet So Far
Postgame
End of Part Two

Part Three, Fall of Rome
Prologue: In Your Europe, Vandalizing Your Rome
Chapter 20: Some Roads Lead to Rome
Chapter 21: The Scourge of God
Chapter 22: Roads to War
Chapter 23: Frank Fries
Chapter 24: The Fall of Rome
Postgame
End of Part Three

Part Four, Middle Ages
Prologue: It's Always Sunni In Cordoba
Chapter 25: The First Spanish War
Chapter 26: Filling The Holes
Chapter 27: Five Against One
Chapter 28: A Temporary Peace
Chapter 29: The Great European War
Chapter 30: The Almost-Hundred Year War, Part One, Part Two
Chapter 31: The Holy Grail
Chapter 32: The Not-House of Not-Peace
Chapter 33: The Last Crusade
Chapter 34: The Final Showdown
Postgame
End of Part Four

Part Five, Mesoamerica
Prologue: The City of Gold and Chichen Pot Pies
Chapter 35: The Warriors of the Jungle
Chapter 36: Racing For Amazing Jungle Locations
Chapter 37: The Temple of the Moon
Chapter 38: The Mayan-Aztec War
Chapter 39: Change of Plans
Chapter 40: Apocalypto Minus 700
Chapter 41: The Sacrifices
Postgame
End of Part Five

Part Six, Age of Discovery
Prologue: The Sailing Dutchmen
Chapter 42: The Explorer's Guide to the New World
Chapter 43: The War of the Fake Map
Chapter 44: Exploration and Gunpowder
Chapter 45: Iberian Issues
Chapter 46: Naval Power
Chapter 47: El Dorado
Chapter 48: The African Invasion
Chapter 49: The Siege of Lisbon
Chapter 50: The Treasure Fleet
Postgame
End of Part Six

Part Seven, Sengoku
Prologue: The Miyoshi Warriors
Chapter 51: What a Great Neighborhood
Chapter 52: Secrets of the Ainu
Chapter 53: The War of Southern Aggression
Chapter 54: The Feudal Age
Chapter 55: Sailing Towards Conflict
Chapter 56: Revenge of the Miyoshi
Chapter 57: Gold, War, and Peace
Chapter 58: The War Council
Chapter 59: Unexpected Setbacks
Chapter 60: Shifting Alliances
Chapter 61: Alliance Explosion
Chapter 62: Reducing Enemies
Chapter 63: The Siege of Nagoya
Chapter 64: Consolidation
Chapter 65: Turning Back West
Chapter 66: Achieving Peace Through Conquest
Chapter 67: Pushing Onward

 

Terrain-unwise Romans was good, I look forward to this. I'd suggest the Egyptians for this one.

BTW, your Sauron quote in your sig is hilarious.

 

The Sauron quote has... uh... been there for several months now.

 

I now prepare to lurk.

 

Here's my subscription spam. Rock it, Chox!

 

Alright, I went with Egypt for Mesopotamia, so far I've played a few turns and built stuff with my starting units. I guess I'll write a prologue with that like I did in Terrain-Unwise Romans, so update to come shortly.

 

Prologue: River in the Desert

Hatshepsut looked around. There wasn't much to see, just a bunch of sand like there always was. But, a bit to the west, there was a river. A really, really, big river. It brought a lot of water to the surrounding areas, making them much wetter and more welcoming of life. So there was a lot of things there that her people could eat- and a lot of things that could eat them, but luckily, they weren't hard to get away from, or kill by bludgeoning with a big rock, a big stick, or a big rock attached to a big stick, if necessary. It looked like it would be a nice place to settle down and live, so that's what the Egyptians decided to do. Hatshepsut thought of what little they knew of the world, and tried to decide on what the best locations would be to build settlements.



She realized they wouldn't have to decide yet, as the Egyptians had other people who weren't going to settle, but improve the land or defend and explore instead, so she sent the workers to the wheats growing near their current locations, and the warriors to look around a bit to the East and South to get a better idea of what the best locations would be. Soon after, they reported back to her with what they found.



After she talked to her advisors about it for a while, it was decided that the settlers in the North were already in the best location they could be, but the ones in the Middle should move south, and the ones in the South should move Southwest along the river, in order to better make use of the resources along the river and for the cities to not crowd each other by being too close. The wheat would now be closer to the city in the middle, and the elephants and their valuable Ivory would be closer to the southern city.

While those settlers were doing this, the Northern group was busy building a city, that was named Thebes, and would be the capital of the Kingdom of Egypt.



While she waited for the other Settlers to arrive at their destinations, she argued with her scientists over what they could best spend their time doing. They thought a technology that could strengthen the military would be best, but she disagreed, deciding that they should figure out how to bring the water from the Nile into the surrounding areas the Egyptians wanted to farm, and they eventually went with that. She didn't give them very much money, though, at least not yet, as having only one city meant she didn't have much to give and had to give most of that to keep the small military up. Scientific funding could wait until she had more money.



And soon she would get that money. 40 years later, in 3960 BC (she wondered for a minute who invented this calendar, then decided she didn't care), the settlers had reached their destinations, and built the cities of Memphis:



And Heliopolis:



In Heliopolis, unlike the other two cities, where warriors were being built, she decided to get some more workers to help improve the areas around these new cities.

With the new cities built, she was able to give all of the money that some unknown corrupt people weren't stealing to her scientists to research irrigation, as the military was already paid for. They'd now be able to do their research a lot faster.

She looked at the beginnings of this kingdom, and thought about how she could get more.



Oh well, that could wait, for now she'd do what she could with what she had.

 

Chapter 1: The First Thousand Years

With her shiny new cities built, Hatshepsut relaxed in her nice palace in Thebes and waited for something to happen. Not much was happening, just the workers working on roads and the warriors looking around for things. One of them climbed a hill that had some gold on it in 3920 BC, and saw some water, which they called the "Red Sea", despite the fact that it didn't seem to be red at all. Hatshepsut wonders where they name came from.

The Southern warriors, meanwhile, discovered the edge of the world to the south, and decided to go East.

Not much continued to happen. 3880 BC saw the workers finish the roads they were building, and, having nothing else to do, build more roads to help connect things, but nothing else really happened for a while.

In 3820, (The IBT between 3840 and 3800 BC), The warriors in Thebes were completed, and sent to explore to the West. More Warriors were being built in the meantime. Also, Heliopolis started getting more people, and the borders of Thebes expanded, something about culture or something, so Hat could now see more from her palace. It was mostly marsh, some desert, and a bit of grass on the edge. Some wheat was growing over there, and some fish living in the marsh, but still nothing was happening.

In 3800, the Warrior that had earlier found the coast finished following it North, and found that there was land to the northeast, and more water to the north, and a narrow strip of land connecting it. Apparently, it's called the Sinai Peninsula and the Mediterranean Sea, or something like that.



Also, there seem to be some people on this bit of land to the Northeast that wear purple. Hat has told the warriors to be sure to investigate that.

3780 saw Memphis complete its Warriors, so it was told to make more Warriors, just like Thebes. These Warriors would stay in Memphis to defend and keep order, rather than explore, though.

In 3720 BC, the Warriors that saw the Purple people earlier finally reached their borders, and would soon make contact. At the same time, the other warriors encountered a different people, who called themselves the Nubians and dressed entirely in white. They also were all warriors, and lived in a camp instead of a city. They were an entirely barbaric and hostile people, so they would have to be destroyed. The Warriors needed the combat experience and the gold.



One thing was certain, there was a lot of gold over there. Egypt would have to grab that at some point.

In 3680 BC, the Warriors were finally able to contact the purple people, or as it is now known they called themselves, the Phoenicians. A meeting was arranged between Hatshepsut and the leader of the Phoenicians, Hiram. When they met, Hat found they were a bit advanced in tech, and were richer than Egypt. In addition to the making of pots and burying of dead bodies that the Egyptians knew (They start with Pottery, as well as Wood Working and Sailing, in this scenario, not Cuneiform as the Civilopedia says they do, and I don't know where they got CB from- a Goody Hut, maybe?), they also knew how to work wood, to cut down forests and clear wetlands. Cutting down trees wasn't a particularly useful skill in the desert, but it would be helpful if they could clear out some of the marshes at the point where the Nile River emptied into the Sea for settling. They also took this knowledge of wood working further and knew how to build boats worthy of sailing for a while. Sadly, there was nothing Hat had to trade for any of this, although she noted that strangely, the Phoenicians only had 2 cities instead of the 3 Egypt had. (I can't help but wonder why this is- they start with 3 settlers just like everyone else in this scenario does. Barbs killing the third settler is possible, but seems a bit unlikely...)



Shortly after, the Warriors in the South descended upon the Nubian camp, killing everyone there with no casualties to themselves, except for one of them stubbing his toe on a rock. He has been sent back to Thebes to treat this truly horrific injury.

Also, they took 25 gold, and... yeah, nothing else happened.

The workers had been working for some time to connect all of Egypt by roads. They did that, and then decided to build more roads. Now they were trying to build a road to the herd of elephants that lived to the Southeast of Heliopolis, so that they could harvest Ivory and make people happy. This road was completed in 3660 BC.



The Warriors in Thebes were also completed, and would stay there to defend. At least for a while, as some people in Thebes wanted to leave and settle elsewhere, so they might need those warriors to escort them to their new city location.

In 3640, the warriors who found Phoenicia also found there was a triangular peninsula, the Sinai, just to the South of them, which was the thing forming a bridge between the land mass Egypt was on, and the land mass Phoenicia and probably more stuff was on. It also split the Red Sea into two gulfs, which managed to get called Suez and Aqaba.

Also, some exploring Warriors encountered a village of people living on the Northwestern edge of the Nile Delta. They called themselves Circassians. They didn't do much but fish and look around on boats. They were happy to give the Egyptian Warriors some maps of the surrounding area, all they really had. It was nice, although something else might have been better. All the maps really consisted of was some desert and the Mediterranean Sea.

In 3600, different Warriors found more of the Circassians living in a different village on the West Coast of the Red Sea. They also gave maps of the area. Again, nice, but not particularly helpful.

In 3580, her scientists came to her. "Hey, you know that thing you wanted us to research? Get Water from the Nile? Well, we finished it, we call it irrigation."



"Great," Hat said to them. "Now can you come up with a way to record things? I don't know, symbols and pictures that mean words, or something?"

They said they'd do that, and ran off with some money.

Also, Memphis and Heliopolis both finished the Warrior and Worker they were respectively building, and Hat told them to build mounds to bury people in.

In 3560, Hat realized she could trade her new knowledge for what Phoenicia knew, so she met with Hiram, and told him she'd teach the Phoenicians how to irrigate if they taught Egypt how to cut down trees and work with wood, and give some gold. They both agreed to this trade, and felt it would be mutually beneficial, which it probably would.



Then nothing happened for a while, except that the Warrior near Phoenicia found another group of barbarian warriors. They called themselves Arabs, and held a hill. They would soon be destroyed. Also, in 3480, some Nubian Warriors appeared near Memphis, not being totally destroyed, probably wanting vengeance for their fallen camp. They would not get it, and the warriors in Memphis were sent East to destroy them.

In 3440, the warriors that met the Arabs charged up on the Hill where they were fortified and attempted to destroy them. They almost succeeded, but were wiped out themselves. Well, that would put the mapping of the world back a while...

Luckily, the Memphis Warriors had more luck against the Nubians in 3400, wiping them out with few casualties to them.

Also in 3400, a strange orange-wearing people suddenly were able to contact Egypt. Hat doesn't know how they can, she hasn't seen any of their explorers anywhere and they haven't seen any of hers. So, they must have gotten knowledge of Egypt from someone else. Phoenicia, then? (Contact Trades require the Tribal Council Tech, so they must have it. Strangely, they have contact with Phoenicia and me but nobody else- how they managed to not find Babylon or Sumeria is beyond me.) But, oh well, she decided to talk to them. They were led by a guy named Cyaxares. Hat noticed they didn't know how to irrigate or work wood, but did know two things she didn't, which were a code of warriors for better troops that could use something called a bow, and also knew how to domesticate animals. She wondered how that worked, all the Egyptians knew was how to kill them in the wild, and didn't even pay attention to where they were. But, whatever, a trade was made between the two civilizations for the techs they didn't know and some gold Egypt had to give.



After this, Hat noticed they had developed a system of government different from the Absolute Despotic rule Egypt had, where there was rule by a council of tribesman. Hat did some research, and then concluded that it wasn't really better, and that they couldn't get it from them anyway.

The Egyptians, with their newfound knowledge of animal domestication, started paying attention to where Horses and Cows grazed. They noticed some Cows lived just a bit to the West of Thebes. How they didn't notice this until now is a mystery.

In 3360, the Warriors in the West had seen quite a bit of the west, at least on the Mediterranean Coastline. There wasn't really much but desert, and some occasional grass. But now they saw a village. Might it contain some more maps or something like the Circassian ones they had found earlier? Meh, why not go in. They found that it was occupied by the Harappans, and that nobody was there. There were, however, some very hostile Harappan warriors to the South, Southeast, and East of the village, that would likely attack now. Hopefully, being on a hill, they'd be able to survive the attack...

And they did, in 3340, the group directly Southeast of the warriors attacked, but the Egyptian Warriors survived the battle with no casualties. The Southern group ran Southeast to an unknown destination, and the Eastern group decided to fortify in the desert. And so, in 3320, the Warriors moved against the Eastern group, taking some casualties from complications involving being hit on the head with a rock, but prevailed in the end.

3300 saw the scientists finish with their work again. "That was faster, 300 years instead of 400," Hat remarked to them. The scientists then showed off their new system of writing, or cuneiform, or hieroglyphics, or something, by writing down a few things on a sheet of papyrus. Obviously, nobody but them could read this, so they had to tell them at first until the people in the Palace soon figured out how to read.

(Forgot to take a pic of it, so there is none)

Hat told them to further develop this into a system of Writing.

Also, more Nubians appeared South of Heliopolis, and thus would be destroyed soon by the Warriors in Heliopolis if they got closer. For now, they were no worry.

Hat decided to trade Cuneiform to Phoenicia and Medes like she had traded earlier techs in 3280, and got the two techs they both had but she didn't, and some gold. She now knew the new system of Tribal Government and how to Sail, and realized they were both fairly useless to her right now, but oh well, they hopefully would soon be useful.




3260 saw the band of Settlers finally getting organized in Thebes and ready to go, so a bunch of them left the city and formed the group. In 3240, they went with the Warriors in Thebes as an escort northeast along the road to their chosen site.

They arrived there in 3200 BC, and built the city of Elephantine:



It didn't seem like a particularly nice location, with nothing there but wheat, but it did get closer to the Gold to the East and to the Sinai.

Meanwhile, in the South, the Warriors in Heliopolis decided to do something about the Nubians near their city, and attack. At this, they failed, and were killed. They'll be destroyed some other day. In the meantime, the Memphis warriors went south to defend Heliopolis from the Nubians.

And nothing happened for a while, except Memphis and Heliopolis getting to the large size of 4, forcing some of the citizens to become taxmen in Memphis due to lack of military police to prevent a riot from overcrowdedness. Why paying taxes didn't upset them is strange, but... oh well.

In 3080, the warriors in the west found some a herd of Horses that were way too far away to be useful at the time (hopefully there is some closer...) and some workers began work on Project: Clear the wetlands in the Nile Delta so we can eventually settle there. And get more use out of the land, too.

3020 saw Thebes train the first regiment of Egyptian soldiers trained in using the bow, and it was decided a market to sell stuff and get money should be built.

3000 BC saw many celebrations for a new millennium beginning, which people would most likely live to see happen six times or so. Otherwise, nothing really happened, although some things would soon.

In 2980, the Nubian Warriors that had defeated the Heliopolis Warriors earlier and left re-appeared. Also, Memphis and Heliopolis finished their burial mounds. Most importantly, the scientists finished developing their system of writing.

(And I forgot the picture, again, I'm stupid...)

This knowledge was traded to Medes in 2960 BC. Hat was originally going to get a tech she didn't know, specifically, the knowledge of how to work Stone. But then saw that they new a new people wearing red called Babylon that she hadn't met, and considering they valued that more, decided to get that instead.



She then went and met with the leader of Babylon, Hammurabi. They knew how to use Stone, but didn't know how to Write, or even have a basic system of Cuneiform. They didn't know how to domesticate animals or make pots either. After laughing at their backwardsness, Hat traded Cuneiform for Stone Working.



Lastly, she went to Phoenicia. They didn't have anything much to trade, although Hat noticed they had some workers in the capital. Meh, it would have to do, Hammurabi or Cyaxares would take them if she didn't. "Could we have them and get them to work for us in Egypt?" And so, it was agreed:



She saw that there was some Stone deposits near both Thebes and Heliopolis, the Thebes ones the only ones being readily accessible. She sent her new Phoenician Workers to go connect the stone, and asked the scientists how to mine stuff from the ground to improve production.



She realized she'd ruled for about an entire millennium now, thought, "Meh", and wondered how the next millennium would go.

 

I am reading this .

 

I wish I lived that long.

 

I like it!

 

Maybe it's the Barbara Hershey lips, or maybe it's the Freddie Mercury eyes. But the early age Hannibal leaderheads always look like a girl wearing a fake beard to me.

Good story, by the way.

well done

 

Cool. I think I had this idea waaaay back, but I never got around to it. Good luck, mate!

 

Chapter 2: New Discoveries

After the celebrations of the new millennium were over, not much happened. The workers worked, the warriors explored and defended, the scientists, uh... scienced, and life went on boringly as usual. Sigh. Hopefully something interesting would happen at some point.

But, not much did. The Nubian Warrior band that was camped South of Heliopolis moved away in 2900 BC, then returned a little while later, but nothing else was really happening of note. Elephantine finished training some Archers and decided to start training some Workers, and Heliopolis finished training some Workers and decided to start training some Archers.

Finally, in 2800 BC, some Warriors ventured South out of Heliopolis and finally killed the Nubians that had been hanging around there. The same year, the exploring Warriors encountered some Arab Warriors on a hill in Phoenicia, and killed them all with no casualties to themselves. From this hill, they managed to get a nice view of the Phoenician capital city of Tyre and the sea beyond it. It was a bit smaller than Thebes, and not on a river, and defended by Warriors. They also noticed some fish swimming a bit to the North of the city.



Warriors being inside Phoenician borders made them a little annoyed, though, so Hiram asked them to leave.



"Certainly, they'll be right on their way, we just wanted to kill the barbarians," replied Hat in response to this. And they would, as soon as they could.

In 2780, the Scientists told Hat they had yet another discovery. They could build mines to go underground to get things that would aid in the production of things. Hat would send some of her workers to start mining the grasslands near Thebes and some of the Desert immediately.

Elsewhere, in 2760, in the far West of what the Warriors were willing to explore, they found a village of people called the Assyrians, who gave them maps. Again, it was mostly just desert, with some hilly areas.

This was followed by another period of not much happening. The Exploring Warriors got a view of the small Babylonian desert town of Akkad from a hill in 2680, but not much else happened.



They noticed it was defended by a group of archers that looked different from the ones the Egyptians had, and were also slightly better at defense. The Babylonians called them "Bowmen".

In 2660, Hat got some wonderful news. The Phoenician Workers had finished the road to the stone near Thebes, so it could now be used to build things. They didn't really know anything they could build with it yet aside from Walls, but they'd come up with something (It's required for all but one of the Great Wonders, Walls, Aqueducts, and a few other buildings).



Meanwhile, the workers were finished in Elephantine, and some Settlers started being built. People just didn't want to leave that city fast enough, did they?

Memphis did the same thing in 2620. Hat wondered why the people complained about the cities being crowded, they weren't that big, but whatever. Also, the borders of Memphis and Heliopolis expanded with the culture provided by burial mounds, and her scientists came to her with another discovery.

"Our Mystics have Discovered Mysticism!" one of them announced. Hat thought that statement sounded weird, but then decided that more religious knowledge and temples sounded like they could be good.

2580 saw Heliopolis start rioting that it was too big again. A small oversight, caused by the warriors leaving to go fight the Nubians. It would be fixed soon. Also, Thebes finished the construction of a Market, where people now went to sell stuff, increasing cash flow. Sadly, it was also decreased slightly from the cost of keeping the buildings up and running.

The Warriors found the Nubian camp a bit to the southwest of Heliopolis, and attacked in 2560, killing the warriors inside and burning the camp to the ground. They also managed to get some gold out of the deal. The same year, a more pleasant interaction occurred. On the Sinai peninsula, some warriors encountered a village, inhabited by people called the Cumans. They expected to get maps like so many before them, but no, they found that the Cumans had a round block of wood with a hole in it called a Wheel, which they gladly taught to the Egyptians. The Phoenicians and Medes had recently gotten this technology, too. Hat wondered who the actual inventors were. But no matter, they could use this wheel to make chariots that could be powered by Horses- as soon as they could find some Horses, that is. There were some in the far west, but they were too far away to take advantage of.



The Medes and Phoenicians also had contact with a new civilization, called Sumeria. Hat wondered who and where they were, but didn't feel like giving them Mysticism to find out. Babylon didn't know them, though. (The AI fails at exploration- Babylon and Sumeria are right next to each other, and when I did find Sumeria, Babylon had 5 cities and Sumeria had 7... I really want to know how they managed to not find each other.)

Heliopolis stopped rioting in 2540, after some of the citizens were turned into scientists.

Thebes expanded a bit more again in 2500, now being able to see A LITTLE MORE DESERT AND MARSH. Heliopolis also decided to build a Temple to counter riots.

2480 saw the Warriors who had earlier killed the Nubians discovering a village of huts just to the west. They called themselves Surens, and gave the Warriors some maps, which was entirely desert, and fairly incomplete. They would go North to complete the map a bit.

The Medes had a more perfected form of Chariotry in 2440, which Hat decided she wanted. It didn't seem to be very useful to them, anyway (It only allows the building of War Chariots and 3-Man Chariots, the UU's of me and the Hittites ), so she wondered why they researched it. But maybe she could find a use for it. She traded Mysticism to them for it and some gold:



And, while she was at it, decided to trade it to Phoenicia so they could get contact with Sumeria:



Her Scientists reported that they could make a more advanced form of Chariot, the War Chariot, as soon as they got some Horses.

Hat then went to go meet Sumeria, a people led by a guy named Gilgamesh. They were poor and backwards, but had a lot of cities.



In 2400, Medes also had a new tech, a Code of Laws written down so that everyone could know what they were and follow them. Hat wonders how they research so fast. She didn't have anything to trade for it except Mining and a bunch of gold, so she decided it wasn't worth getting yet.

Speaking of technology, in 2385, her scientists yet again had a new one. They had developed methods for studying the stars, which they called Astronomy. It wasn't useful for much, but they could build a giant statue to the God Zeus. Hat wondered who Zeus was, and then decided it would just be a good idea to build it at some point. She told her scientists to figure out how to work bronze.

In 2370, Hat was bored and had a bunch of gold to spend, so she decided to build Embassies, which she could have done for a while but hadn't done yet. First was Babylon, capital of Babylon. It was a city of around 60,000 people, built on the Euphrates River a bit to the west of the city of Akkad they had earlier seen. It had some Wheat growing nearby. 60,000 people was obviously was too big, for some settlers were trying to come together and leave, and entertainers were needed to keep the city happy, despite there also being a few military police.



Next was Agbatana, capital of the Medes, which was quite a bit to the Northeast of anything Hat had seen in the world so far. It too was building a Settler, despite being much smaller- it only had 10,000 people in it. And it wasn't a bad place to live, they had more luxuries than Egypt, some wheat and cows, a Mountain with stone, and a Fresh Water Lake with some Fish swimming in it. The citizens seemed happy there, and she wondered why they didn't want to at least get a bit bigger before leaving.



Third was Tyre, capital of Phoenicia. The Warriors had earlier already gotten a good look at this city, but now a better look was gotten. It had a population of 21,111, and some wheat, fish, and dyes that had earlier been missed. The citizens and warriors got all their purple stuff from dyes to the North of the city, and it seemed to make them happy. There were also some boats docked in the city. Hat wondered what they were doing there, they would be put to better use sailing around to find stuff.



Finally, Ur, capital of Sumeria. It, like Babylon, was on the Euphrates River, a bit to the Southwest. Hat wondered why it took so long for Babylon and Sumeria to find each other. It had a population of 30,000, and was a bit more grassy and forested than Babylon was. There were some Cows to the North. It was also defended by better Warriors than most people had, called Enkidus by the Sumerians. They had longer hair, more clothes, a long stick, and were a little better at defense than other warriors.



She noticed all of them had built nothing in their capital but their Palaces, most didn't improve the land much, and all were using that silly inferior Tribal Council system of government. She would wait until she could get a good one (Monarchy, Republic, maybe Oligarchy...) to switch.

In 2340, the Warriors in the North climbed a mountain and found a tribal village. They also saw some new, Yellowish-Green borders they'd have to check out. Unfortunately, the village belonged to their long-time enemies the Nubians, who were about to ambush them, so they'd have to fight them off first before meeting the new guys.



Sadly, they failed. in 2325, the Nubian Warriors on the hill to the Northwest charged up the mountain and killed all of them. The Egyptians would have to wait to meet these people. The Phoenicians were a bit of a problem with that, as Tyre's recent border expansion had made any passage between Egypt and the other landmass have to go through them. Hiram bugged the exploring warriors to leave, and Hat said they would. After that, Hiram stopped asking, and the Warriors were allowed to go through without any further hassles from the Phoenicians.

Thebes and Memphis both finished building some Settlers that year, and Elephantine was only another thirty years from completing one, too. Now the question was where to send them.

And soon that question would be answered. A bit to the West, some exploring warriors had wandered the desert for a while and gotten thirsty. Luckily for them, they spotted an Oasis to the East, and decided to head there for some water, food, and shade. When they got there, they saw another Oasis just to the Northeast, and to the North, a region that for some reason was slightly wetter than the surrounding area, where some grass grew, and a herd of Horses was wandering.



Some workers were sent to start building a road to the area as soon as word of this discovery reached Thebes. The Settlers from Thebes would also be sent to build a city here.

In 2250, with the aid of the road, they reached that location, and built a city, which they called Alexandria. The workers were then sent to the Horses themselves to connect them.



The same year, the Settlers from Memphis reached their destination, an area a bit to the East of Memphis that was pretty hilly, and there was a lot of stone and gold in those hills. They named their city Pi-Ramesses.



The Elephantine Settlers would soon also reach their destination. But before that happened, in 2235, an Arab Warrior attacked an Egyptian Warrior in the North, and the Egyptian Warrior was victorious by virtue of not being barbarian.

2220 saw the Settlers from Elephantine reaching their destination, a narrow isthmus between the Gulf of Suez and the Mediterranean Sea. Their city, Giza, occupied all of this isthmus, and they built a canal between the two bodies of water, which they called the Suez Canal. It was a bit worryingly close to the Phoenician capital of Tyre, but that didn't seem like much cause for alarm.



The Workers also got the road to Horses built, so Egypt would now be able to build War Chariots to fight people with.



Also, that same year, a new civilization called the Hittites, the Yellow-Green people the Warriors had seen earlier before they died, came into contact with Egypt. The Medians must have traded them contact to Egypt, or something. Upon talking to them, Hat found them to be very backwards, poor, and small. They also didn't have either Horses, or Stone. For that matter, nobody but Egypt had Horses, and Babylon also didn't have Stone. Hat thought she certainly had an edge here. Hopefully it would last.



In 2205, a team of scientists approached her again, led by a particularly brilliant one named Ptolemy. "We have a breakthrough. We've discovered how to work Bronze!" he said. Everyone agreed that Ptolemy was a very great scientist (And I finally remembered to take a pic for the tech research!).



In 2190, Hat wanted to trade this new technology to Medes for Code of Laws, only to find they still didn't even know how to Mine, and thus couldn't learn how to work Bronze sometimes found in Mines. So, she decided to just teach them Mining and Astronomy in return for the Code of Laws they'd invented, and all their gold.



She decided to use some of this to build an embassy in Hattusas, the Hittite capital, a long way to the North. It was a city of 14,444 on a river by a lake, with some wheat nearby. Like all the other capitals, it had a few defenders, no buildings but the Palace, and the Tribal Council Government. But Hat couldn't help but laugh at some of the Hittites decisions. They had two large deposits of Stone right outside the city and were well aware of that, but hadn't bothered to build roads to the Stone to take advantage of that. They also were building a settler, when, at the time it was going to finish, there wouldn't be enough people in the city yet to form a group of Settlers. Silly Hittites.



She then thought to her new Scientific Genius, Ptolemy.



What am I going to do with you, she wondered to herself (Build a Great Wonder, obviously).

 

Excellent! Now, the hardest part will be which wonder to build. For that matter, which ones can you build? (And have your opponents started any?)

 

The F7 screen says no, although I still haven't met the Mycenaeans, nor has anyone else, for that matter, not even the Hittites. I don't see how that's possible at this point, but maybe the AI really does suck this much. Or maybe there's barbarians over there, or something.

As to what I can build, I could build the Collosus or the SoZ, or the Temple of Artemis and the Pyramids if I waited a bit longer. The Collosus I can only build in Giza, and it's not particularly useful, just gives the +1 commerce in every tile in the city it's built in, and Giza's pretty small, so probably not that. The SoZ gives Barracks in every city on the continent, the ToA gives Temples in every city on the continent, and the Pyramids give Granaries in every city on the continent. Between those three, I'd rather build the Statue, especially since I can build it now instead of waiting to research a tech.

 

Looks Good!

 

Great story, keep them coming !

 

Could you start putting your pictures in spoiler tags? (And put the ones you already have in the tags, too.) They are hard on my load times.

 

Spoilering everything works in an SG, but gets kind of annoying in a story thread...

I'll try to not put that many pictures on the same page and make them smaller.