The mighty Belgian Empire

[GeusBlues]

?? I open my eyes, can't remember a thing, just like I didn't exist a second ago.
Hmmm, maybe that's just it, these just might be my first moments ever in these woods.

Let's take a look around:
Strange, I can look ahead a couple of tiles, next tiles are dark as the night.
It's the same in all directions. The sun is only shining on the spot where I'm standing ?? ... Strange planet.

Oops, seems like my brain receives some info now:
It's 4000 BC, I belong to the Belgian CIV, I'm a settler.

OMG, please, not a BELGIAN settler !!
Then again, better a Belgian settler than a HRE or Polish settler.

Let's take a stroll.
Naahh... if I move to another tile, the darkness ahead disappears, but only in the direction I'm moving.
Hihi, I'm in full control of the sun.

Now what's this? I walk around a bit and suddenly I can't move anymore, not even the smallest muscle in my body.
Aha, if the word "enter" flashes through my mind I can move again.
Easy once you get the hang of it: walk around, think "enter", walk around, think "enter"...

Some woods, some plains, some rivers, even some deer... nice neighbourhood.
Another flash through my mind: "found a city"
What the heck? It's 4000 BC! I'm a Belgian settler! Who do you think I am? An Egyptian settler? A Maya settler?
Belgian settlers just don't found cities in 4000 BC !

Nope I'm sure now, I'm not going to found a city. There's no need for it since I spotted a hut.
I'm not a materialistic guy, the hut will do fine for me. It offers me a place to rest and I've got deer to feed me.
So I stay who I am for now: a Belgian settler, enjoying life in my woods, and I plan to do so for the next couple of 1000 years.

 

[FuRRie]

Belgium FTW o/

 

[GeusBlues]

So the year is 0DC or is it 0AD?

What happened during the past 4000 years:
4000 years ago I met a friendly tribe who "spawned" one strong guy. Lucky me I stayed with him.
In the beginning we had to fight wild animals. Well, to be honest my strong friend did all the fighting.
A couple of times I thought he would loose the battle and I would be on my own again.
But he survived and got stronger after every fight.

Man, we encountered wolves and bears, but the strangest thing was something called a lion.
Actually the beast didn't really want to fight, all he wanted to do was to warm himself next to our fire.
Those lions weren't used to our climate, so finally they went back to where they came from, a place called Africa.

Life was easy, so there was no need to found a city during those centuries.
The Belgian civilisation just has to wait a bit.

I found out I'm living on the North-West side of a continent called Europe.
A lot of friendly tribes live here in the neighboorhood, so we regularly visit eachother to drink beer, eat deer and enjoy the compagnie of ladies.

Some years ago things changed.
An army (until then I didn't even know what an army was) of a people called the Romans came to our woods.
They didn't knew a thing about fashion cause they were all dressed in the same silly clothes.
It wasn't even clothing: those people had iron breastplates and feathers on top of their helmets, we just couldn't stop ROFL or even ROFLMAO.

Anyway, to the south of us were some cities of the Kelts.
Romans didn't like the Kelts very much. They started a war and what was the result? The Kelts lost their cities to the Romans.
Ha... I knew it wasn't clever to found cities !
No cities means nobody can concer the Belgian Civilisation: Belgians versus Romans: 1-0

The Romans swarmed our woods.
Even if I wanted to found a city, there was no room left now.
Who cares? The Romans build their own cities, roads, temples... and the best of all: vineyards.
Now I won't say wine is better than beer, but you can get drunk from wine quicker then from beer.

We, the Belgians, stay in our forests. Only during the night we pay the vineyards a visit, which is very easy cause the Romans build us those roads.
For the moment I really can't think of a valid reason to found a city !
Nope, Belgian Civilisation just has to wait a bit longer !

 

[tR1cKy]

Nice story

 

[Izipo]

Excellent twist!
What's next ?
It's a shame there's no potato ressource in the game...
Clam+potato = mussels with fries = yummy!

 

[GeusBlues]

Around the year 800 the Roman empire was weakened and they left our forests.

New tourists came in.
From the start I had my doubts about them, especially on their leader Charlemagne.
This guy didn't even know if he belonged to the French or to the Germans, so he just claimed to be representing both.
Viscious minds even said he had some Polish blood running through his vains.
And on top of that he called his empire the Holy Romans.
Sounded logical to me -sigh-

The above started years of discussions amongst people around the world.
Discussions that, in my opinion, might well last into the 21th century.

Discussions or not, we, the Belgians, are a pragmatic people:
It was clear to us that Charlemagne had some loose wires, and because people like that are somewhat unpredictable you don't want to upset them.
The foundation of the Belgian Civilisation was already on hold for 4800 years, so a couple of years on top of that wouldn't make a difference.



Our region was known as "Belgica", Latin for "The Low Lands".
Few people during the middle ages knew Latin, so I assume they were mislead by the "Bel": "Belle" in French, "Beautiful" in English.

Between 800 and 1815 EVERYBODY visited our region !!!
The Dutch, the Germans, the Austrians, the Portugese, the Spanish, the English, the French ... (forgive me if I forgot somebody), they all came to Belgica/Belgium.
Some came for a couple of decades, some for centuries... some left and came back once more, or twice...
For a full 1000 years we were the Disneyland of Europe.

1000 years of feeding those vast hordes of tourists, serving beer, doing the dishes, fixing whatever they demolished when they got drunk and fought...
Now you tell me, what would you do during these hectic times? Earn money on those people's back or found a Belgian CIV ?

 

[GeusBlues]

If you've been visiting pubs for many centuries like me, you recognise the situation:
Usually nothing happens; just having a couple of bears, chit-chatting about the people who are not in the bar...
On rare occasions a discussion get's out of control and a short skirmish between friends happens, ending 2 minutes later with paying eachother another beer and boosting about what could have happened if they would have been really angry...
On very rare occasions you have a real rumble... everybody starts fighting with everybody, tables and chairs flying through windows, a friend 10 secs ago is your foe for the next 10 secs until that foe is attacked by an even greater foe, so the little foe becomes a little allie again, until little allie's GF scratches the eyeballs out of your GF and... well, you know the story.

Something like that happened in 1815 in the battle of Waterloo.
Belgium had been the pub of Europe for too long, everybody got bored after so many centuries and the rumble started.
Napoleon got beaten up pretty badly, but the winners (English, Russians, Germans and Dutch) knew the good times in the pub would never return and that is was time to start a new chapter in their lives: return home, transfer the control of the remote control to the wife, staring through the windows at night...

Everybody left the bar for home except the Dutch governor, probably because he was just too drunk.
Aha... this was the right time to take control of our beloved Belgium.

We did it in style:
France just had its revolution, so we believed we should do something similar.
In front of the palace where the Dutch governor lived was a park, 500 meters long.
The Belgian revolution was exactly 500 meters long and a couple of hundred citizens strong !
The Dutch governor could do only one thing: start walking in the opposite direction.

To make things real, we needed a king.
Being a king means being well-mannered, eating with fork and knive, remain sober in public... obvious there were no Belgian candidates.
We found a German called Leopold Von Saksen-Coburg. He just had refused the crown of Greece. Refusing twice was not done in those days.
In order not to upset our neighbours France, Germany and The Netherlands, we brought him in by boat.
The boat was stranded on the beach, so he had to walk the last couple of meters barefoot through the water.

We had finally founded the Belgian Civilisation. Without war we just walked into some fairly big cities like Brussels, Antwerp, Liege, Ghent.
Having the other civilisations fighting their wars and waiting until their power graphs dropped to nearly zero, was a succesfull strategy.

Time to expand now...

 

[dazman92]

nice story, man.

but by now, you must be last in score.

 

[Ambiorix]

But first in beer !