When in Rome...

[SlothBear]

Chapter 1 - Settling Down
4000 BC to 3500 BC

"Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place. But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around." E.L. Konigsburg

"Caesar, Caesar!"

"Yes?"

"I think it's time for us to give up on this whole wandering tribe thing and settle down."

"What do you mean wandering tribe? We've been standing in this same spot for centuries."

"Then can we at least build some houses so we don't have to stand out in the open field during the rain?"

"Hmmm. I think near the ocean would be better."

"Near the ocean? Why would you want to settle there? You can't eat the ocean. Let's go towards that grass instead. Mmmm delicious grass."

"I have a feeling it will come in handy to be near the water...what do the workers say? Yep. That's definitely where we'll settle."

"I don't like the sound of this whole "ocean" thing. Maybe I should be in charge."

"Hey? Who's Caesar?"

"You, but that's just a name."

"For now...head towards the ocean."

*grumble grumble*

"Well, we have our city. Rome. I wonder if people will remember it..."

"Oh I'm pretty sure they will. Let's gather up some strong young people and send them out in the world to explore."

It took several hundred years, mostly due to Caesar's inability to convince the people that they were working as a team now, but eventually a group of strong young Romans volunteered to explore.

They came into contact with a group called the Patzinals. Things did not go well. The new Romans didn't quite have the hang of being a civilization yet, and thought it was proper to challenge the Patzinals to a contest, the details of which are best forgotten to history.

This led to war between the peoples. Thankfully the Patzinals had never decided to build houses, so they didn't have any capacity to build troops. As Roman culture expanded, the Patzinals were slaughtered by the young Romans. This first victory inspired the Roman people to truly come together as a nation.

What would the future hold for Caesar and the Romans? Only time would tell...

The setup: this is pretty much how I always start games

World Size: Standard, Barbarians: Roaming, Land Mass: Continents, Water Coverage: 60%, Climate: Normal, Temperature: Warm, Age: 5 Billion, Civilization: Random (Romans), Rivals: All Random, AI Aggression: Normal, Difficulty: Regent

 

[SlothBear]

Chapter 2 - Rome Expands!
3500 BC - 130 BC

"Buy land, they're not making it anymore." Mark Twain

"Okay so if we arrange the letters like this..."

"What are you guys doing?"

"Well we've figured out a new use for this alphabet we just learned. If we arrange the letters a certain way we can make a boat."

"What an age we live in!"

Rome builds a Curragh and sets it to exploring

The Roman adventurers decided to head north and soon met a group of people. Remembering their mistake with the Patzinals the young captain did not repeat his mistake of challenging the Americans (as they were called) to any embarrassing contests. Rather the two peoples sat down and enjoyed a civilized chat.

"No wonder we are destined for greatness. We taught ourselves to read and fight while they were playing with clay and rocks!"

Meanwhile the great Roman scientists had a few other tricks up their sleeve...

Ceremonial Burial researched in 3400 AD

"Ooooh look at all that sugar. It will go well on grass!"

"We really need to find something better to eat..."

"Well Caesar you're looking awfully fine today!"

"Right so here's the plan - we find find Persia and Byzantium and make fun of them until they aren't happy! Go!"

"Can we do it while riding elephants?"

"What's an elephant?"

"We found some to the north, they like to run around between mountains for fun. They're such great animals."

"What? I forbid any Roman from riding such a fat beast. We will restrict ourselves to slick, cutting edge, overpriced horses. Give them all pompous names as well. Like Galadro here. Good boy, have some more sugar."

"But we don't even know how to ride them yet!"

"They aren't for riding. They're for getting other people to ride for you when you go out to eat. All you do is pull up in front of the restaurant. Let's see you do that with an elephant!"

"I can't take your anti-elephant attitude anymore. I'm going to go form my own civilization. We'll call ourselves to Veiians."

"Yeah, good luck with that."

Although the upstart Veiians did indeed found their own city, it was with dismay that their leader realized his people were only willing to take a joke so far, and soon the great nation of Veii was part of Rome again. Caesar was pleased that there would be no more inane attempts at humorous dialog now that his friend was several miles away.

Mysticism researched 2550 BC.

The people of Rome continued to lust for more land, and control of the sugar, which the entire population of Rome was now truly addicted to. Unfortunately their sugar addled guides led them to the wrong spot.

Instead of Sugar, the people of Antium soon discovered the bright dyes of their lands. As roads were connected to both these Dyes and the elephants of Veii, the happiness of the Roman people went through the roof! Of course, St. Augustine was conveniently not around to take note of this. He did however send his friend Pliny.

Which did not make Caesar happy at all!

Meanwhile his troops that had wandered north exploring had grown weary of being polite to everyone they met. An incident at a place called Cimmeria resulted in a minor scrap.

The Cimmerians were of course all slaughtered.

The large, happy people of Persia were discovered in 1750 BC. Attempts to make fun of them went nowhere. Instead, a great series of trades resulted from this, the Persians were taught the Roman alphabet in exchange for Bronze Working, and the Americans were taught Mysticism in exchange for the Wheel.

Historical Note: Apparently Caesar felt awfully dumb after the American scientists explanation of the wheel, which records indicate went something like this - "Well, it's round."

1525 BC - Polytheism researched, traded to America for Iron Working

The Romans were happy to learn of this secret from the Americans, but dismayed to see there was no Iron anywhere in their lands.

The Persians were not alone in the far north as the brave scout Curragh soon discovered.

The Arabs were the final people that the Romans would meet on their island. After this only the lone Curragh and a few warriors were left to explore. The majority of the Roman effort was put into making sure the Americans didn't settle too far south. The city of Cumae was founded, nearby a source of delicious cows. These soon surpassed Sugar as the favorite food of the Romans and led to them being much healthier and having noticeably longer attention spans.

And although the Romans thought that horseback riding was for valets, one of the Ligurians who had made a fortune from parking the Romans horses for them finally couldn't take the absurdity of it anymore, took Caesar aside and taught him how to do it.

After realizing that horses were useful for more than show, Caesar began to order the Roman youth to stop training with clubs, and start training to fight with spears from horseback.

Although considerable effort was still put into expansion. It seemed that Caesar was not the only one with thoughts of war. Scouts reported seeing the Arabs and Persians scrapping with bows, spears, and clubs. A brave scout even reported finding the ruins of an entire city.

Caesar vowed no such fate would ever befall his beloved Rome, or even the other cities that he didn't like so much, but were still Roman! Cities like the newly founded Pompeii for instance.

Monarchy researched 630 BC

In an effort to show that his new obsession with horses was not unhealthy, Caesar allowed a few groups of young Romans to train as archers and head to the frozen south to hunt barbarians. They reported the Sarmatians made excellent sport, but were not quite as smart a prey as elephants.

Meanwhile in the north, expansion had gone about as far as it could go.

The Americans had gobbled up the extremely fertile floodplains with a city called "Boston" that was already notorious for needing to attract desperate career losers to put together a half decent basketball team that couldn't win on the road in the playoffs.

390 BC - Writing researched, we build an embassy in America

The scout Curragh had managed by this time to loop around the entire continent, returning to Rome where it had been made. It confirmed that there were four civilizations here - Rome, America, Persia and Arabia.

Rome had somehow managed to become a beacon of Science and learning, attracting the services of the great Leonardo himself.

Literature researched 210 BC, we get a SGL!

While the great Leonardo refused to build a workshop of any find, Caesar was able to convince him to make...

The payoff from this great work was truly astounding. That very year the Romans learned the secrets of Mathematics, Philosophy, Code of Laws, and Map Making!

It was an excellent beginning. But would Rome be able to hang onto it's early success? Where would they look for more land? Only time would tell...

 

[Aabraxan]

Well done, SlothBear, and welcome to CFC!

 

[Jorgo_Mono]

"Well we've figured out a new use for this alphabet we just learned. If we arrange the letters a certain way we can make a boat."

Haha, very funny, will be following this.

 

[Tasslehoff]

excellent story so far, and welcome to CFC !!!

I'll be watching!

 

[SlothBear]

Thanks Aabraxan, Jorgo_Mono, and Tasslehoff!

Chapter 3 - Proud Romans
130 BC to 1450 AD

"Well I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free." Toby Keith

When Caesar awoke in 130 BC he was not pleased. Boston had managed to beat Ravenna on the road for the first time in the playoffs. While a rational ruler might have looked to recruit some talent from the under appreciated Arab or Persian leagues, or even sent his vessels overseas to try to find foreign talent, Caesar canceled the league forever and declared war.

Fortunately not everyone was wasting their lives playing basketball, several hundred young romans had formed teams of horsemen that galloped quickly to Boston, slaughtered the defending spearmen and captured the city.

Meanwhile southern expansion continued as well, with the last barbarian encampment dispersed.

After crushing Boston the Americans were alerted that Seattle was about to abandoned by it's basketball franchise, leaving the city relatively undefended.

Seattle quickly fell, and the horsemen did not even stop for a breath (well a quick one, twenty years or so) and marched right on to Washington!

Zulus build the Pyramids, we get Construction from the Great Library

The city of Buffalo was soon added to the Roman empire. Using the buffalo's wings instead of barter, the Romans adopted their first currency. After a few years they changed it to gold coins instead, as the delicious buffalo wings were consumed too quickly to be practical.

70 AD we research currency and enter the medieval period!

The next list that was released made Caesar quite happy.

"Ha! Eat it Persia!"

The war with America continued full steam. Chicago fell in 110 AD. Detroit was destroyed in 210 AD.

Man, I had a screenshot but I accidentally saved over it! I love destroying Detroit!

The great city of New York fell in 290 AD, along with the nearby Dye plantations. Caesar took note of his new acquisitions and decided this was all that he would need for now. Peace was made with America.

New York turned out to have a bit of a cockroach problem as it was rocked with diseases in 300 AD. That same year a revolution swept the Roman countryside, prompting massive changes in the way things were done!

300 AD we get Republic and revolt! Five turn Anarchy

The Roman Republic was established in 350 AD. Caesar begrudgingly allowed Americans as well as Romans to vote in his elections. Patzinals were not allowed to vote. In fact any that tried were tossed in the ocean and spit on. The sages of the time decreed this to be tough but fair.

For the next three hundred years very little is recorded of the Roman history. Some say this is because it was the dark ages. Some say it was because the author didn't bother writing stuff down. Others suggest that nothing interesting happened.

However Caesar was not sitting idly even though most of his people were. He had been building galleys and racing them against galleys built by his friends to see who could sink theirs first. There was an unexpected consequence of this as one particularly bad captain failed to sink his galley after being given many opportunities.

The mythical people of Byzantium turned out to be real!

The Zulus as well!

Soon the French were met as well! They proved to be smarter than the Byzantines or Zulus and Caesar traded them his secrets of Education for their knowledge of Chivalry and Invention.

The very last Roman settlement ever built was founded in 820 AD on the island paradise of Lugdunum.

This became a popular vacation spot with the Roman people.

960 AD - we get Astronomy, Persia beats us to Leonardo's Workshop
970 AD - we sell Banking to Persia for Wine and Furs, build a Forbidden Palace in Washington
1000 AD - Navigation researched, Persians build Knights Templar

Meanwhile, the Romans who weren't total hippies had been up to better things.

With these recent innovations, a fellow named Tacitus released a list that Caesar declared to be finally an accurate representation of the state of things.

While Xerxes, perhaps tired of fighting Arabia to a complete standstill, declared war on America. The last civilization, the Dutch were discovered as well, although it was a bit of a letdown.

1040 AD, we get Printing Press

In 1050 AD Rome traded world maps with most of the known world, resulting in the most complete map of the world ever produced. He noticed that the Persians were growing at the expense of the Arabs and the Americans, the French and Byzantines were a fair size, the Zulus were huge, and the Dutch were insignificant.

1050 AD - we trade Theodora Dyes and Contact with the Arabs for Incense, five luxuries!

1100 AD - Democracy researched! Four turn anarchy!

A second great revolt broke out in 1100 AD. The Romans had realized that the old American saying "Freedom isn't free" was true! They wanted more freedom, and as they were rich they could afford it! The Roman democracy was established in 1140 AD!

1150 AD - Banking +1150 Gold to Arabia for Chemistry
1170 AD - French beat us to Copernicus Observatory

But Caesar was not saddened by the loss of the great observatory, he simply switched some stuff around and...

1250 AD - we get Military Tradition, trade Democracy+Dyes to France for Music Theory
1270 AD - we get Physics

Xerxes war against America was a smashing success. By 1275 AD the Americans had been all but wiped out and Persia had grown huge.

Spoiler :

The great Roman builders meanwhile, were still at it!

But what of America? Well they still lived. Barely. In the worst city possible.

Yes. Cincinnati. Built next to a Volcano. The Americans truly showed why they had never been able to win anything.

Thus followed another century of relative peace. 1290 AD saw that rise of Free Artistry. The French built JS Bach's Cathedral in 1310 AD. Magnetism was researched in 1315, and Theory of Gravity in 1340 which put the Romans as the first nation to enter the Industrial Age. 1385 saw the greatest innovation of Rome to date - the Steam Engine. But there was a problem.

No coal.

A quick overview of the map showed a nearby supply...in Persian lands.

So Caesar did what anyone would have done in his situation. He went and beat up the Americans.

Then he took in a play.

Then finally, he got around to bullying Persia.

We get Medicine in 1415 AD, Paris builds Newton's University in 1445 AD, We get Nationalism in 1450 AD.

Spoiler :

Immortals. We'll put their name to the test.

 

[kingfire87]

Very cool! *Subscription!*

 

[SlothBear]

Argh. Sorry for starting then not finishing

I have played this game to the end though, and have the pictures to finish the story so it should be finished by the end of the week. Sorry again

 

[DJ Bonebraker]

Nice story.