|
The Great Survey |
| In the year 310 After Disco, the Blessed William
instituted a number of governmental reforms. A Great Survey was
carried out, with maps showing the extent of those lands ruled over by
the English. With the results of the Survey brought in, the
Blessed William then created the Duchy of Warwick, naming the former
Earl of Warwick as his regent over the lands in eastern England along
the Coventry River. The new Duke immediately built a large palace
and immediately took up such an air of arrogance that he became known as
the Forbidden Duke, and his home as the Forbidden Palace. Nevertheless,
corruption and waste declined, and the Blessed William was so greatly
pleased that he extended the fuedal system to the rest of England. The Great Survey: West | Central | East By the early 400s, the Blessed William saw that England was in a sad
state militarily. Stone Age warriors with axes still protected the
English cities, and any future aggressor could sweep through England
with ease. So, armed with the wisdom of the works of a man named
Sun Tzu, the Blessed William set out to train legions of modern pikemen
to protect England from attack. Within 50 years, many legions of
well-trained pikemen had been raised in London and sent to the
provinces, and no threat appeared to loom over the horizon. Nevertheless,
much of the world stood in awe of English civilization, and most were
not happy about living in the shadow of the Blessed William, especially
the barbarous Tokugawa. Hiawatha of the Iroquois appeared to be
the only friend of England in the world, and was even a palatable
friend, having dressed up in stylish new clothes, made by London's
finest tailors. |
|
The Roman War |
| In 570, Julius (the ruler) declared war on England. This
precipitated a minor tragedy in London as several government ministers
laughed themselves to death[1]. This made Caesar angry enough that
he ordered his forces to sack Hull, a colony near Rome defended by
nothing but a warrior. The response in London was immediate.
The Blessed William ordered the immediate arming of warrior
regiments with iron swords and armor, and ordered them sent to the
front. Meanwhile, pikemen continued to be produced, who would
replace other warriors who would be rearmed and sent to the front in
turn. Upon the arrival of the sword-armed troops to Hull, fierce fighting erupted, which went badly for the English. Roman troops were closer to their homeland and thus received reinforcements faster, and most of the Romans were either horse mounted archers[2] or legions. Despite this, the Blessed William did not increase military production beyond the pikemen already being trained in Warwick and Newcastle. Civil architecture continued being built at a rapid pace, and irrigation, road building, and mining projects enjoyed high priority. Nevertheless, emphasis was put on gaining horses for English use, and colonies were established in the south for the purpose, and a highway was built to Iroquois lands for trade. Nevertheless, after repeated sword attacks on Hull proved that it would not be taken without a massive attack force, the Blessed William called a halt to the war, and went to Caesar to discuss peace terms. In return for the secrets of monarchic government and 8 sacks of gold in tribute each decade, Caesar offered contact with new peoples, the Babylonians, Indians, and Persians, and offered a new map of the world. The Blessed William accepted. India, 660 AD:
These new peoples occupied a large continent on the opposite side of the world. They were mid-sized nations, about the size of a Japan or a France. They were also technological imbeciles. The most advanced of them, Ghandi[3], had yet to even understands the secrets of engineering, let alone advanced concepts like theology. Babylon and Persia still languished in the Dark Ages. On the good side, from the Blessed William's perspective, they at least adopted decent colors. The Indians used a shade of gray, the Persians used a nice turquoise, and the Babylonians used a dark blue color. |
| [1] - Remember that map of Rome from back when? They're
still that big. [2] - Horseman replacement for militaristic civs with increased attack. [3] - Seems like Gandhi ALWAYS does good, for some reason. |
|
The Second Roman War |
| With the end of the war, almost nothing changed in England
except that Cambridge was converted into a garrison city, with the aim
of teaching the Romans who really ruled this continent. The
building projects continued at full pace, and in 680 they culminated in
the great Sistine Chapel in London, the greatest such structure in all
the world, occupying one side of the Great Square, opposite the Chichen
Itza and flanked by the Palace of the Blessed William. By the year 860, most English cities were finished with their great building projects[1], infrastructure projects were picking up speed, and the glorious armies of England numbered in the scores[2]. Furthermore, a substance known as "gunpowder" had been discovered by English scholars, who declared that the Blessed William could build weapons of fearsome power with it. One slight problem, the scholars hesitated to say, was that every known deposit of the main ingredient, saltpeter, was outside English borders. The Blessed William, it is said, sighed, scanned his maps, and noting that an unclaimed deposit existed east of Halifax in the desert, ordered a mission of colonists to go seize it. Among the first settlers would be the scholars then in the room with him. In 920, an inventor named Leonardo set up his workshop in York, and due to his skills, horsemen and pikemen units could be upgraded at vastly reduced prices. Unfortunately, there was still nothing to upgrade them to, since no reserves of saltpeter existed. The Blessed William ordered a road built with all available labor to Huntingdon, the saltpeter colony town. Meanwhile, a new education movement swept the nation, and great universities were constructed in many cities. The first of these, London University, opened in 980. In the year 1000 After Disco, the people celebrated the millennium by completing the Saltpeter Road to Huntingdon. Almost immediately, new weapons were ordered for the horsemen of Cambridge, who were trained as dragoons. It was decided that the gigantic army that England had had laying around for the Roman threat wasn't going to be very useful if there WAS no Roman threat, so it was decided to take the novel track of threatening the ROMANS. Emissaries were sent to Caesar suggesting that it might be a good idea if he were to give up Hull and Pompeii, since he seemed incapable of ruling them. For some inexplicable reason, Caesar ignored this perfectly logical request, and declared war. The Blessed William shrugged. The problem with Rome, he figured, was that it was full of Romans. The best way to deal with that was a slight change in political leadership. In went the dragoons, and after negligible fighting, Hull was English once more. What's more, a tiny Iroquois town in the desert, Kawauka, defected wholesale to the English. Then Pompeii fell to English forces. Then Ostia and Ravenna. The fighting was Roman longbows and spears against English dragoons and swordsmen, and the only English casualty through the entire first three years of the war was a dragoon unit commanded by one of the last remaining "social generals" who was ambushed by Roman longbowmen in the hills near Ravenna. The Blessed William ordered that the luckless officer's head by mounted on a pike in front of the Great Palace of London. Ostia turned into one of the most hotly contested battlefields of the war starting in 1050. Roman legions hurled themselves at English swordsmen[3] fortified in the city. The result was a slaughter for both sides, but the under equipped Romans were thrown back, and while the Romans were occupied, English dragoons swooped down and took Neapolis, Antium, and Cumae before obliterating a Roman army outside Neapolis. The dawn of the year 1120 saw English troops in Rome, parading past the Great Lighthouse after a surprise attack during the winter overwhelmed the Roman garrison[4]. Concurrently, the Neapolis garrison, penned in by legions, broke out, and English troops surged forth in the north. Caesar hurridly packed up and fled to Veii, where he recieved word that Hispalis, the last Roman city in the north, had fallen to English dragoons, and more dragoons were advancing on Virconium. Virconium soon fell, and English forces wheeled on Veii, capturing it after vicious house to house fighting. Caesar fled once more, to Pisae, a little plague-infested town in the middle of the steaming jungles[5]. In 1160, word came from York that an astronomer named Copernicus had built an observatory there, and scholars from all over were flocking to use it. Coupled with reports of victories against Rome, it was decided that England had entered a Golden Age of her civilization. This was confirmed when all over England, people heard the Voice boom from the sky "GOLDEN AGE! EXCELLENT!" In celebration, English forces destroyed Lugdunum and assaulted Pisae, but the English swordsmen were wiped out almost to a man by stiff resistance. In 1180, English forces took Pisae and Byzantium, forcing Caesar to flee to his last stronghold, the coastal town of Lutetia. The big news, however, was in London, where a man named Gutenburg had perfected a printing press and was selling copies of the Bible, a book which said very, very nice things about the Blessed William and the Voice, hand over foot. He also produced other books, such as treatsies on music theory and navigation, which pleased the Blessed William to no end. He was likewise cheered by the fall of Lutetia, ending the last Roman presence in their homeland. Unfortunately, the colony of Brundisium still held up north. Ships were ordered built to transport troops to destroy it, but for some inexplicable reason, the Blessed William decided on peace, instead[6]. Rome at the End of the Second Roman War[7]:
|
| [1] - Read: Nothing to build. [2] - To be exact, 49 workers, 8 warriors(3), 17 swordsmen, 16 horsemen, 39 pikemen. [3] - Currently being replaced by pikes, of course. [4] - He had a pikeman! I didn't say he could have pikemen! [5] - To quote a couple of the stock phrases around here for such things. [6] - Possibly because somebody forgot to let units load on junks. Oops. [7] - Red = initial targets, Dark Blue = second wave, Pink = third wave, White = fourth wave, Light Blue = fifth wave, Light Green = sixth wave, Purple = seventh wave. |
|
The Golden Age |
| After the war, England set about building up her conquered
territories, as well as the homeland. Infrastructure was built,
and crews of workers were sent to clear the steaming, disease-ridden
jungle pit that was Rome. A man named Adam Smith set up a trading
company in Warwick to take advantage of the situation, and was soon
richer than a lord, and the Blessed William's government was rich from
the taxes. So rich, in fact, that the Aztec citizens of Ectapec[1],
seeking English wealth, offered their allegiance to the Blessed William,
who accepted. All this wealth also allowed a massive[2]
upgrading of the English military to modern gunpowder weapons. Save
for a few towns in the former Rome, all of England was soon protected by
musketmen, and the dragoon units were sent to four towns in the corners
of England: Oxford in the southeast, Blackpool in the southwest,
Glouchester in the northwest, and Hull in the northeast. Towards the end of the 1200s, the English began demanding more rule of law, especially in the conquered territories. To appease the people, and as some rumors went, to appease the Voice, the Blessed William ordered the construction of a Supreme Court in Oxford. Finished in 1275, it immediately made the people happy (and reduced waste and corruption, of course). That same year, the great banking firms of England met in Chichester's Wall Street to open the first stock market. Five years later, a man named Newton opened his University in York[3], and immediately attracted the best and brightest of the kingdom. He also attracted the best and brightest of other kingdoms, as the French in Archamps declared for William five years later[4]. Some, though, thought little of the English way, as the famous playwright William Shakespeare, scheduled to make an appearance in Bath, left for Japan instead[5]. By 1315, the people grew unhappy with the limited rule of law allowed by the Supreme Court. In city after city, protesters clashed with government troops about the right to vote, and in 1345, after long years of semi-anarchy, a democracy was declared. Somewhat to the surprise of most of the freedom fighters, the Blessed William was elected year after year. Soon after the switch to democracy, new military secrets reached England. New methods of gun making enabled the training of cavalry units and riflemen. Luckily, Leonardo's workshop was easily able to mass produce these weapons, and soon all of England's troops barring a few stuck in the Roman morass were armed with the latest weaponry. |
| [1] - All your useless desert town are belong to me. [2] - 1500 worth of upgrades or so. [3] - York sure does rule. Newton, Copernicus, Leo's shop... [4] - Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. All your base are belong to us. [5] - I would have had it on my turn, too. Ow. |
