OK. It's time to finally get to work.
yet, I have just made the map, placed most of the cities
and drew Apostles church. It's not much.

This scenario deals with a topic so interesting I find quite suprising the fact that there is only
one scenario, pretty much obsolete today, about it. It is the time when Europe, bah, the world we know
today was borned. You may treat it as another of my bombastic speaches, but I think it IS true. Why?
VII century saw some drastic changes that changed the balance of power and culture direction existing since
the birth of Jesus. Up till this time, Christianity was spreading, and its major centers were cities of Middle
East. The cultural world east to India was divided between two mights, Romans and Persia, and germanic conquests
in the west may have been treaten as temporary - and they were. Latin was still the language of Romans...
In VII century, Islam appeared, ate entire Persia, halted Christianity's expansion and took its most valuable provinces
in Asia and Africa, which lead to Christian regional identity, future European identity.
Romans didn't reconquer their western provinces, moreover, they lost all their provinces but Asia Minor and cut-off
exclaves westwards; Europe was never to be united again, up to today, and Roman Empire, as it lost most of its non-hellenised
subjects, lost its latin character. Also, the changes that took place in Italy in that time, coming out of its isolation
from the core of the empire and its partition in between Longobards and Romans, it all lead to emancipation of bishop of Rome
from the orthodox church and yet again, the birth of (west-)European identity and catholic church.
The flood of middleeastern monks that hit Europe after their earlier sits were taken by Muslims, the economical crisis,
the Muslim danger and social, economical and military changes it brought, it all lead to formation of new, medieval times.






2.IV.2003
Well, I almost finished cities' placing and road drawing. Most of it was done while ago,
but my biggest problem, by which I mean eastern cities, remained. That's not quite my fault.
the problem with civilisation is that it makes us feel the history was made by citoyens.
But were the cities the place the soldiers came from? I don't think so. Once I had an idea (which
gave me the idea of villages instead of irrigation), that instead of civilization, You should be able
to build villages only (and You should start with having villages only), that would produce just settlers,
depending from the terrain every x turn, and You could place them to adjactent square to extend your village
settlements, or (if You choose such opiton), they should stay on the place making the village bigger; cities
would be possible to build only in places where trade routes or any other thing would allow that, or where
the village itself achieved a proper status. When it comes to owing such a village, it should be like with
airbases. Nevermind.
My point is that to make nomadic or barbaric civ as strong as civilized (which means; having many big cities)
one, I would have to choose one of these sollutions;
1) make barbaric units much stronger.
   But is it appropriate? When they capture many cities, they won't (ok, I can solve it by events, but there
   is never 100% sureness the event will achieve its goals) become "civilised", that's not OK. Also, then playing
   this civ by human player makes no sense.
   Anyway, tehy may not be strong enough to produce enough military units in their little cities.
   In another words, this sollution would be too easy for human player, and too hard for computer one.
2) make barbaric, small cities, villages even, flourishing cities.
And though I'll try to combine these two, I wish now to complain about the secon thing.
I'm really aware that cities like Moigrad or Siscia were never great metropolia, but... I just have to place some
cities there to fill this part of the map for strategical reasons.

11.IV.2003
I practically finished placing the cities, and there are just roads in Arabia to do. i wonder if I should
place some cities in Sahara and south of it. I think I should make separate event files for each civ and make little
changes concerning cities. I'm now going to take a first look on the question of wonders and improvements.

13&14.VII.2003
I came back to work after a long long time and placed improvements in cities (except for future Barbarian ones), and some wonders; finished covering/uncovering map for each civ, and settled their diplomatic relations. Still, all the big stuff is before me.

13/14.IX.2003
I'm after my exams (strangely, I succeeded), and now I have some time for real work over the scenario...
Today, I've made just 2 Khazar units, but I promess to make some more... I did some before, but haven't written about it here. I tend to forget about it.

17.XI.2002
Recently I got back to work. And finally I managed to make Persians act as they should, which is to take Syria
and attack Egypt after Fokas appearance... So, the main plot of the early game works. Also, early Muslim events seem to work.
When it comes to artwork, almost all units were already done. I'm going to finish them, and get to work over the rest; still.
I have SOOOOO little time.

end of XI and start of XII.2002
I did some playing lately. At the start of it, I was heavily disappointed and even wondered if I should stop working.
I even posted something about it at Apolyton, but despite discouraging lack of any responces, I carried on, slowly.
And the situation tends to improve. Except for the tremendous affort You have to make to cure your Empire financially
at the start, the game may be interesting. And it goes about the historical path, except for Nubians taking Lower Egypt
from Coptic rebels; I just tried to mend that by making them more perfectionist and civilised, but I don't know if it will
work, and I made Persians a bit more agressive and militaristic, which will probably affect the gameplay, but I don't know how. As I wrote, all is going the historical path; even the reconquest of Syria is easy, as it should be historically. My little change probably will make it harder, but it should make game more interesting, and will perhaps solve the infantry problem (infantry appears every turn). On the other hand, several cities disappeared (Adrianopolis fe)
and some almost did, like Jerusalem. And destroying an important city, one mentioned in my event system, may spoil all
I prepared for You. 

THANKYOUS
Stefan Haertel gave me some Ctesiphon stuff.
Bernd Brosing - I still use his his ships idea
Alex Mor - I use his Byzantine Galley
Jesus Muoz - the fox!
Harlan Thompson - the mountains
Fratelli Goddi - the forests, the mountains
