AU 601: Nbarclius Caesar DAR 1

[nbarclay]

From the Praetorian Intelligence Agency, 320 BC

Greetings, mighty Caesar. The Praetorian Intelligence Agency has once again compiled a report on how Rome's economy compares with the economies of the world's other nations. Note that for our mighty empire, we have included three Gross National Product figures, the first representing our GNP if we use none of our income for science, the second at our current science rate of 90%, and the third if we would use all our income for science. Keep in mind that at our current 90% rate, we are running a deficit of thirty gold each decade.


GNP:

Rome: 277/324/330 million
Second: 257 million (Almost certainly Persia)
Third: 197 million
Fourth: 170 million
Fifth: 163 million
Sixth: 157 million
Seventh: 154 million
Eighth: 114 million


Mfg. Goods:

Rome: 150 megatons
Second: 93 megatons
Third: 83 megatons
Fourth: 69 megatons
Fifth: 65 megatons
Sixth: 61 megatons
Seventh: 52 megatons
Eighth: 45 megatons


Productivity:

Rome: 446
Second: 317 (Almost certainly Persia)
Third: 274
Fourth: 239
Fifth: 225
Sixth: 206
Seventh: 185
Eighth: 152

We are uncertain as to how well our advantage in GNP translates into actual income. On one hand, your wise investment in courthouses is helping hold down the level of corruption in most outlying areas. But on the other, our empire is so vast that corruption in outlying regions is still considerable. In any event, we look forward to the time about sixty years in the future when our Forbidden Palace will be complete and can contribute to reducing corruption.

Given Persia's size and the republican nature of its government, we have little doubt that it is second in GNP and Productivity. We strongly suspect that Greece is second in Mfg. Goods since they have the world's second largest population and their king is probably a better manager than the other foreign rulers, but we are reluctant to claim certainty. In GNP, it seems slightly more likely that Greece is fourth or below than that it is third, but there are too many variables involved for that to be more than an educated guess.

Your faithful servant,

Informius Maximus

[Arrian]

The numbers paint a bleak picture for T.

Anyway, I understand why he did what he did (with regard to staying peaceful with you). But in reading your DARs, and in my experience watching you run GS in the early days, it is my opinion that allowing you time to build up is a slow version of suicide.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

In AD 330, Rome completed Leonardo's Workshop. With the considerable number of warriors and legionaries the nation had built, it seemed like a good investment, although whether to get Leo's or Sistine was a close call. Leo's was the first wonder that either Greece or Rome had built.

Also that year, Caesar got word of an alliance between Greece and Persia against Carthage. Since Caesar himself had been tempted to start such a war until Rome started getting a nice income from Persia, he couldn't be too upset about the situation.

By that point, the the Dusk Treader, Rome's exploring galley, had circumnavigated the northern edge and much of the western edge of the land mass and was getting ready to round the southwestern corner and head home.

[nbarclay]

The first volume of the Chronicles of Rome under the leadership of Nbarclius Caesar concludes with the discovery of Education and trades for Printing Press and Gunpowder in AD 360. The discovery of Education was deliberately timed to coincide with the end of luxury deals with Germany and Carthage, thereby ensuring that Education could be used to renew the deals if another nation did not research it first. With the new discovery, Rome traded Education to Carthage for Gunpowder, Printing Press, and gems. The Empire then traded Printing Press to Germany for wines, 2 gpt, and 18 gold and Education to Egypt for 28 gpt and a handful of gold. (Egypt and Persia had Chemistry, but buying that would have been too expensive even with Education to trade to start the deal.) With Egypt having Education, the Great Library’s usefulness to the Egyptians was at an end.

The fact that someone other than Greece had researched Printing Press provided an unexpected boon to Rome: Greece was blocked from getting it first and trading it around without Rome’s having to go out of its way to research it. If Rome handled things properly, and with a little luck, the only technologies Greece would ever get would be ones it researched itself.

The year AD 360 also saw one other interesting event: the founding of another Roman city. Rome’s culture had more or less caught up with Carthage’s, and after looking at the map a bit, Caesar realized that there was room for another city along the Carthaginian border southeast of Syracuse (and built on the corner of Syracuse’s radius). Judging from Carthage’s tile improvements, it was even likely that the new city would not overlap any Carthaginian cities once its border expanded (which a rush-built temple could take care of easily enough). So Caesar decided to seize the day and build the city of Hippo Regia.

Note that the screenshot below was taken after the founding of Hippo Regia but before the tech trades were conducted, since a screenshot after the trade for Gunpowder would be out of scope for DAR 1.