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**alexman** · January 23, 2003, 04:57

The story of Alexman the Clueless starts in 4000 B.C. Egypt is but a small village and needs brave Warriors to protect her. After we have enough Warriors (3) for exploration and defense, we will need a place to store all the food given to us by the fertile banks of the river Nile. Surely by then our wise scientists will have found a way to build a Granary.

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**alexman** · January 23, 2003, 04:58

Surely we cannot be the lone inhabitants of this land. Who are our neighbors? Not even our best prophets could say. But in 3300 B.C. a curious Iroquois Warrior appeared in the outskirts of our prosperous lands. He was very friendly, and told tales of a vast Iroquois empire, twice the size of Egypt. We offered to cooperate in advancing the prosperity of both our civilizations. Our scientists immediately changed focus from the Wheel to the discovery of Mysticism. The Iroquois agreed to then exchange the Wheel for Mysticism. It was a relief to have such friendly neighbors. The other two civilizations on the planet would no doubt be cooperating as well. If they weren’t, well, then we are a step close to conquering them!

Eventually, the Iroquois and Egyptian people agreed to share a big chunk of the research tree. We would research Mysticism, Polytheism, and Monarchy, so we can both switch out of despotism as soon as possible, while they would obtain Warrior Code, the Alphabet, Writing, Literature, the Wheel, Bronze Working, and Iron Working.

We would carefully avoid exchanging these technologies until we actually needed them, so that any new civilizations we would meet would not know we were cooperating. The plan was to expand, produce an army of War Chariots and Mounted Warriors, change to Monarchy, establish an embassy, and then attack our closest neighbor with our unique units, triggering a Golden Age outside of Despotism.

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**alexman** · January 23, 2003, 04:59

By 2270 B.C. we had explored enough to know that our only neighbors were the French. The Americans were nowhere to be seen. The Iroquois-Egyptian plan would be far too easy without having to fight two other civilizations. We decided to let the French know everything, offering to continue without alliances, given the unbalanced map.

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**alexman** · January 23, 2003, 05:00

Our memorandum to the French was meant to be something to the effect “Ha! If we wanted, we would have eliminated you, but we’ll make it interesting by breaking the Iroquois-Egyptian cooperation. No alliances from now on.” But they had the last laugh. Little did we know that valiant French, even crippled by early barbarian raids, would immediately attack our glorious, but completely unprepared for war, civilization!

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**alexman** · January 23, 2003, 05:00

What followed was a tense buildup of force. Actually, that’s what we wanted the French to believe, but in reality we were still expanding as Iroquois forces were on their way to defend us. Not prepared for conventional warfare, the Egyptian military resorted to barbarian tactics. Our measly Warriors were once again soundly defeated by French archers, but it was fun to see the world from a barbarian’s point of view!

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**alexman** · January 23, 2003, 05:01

When the game crashed in 1500 B.C., we were still feeling the effects of our early population lost to disease, and the city razed by the French. Our biggest strength was our agreement with the Iroquois to crush the French. We were still expanding, so despite having a barracks, our military was weak. Our only hope for the future was to occupy the French lands to the East, since there was no room to expand towards the mighty Iroquois to the West.

This game is an example of the extreme power of Expansionist civilizations in multiplayer. The Iroquois got an early settler, a huge tech lead, and established early contact. The Egyptians, eager to form a research partnership and not wanting to confront an empire twice their size, gave their word of cooperation to the Iroquois. However, if they had met the French first, they would have certainly formed an alliance with them instead. Such an alliance would have been more balancing for this particular game, and would have ultimately have given the Egyptians a better chance to be the last civ standing. But as it turned out, that last civ would have been the Iroquois without a doubt.

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**Harovan** · January 23, 2003, 06:55

The sad tale of the not so peaceful French people

It was 4000BC, when a tribe of gallic nomads, led by Ralph the Brave, settled down at the shores of the Seine river. The location was not great, but good enough for a halfway passable start. Our immediate assets were cows, one bonus grassland and one forest, for later, after having it improved, we had one floodplain and some hills.

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**Harovan** · January 23, 2003, 06:56

The early disaster, around 3500BC

Around 3500BC the culture of the French people had become so strong, that the area of our influence expanded. This caused a massive uprising of the former inhabitants of the gained territory. The following civil war was a disaster for the French people. It lasted from 3500BC to 3400BC and destroyed all things the French built in the 500 years from the city foundation. 2 warrior units, our worker force and a big part of the citizens of Paris were killed and all our tile improvements pillaged. If took more than 500 years to compensate these losses.

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**Harovan** · January 23, 2003, 06:57

Our evil neighbors

Around 2500BC-2200BC our exploring warriors met scouts of Grandpa Jshelr of the Iroquois and warriors of Alexman the Clueless of Egypt. The French people offered their hands for friendship and trade, but were utterly disappointed by a diplomatic note of Alexman the Clueless (the later French historians called him Alex the Evil).

In this note Alex told us, that the forces of the Evil, namely the Iroquois and Egyptians, had pledged an alliance against peaceful France and would attack us together, as soon as enough of their superior mounted forces are trained. The question, if this is acceptable to the French people, sounded like mockery. Ralph thought long about his answer to the pact of the Evil. His advisors demanded him to beg for peace. But he refused. "A la guerre, comme a la guerre", he said. If they insist on war, they can have it. Not when they are ready, but right now, when our chances are more or less even. And Ralph declared war on Egypt and the Iroquois.

Our scouts were commanded to attack the newly founded Egyptian town Arrian Deceptown. Unlike our combat performance in the first barbarian wars, our warriors fought outstanding this time and burned the city of the evil Egyptians to the ground.

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**Harovan** · January 23, 2003, 07:00

The 2nd barbarian war

In the following years, things calmed down a little. We made peace with the Iroquois, because we knew nothing about them, not even where they live. But Alexman the Clueless refused our repeated peace offers. So we prepared for war. We researched Warrior Code, just to see, that our enemies also got this advance, probably from the Iroquois. We founded a third city and prepared our economy for war production. Around 1750BC, we were ambushed by the warriors of our barbarian neighbor. He first tried to attack Paris, but our warriors wouldn't let him advance and stopped him right before the city limits. Then he tried to ambush Orlèans, but we succeeded to get enough defenders in the city. After the Egyptians advanced in the heart of our empire and threatened to capture our 2 workers, Orlèans finished the training of our first Archer unit. The four units, concentrated in Orlèans, immediately attacked the intruders and defeated them without own losses. Our Archers advanced to Veterans for their bravery.

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**Harovan** · January 23, 2003, 07:01

The end

Later, in each city a barracks was built. Our scientists researched Iron Working. Our first army of diversants (3 spears, 1 archer) was ready and about to be sent, to pillage Egypt and hamper its economy. After Iron Working was discovered, a new surprise struck the French people. Although being the only people in the World able to work with iron, we saw, that we have nothing of this durable metal. Our neighbor, Alex the clueless, had plenty of it. The French were preparing to train a large army of Archers and Spearmen to attack the Empire of Evil, but the Gods decided to end our plague and destroyed the World.

**alexman** · January 23, 2003, 09:33

That was an impressive job of making the most of what you got, SR.

(Not to mention an impressive display of PaintShop mastery)

**Robber Baron** · January 23, 2003, 10:11

More, more!
Thanks for the dual account, guys. It's fascinating, to get inside two different heads of an MP game.
I just wish multiplayer PTW were more stable, allowing you to continue.
Still, projects like this thread will be invaluable to us as we try to decode the mysteries of MP.

**Arrian** · January 23, 2003, 10:33

Cool stuff (great screenies, SR). But I most protest the razing of the town that bore my name, by the FRENCH, no less!

-Arrian

Announcement

AU PBEM AAR: Game 1

AU PBEM AAR: Game 1

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