The Book of Clem

[xiaodave]

Originally posted by unscratchedfoot
Skipie, you had an 'upswing' somewhere did you? You mean you swung the mug of beer up to help with your inspiration? But you're still in high school right?

xiaodave, this was your best chapter so far. That Clem dude is about as charming as a pile of freshly coughed up phlegm. The Iroquios sure went down easy. We can only hope another civ provides a bigger challenge or you'll mop the place up before swords become obsolete.

That I guess is the thing about posting the game as you go. You never know whats going to happen. The starting points and a quirk of geography let me sew up half of a four person continent for myself. Additionally I only had to defend one square of the map and was able to stack armies to send against Hiawatha.

Those arrows look delicious. What paint program do you use? Do you read any other stories here? It helps to get more people interested in your own story.

Ive been looking over other stories, but I havent read a whole one yet. As for the arrows I drew them by hand with psp7. I use it to crop and resise the screenshots from 1024 down to something manageable for the forum.

I would like to thank everyone who has replied though, replies make this kind of writing even more fun. And I promise to do some replying of my own in the next week.

Xiaodave

[SKILORD]

Originally posted by unscratchedfoot
Skipie, you had an 'upswing' somewhere did you? You mean you swung the mug of beer up to help with your inspiration? But you're still in high school right?

Yes, I am. Don't let that mislead you, I have, despite that, gotten my hands on alcohol in the past, but I became a bit of a Christian last summer and quit that. I never posted or wrote in that state anyways.



I'm only in high school for another coupla weeks.

[vovan]

Originally posted by SKILORD
Yes, I am. Don't let that mislead you, I have, despite that, gotten my hands on alcohol in the past

Nothing to be proud of there, SKI.

Originally posted by SKILORD
I never posted or wrote in that state anyways.

Maybe you should try. You'd get some... interesting results. Remember ol' Philip Dick? I hear he wrote while on drugs, and look at the success of his novels.

Originally posted by SKILORD
I'm only in high school for another coupla weeks.

Ah, congrats then. I must have missed that bit. Where you off to after that?

PS: Sorry for hijacking your thread, xiaodave. I do hope you deliver some more goods soon.

[SKILORD]

Originally posted by vovan


Nothing to be proud of there, SKI.

No, it isn't.

Maybe you should try. You'd get some... interesting results. Remember ol' Philip Dick? I hear he wrote while on drugs, and look at the success of his novels.

Which explains a lot about Phillip K. Dicks books. Poe also did so, as did Samuel Taylor Coleridge, I'm hardly at the level of literary greatness that I can begin using drugs.

Ah, congrats then. I must have missed that bit. Where you off to after that?

PS: Sorry for hijacking your thread, xiaodave. I do hope you deliver some more goods soon.

University of North Carolina Greensboro, no reputable college would take me because until I was a senior my extracurriculars were 'lacking.' I plan to transfer out after my freshman year.

Sorry xiao, let's see another chapter to get us firmly back on tiopic.

[Paddy]

this is great

hope you are having fun

[xiaodave]

The Book of Clem: Chapter Six
(3790 fcc- 360 acc)(acc: After the Crowning of Clem)


In the year 3550, in the lull before the final assault on the Iroquois capitol and the city of Niagra Falls a second grand cultural achievement was completed in Clem City. The great lighthouse gave our ships the ability to move almost twice as fast as those of our competitors. As war production wound down we set a few of our coastal towns to the task of building ships with which we hoped to explore the world and find the other tribes.

With the capture of Salamanca and the ceding of Oil Springs, the Iroquois war was over and the nation was at peace. We had actually halted military production over the last 100 years of the war. By the time Hiawatha was down to four cities, the total population of the Iroquois people was less than that of our military force. By the end of the war we had more Iroquois slaves than Hiawatha had people.

Lord Clem did not return to old habits after the war ended. Well at least not to all old habits. Wine was served at the dinner tables, but it did not make its appearance with the morning birdsong as it had in ages past. Smokeweed was banned from the palace, though Clem had noted that it had a numbing effect on the general populous and such consumption was therefore encouraged outside the palace. In fact the combination of smokeweed and philosophy had the general populace completely befuddled to the exclusion of any possible revolutionary action. The people barely knew what city they were in half the time. The banning of ‘distractions’ by Lord Clem did not extend to Iroquois girls.

Clem ruled the lands with as much wisdom as he possessed. He was active in every facet of government. It was somewhat of a crisis. He began pursuing something he called ‘The Courthouse and Wall Society’. In short he wanted walls to keep the foreigners out and courthouses in which to hang the rebellious elements. As the missives to the various governors went out I took great care to scratch out walls and replace it with libraries while the term courthouse was excised in favor of marketplaces.

In the year 3850 two events of note took place. One, we raised the city of Capitol on a hilltop overlooking the ruins of Niagra Falls. Two, Clem decided that his victory over Hiawatha had earned himself the favor of at least 4 if not all of the 7 and ¼ gods. He even made up a word for it, he intended to call himself King. He claimed the word ‘King’ was a word the ancients used for; ‘Chosen One of the Gods to whom all other nations must bow to in complete and total toadying like subservience for a term of at least but not necessarily limited to ten thousand years’.

When the servants of the temples across the lands of Clem heard this they decried it as heresy. In 3870 the nation descended into the chaos of anarchy. Roaming bands of youngsters hopped up on smokeweed burned houses and assaulted senior citizens. Nobody between the advanced ages of 35 and 44 was safe. Warnings were written, and posted, threatening death by hanging to anyone participating in anti-Clem activities. Anti-Clem activities included: not working on the walls and courthouses for the prescribed 88 hours a week; roaming around setting fires; drawing unsolicited caricatures of Clem; listening to priests babble on about heresy; not bowing down in abject awe in the presence of the officially solicited caricatures of Clem; owning goats; using the word Hiawatha in front of witnesses and/or children; being socially unpopular; as well as any act the military deemed to fall under the heading of ‘General Offences against Lord Clem’.

Tens of thousands of people were put to death on the sites of the future courthouses. As someone had crossed out courthouses and written in marketplaces, the marketplaces of the nation ran red with the blood of miscreants for the next 100 years. This time came to be known as ‘The Wonderful Societal Cleansing’. Aztec news-parchments were filled with lurid tales of the ‘Great Clem Goat-Fancier’s Massacre’.

With the marketplaces knee-deep in blood and the last of the goat-herders trembling in exile in one of the northern borderlands, Lord Clem held a grand coronation at the end of the year 4000 fcc. and crowned himself King Clem I. The new year was counted as 1 acc. (After the Crowning of Clem). The nation was now and hereafter named Clemland.

Our new ships sailed the seas of the world and we settled four new, relatively worthless islands. We named them The Lost World, Whalepoint, South Polar Isle and Useless Island respectively. In 110 we discovered what scribes would later name the Continent of Hereticia. The nations of Rome and the Inca were added to the rolls of nations whom we thought our country better than.

In the year 250 acc. the Hittites and Persia were added to that list. We also celebrated the arrival of our fourth Millennium stone, two-hundred and fifty years late by my count. To King Clem’s delight it read: “The Most Advanced Nations as ranked by the illustrious St Autocracy:
Clemland
Spain
The Aztecs
The Inca
Rome
The Iroquois
Persia
Japan “

In the year 270 we added China to the list of nations that would be much happier enslaved to Clem. Fifty years later we discovered Construction and officially entered the age of Medieval science. While the rest of the world languished in the backward iron age, we alone surged headlong into the dark ages like the scientific juggernaut we had become.

Zululand and Sumeria were discovered in successive decades shortly thereafter. We had located all of our rivals and the news was good. No nation on the face of the world held as much land within its grasp as did Clemland.

In 360 acc the treacherous Aztecs, no doubt heavily influenced by the goat-herders union marched 40,000 troops to and over the northern borders of Clemland. The first Aztec War had begun.



“I take this crown as acknowledgement of the favor of at least 4 of the gods and probably as many as six. My victory at Salamanca can only be seen as divine proof of my proper place as lord and master of the entire world. When Hiawatha ceded Oil Springs as well as four of his six prettiest daughters as recognition of my absolute bestness it was a message to the other so called chosen of the gods that some of us were a little more chosen than others. And despite the treachery of the goat herders and the evil clergy we shall reign supreme from the highest palace right down to the most blood-splattered, marketplace-shaped courthouse in all the land. I, Clem the first, proclaim myself King of the universe! All hail me!!”

King Clem I, ‘Coronation Speech’, circa 1 acc.

[SKILORD]

Ahh... megalomania, how refreshing.

Nice chapter.

[xiaodave]

The Book of Clem: Chapter Seven
(360-630)

The color green was ordered banned as that was the color of the foul brigands the world knew as Aztecs. Our military flew out of the nearly 600 year hibernation, swordsmen and metal warstick handlers at the ready. They would be augmented by our new secret weapon, the Horse-borne Warstick Handler or horsemen for short. Once again the central cities of Clemland began the work of building the military.

There was also a demonstration of a new weapon made possible through the wonders of mathematics. Previously mathematics had been primarily concerned with the tallying of chickens before their sale at the courthouses. It was a wooden structure reinforced with iron capable of tossing rocks. Since the children of Clem City had long been tossing rocks just fine we did not have high hopes for the new machine.

On a misty morning in the fields just north of Clem City a demonstration was arranged. They cranked back the machine until the wood creaked and groaned under the stress. A boulder the size of a small cart was loaded onto the firing mechanism. All at once a man hammered the firing pin releasing the ropes and the boulder shot high into the air. It arced wide over the field and landed in the midst of a herd of cows, slaughtering three of them.

Amidst the screams of dismembered cows Clem officially canceled the Catapult program. The King was of the opinion that he could find cheaper ways to slaughter livestock. The nation of Clemland would go into battle without huge cow-murdering rock throwers.

We initiated a defensive posture to begin the Aztec war. From 370-390 we concentrated on destroying the attacking forces of the Aztecs. We lost 10,000 men in that time mostly horsemen and swordsmen. We killed 45,000 attacking Aztecs, mostly archers and Jaguar Warriors. In the year 400 we laid siege to the city of Tenochtitlan with a band of 50,000 swordsman. 15,000 MWH’s provided defensive support against Aztec incursions from their capitol. It was a fortune of geography that put the Aztec palace just over the hills from our nation.

The siege lasted for fifty years, we lost 5,000 swordsman while killing 45,000 Aztec troops. In the year 430, halfway through the siege of the Aztec Capitol we received a message from the Japanese. They had allied with the Aztecs and joined the war against Clemland. We were more than a match for any one nation, we were even a match for two, but if the treacherous Aztecs managed to entice the Spanish to join them we would be lucky to hold onto what we had gained in the Iroquois war. Clem moved quickly, we established an embassy in Madrid and offered to lead their nation into the enlightened dark ages in exchange for an alliance against the Aztecs. Spain agreed and the continent was at war.

In the year 450 we pushed our war through the gates of the Aztec capitol and took possession of the palace of the enemy. We lost 10,000 horsemen and a fleet of Galleys in the action while slaughtering 25,000 defenders and capturing the city. With Tenochtitlan in our hands we set to augmenting out forces. A second army was assembled in the hills north of Salamanca while the units that had captured Tenochtitlan, all of whom had suffered serious damage by the defenders of the city, regained their full strength and were augmented with reinforcements.

In 480 a force of Japanese horsemen riding with the full permission of Hiawatha poured over the Iroquois border to assault Tenochtitlan. They were met by a force of MWH’s defending the far bank of a large river and driven back. Over the next twenty years we fought a pitched struggle to hold the river. 20,000 Japanese horsemen met their end against the entrenched forces of Clemland.

The problem, however, was that so long as the Japanese attacked at will through Iroquois lands, our forces at Tenochtitlan were trapped there, unable to continue the assault into the Aztec heartlands. The problem was solved in the year 490 through a subtle combination of diplomatic skill and backhanded treachery. Clem founded an embassy in Allegheny, the new Iroquois capital, and convinced Hiawatha to betray the Japanese in exchange for the secrets of horseback riding. King Clem then followed Hiawatha’s declaration of war against the Japanese by reaching a peace agreement with Japan. Clem also convinced the Japanese to part with the whole of their treasury in the process. There were now two separate wars, Japan against the Iroquois and Spain and Clemland against the Aztecs. Our armies were free to press the assault when ready.

The next thirty years saw sporadic fighting along the Aztec border. 15,000 Aztec Archers met their grisly deaths at the hands of Clem’s forces. A long period of relative peace followed, our southern cities made a breathrough in military technology, replacing our Swordsmen with something called Military Infantry. Armored men with new spiky-looking warsticks poured north to augment the two growing armies. In the year 580 the two armies marched into the Aztec heartlands. 80,000 men headed for Teotihuacán while nearly 120,000 marched on the hill city of Tlatelolco and its wealth of gem deposits.

In 600 the first sorties took place with 5,000 men falling on each side. In 610 we stormed into the city of Teotihuacán losing 40,000 men in the battle and causing as many Aztec casualties before the remnants of the first army secured the conquest. In the year 620 in the hills of Tlatelolco the second Army attacked. We suffered another 35,000 in losses while killing only 25,000 defenders. To our fortune, they only had 25,000 defenders, and the gem mines were ours.

In 630 with our armies in tatters and the heartland of the Aztec nation conquered the Aztecs sued for peace offering the Spanish city of Zargoza in the deal. The war was over for the land of Clem. The Japanese and Iroquois reached a peace accord not twenty years later, the Spanish and Aztec war continued.

Our victorious generals returned from the front with a strange proposal. It seems we might have avoided the carnage that cost us 75,000 of our warriors if only we had some way to batter a city’s defenses with large rocks.




“Our ships have returned from the exploration of the farthest seas with a map of all lands. Two things are certain. One, the world is completely flat. Two, we are the greatest. Oh yeah, let that not be in doubt. I will now give you a tour of the world as we have found it to be. This here, is mine, as is this thing over here. Do you see that thing, the one that looks like a panther over there; that’s mine too. This flat bit is mine, its actually pretty nice there if you are looking for a summer home. This sort of ugly part with glaciers and a whole lot of nothing, these are the Aztecs, except for that part there, that’s mine,…”

King Clem, An Examination of the Whole World”, circa 630 acc.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Brilliant stuff Dave, very well written with nice pics too.

The Humour you are building into this is just about right, well done and keep the goods coming

[Richelieu]

Good stuff. I'm enjoying this.

[Paddy]

Dave

where have ya gone mate

hopeing you have not forgotten this

we have not

[justjake73]

How do you create those movement arrows??

[xiaodave]

The movement arrows are done by hand in psp 7. All the default arrows they had didnt mesh nicely with civ III's so I just drew em in

As for this story It may be over. I got a new computer and loaded Civ III patched it and realized I had been playing unpatched on the old comp. The Clem save wont load on the new machine. Tis a shame as the next war was a little lesson in humility for me as Spain sneak attacked me while the bulk of my forces were assaulting the far continent (and getting thier asses handed to them).

I may have to write a Son of Clem. Or perhaps load a second copy of civ III unpatched to finish this one.


Xiaodave