Succession Game V: The Empire of Ra

[Immortal Wombat]

[Locutus]

Originally posted by Immortal Wombat
This site needs a sister site from the other end of the phoneline?

Well, if the 'right' side of the line consists of highschool kids who know nothing about PCs and who can't do much more than follow a fixed procedure (I semi-jokingly told them "I can't get online, I seem to have been downgraded to a simplex connection", they answered "simwhat?" (simplex is network jargon for one-way, a pretty elementary term when working for an ISP)), yeah, I guess such a site would indeed be needed. 'Helpdesk stupidities'

Hermann,
Right... If your Internet works fine and only the email gives you problems, it should never be a hardware problem, unless it the email server itself. Sounds like your ISP's helpdesk is just as 'professional' as mine...

[Gazablanca]

Transcript of Gazablanca Apolyton of the Egyptian Federation of City States

....Gazablanca romps home in the elections,after using a bit of skulduggery to secure the leader's chair.Being the largest brewer in Egypt,Gaza refuses to supply every city with beer unless he is elected as leader.As expected from the thirsty nation,capitulation swiftly follows...........


940 BC
Routine orders are sent to ships...otherwise,nothing else happens.

930 BC
Gazablanca notices Memphis and Cardiff are building the same wonder,the Lighthouse of Alexandria...obviously an accidental oversight by a previous Apolyton.He changes Memphis's queue to Aristotle's Lyceum,another wonder that will give us a science boost in each city in our empire.

920 BC
Gazablanca enacts a change in government to Oligarchy to enable us to build more cities.Anarchy rules for the moment,as citizens go mad and boxfulls of toenail clippings which were lying around in Memphis's city streets for some reason.Reports from around the country are the same,and the air is thick with the stench of burning toenails
Barracks are also being researched to enable us to build and train better troops.

910 - 890 BC
Nothing much happens.

880 BC
Oligarchy is now our government...and Gazablanca starts building a nomad unit in Sais to build another city somewhere nearby.Meanwhile,a size 3 Japanese Army has moved over the border into our territory near Armagh.Hammurabi's 2nd Guard is prepared for battle.A withdrawal request is sent to the Japanese,which is rejected.....this could mean trouble.

870 BC

Unbelievable!After years of peace,the small army of the Japanese attacked our Hammurabi's 2nd Guard and was absolutely decimated,with only 1 regiment from our army being destroyed.This unprovoked attack has spurred Gazablanca into building more troops,especially powerful Elephant Warriors.

860 BC
The Great Fleet is mobilised in Abydos,ready to patrol the Japanese waters or transport our troops.....more Elephant Warriors are queued up in cities

850 BC
Our first Elephant Warrior is built in Kells and is immediately given orders to reinforce Hammurabi's 2nd Guard.Meanwhile,an embassy is founded in Tunis,an Arabian city.

840 BC
Gazablanca dies at an advanced age due to the stresses and strains of war.The red-hot mantle of Leader of the Oligarchy passes to his War Minister,Hermann the Lombard.........

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by Locutus
Hermann,
Right... If your Internet works fine and only the email gives you problems, it should never be a hardware problem, unless it the email server itself. Sounds like your ISP's helpdesk is just as 'professional' as mine...

Yes indeed, but it is time for me to give credit where credit is due. Once I had enough time to wait for a human to come on the phone line, the verizon help desk came through like champs. The message warned me that the waiting time was about ten minutes, and in fact my call was answered in less than ten minutes. The guy who answered was knowledgeable and polite and talked me through solutions, first to the connectivity problem and then to being able to send and receive from my non-verizon email.

I assume that this particular techie will either be promoted or will lateral to a better-paying position.

Meanwhile...

840 BC
Gazablanca dies at an advanced age due to the stresses and strains of war.The red-hot mantle of Leader of the Oligarchy passes to his War Minister,Hermann the Lombard.........

Dammit, Gazablanca, don't stand so close to the toenail bonfires! (Dousing the mantle...)

[Locutus]

Hey guys,
We're still playing with only 4 guys and it's not exactly helping punctuality (remember that 72h rule? ). Mapfi asked me if he could join a Succession Game so I offered him to serve as replacement for this game. Assuming we can get Cradle v1.2 to run on his system, I would like him to serve as replacement for Oerdin (i.e. he will play after Hermann and before me), is that okay with you guys?

[Hermann the Lombard]

Great! We can use some new blood! I'll make the 72-hour limit this time, and I'll watch to see whether to send the file to Mapfi or to Locutus. I just hope Mapfi can handle the smell from the toenail bonfires. They're as hard to snuff out as rubber tire fires!

[Immortal Wombat]

Yeah, the more the merrier.

[Gazablanca]

Fresh blood.....yep,OK by me

[Locutus]

Okay, mapfi's game is working on Cradle v1.2, so Hermann, send your game on to him when you're done (I will email you his email address)

[mapfi]

Ok, hi guys and thanks for letting me in.

Well, I wonder if those toenail fires will still be burning when I get the game. I'm already thinking of a story...

[Hermann the Lombard]

Originally posted by mapfi
Ok, hi guys and thanks for letting me in.

Well, I wonder if those toenail fires will still be burning when I get the game. I'm already thinking of a story...

Welcome aboard! < c o u g h > Yes, they'll still be burning. < h a c k > I think we need water bombers to dump slurry on them. < c h o k e >

[Hermann the Lombard]

[I should have put my questions here in the first place. My apologies to the lurkers and kibitzers.]

I sent an email to the team to basically say, "If we take a Yamato city (now that they attacked us without provocation) we'll trigger the AI Frenzy code. Should we go for it?"

I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear that everyone who responded said "ATTACK!" Gazablanca put it well:

I would say yes,take a Yamato city and unleash hell due to the AI frenzy code!!!!Probably best to build up our forces first though(especially Elephant Warriors).

This game is getting very interesting

My response:

G.M.

Well, we're not the Chinese, so "interesting" is a good thing!

Question: why Oligarchy instead of Republic? Here we are building a dozen academies and Aristotle's Lyceum, but we're in a govt with 60% science instead of 80% science. I'm inclined to expend the existing elephant warriors against the Yamato city, then start the switch to Republic. I guess that's what succession games are all about: differences in style!

Meanwhile, I seem to have tripped over a bug. I didn't make the mistake of trading for Barracks and losing the upgrade because of *that* bug. I know about that one. I traded for Composite Bow, and now I can't build Composite Archers. I thought that might be because I didn't have Barracks yet, but once I "discovered" Barracks I still couldn't build C.Archers. Composite Bow is on our list of techs, but it's now available for research, and it's now in yellow on the tech tree. I guess there are two lists. Hexagonian says that no one has reported this problem before. BTW, the other tech I traded for appears in green on the tech tree, so the system "knows" I have that one.

Question to the team: should I back up and trade for something else rather than wasting a successful tech trade? ("The bastards sold us a bill of goods! They took our knowledge and gave us a phony description of how to make better weapons!") I will run a quick test to see if we can build Composite Archers if we now research the tech on our own.

-- Ed

p.s. I might need an extra 24 hours because of this bug and because I didn't have the tools to open the .rar archive that Gaz originally sent me.

p.p.s. Hexagonian hasn't received reports of such a bug before, and Locutus hasn't heard of it either.

[Gazablanca]

Welcome to the team mapfi......

[Hermann the Lombard]

The Record of Her-mann VIII, Apolyton XXIX of the Oligarchy of Ra

[Archaeologist’s Note: This is the translation of inscriptions found on an unusual burial structure from the Oligarchy Period. The tomb is extremely low and very wide, and contained a sarcophagus that can only be described as flat and round. The remains inside were those of a male, relatively young (for an Egyptian ruler of the Classical Era), and best characterized simply as “there wasn’t an unbroken bone in his body.”]

840 BC: War Minister Her-mann promptly drops the red-hot mantle and quenches the glowing metal in a vat of beer. The brewers are horrified, but the distillers are delighted. A new spirit (ahem) animates the people of the Oligarchy as Her-mann takes the Title and (cooling) Mantle of Leadership. The new Ruler vows to punish the Yamato for their unprovoked attack on the Sacred Soil (and Guardsmen) of North Egypt (or “The Province Formerly Known as Gaul”). Depleted Javelin Cavalry from Hammurabi’s 2nd Guard advance to reconnoiter the road between Kamakura and Nagaoka. As a diversion, the Great Old Coracle lands the Oldest Javelin Cavalry near Edo.

Her-mann follows the well-oiled path of his ancestors and creates new roads. He orders a new military road to link Armagh to the Yamato frontier, and another from Kells south to The Point of Arrival (in anticipation of reinforcements from the Homeland). He orders another military road from Sais to the edge of the glacier and yet another south through the hills between Aphroditopolis and Sais. Yes, that frontier has always been quiet…too quiet! The Oligarchs complain about the construction costs.

The Apolyton orders a wondrous change: Cardiff abandons its landlocked Lighthouse and switches to constructing Aristotle’s Lyceum, and Memphis abandons the Lyceum in favor of the Lighthouse (which at least will stand on a riverbank). The Oligarchs do not like change, and complain about these orders. Her-mann fumes.

830 BC: The Road to Kamakura is a busy place! Yamato horsemen and hypaspists move west from Nagaoka, Arabian horsemen and mounted archers move northeast past Kamakura. The detached javelin cavalry of the 2nd Guard tries to delay the Yamato reinforcements. The Edo Probe attracts a mounted archer, and our cavalry swiftly takes ship. Aphroditopolis completes their Academy and starts training elephants. Egypt trades the secret of Oligarchy to Byzantium in return for knowledge of Masonry. The Oligarchs complain about the loss of the secret. Her-mann’s face begins to turn as red as the Mantle of Leadership.

820 BC: The blood of the brave javelin cavalry runs beneath the hooves of the Yamato horsemen, but vengeance in the form of the 2nd Guard is swift and deadly. Her-mann renames the Guard to Ra-Harakhte, “Horus of the Two Horizons,” in honor of the Father of the Gods and the great warlord Horus, proclaiming: “We shall follow them to victory across the northern horizon!” This is an alternate to following Hammurabi, still cooling his heels in Lykopolis. The Oligarchs praise the old general, possibly just to annoy Her-mann.

Elephant Warriors are ready in Armagh, and the remnants of a chariot regiment are disbanded there for retraining on elephants. The Academy of Heliopolis is ready. Gold bars are shipped to Rome to prime the tech trade pump, or so Her-mann hopes. On the home front, the Apolyton orders scientists mobilized across the land to speed the research into Barracks. Wags jeer that this “research” seems to consist mostly of sitting around, belching, complaining, and drinking. Soon these wags have no tongues to wag.

810 BC: Ra-Harakhte smashes hypaspists on the Kamakura road, isolating that city. A small Yamato army of archers maneuvers north of the road, screened by hypaspists. The Arabians declare war on the Etruscans, unfortunately diverting them from bothering the Yamato. The Academy of Tanis opens, and elephants are trained there. (Someone should explain to them that academies normally train human students.) The scientists return to normal work, satisfied that they have demonstrated the proper functioning of Barracks.

800 BC: And Lo! The Secrets of Barracks are revealed. (Yuck.) “Eighty years ago I kudent spell hypaspist, now I R one!” In honor of the discovery, Ra-Harakhte (henceforth RAH) destroys the Yamato archers (one mounted, two foot). Have we been lured out of position, north of the road? Two chariots of RAH are promoted, one festooned with MANY Yamato arrows. Nomads are ready in Sais, and construction begins on—what else?—an Academy.

790 BC: A single troop of Yamato horsemen rides out of Kamakura and attacks two squadrons of Egyptian chariots. One squadron is destroyed before the horsemen are overcome. Prisoners are “persuaded” to reveal that ten other units still garrison the city. [The number 11 flashed as the horsemen left the city.] Elephant Warriors are ready in Carmarthen and Armagh; both cities start academies amid Oligarchic grumbling (“Don’t you know there’s a war on?”) 500 gold bars go to Arabia in the hopes of facilitating a trade for Composite Bows, and the Oligarchs howl. Her-mann smiles for a change.

780 BC: The First Elephant Corps (three units) joins RAH on the Kamakura Road. The Second Elephant Corps crosses the Yamato border. A steady stream of reinforcements flows via The Great Fleet from Abydos to The Point of Arrival, and then west along the road to Armagh. Barbarian archers (no doubt in the pay of the Yamato) appear to threaten this flow just east of Armagh. Elephant Warriors are ready in Heliopolis and Aphroditopolis, and move toward Abydos as the Third Elephant Corps.

Her-mann’s dreams of archery fade as Arabia refuses to trade the secret of Composite Bows. Rome refuses to trade Aqueducts for Republic (the bloody imperialists!)

770 BC: Aristotle’s Lyceum opens in Cardiff! The persistent natives promptly resume trying to build the Landlocked Lighthouse, but are ordered to build an academy to complement the Lyceum. Another academy opens in Abydos. Chariots and mounted archers dispose of the barbarian archers. Elephant Warriors are ready in Tanis (probably the last slow units we will build for some time). Her-mann gives our map to Arabia in a last-ditch attempt to induce a trade of technology.

760 BC: RAH boldly assaults Nagaoka, and then boldly turns and runs like a troop of stripe-tailed apes. [Defenders: 2 mounted archers, 2 chariots, 1 hoplite, 1 spearman, 1 archer, 2 slavers, +46, +50%. No, they weren’t all in Kamakura after all!] In happier news, Amarna the Dye Port is founded, Bubastis opens their Academy, and Lykopolis completes a Wall (and begins a granary). The Arabians and Etruscans adamantly refuse to trade techs. The Oligarchs are complaining about Her-mann’s technology strategy.

750 BC: New Javelin Cavalry are ready in Aphroditopolis, Carmarthen, Armagh, and Kells. All will soon be equipped with Horse Armor (at 650 gold each, which will make them as powerful as Elephant Warriors but three times faster). Academy construction is resumed in the three North Egyptian cities. Two regiments of Yamato horsemen ride up to taunt RAH, perhaps to try to lure them away from road, lifting the isolation of Kamakura.

In Abydos, the Commander of the Third Elephant Corps (who shall remain nameless) discovers that his bulky mounts will NOT be shipped to the Yamato front. It seems that the pachyderms go mad on shipboard, a Very Bad Thing in a coracle! The Commander becomes headless, and back in Memphis the elephants from Tanis are put to work on the Lighthouse Project.

The Oligarchs raise an outcry about the waste of elephants (as the workers complain about elephant waste). Her-mann’s temper snaps. “Elephants, schmelephants! The Oligarchs must go!” Throwing caution—and the Mantle of Leadership—to the winds, Her-mann rushes into the street to proclaim a Republic! Unfortunately at that moment the commandeered elephants are rushing past the Palace. They needed a spatula to scrape up the remains.

[Gazablanca]

Originally posted by Hermann the Lombard
Throwing caution—and the Mantle of Leadership—to the winds, Her-mann rushes into the street to proclaim a Republic! Unfortunately at that moment the commandeered elephants are rushing past the Palace. They needed a spatula to scrape up the remains.

Well-written and humorous story,HtL

I think that has been the best Apolyton Leader death so far.......