Vel's Celtic AAR - CtP2

[Velociryx]

Vel’s Celtic AAR – CtP2
Part, the First

We are the Celts. A small tribe. A humble people. Our history and our fate has, for as long as any among us can remember, been tied to the whims and wills of those stronger than we.

All that changed with the ascension of Oc’tur to the Celtic throne. As you all know, through the filter of massed centuries of history, our language has undergone a great many changes, and modernized, Oc’tur becomes ‘Arthur’ of legend.

The very first thing King Oc’tur did was to declare that the Celts would no longer be beholden to any other nation or tribe, and in declaring our independence, he took the bold step of founding a purely Celtic city. One that was not ruled over by our powerful neighbors (the Americans east, The Rus to the north, or the Dutch to the south).

Needless to say, the neighboring tribes did not take kindly to the formation of an upstart Celtic nation in their midst.

The Americans even went so far as to try to play the role of Lord and Master to us, demanding that we turn over half of our tribal wealth (donations from the People to help get our new and tiny kingdom on a paying basis).

It is said that King Oc’tur boldly told the American war leader to go….well, we probably couldn’t print the exact message, even if we knew what it was, but you get the sense, from looking at our history, and the history of abuses the Celts suffered at the hands of our neighbors, that the response was negative in the extreme.

The American counter-response was a promise that every Celtic freeman alive would be enslaved and his women raped. The message lit a fire in the soul of the Celtic People, who were known to be a willful strong-minded lot, even if they lacked power. It is said though, that you could feel the pulse of our fledgling nation quite clearly on the night that the first War Council met.

We had never organized for war before, so this was all new, and yet, we knew that our giant neighbors would not long stand for a free Celtic nation in their midst. Our ancestors were given the derisive title of “Barbarians,” and we were generally lumped into that same category by the more advanced, more “civilized” nations. Often these “civilized” folk would send slavers into our villages and make off with our women and young. And yet, WE were considered the barbarians. Pah! We are the Celts, a FREE people, and with one voice and one united cause, we vowed to fight to remain free.

Our assets and advantages were few. We Celts began as religious people….worshippers of the Mother Goddess. We prided ourselves on song, and dance, and prayer. We worked the land and were one with the land, and though we did not enjoy imposing our will upon others (the notion of slavery curdled the stomachs of every free Celt), we had a lust for life and battle. If the Americans wanted a fight, we were determined to give them one that they would NEVER forget!

Plans were made. War drums were fashioned. And bows. Crude swords (the more advanced weapons of the “civilized world” were beyond our simple needs and understanding), and the ranks of our fledgling army swelled with row upon row of free Celts who vowed that a Celtic nation WOULD exist, and it would remain free and uncontrolled by our neighbors.

Time passed, and with the passage of that time, the Americans, in their arrogance, seemed to forget the threat they made against our people and our freedoms. We, however, did not forget. We are the Celts, a vengeful people, and woe to those who would threaten our freedoms! Quietly….silently, we built our army, husbanded our strength, and even founded a second free Celtic city (Callevah, Numantia being the capitol of the Free Celtic nation).

There was rejoicing at this proud achievement, but the rejoicing was a shade subdued, for we knew that unless our newly formed army met with resounding success against those who would threaten our freedom, our tiny nation would soon join the countless other “barbarian tribes” who would be remembered only in the footnotes of the pages of history.

We had to send an unmistakable message to the civilized world that we WOULD NOT be ignored. No longer were Celtic lands to be viewed as slave hunting grounds. No longer would we be derisively dismissed as barbarians. We would be heard!

And so our army marched on an unsuspecting America.

The Celts square off against an angry America
The Americans were having none of it.

They plainly saw our approaching army and arrogantly decided to beat us to the punch. Or, perhaps they had been preparing all along to make a foray against Numantia. The truth of that will never be known, and is now lost in the fog of the ancient past. What IS known, however, is that in the forests outside of the American city of Atlanta, the army of the Celts was attacked by an equal sized American army. Our force consisted of an even mix of stout-hearted warriors and keen-sighted archers. Theirs consisted of a mix of Hoplite and Warriors, a small band of archers, and a much-despised slaver.

The battle raged for nearly a fortnight, and when the dust settled and the blood had finished soaking into the ground, the Celts were victorious! And not simply victorious, we had dealt a devastating blow to the enemy, destroying his army entirely, while ourselves losing only two companies of warriors! There was much rejoicing in the land of the Free Celts, and it is said that the sounds of our war drums could be heard all the way to the distant English city of York.

Totally unopposed, our army marched into Atlanta, and we claimed the city as our own. It’s people subject to OUR laws. This came as quite an unexpected shock to the Celts. In our bid to secure our freedom and confirm our independence, it never dawned on our leadership that we might bring enemy cities under our control (and by extension, gain control over the people who lived in them). It sent the leadership into a state of shocked disarray, as we who value our personal freedom so much suddenly became a conquering people, but there it was. We were the Celts….a conquering people.

Relying on momentum, our army remained in Atlanta only long enough to train some raw recruits who proved sympathetic to our cause to hold the city, and we were on the move again, with reinforcements approaching from Numantia and Callevah. Our leadership knew that compared to our tiny nation, America was vast and populous. We had wounded the tiger, but unless we acted with all speed to make the most of our unexpected good fortune, our gains would be wholly undone as America more fully prepared for us.

Time was very much our enemy in this fight. We had to deliver a knockout blow, and we had to do it quickly!

So the army marched, and soon we found ourselves at the gates of Boston. Having arrived prepared for the worst, our army was almost disappointed at the pitiful garrison placed to defend this second American city. They barely put up a fight at all, and now our tiny nation had doubled in size! Even better was the fact that the stout walls of the American capitol was within easy marching distance of Boston….such a tempting target, but surely it would boast far better defenses.

Did we dare?

The leadership of our tiny nation was all in an uproar, and fierce debate (that twice broke out into swordplay, if ancient texts are to be believed) which lasted DAYS as the leaders of the Free Celtic nation struggled with what to do.

In the end though, the matter was decided for them.

Having tasted victory….having proved themselves on the field of battle, our warriors KNEW they could take Washington, and so, leaving a token garrison in Boston, they struck out again, only to find themselves outnumbered (11 units vs. 12) in the battle that raged there.

Our army was in tatters and badly damaged by the assault (5 units remaining), but once again, we were victorious, and a second major American army was utterly destroyed by our fierce warriors.

The loss of a second army, coupled with the loss of their capitol to our series of swift and unrelenting attacks had the American nation reeling, and so it was that they came, humbly, with hat in hand, asking for a cessation of violence between our two peoples.

Having suffered grievous losses of our own, and with no further reinforcements en route (not that the Americans knew this detail tho!), we accepted the agreement. America had been hurt, but so had we, and it was time to regroup and rebuild.

We are the Celts….a careful people, who had taken their first tentative steps toward greatness.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Part, the Second
In the Council of Nations
The American delegate was furious.

“They came out of nowhere and caught us unprepared! Typical barbarian scum….they must be dealt with in the harshest possible terms! We demand the help of our longstanding allies in dealing with this new threat!”

“You were apparently sufficiently prepared to launch a pre-emptive strike against their forces, and with an equal number of troops, no less.” Quipped the Spanish ambassador, which brought a glowering response from the American representative.

“The fact remains that we are dealing with an emerging barbarian state that disrupts the status quo and threatens us all! If we do not act now to choke off this menace, then we will all suffer the consequences!”

“We were, all of us, barbaric in our day…are you so certain their emergence is a bad thing?” The English ambassador asked candidly.

“Leave it to the English to pose such a question.” The Russian delegate responded darkly. “I wonder, would your reaction be the same if they were on YOUR borders?”

The Englishman did not respond to that.

“Our sources of slave labor are threatened by this.” The Dutchman said pragmatically. We all know that we rely heavily on the barbarian tribes as a source of slave labor, and they serve a valuable function as targets for our swords so that we do not target one another. It is an arrangement that has worked very well for centuries, and I for one, am leery of seeing that change.”

“As am I.” The Russian ambassador said resolutely, meeting the gaze of the American. “You have the full support of the Russian people. We will make war on the Celts.”

“As will we.” The Dutch added heartily.

The Spaniard nodded. “We will support the American initiative.”

“Madness and folly.” The Englishman said to the assembled group. “You go….have your little war. We Englishmen will have no part in it.”

“Fair enough.” The American said, satisfied at the level of support in the room. “The added weight of the English should not be needed in this fight in any case, and it’s true that English presence on the continent the rest of us share is nominal….it’s not their fight, but it’s one that the rest of us need to make to preserve the longstanding peace between us….and, it works very much to our favor that the upstart Celts accepted our offer to end hostilities….gives you gentlemen time to marshal your forces and prepare to strike.”

“Indeed.”

And so, a deal was struck, and the Free Celtic nation found itself in perilous waters….

***

Our success in dealing with the Americans did not go unnoticed or unnoted. We Celts have little use for the ways of those nations that surround us, but we quickly learned the value of listening to the rumors caused by the stirrings and machinations of these mighty titans. We knew full well that the peace with the Americans would not be a lasting one. Further, we knew that they would call upon their allies for help. Had the situation been reversed, we surely would have done the same, and so it came as no great surprise when rumors began flying that the mighty Russ, Dutch, and Spanish empires began rallying their troops with chants of ‘death to the barbarians.’

Two things that did catch us quite by surprise, however, were these:

First, that the English were conspicuously absent from these rumors. It was assumed that we would bear the full weight of all the civilized world upon our shoulders when we struck, but apparently, this was not meant to be.

The second was the response of the barbarian tribes with whom we shared our lands.

Barbarians are a restless, fierce-blooded lot, and it’s true, we are blood-brother to the free tribes. We make no pretense of hiding that fact. Perhaps the reason we too are considered barbaric is our love of conflict…battle. Fighting for the sheer joy of excelling. This is a thing we share in common with our barbarian brothers, but it should be noted that we fight against them as often as we fight with them. Combat is combat, and the joys are the same. Another thing that sets us apart. Our battles with the barbarians serve no political purpose. To the overly civilized eye, this then, is barbarism. So be it…it is one of our many passions, and we are the Celts….a passionate people in all we do.

After our successful war with the Americans, our barbarian neighbors were (perhaps understandably) alarmed. After all, we had done something that no barbarian tribe had succeeded in doing. We captured and held civilized cities. Further, we embraced the people who lived there as brothers….honorary Celts, and treated them as equals rather than putting them to the sword or enslaving them as they had done to us so often in the past.

Perhaps the tribes we shared lands with became alarmed that we were becoming too civilized, but whatever the root cause of their alarm, they determined to have a measure of satisfaction, and as barbarians are wont to do, their numbers swelled inside our newly expanded borders as if by magic. They began thieving and pillaging….goading us out to fight to see if our newfound ‘civilized nature’ had gone soft in any way.

We assured them that this was not the case in the traditional manner, by meeting them on the field of battle in the most honest, noblest of all contests.

We bled with them. Sometimes, we lost warriors or our new hoplite units to our sturdy brethren, but more often than not, it was they who paid the price.

Nonetheless, it was a dangerous time to be traveling far from one of our five cities in the land of the Free Celts, and because of the omnipresent threat of attack by the barbarians, our leadership determined that each city would be defended by two companies of either warriors or hoplites, backed up by two companies of archers. It was a tall order for our fledgling nation, but one which was necessary to ensure our continued survival. The army of the Free Celts was disbanded and split up to help garrison our new possessions, and all attention turned at once to that task.

Immediately thereafter, we began assembling a new army….this one, to be twice the size of our previous one, and composed of hoplites and archers, rather than our sturdy warrior companies. So it was that our new nation turned its full attention to the production of weapons of war for the fight we knew was coming.

***

As our preparations were in full swing, we were troubled by a number of developments that we could do nothing about.

First and most pressing was the fact that the barbarian uprising in our lands was reaching heights never before seen. No less than fourteen companies of barbarian warriors of different stripes were milling about inside our borders. We would skirmish with the smaller groups, but more and more often, we were reluctant to venture far from our cities….chase one group, and run the risk of another attacking the city we left behind, so in addition to training troops, walls and battlements for our cities took on a greater priority.

Twice, barbarians DID storm the gates of Numantia during this period, and both times, they were beaten back, but the battles were fierce indeed. On their second attempt, the barbarians brought with them a weapon that we had never before seen….something called a catapult.

At first glance, it was a laughable contraption. Slow and ungainly, it didn’t appear harmful in the least, but we found out to our cost that despite its appearance, it was a deadly weapon indeed, and one that very nearly allowed the barbarians to capture our capitol. From then on, we both feared and respected them. In those days, it seemed as though the whole world was intent on tearing the still-beating heart out of a Free Celtic nation, but we were equally determined that our sun would not set. Not yet….not yet.

The second troubling event was the founding of a new Russian city, Smolensk, whose borders of influence brushed right up against fair Numantia. This was provocative, and clearly intended as a staging ground for a general invasion of Celtic lands, but….what were we to do? If we sent an expeditionary force to attempt to destroy it, we would surely have to hack our way through angry barbarian tribesmen, bleeding out the strength of our army before we even reached our true objective.

We simply were not strong enough for that.

So we waited, and continued to build, even though there was fear in the hearts of many.

Then something happened to change the string of bad luck that had befallen our People since our stellar victory against the Americans.

Smolensk had been founded on wonderfully productive farmland that butted up against a fierce mountain range that separated us from The Rus. As such, it was an important agricultural center for the Russian peoples, and many farms sprang up there soon after its founding. These farms led to a massive and regular influx of people which saw the city grow to nearly fifty thousand people almost in the blinking of an eye (well, this, and the occasional slaver attack made against Numantia), which outraged the Free Celts to no end!

All this agricultural activity caught the eye of our barbarian bretheren (who had long ago plundered and destroyed Numantia’s scattered farms), and the growing host of barbarians turned their attention towards Russia. A strong force of Russian soldiery (clearly bound for Smolensk, and thence to Numantia, no doubt) was intercepted by the barbarian tribes and utterly destroyed.

A scant time later, the barbarians (who now sported THREE fearsome catapults), assaulted Smolensk and claimed it as their own!

This placed yet another burden of fear on the hearts of our people, even as it cheered us to know that the Russians had been beaten back and their invasion of our lands stalled by their own careful attention to their new city. It bought us time. Time to flesh out the garrison at Callevah, on the Dutch border (6 hoplite, 6 archers), and time to begin construction of our main battle groups to continue our fight with the Americans and their allies.

There were some though, who noted the extreme strategic value that Smolensk would have if it were in Celtic hands, and so after our first battle group had been fully formed and dispatched toward the Americas (6 hoplite, 6 archers), a second, still forming army (4 hoplite, 4 archers) was sent to make a foray against Smolensk with high hopes of taking that city for ourselves.

This was not meant to be, as the power of those three catapults proved more than a match for our brave warriors, and the army was lost to a man.

Still, the idea was a good one, and we vowed to fight a two front war….one waged against the remaining American cities, and one against our barbaric brethren in Smolensk.

While we were preparing for that struggle though, we took note of a great many barbarian settler groups moving about in our lands, under strong escort. This boded ill for us, as it implied an ever-growing barbarian presence lands that were manifestly destined to the Celts! Even though they had inadvertently aided us in our struggle against The Russ, we knew that unless we choked their growth off, the day would come when we would have to deal with them or simply be swept away.

So we planned that war, even while we began fighting the next one with our old adversaries, the Americans.

Once again, we determined that we MUST strike the first blow, and we must follow it up with a series of rapid attacks intent on stripping more cities from American hands. With enemies on all sides, the situation was unbearable. The Dutch were contained in the south, thanks to the positioning of Callevah (on a choke point), the barbarians were temporarily shielding us in the north from the Russ and Spanish, even as they were settling east of us, and opening up an entirely new threat. So it was west that we determined to strike. West, because it was hoped that our earlier victories against the Americans had instilled at least a measure of fear in their hearts of us. After all, we were *barbarians*. Secure the western portion of the continent all the way to the sea, even if it meant subjugating every remaining American city we found.

Renewed hostilities
A total of sixteen battle companies struck out toward the Americas….it could have been more….would have been more if not for our disaster of an assault on barbarian-held Smolensk, but alas, sixteen units (12) (4) was all we could scrape together, and the growing sense among our leadership was that the window of opportunity was closing….if we were to make our attack, it had to be soon, so although we were not fully prepared, we struck out.

The American city of Chicago had been newly built on miserable swampland to take advantage of some valuable cotton growing wild in the area. The city was small and wretched, and our rampaging Celtic warriors burned the greater bulk of it down in the process of rooting out the local garrison. So little remained that the decision was reached to simply abandon it.

We marched on, encountering a sizeable American contingent en route to us. They were so eager to impress upon us their prowess in battle, though, that we were able to goad them into an attack on terrain favorable to us. They assaulted our fortified, hilly position, and were handily defeated.

Closer to the new American capitol of New York.

Another American force moved to intercept us, but it was smaller than we and (even though it contained a trio of Samurai) easily defeated.

It seemed then, that the fight had gone out of the Americans. The loss of another two armies and the destruction of their newest city seemed to rob them of their will to resist us. There were two other minor forays against our forces, but these were brushed aside as we drove from New York to the last two American cities, San Francisco and Philedelphia.

The frantic cries from the Americans calling on their allies to assist them were for naught. A solid wall of barbarian flesh and bone blocked the Rus and the Spaniards from making a significant incursion into Celtic lands, and our own stout garrison (backed up by city walls and a ballista tower) prevented the Dutch from invading the Celtic homeland, though they DID make two attacks against Callevah, both of which were beaten back, with our losses being replaced as fast as our training funds would allow).

And then….silence after the fury.

A relentless drive westward burned one city to the ground and saw three more fall into Celtic hands.

With a whimper and a sigh, the American nation ceased to be, and the Celtic nation grew stronger.

Long odds still stacked against us though, the barbarians currently had their attention focused northward by the presence of eager Spanish and Russian armies attempting to move south, but that would not hold, and now…with one border secured by the sea, and our southern border secured by our stout walls and Celtic bravery, we knew that it fell to us to deal with the barbarian menace in Smolensk northward, and eastward to the sea.

It was time for us to see just where all those barbarian settlers had been moving.

In those days, it occurred to some to question whether we were not becoming too much like the people whom we had conquered. After all, were we now not the ones who hunted the free barbarian tribes?

But no….we are a proud, free people, and we move against our barbarian bretheren now, not to enslave, but to secure our place in the world. What we do, we do out of necessity. We are the Celts, and sadly, when there is need for it, that means we are a coldly pragmatic people.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Part, the Third
Smolensk

“M'lord, our scouts report that a largish contingent of Barbarian tribesmen have moved out of the city and into the mountains northward.”

“Apparently on their way to continue their battling with The Russ….this bodes well for us.”

The craggy, battle-hardened General of the army of Free Celts sat on his steed and stared toward the tall, almost fragile looking spires behind the city walls. By all reports, The Russ were not particularly fierce warriors, relying on sheer numbers and brute force to accomplish their goals, but the seasoned warrior had to admit….their architecture was impressive.

“Order a general advance. I want 5 Hoplite, 4 Archer, and 3 Mounted Archer companies to assault that cursed city. We will have it by nightfall or we are not Celts.”

The advance was duly sounded, and the General turned to his aides and runners. “Send word to the leadership in Numantia that we again march on Smolensk, and advise the High Council that I will be sending out pickets to scout the way eastward. The Barbarians have held sway over the Eastern Reaches for far too long a time, and I mean to bring the whole of this region firmly under the Celtic banner.”

“But sir,” one of his aides asked, “What if we discover that The Russ have also settled the Eastern Reaches?”

“Then we set spears for a charge and show them how the Celts fight!”

And so the course was set. With the American threat neutralized (and in fact, with many of the former Americans finding life as an honorary Celt quite to their liking), and the Dutchmen stymied by our brave soldiers in Callevah, the full weight of our attention and ambition was turned toward the region we had always known as the Eastern Reaches….a region mostly comprised of savannah, leading to hot dusty desert that ran to the sea. The land itself was only of marginal value, and so had not been of immediate import to us, but with our western border absolutely secure, and our southern secured for the time being, the area took on a great deal more strategic importance to us.

1600-900 BC – Triumph and Expansion – The Arrival of the Celtic Nation

We are the Celts, a warring people, and this period in our history saw our nation engaged in almost constant warfare of low to medium intensity. During this time, we rapidly and regularly extended our borders of influence, alternating between engaging the Russians and their Spanish allies as they would make forays southward against us, and fighting the other free tribes that shared the land with us.

For the Spaniards part, they only ever mounted one middling offensive, making it to the mountains of Free Smolensk, and then spilling out onto the plains where they were promptly slaughtered. For the Russ, though it was true that they had a significantly larger army (at one point, there were three Russian armies of varying strengths inside our borders), they were somewhat hampered by the fact that theirs were a motley collection of older units, while our armies were constantly being updated. Warriors were retired and replaced by Hoplites, and then by Swordsmen, Archers saw similar replacements by Mounted Archers, and in order to get forces in the field more quickly, when we began our campaign into the Eastern Reaches, one (1) garrison was pulled from each of our cities, and marched to the capitol for sorting into a new army group, with the garrison troops being replaced in each city as those cities could do so. In this manner, we were able to field an almost constant number of troops, and in emergency situations, we could dramatically reduce city garrisons in protected areas and create an impressive surge of troops to assist in battling.

This, in concert with our constant attention to keeping our troops equipped with the very best weapons our sages and engineers could come up with, the whole of the Eastern Reaches fell into Celtic hands rather speedily, and with acceptable loss of life.

In all, the Eastern Reaches netted us two Russian cities (Tiblisi and Minsk), the annihilation of the barbarian tribe known as the Ostregoths (who had been reduced to living out their lives on a wretched expanse of seaside desert….terrain that had little to recommend it in any case), and the capture of two additional barbarian cities which we named in honor of the tribes that had founded them….Visigoth and Vandals. Collectively, this served to secure the Eastern Reaches in Celtic hands, and brought another of our borders to relative safety. As time passed, given our ever-shrinking border security problems, we began to see an easier and easier time with keeping incursions into Celtic lands to a minimum, but our wise and benevolent leadership determined that in order to permanently close the northern gateway to Free Celtic lands, one more city would need to be acquired….Russian-held Sevastopol (also, as fortune would have it, built on a choke point). Our proud armies, flush with victory after victory in the Eastern Reaches, turned their attention to Sevastopol, and in a series of sharp skirmishes, culminating in an epic battle at the city gates which cost us the better part of two of our armies (one retreated in order to not be fully destroyed), we captured the city and permanently sealed ourselves off from all incursions.

The Celts get cocky

This should have been enough for our People….and in fact it WAS enough for the common folk. We had that which we had always dreamed of. A free, viable, strong Celtic nation. But the leadership, having tasted the sweetness of victory, was determined to move on to ever greater heights of glory, and determined to lay in an assault on the Dutch city of Den Haag, built near fair Callevah.

Den Haag was a small forest city (size 2), and our plan was to simply overrun and destroy it to deliver a blow to the morale of the Dutch people, and perhaps wrangle a cease fire out of them soon after. So, our victorious armies were marched to Callevah, and our older, outdated units were formed into a battle group (12) and launched an all-out assault, figuring that the defending garrison would be as small as the city itself.

Alas…this was not meant to be.

Fully twelve (12) companies of defenders lay in wait for us, including four catapults (a device which we had seen before, but had yet to master construction of). Our forces, caught quite by surprise, were decimated and lost to a man before they could retreat (game note – the actual fact is that I was so surprised to see that many troops guarding a crappy little town that I almost choked on my tea and couldn’t get my mouse over the retreat button in time). The enemy lost no troops whatsoever.

Shock, anger, and disbelief spread to all corners of the Free Celtic nation. This could not be! Not for the nation who had, despite all the long odds against it, bested armies from three different nations, WHILE holding a fourth at bay, WHILE also making strides against the barbarians…it was unthinkable.

Unthinkable or not….there it was, and Den Haag remained firmly in Dutch hands.

Anxious to prove that it was just a fluke, TWO armies were dispatched (12, 11) to deal a death blow to the defenders of the cursed Dutch city.

And the disaster deepened.

One army pulled back before destruction, the second was destroyed to a man, and on the counter-attack, the Dutch finished off our weakened army that had retreated. True, we inflicted massive casualties on our enemies (they won the battle with only two units remaining…two catapults, actually), but we simply had nothing left. The loss of three attack groups in such a short span had clipped our wings and exhausted our ready supply of regulars. As it was, the garrison in Callevah had been all but depleted in our ill-fated second attack….a sad end for the fine collection of warriors who had served so well and faithfully for so long, holding the line against the Dutch at the gates of Callevah.

Had the Dutch had any additional forces in the area, our problems would have been immense indeed….they would have been able to capture or destroy Callevah with ease, and then been but a scant distance from our capitol.

As it was, our brave sacrifice in the face of superior weaponry sufficiently impressed the Dutchmen that we were a force to be reckoned with, if not technologically, then at least in terms of sheer bravery, and they approached us with an offer of peace, which we accepted.

Having locked down our borders at Sevastopol and Callevah then, the warring came to an end. Oh, it was true that the Spaniards and the Rus were still nominally at war with us, but once our defense works were completed at Sevastopol, we had little difficulty in fending off the occasional half-hearted attack.

So….it was a time of relative peace and security. The first such period that our new nation had ever known, and the sense of it was that whatever we did next….however we saw fit to use that period of peace, would define us as a nation for centuries to come.

We are the Celts….at long last, a peaceful and strong people.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Part, the Fourth

840 BC
With our borders at last secure, and our garrisons replenished after having depleted many city garrison forces in our ill-fated attacks on Dutch-held Den Haag, we turn our attention to the land itself. The living heart and soul of the Free Celtic nation.

Times are still dangerous, even if the danger is much more subdued, now that we have our northern and southern borders locked down at choke points, letting none pass, but barbarians are a widely scattered lot, and their presence inside our borders is frequently cause for alarm (our people in Numantia recall all-too-vividly how close the barbarians came to sacking our capitol when they appeared on the horizon sporting catapults). And so the decision is reached that everyone in the nation will have to live with less food and longer workdays for the foreseeable future. It is necessary to build our nation. We are starting from scratch, and must rapidly close the economic distance between us and the rival states surrounding us. Public Works taxes are raised from ten, to a whopping seventy percent, and all available monies are hoarded as the city infrastructure economy nearly dries up entirely.

The effect though, is that it frees up an enormous amount of capital for improving the lands of the kingdom, and our priorities are these:

1) Increase the security of the Free Celtic nation by minimizing barbarian incursions
2) Construct a well-planned road network, connecting all cities with redundant routes, and specific military-use roads.
3) Increase food production, nation wide with a massive net/farm campaign.
4) Increase raw productivity by focusing on mines wherever feasible.
5) Increase commerce income by building trading posts after our mining work is done.

And so we begin. Fortresses spring up all around the Free Celtic nation (ten in all), pushing back the darkness and giving the Barbarians fewer and fewer places to hide and strike from.

Once the barbarian threat has been minimized, we begin in earnest, working the land. Farming, mining, and trading.

To say that this caused our economy to grow would be an understatement of epic proportions.

Like a wildfire, our economy caught the spark created by our Public Works infusion and began rocketing upward….surging like a thoroughbred. Our early conquests saw us acquire some truly excellent, blessedly productive lands, and we wasted little time putting all available land to good use. In what seemed to be the blinking of an eye, we had pulled even with The Russ, economically, and shortly after that, eclipsed them and the Spaniards, pulling quite close to the Dutchmen in terms of economic strength.

This was further enhanced in 790BC when our Wise Men came to us with a new form of government….Monarchy. We liked the way it was proposed and structured, and duly set about changing the nature and character of our government to fit this new model. By 780BC we had completed the transition painlessly, and noted an immediate upsurge in interest in the field of science! As we had kept nearly all of the cities we had conquered intact, many had well-stocked libraries and centers of learning, and we began closely studying these, now that we were not so preoccupied with day-to-day survival, and our advances began coming at a rapid clip as we studied, and then applied the knowledge we had at our fingertips.

We are the Celts, an industrious, hard-working people, and we meant to fully join the world community and be treated as equals in all respects!

750 BC For the first time in our history, the Spanish actually show some backbone! We route their army, but lose half our (12) garrison in Sevastopol in the process. The Spaniards have a fearsome new type of soldier….the armored knight, and this opponent, in conjunction with those dreaded catapults, is making the job of defending our northern gateway more and more difficult…fortunately, the surging scientific output of our nation will (hopefully) soon provide a remedy for that!

740BC – 290AD
This period in our nation’s history was one of relative quiet. The Dutchmen decided it was high time to take us down a peg, and so rejoined the Rus and Spaniards in a low-grade war against us. Their armies appeared only infrequently, however, and we were quite content to keep them checked at our northern and southern choke points (Sevastopol and Callevah, respectively). Our armies never once crossed into enemy territory during this period of building.

Highlights:
700BC – We *finally* begin working on Geometry!!! We will soon have weapons of war that are actually on par with the people we’re fighting! Our cities have been working steadily on infrastructure (PW tax back to 10%), plans are made at once to pull half our cities off of those peace time builds, and place one quarter on training knights, and one quarter on building catapults. When we have two battle groups (12 each, 6 knights and 6 catapult), we plan to leave our territory and strike toward the Spaniards, with an eye toward stripping them of at least half their remaining cities, and then turning on the Rus.

90BC – We are warned by both the Slavs and the English to stop researching Theology. As both nations are significantly larger and stronger, we decide to heed this advice. At least they’re talking to us, rather than attacking outright. We didn’t really want it for any particular purpose anyway, it was simply the fastest tech to research!

1AD – A threat from an entirely different quarter develops! Our fisheries and netting operations and ports come under fire from barbarian ships, Dutchmen, Spaniards, and Russians. We have basic knowledge of ship building, and begin work on a primitive boat (A coracle), but we recognize that we can either be a landward power or a naval power….not both. Our economy simply would not support both. So, we content ourselves with the nets we have in relatively sheltered waters, and do not try to replace the exposed ones as they are destroyed.

We have one attack capable battle group now, consisting of 4 Catapults, 3 Mounted Archers, and 5 Knights, with troop building continuing at a fevered pitch!

30AD – Skirmishes continue with the Rus and Spanish forces near Sevastopol, even as we continue building our second attack group. Also, our brave Coracle takes to the water and begins to explore!

80AD – Our coracle is joined by a Longship, doubling the size of our navy in short order and greatly speeding our explorations.

150AD – Our army is ready and massing toward Sevastopol. At last, we are fully prepared to go on the offensive! Sensing the imminent danger, the Spaniards, Rus, and Dutchmen ALL offer a cease fire agreement to us in the same year! We accept them all, grudgingly.

170AD – Celtic Diplomatic Corps founded!

190AD – Celtic Diplomatic Corpse founded, as our first diplomat meets an untimely end at the business end of a barbarian swordsman, and we discover that diplomatting is a tough business!

It is in this year that we also see the first barbarian rifleman, and this brings us to a disturbing conclusion.

The peace that our rival nations so eagerly sought leaves us in a precarious position. We have a fine, strong army at present, but are still lagging technologically. The day will soon come when our knights and catapults (now capable of dealing with our rivals on equal terms) will once more be outclassed by our more technologically advanced neighbors. The trouble with that is that it took us so long to reach a point of equality with our neighbors, that we will once more be in extreme peril if we allow them to eclipse into obsolescence without ever making use of them.

So the matter is considered with great care.

Clearly, we NEED to launch an attack now, while we have a fine, strong army, and we are militarily superior to both the Rus and the Spaniards, so at first glance, they seem to be the logical choice, however….

Just north of them, lie both the English and the Slavs….the twin dragons of our world….nations VASTLY superior to ours in all ways. We are the Celts, a brave, sturdy people, but we are not foolhardy, and the presence of Spanish and Russian buffer states between us and these behemoths serves our purposes in the immediacy.

However, the Dutch have no such use.

They lie isolated off our southern border, cut off, save by sea, from the rest of their allies. Further, much of their land is fertile and valuable, filled with fine forests and green fields, eventually leading to tundra and polar wastes.

A successful conquest of the Dutchmen would solve two problems at once for us….it would eliminate the need for our southern chokepoint, enabling us to place our full attention northward, and it would dramatically increase the size and quality of the Celtic nation and her economy….perhaps even putting us on par with the English and Slav nations, whom we fear.

One thing is certain….we MUST grow.

And since we must grow, in the absence of freely available lands, we must grow at the expense of someone else. It is, in the end, either us or them, and it has been us for much of our history.

It shall be them now.

Plans are made, and the Celts resolutely decide to declare against the Dutch, breaking the peace themselves if needs be, in order to ensure their long-term survival.

Dutch lands are forfeit. The Dutch themselves will become honorary Celts or we are not a warrior tribe!

We are the Celts, an expansionist people who mean to further the influence of our nation so that we may step fully out of the shadow of the English and the Slavs….

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Part, the Fifth

It was piracy that done it, or at least, that was the hook we used. We had some scant few caravans in place, and were scratching out meager profits by trading internally (cotton, which was our primary resource in those days). Our profits from these mercantile enterprises were slim, it was true, but they were of vital importance to us, and we, as a People were OUTRAGED at the thought of acts of piracy used against us. What a cowards way to fight!

So we warned the Dutchmen to cease at once, which they refused. We warned them again, threatening that they would face the wrath of our *proven* military might if they harmed even a single hair on a single camel, or accosted one single trading vessel. They agreed. The very next year they proved themselves untrustworthy by making yet another pirate raid on our shipping lanes.

Testing our national nerve and resolve would prove to be a mistake, as they would soon discover.

No further warnings were issued, and our two battle groups crossed into the forbidding forests north of Den Haag, with the ghosts of fallen Celts whispering loudly in our ears.

240AD – War is officially declared on the Dutch when our First National Army (5 Knights, 4 Catapult, 3 Mounted Archer) launches an assault on Den Haag and captures it with the loss of only two knights! Reinforcements are already close at hand, and our main priority is in road building so we may get the reinforcements where they are needed in a timely fashion. The opening shot of this war also reveals that the free barbarian tribes have been busy here, as our scouting reveals that the barbarians have captured another nearby Dutch city and have units milling about close to Den Haag. To be safe, we drive them off or destroy them as a Dutch relief force (12) approaches from the south.

The first army withdraws to Den Haag after skirmishing with barbarians while the 2nd National Army takes the road down the peninsula westward to the large (size 16) Dutch city of Assen.

260AD – Embassy established with the English! Now we find out just how far behind we are….six techs, as it turns out….not as bad as we feared, but then, the English are not nearly as strong as the Slavs, so our tech difference may be wider with them.

270AD – Our attempt to establish an embassy with the Slavs has failed! They slay our Diplomat and send his head back in a cherrywood box! Dark times for the diplomatic corps, but the diplomatic corpse has lots of company….we’ve now lost a total of three diplomats, two to barbarians, and one to the evil Slavs! The first national army defends itself successfully at Den Haag, destroying the Dutch relief force (12). Assen falls to the 2nd National Army, with no losses at all taken on our side. A second Dutch relief force is making toward Assen with all speed.

280 AD – Second Dutch relief army (12) is destroyed by our Second National Army, again, with no losses on our part. Garrisons are being brought from the Celtic heartland to post in these new acquisitions, and our armies are poised to sweep all Dutch resistance aside and make them a part of the Celtic Nation!

to be continued....
-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

War Progress:

340AD Amsterdam falls to our bold Celtic warriors, and sees our attacking army losing only one unit (12 units defending Amsterdam). We instantly replace our losses with a rush-trained unit of Pike, and brace for the potentially devastating counterpunch.

380AD Our first truly vicious battle! The First Army gets hammered (drops to five units), but successfully attacks another large (12) Dutch army and destroys it. We reinforce with anything available, just to keep our armies at full strength!

390 AD A stalemate has developed near Amsterdam. With a large (12) Dutch army occupying the hills east of town, we dare not attack it....nor can we leave, lest we give up the city. A hasty contingency plan is drawn up, involving a drive for Barbarian-Held Breda, with an eye toward capturing all Dutch northern cities first. NOT my first choice at all, but if needs be, we'll do it.

400AD - No need for the contingency plan, and the battle proceeds according to the original design! The Dutch army retreats as we bring our other strike force nearer Amsterdam.

430AD Some careful maneuvering and selective rushing of new troops keeps our two armies at full strength as we clear Amsterdam and surrounding lands of enemy forces!

440AD The First army is hammered again, in a savage attack by the Dutch. We lose only two units, but ALL our units are badly damaged. The army is forced to withdraw back to Amsterdam for rest and repair, meanwhile, the second army marches toward Leeuwarden.

450AD Leeuwarden captured. No losses for our part.

460AD The Spaniards want another cease-fire....we are ignoring their pathetic attacks in any event, so we grant them their wish.

(to be continued....)