One bit of interesting WAMMO trivia I probably didn't mention due to it being of limited relevance during my Byzantine days - For each merchant you have placed in a center of trade, you get 0.2 merchants fewer per year. This means you have to pick and choose your COTs to make sure you don't run out of opportunities to trade. There are many ways to get more merchants per year - Plutocracy and Free Trade, for one, although they're not as good as they are in vanilla. In addition, some decisions give more merchants (like the ever-powerful East India Company), and some level 6 buildings, like Government Houses and Stock Exchanges.
As it is, I generally either monopolize a few trade centers, or establish (only 2 merchants, enough to get trade goods) in as many as possible. Considering that my new nation relies on trade for the majority of its income, this is definitely something worth noting.
Episode 20: Platinean Pragmatism
Frightened, panicky, Quecha flavored refugees started pouring into La Plata. Although the relatively competitive technology of the natives had prevented some damage to nearby cities, ashes were still pouring out of Huaynaputina at a rate best described as "volcanic".
For what was hoped to be only a brief moment, La Plata was placed back in its governor's hands, and Alexander's group went out to investigate. They were initially planning to travel by boat, but as they rounded the tip of South America and began traveling up the Chilean coast, Eligos had the fortune to notice a menacing warship trailing their own smaller flyte.
"Theory: This is one of the new Carib ships that I've been reading about," he told the others. I don't know exactly who made it, and there is insufficient data to properly resolve their motives," he said.
A few minutes of relative quiet, interrupted by sailors subtly altering tack and the omnipresent creaking of wood subtly expanded by seawater.
"We should probably hail them and see what's up," recommended Alexander. He gave a few half-hearted commands to the staff of the ship, who began sending off the requisite signals. Their boat gradually slowed down, and their pursuer brought their own boat uncomfortably close.
The larger boat's captain rolled his eyes when he heard that another Greek ship had been apprehended. When his first officer suggested letting them go on their way... it wasn't pleasant.
"Don't you get it? Just because this isn't our homeland doesn't mean we can just let anyone through! We were here before those Platinese Greeks and Alemanni and whoever the hell else! If the Carib hear us Taino been letting foreigners run rampant in our colonies, they'll start infesting our home islands! Then we'll be nothing!"
Back on the smaller ship, Aedryn was beginning to get irritated at the incessant screeching coming from what, at the time, she still didn't know was an Arawak vessel.
"Can't we just set fire to their vessel and make a break for it?" she begged of her companions.
"You know, they do seem a bit irrational... not that I have any idea what's going on up there," added Luther. "On the other hand, it'd be an act of war... and I don't think we should do anything of the sort without getting Ignacio's blessing."
"Bah. Fine."
Thusly, Alexander and friends let the Amerindians on their ship once they had finished screaming at each other. The captain's Greek was wretched, and he told the group in halting, stilted tones that foreign water transit through this section of Arawak territory was strictly forbidden. Since the group had not decided to contest this, it meant that their boat was confiscated, and over the course of two days were taken to a toll road that would lead them through the Andes.
"Now this is some good land! Nothing but mountains and height as far as the eye can see!" Luther exclaimed once they'd hiked some distance. Alexander was beginning to wish he hadn't almost instantaneously regained his ground legs when he'd landed on solid ground. Luckily for him, the road forgot it was supposed to be a mountain pass and dropped towards the coast after a while. They began to see more displaced refugees from the north, who complained about the disruption of their life and occasionally tried to rob them. The criminals' results were less than stellar, and tended to result in a lot of smoking craters.
"How come your gun never runs out of ammunition?" Luther asked Aedryn one day, as the road passed through what, in the author's universe, was the modern border between Chile and Peru.
"It recharges from my body heat. That's half of what motivates my wardrobe," explained Aedryn. Luther didn't quite understand, prompting Chemistry 101 from Eligos.
"Opinion: That should put you a few centuries ahead of the natives," Eligos said when he was done.
"Good thing I got a recording device back in future town. Otherwise, I might've forgotten it all, and I would've had to reinvent the entire discipline myself."
"..."
"Face it, Eligos. You were not cut out to be an educator."
The air quality took a huge nosedive as the group approached Huaynaputina. Quality of discourse wasn't faring much better - when trying to paste together events, most of the Nazca in the area were quick to attribute the eruption to demons. The literati weren't so foolish, but geology was not their strong point.
"I'm just saying... with all you Europeans... migrating to our continent... which we made ourselves, you know... there's not as much stuff pushing down on the ground there, so your volcanoes can't erupt as much. That means the pressure builds up on our side of the world... and then... boom!"
The person who had espoused that theory collapsed in a heap from inebriation. It had been Luther's idea to visit local taverns and other social hotspots for information, and even he was beginning to regret that. Alexander, on the other hand, was beginning to form a theory of cultural development for the Amerindians - they appeared to lead the world in social complexity and political organization, and were about even with Europe in terms of technology, but their natural sciences and other social sciences... needed a lot of work, or at least plagiarism.
After a while, Phokas suggested investigating the volcano itself - after the debauchery of the taverns, this was seen as a welcome step. Nobody had bothered to guard Huaynaputina, because the natives figured anyone who'd go up there so soon after the eruption would die, and their deaths might appease their local pantheon. To be fair, the worst of the eruption was over - there were no longer pools of magma disrupting travel, and the air, while still full of particulates, at least contained traces of breathable oxygen. The journey remained unpleasant, and even Eligos' eyes were watering as they reached Huaynaputina's crater.
"Isn't this convenient? Someone's left a message for us!" said Aedryn, when she spotted an unusually glossy plaque partially buried by volcanic dust. Extracting it was easy.
"Why didn't you help when I asked?", it said in regular, official looking letters. There was some fine print on the bottom claiming that the plaque was "created with EZEmboss Shareware Edition 2.1".
"Yep, it's definitely that George guy's doing. If he wants our help, why hasn't he contacted us yet?" Aedryn asked the group. Noncommittal shrugging was all she got in response.
"Maybe, just maybe... he's really stupid," continued Aedryn. "If he's our only hope for getting back to our home times... we're going to die here."
There was little else to say, and it was in relative silence that Alexander Phokas and his group went back to Nessa.
"We want you to declare war on the Arawak. They annoyed us," Aedryn said the moment Alexander and friends could get into Ignacio Azcuenaga's office.
"So soon? Don't you want to hear what I did while you were gone?" asked Ignacio, probably because he didn't quite grasp the implications of war.
As usual, Ignacio was a bit more occupied with money than potential warfare. On the other hand, he was working to develop the navy of La Plata, probably with intent to provide escorts for commercial vessels in times of trouble.
Amongst other things, he funded a project to explore the southern Atlantic.
He also simply built more ships, because part of strengthening a nation's navy is having one in the first place.
At one point, the admiral in charge of the Platinese shipyards complained about the lack of oared ships commissioned. Ignacio, in a rare moment of limited humility, could only laugh at this.
"But governor, the Atlantic ocean is treacherous and difficult to sail on! To be able to propel our ships by rowing would give us an advantage on the high seas!" responded the admiral.
"Admiral Komnenos, the problem with that is that we have learned a great deal about shipbuilding. Flexible sails will get you everywhere you need to go." After this, the admiral was hurried out before he could say something that would lead to him being stripped of his rank.
As it was, La Plata soon had a small, but respectable fleet composed primarily of moderately sized, fast ships. When Alexander's flyte was returned with an Arawak skeleton crew, it looked pathetic in comparison.
"So you want to seize the Arawak naval bases to our north and west on the grounds that they are being used solely to infringe upon trade and free travel. Might be a bit hard to get that message through, but whatever you say."
In Azcuenaga's defense, Alexander Phokas and his friends had yet to misadvise him, at least to his perception. He immediately ordered his diplomats to start goading the Arawak government, and it worked. In fact, the antagonistic aspects of it may have worked too well, as the Arawaks immediately made a big fuss about crusades and the protection of their religious institutions. It caused the governor no end of consternation for a while, since he considered himself a fairly tolerant guy. Eventually, he found out that one of his diplomats had made a significant translation error, had the fellow thrown in a dirty jail cell, and continued to consider himself tolerant.
Still, as a result of this interpretation of the war, Arawak received more assistance from the other natives than one would expect otherwise.
Official assistance, at least - the Arawak colonies were sparsely populated and defended at best, and therefore overrun in an acceptable amount of time. The Arawaks' home territory presented more of a problem due to the existence of their own navy, though.
In the mean time, their peripheral empire was increasingly blockaded and strangled.
Large, modern ships were found to be highly addictive, and soon the Platinese were demanding ever more be constructed. Eligos cautioned the governor not too build too much of a navy in response to this.
"Where are we going to put our cannons?" asked Ignacio.
"Hypothesis: The cannons should be put on wheels and given to the army," Eligos snarked.
News came in of significant naval victories off the coast of Cuba, often resulting in the capture of many enemy ships. Other news from Europe also was given consideration - ranging from the continued petty revolts in Ruma, to the further splintering of 'Catholic' Christianity in the far north of the world.
Ignacio lapped up this news - or for that matter, anything at all that suggested even the smallest hint of increased success in the war against the Arawak nation. When he heard that Arawak ships had been commandeered for his nation's use, he just had to tell every citizen in the country, and started traveling from village to village making motivational speeches. That didn't work out so well.
"I'd like to thank the Taino shipbuilders' guild for providing us with such fine vessels to blockade their ports-" were his last words before, as far as Alexander Phokas could tell, a gunshot had rang out, and the people in the crowds turned to find a musketman breathing heavily, raggedly, paralyzed with shock at what he had done and why he had done it. The last bit was a journalist's addition - not that anyone needed turning against Ignacio Azcuenaga's assassin.
It turned out the governor had been grooming a successor for some time - in the emergency elections, another Rumi-Hispanian named Marcelino Larrea had won a ridiculously large share of the vote. Marcelino was an aberration - a 7 foot giant of a man with the temperament of a constantly exploding bomb. It belied his talents as an administrator, and made his first meeting with Alexander Phokas slightly awkward.
"WE MUST STRENGTHEN TRADE!" Marcelino had shouted, in lieu of a greeting.
"Dude! Use your indoor voice," responded Alexander, who was rather intimidated.
"We shall strengthen trade!"
"Fine, whatever."
"We shall also continue to blockade the Arawak home islands!"
"That's fine, too."
The unwillingness of the Arawak to give up their isolated Chilean colonies was astounding by most standards. Marcelino decided, without telling anyone, that this was due to the fact that the blockade had to be undone for a few months every year for repairs.
"Our ships shall be made better!" he started shouting at random pedestrians one day, in lieu of giving a speech. How this was going to help in the short-term was nothing something anyone knew, but if there was one thing Marcelino was good at, it was getting people to do things. He enjoyed incredible levels of popularity due to his "assertive" attitude and "practical" governing methods, if the government's propaganda was to be believed.
"LET'S HAVE A NEW COURT SYSTEM, SHALL WE?" he began screaming a few days later. A few judges were shuffled, primarily because they'd wet themselves when Marcelino visited them with his 'proposals'.
The war had chugged on for some time, when news filtered down to La Plata that an elite team of commandos had taken over Jamaica. Suddenly, the Arawak were more willing to negotiate and hand over their colonies. After that, Marcelino bellowed a few words that theoretically could be interpreted as interest in peaceful cooperation with the rest of the world.
Thusly, an informal effort was launched, with the help of the few bits of Ruma that weren't in complete disarray to bring 'civilization' and Christianity to other parts of the world, such as southern Africa.
This was mostly for show - the Rumi government had even lost control over the traditional Byzantine capital of Constantinople. Ethiopia appeared to be the "biggest winner" in the region's politics, as they had forged a personal union with the new kingdom of Turkey. Meanwhile, they were doing a fine job of keeping control over their own empire.
Alexander Phokas' attention to this varied over the years. After the death of Ignacio Azcuenaga, his personal ties to the government of La Plata waned, and he found himself engaged in numerous small business startups, some of which he encouraged to succeed, others which he encouraged to fail. Which ones got to be lucky was often left up to random choice. Occasionally, he got to attend boring parties often showcasing the government of La Plata. These usually devolved into wine binges, or people sitting around with glazed eyes as Marcelino Larrea recited slogans at the people-
"ARMED PACIFISM IS THE BEST!" he chanted at his audience. Alexander remembered that he was actually AT one of these parties, and had to create the appearance of interest. In all respects, it was a wretched way to begin 1615. He suddenly had an urge to see his family, followed by an urge to drink. Both went ignored.
As it is, I generally either monopolize a few trade centers, or establish (only 2 merchants, enough to get trade goods) in as many as possible. Considering that my new nation relies on trade for the majority of its income, this is definitely something worth noting.
Episode 20: Platinean Pragmatism
Frightened, panicky, Quecha flavored refugees started pouring into La Plata. Although the relatively competitive technology of the natives had prevented some damage to nearby cities, ashes were still pouring out of Huaynaputina at a rate best described as "volcanic".
For what was hoped to be only a brief moment, La Plata was placed back in its governor's hands, and Alexander's group went out to investigate. They were initially planning to travel by boat, but as they rounded the tip of South America and began traveling up the Chilean coast, Eligos had the fortune to notice a menacing warship trailing their own smaller flyte.
"Theory: This is one of the new Carib ships that I've been reading about," he told the others. I don't know exactly who made it, and there is insufficient data to properly resolve their motives," he said.
A few minutes of relative quiet, interrupted by sailors subtly altering tack and the omnipresent creaking of wood subtly expanded by seawater.
"We should probably hail them and see what's up," recommended Alexander. He gave a few half-hearted commands to the staff of the ship, who began sending off the requisite signals. Their boat gradually slowed down, and their pursuer brought their own boat uncomfortably close.
The larger boat's captain rolled his eyes when he heard that another Greek ship had been apprehended. When his first officer suggested letting them go on their way... it wasn't pleasant.
"Don't you get it? Just because this isn't our homeland doesn't mean we can just let anyone through! We were here before those Platinese Greeks and Alemanni and whoever the hell else! If the Carib hear us Taino been letting foreigners run rampant in our colonies, they'll start infesting our home islands! Then we'll be nothing!"
Back on the smaller ship, Aedryn was beginning to get irritated at the incessant screeching coming from what, at the time, she still didn't know was an Arawak vessel.
"Can't we just set fire to their vessel and make a break for it?" she begged of her companions.
"You know, they do seem a bit irrational... not that I have any idea what's going on up there," added Luther. "On the other hand, it'd be an act of war... and I don't think we should do anything of the sort without getting Ignacio's blessing."
"Bah. Fine."
Thusly, Alexander and friends let the Amerindians on their ship once they had finished screaming at each other. The captain's Greek was wretched, and he told the group in halting, stilted tones that foreign water transit through this section of Arawak territory was strictly forbidden. Since the group had not decided to contest this, it meant that their boat was confiscated, and over the course of two days were taken to a toll road that would lead them through the Andes.
"Now this is some good land! Nothing but mountains and height as far as the eye can see!" Luther exclaimed once they'd hiked some distance. Alexander was beginning to wish he hadn't almost instantaneously regained his ground legs when he'd landed on solid ground. Luckily for him, the road forgot it was supposed to be a mountain pass and dropped towards the coast after a while. They began to see more displaced refugees from the north, who complained about the disruption of their life and occasionally tried to rob them. The criminals' results were less than stellar, and tended to result in a lot of smoking craters.
"How come your gun never runs out of ammunition?" Luther asked Aedryn one day, as the road passed through what, in the author's universe, was the modern border between Chile and Peru.
"It recharges from my body heat. That's half of what motivates my wardrobe," explained Aedryn. Luther didn't quite understand, prompting Chemistry 101 from Eligos.
"Opinion: That should put you a few centuries ahead of the natives," Eligos said when he was done.
"Good thing I got a recording device back in future town. Otherwise, I might've forgotten it all, and I would've had to reinvent the entire discipline myself."
"..."
"Face it, Eligos. You were not cut out to be an educator."
The air quality took a huge nosedive as the group approached Huaynaputina. Quality of discourse wasn't faring much better - when trying to paste together events, most of the Nazca in the area were quick to attribute the eruption to demons. The literati weren't so foolish, but geology was not their strong point.
"I'm just saying... with all you Europeans... migrating to our continent... which we made ourselves, you know... there's not as much stuff pushing down on the ground there, so your volcanoes can't erupt as much. That means the pressure builds up on our side of the world... and then... boom!"
The person who had espoused that theory collapsed in a heap from inebriation. It had been Luther's idea to visit local taverns and other social hotspots for information, and even he was beginning to regret that. Alexander, on the other hand, was beginning to form a theory of cultural development for the Amerindians - they appeared to lead the world in social complexity and political organization, and were about even with Europe in terms of technology, but their natural sciences and other social sciences... needed a lot of work, or at least plagiarism.
After a while, Phokas suggested investigating the volcano itself - after the debauchery of the taverns, this was seen as a welcome step. Nobody had bothered to guard Huaynaputina, because the natives figured anyone who'd go up there so soon after the eruption would die, and their deaths might appease their local pantheon. To be fair, the worst of the eruption was over - there were no longer pools of magma disrupting travel, and the air, while still full of particulates, at least contained traces of breathable oxygen. The journey remained unpleasant, and even Eligos' eyes were watering as they reached Huaynaputina's crater.
"Isn't this convenient? Someone's left a message for us!" said Aedryn, when she spotted an unusually glossy plaque partially buried by volcanic dust. Extracting it was easy.
"Why didn't you help when I asked?", it said in regular, official looking letters. There was some fine print on the bottom claiming that the plaque was "created with EZEmboss Shareware Edition 2.1".
"Yep, it's definitely that George guy's doing. If he wants our help, why hasn't he contacted us yet?" Aedryn asked the group. Noncommittal shrugging was all she got in response.
"Maybe, just maybe... he's really stupid," continued Aedryn. "If he's our only hope for getting back to our home times... we're going to die here."
There was little else to say, and it was in relative silence that Alexander Phokas and his group went back to Nessa.
"We want you to declare war on the Arawak. They annoyed us," Aedryn said the moment Alexander and friends could get into Ignacio Azcuenaga's office.
"So soon? Don't you want to hear what I did while you were gone?" asked Ignacio, probably because he didn't quite grasp the implications of war.
As usual, Ignacio was a bit more occupied with money than potential warfare. On the other hand, he was working to develop the navy of La Plata, probably with intent to provide escorts for commercial vessels in times of trouble.
Amongst other things, he funded a project to explore the southern Atlantic.
He also simply built more ships, because part of strengthening a nation's navy is having one in the first place.
At one point, the admiral in charge of the Platinese shipyards complained about the lack of oared ships commissioned. Ignacio, in a rare moment of limited humility, could only laugh at this.
"But governor, the Atlantic ocean is treacherous and difficult to sail on! To be able to propel our ships by rowing would give us an advantage on the high seas!" responded the admiral.
"Admiral Komnenos, the problem with that is that we have learned a great deal about shipbuilding. Flexible sails will get you everywhere you need to go." After this, the admiral was hurried out before he could say something that would lead to him being stripped of his rank.
As it was, La Plata soon had a small, but respectable fleet composed primarily of moderately sized, fast ships. When Alexander's flyte was returned with an Arawak skeleton crew, it looked pathetic in comparison.
"So you want to seize the Arawak naval bases to our north and west on the grounds that they are being used solely to infringe upon trade and free travel. Might be a bit hard to get that message through, but whatever you say."
In Azcuenaga's defense, Alexander Phokas and his friends had yet to misadvise him, at least to his perception. He immediately ordered his diplomats to start goading the Arawak government, and it worked. In fact, the antagonistic aspects of it may have worked too well, as the Arawaks immediately made a big fuss about crusades and the protection of their religious institutions. It caused the governor no end of consternation for a while, since he considered himself a fairly tolerant guy. Eventually, he found out that one of his diplomats had made a significant translation error, had the fellow thrown in a dirty jail cell, and continued to consider himself tolerant.
Still, as a result of this interpretation of the war, Arawak received more assistance from the other natives than one would expect otherwise.
Official assistance, at least - the Arawak colonies were sparsely populated and defended at best, and therefore overrun in an acceptable amount of time. The Arawaks' home territory presented more of a problem due to the existence of their own navy, though.
In the mean time, their peripheral empire was increasingly blockaded and strangled.
Large, modern ships were found to be highly addictive, and soon the Platinese were demanding ever more be constructed. Eligos cautioned the governor not too build too much of a navy in response to this.
"Where are we going to put our cannons?" asked Ignacio.
"Hypothesis: The cannons should be put on wheels and given to the army," Eligos snarked.
News came in of significant naval victories off the coast of Cuba, often resulting in the capture of many enemy ships. Other news from Europe also was given consideration - ranging from the continued petty revolts in Ruma, to the further splintering of 'Catholic' Christianity in the far north of the world.
Ignacio lapped up this news - or for that matter, anything at all that suggested even the smallest hint of increased success in the war against the Arawak nation. When he heard that Arawak ships had been commandeered for his nation's use, he just had to tell every citizen in the country, and started traveling from village to village making motivational speeches. That didn't work out so well.
"I'd like to thank the Taino shipbuilders' guild for providing us with such fine vessels to blockade their ports-" were his last words before, as far as Alexander Phokas could tell, a gunshot had rang out, and the people in the crowds turned to find a musketman breathing heavily, raggedly, paralyzed with shock at what he had done and why he had done it. The last bit was a journalist's addition - not that anyone needed turning against Ignacio Azcuenaga's assassin.
It turned out the governor had been grooming a successor for some time - in the emergency elections, another Rumi-Hispanian named Marcelino Larrea had won a ridiculously large share of the vote. Marcelino was an aberration - a 7 foot giant of a man with the temperament of a constantly exploding bomb. It belied his talents as an administrator, and made his first meeting with Alexander Phokas slightly awkward.
"WE MUST STRENGTHEN TRADE!" Marcelino had shouted, in lieu of a greeting.
"Dude! Use your indoor voice," responded Alexander, who was rather intimidated.
"We shall strengthen trade!"
"Fine, whatever."
"We shall also continue to blockade the Arawak home islands!"
"That's fine, too."
The unwillingness of the Arawak to give up their isolated Chilean colonies was astounding by most standards. Marcelino decided, without telling anyone, that this was due to the fact that the blockade had to be undone for a few months every year for repairs.
"Our ships shall be made better!" he started shouting at random pedestrians one day, in lieu of giving a speech. How this was going to help in the short-term was nothing something anyone knew, but if there was one thing Marcelino was good at, it was getting people to do things. He enjoyed incredible levels of popularity due to his "assertive" attitude and "practical" governing methods, if the government's propaganda was to be believed.
"LET'S HAVE A NEW COURT SYSTEM, SHALL WE?" he began screaming a few days later. A few judges were shuffled, primarily because they'd wet themselves when Marcelino visited them with his 'proposals'.
The war had chugged on for some time, when news filtered down to La Plata that an elite team of commandos had taken over Jamaica. Suddenly, the Arawak were more willing to negotiate and hand over their colonies. After that, Marcelino bellowed a few words that theoretically could be interpreted as interest in peaceful cooperation with the rest of the world.
Thusly, an informal effort was launched, with the help of the few bits of Ruma that weren't in complete disarray to bring 'civilization' and Christianity to other parts of the world, such as southern Africa.
This was mostly for show - the Rumi government had even lost control over the traditional Byzantine capital of Constantinople. Ethiopia appeared to be the "biggest winner" in the region's politics, as they had forged a personal union with the new kingdom of Turkey. Meanwhile, they were doing a fine job of keeping control over their own empire.
Alexander Phokas' attention to this varied over the years. After the death of Ignacio Azcuenaga, his personal ties to the government of La Plata waned, and he found himself engaged in numerous small business startups, some of which he encouraged to succeed, others which he encouraged to fail. Which ones got to be lucky was often left up to random choice. Occasionally, he got to attend boring parties often showcasing the government of La Plata. These usually devolved into wine binges, or people sitting around with glazed eyes as Marcelino Larrea recited slogans at the people-
"ARMED PACIFISM IS THE BEST!" he chanted at his audience. Alexander remembered that he was actually AT one of these parties, and had to create the appearance of interest. In all respects, it was a wretched way to begin 1615. He suddenly had an urge to see his family, followed by an urge to drink. Both went ignored.
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