Part 11
The Journal of Lord Gaafa V, Lord of Gaafa Manor, Grozny
The following are selected passages from Lord Gaafa V's journals. Details illuminating events leading to the Russo-Chinese War are marked in boldface.
August 7th, 1040 AD
My father appeared before the bureaucrats in Grozny and applied for the title to the forests west of Grozny. Although the Tsar owns the land, the Gaafas have worked the forests for nearly two centuries. My father is confident that the crown will grant him the title, but if they refuse to give us what we deserve, then my father says that we shall have to take it from them by force.
January 12th, 1052Aside posted:
Time to look at how cities work.
Each circled spot on the map itself represents a population point of Grozny working that particular tile. Each symbol in each tile represents what that tile produces for the city.
The various bars around the city represent the progress and accumulation of various things. The most important sections are along the top--you can see the growth of the city, how much food the city eats, and how much production the city makes every turn. Grozny produces a whopping 25 production, which means I can produce a knight (100 production) every four turns!
Beside the mini-map is the governor bar. This bar contains the button for drafting (nationalism), whipping (slavery), gold-rushing (universal suffrage), and various governor buttons that influence how the AI will run your city--if you choose not to run it yourself. It also contains a very small button known as stop growth. Don't use this button unless you're on the border of having another population point that you can't use in some other fashion, and you can't prevent by assigning specialists.
Above the minimap is the resource list, and the specialist bar. The specialist bar allows you to assign specialists to the city. Each specialist normally requires one population point, implying that you'll have to take population points from the field in order to make specialists. In general, you're better off working a tile with the population point--but if you need something and your city can't get it--or if the game is still in its early stages--then assigning a specialist can make a world of difference. Plus, specialists are the only efficient way to produce Great Person Points.
Everything else should be self-explanatory. If you don't know, just mouse over them in game and you'll get an idea.
I met my father's guest today, an inventor by the name of Alhazen. Through letters he had made his intentions clear: he planned to stay on the manor until the first spring rain, when he would leave for Port Kavkaz. My father, hospitable by nature, gladly accepted the company of the inventor, and asked him to stay with us at the mansion.
On the first night of his visit, over a finely laid table of pork, cheese, and dried apples, Alhazen told us stories of his childhood in Bombay, and then produced samples of a material he was making from the fibers of a Bombay spruce. It was soft, thin, white, and easily torn, and when I ran my thumb along the edge, it opened my skin.
After a few cups of Moscovian wine, Alhazen complained about the price of Moscow papyrus and St. Petersburg clay, and then told us that his material, though it would rot and was easily destroyed by water, could be produced at 100 times the volume for the same price as papyrus. My father, a normally keen investor, was entranced by the man's fantastic claims, and gave him three pounds of gold to pay for his eventual trip to Port Kavkaz. Alhazen accepted the gold, and promised to pay my father back three times over. I hope the Indian is a man of his word.
May 17th, 1064 ADAside posted:
Yet another Great Scientist! They're coming only turns apart because of all my Great Person multipliers. I'm sending this one to my commerce city, Port Kavkaz, in the hopes of producing more culture and increasing the effectiveness of all those cottages. :]
My father is sick with age. He has begun to forget faces and names, and I fear that soon he will forget his own son. Tonight, I will go to him and plead for him to pass me the title of the Gaafa Manor and the Grozny Forests, before the vultures in the city catch wind of his madness and descend to feast upon him.
May 25th, 1064 AD
A letter from Alhazen arrived this morning. It seems he has founded an academy in Port Kavkaz to study the various local plants for a suitable source of soft fibers. I hope he finds something that a farmer may produce, or his wondrous claims of a hundred sheets for every one sheet of papyrus will never come true.
May 29th, 1064 AD
In a moment of clarity, my father consulted with a Sadhu on the state of his mind and decided that his connection with this world was fraying like an old rope. He waits in his chambers for me now, and I will go to recieve my heritage and responsibilities.
May 30th, 1064 AD
While sending for a magistrate to oversee the change of title, I met a man wondering through the mansion in a folded robe. Failing to recognize him as a servant, I asked him his business, but when he turned to face me I realized that he could not understand me: he was a Chinese man, a Buddhist ascetic on a journey of self-discovery. It is likely that a servant let him into the house. I know that custom disallows interfering with the practice of deviant religions, but I am afraid that in his exploration the Buddhist will find and prey upon my father's weakened resolve.
I sent a messenger to the governor, begging for the state to allow me the right to send the Buddhist away.
May 30th, 1067 AD
My father is dead. On the year after I recieved the title to the manor, he drank hemlock with his wine, and went to meet the devas. I pray to Ishvara that he finds himself in heaven.
August 19th, 1069 AD
In these last two years, barbarian activity in the jungles of Buddhist China has disrupted the Chinese trade routes to Crimea. Traders and merchants from Shanghai and Beijing are angry with their Buddhist brothers and have contacted me to find a safer road. After negotiating with the Tsar's bureaucracy, I've opened my manor as a stop for their caravans passing south through the grasslands and hills north of Grozny.
I've heard rumors that Buddhist-Chinese are no longer allowed to travel through Shanghai. If so, I support the Hindu-Chinese in their efforts. The Buddhists are a scourge. I pray some disease from their jungles eats the lot of them.
June 12th, 1071 ADAside posted:
During these turns, Moscow started building a Grocer, and I assigned my new population point to become an engineer. The extra +2 hammers should help grow the commerce city. I took one of the merchants off of his role and made him work a cottage.
A caravan master told me that the Buddhists have invaded Shanghai and ousted the Hindu government. Gaafa Manor depends upon these traders for its prosperity! I've sent a messenger to the Grozny governor--he must raise an army to reinstate the Hindus, or I will take his head and raise an army myself.
June 23rd, 1071 AD
The governor refused my request. I've mounted my horse and drawn 30 swordsmen from my villages along the Yangtse. In three days, I'll stand in Grozny and make my demands: step down, or I'll take Grozny for myself. Our Hindu brothers need our help!
June 27th, 1071 AD
The governor tried to scatter my assembly with his guards. After a short scuffle, three city-men were dragged away with minor wounds. In the aftermath, I addressed the crowd which had assembled to watch the conflict: I told them that our Hindu brothers are in turmoil in the north, and that the Chinese people cry out for us to save them from the Buddhists. Nevertheless, a weak Taoist governor refuses to help the faithful! Will we let them suffer, I asked. Will we let the Taoists dictate whether or not we defend our religion?
I rode up to the courthouse and drove my warhorse to kick the doors. The crowd cheered as they turned to splinters, and after I dismounted, a mob of citizens followed me into the center of government.
April 20th, 1076 AD
I have established the Grand Duchy of Grozny, with myself as its duke. Now the bureaucrats of Moscow work to organize my farms and workshops. Messengers have been sent to the Tsar. Either he will recognize my place in his court, or I will not pay tribute to the crown.
January 9th, 1077 AD
My first son was born. In time, he will grow to become Duke Gaafa VI. A messenger has been dispatched to the Tsar with the good news. Russia will be blessed by his birth, I am sure of it.
---Aside posted:
I just instituted a turn of anarchy in order to make a civic change. Organized Religion will be eschewed in exchange for the powerful Theocracy civic.
Theocracy gives each unit produced in a city with your state religion a +2 bonus to experience. It also prevents the spread of non-state religions in your borders. Since I am Hindu, every Hindu city gains these benefits.
Here are some interesting things that happened in the 1070s:
The academy I built in Port Kavkaz has contributed to greater cultural growth in the city. The squares marked in red have switched back to the Russian ethnicity, and soon enough, as the theater finishes, I expect the squares next to the city to also turn Russian.
Bangalore began the construction of a Work Boat, while all the other Indian cities completed the midway point in their construction of a forge. Madras started a forge this year, and should grow enough to be whipped in ten or so turns. That whipping should complete the forge.
---
May 12th, 1082 AD
At first I hardly recognized the man at my door. He was very, very old, his scraggly and stained beard went down past his knees, and you couldn't make out the shape of his face from under his Indian wrap. But when he spoke, I heard a familiar voice, that of the eager inventor Alhazen.
In his arms, thank Ishvara, he held three pounds of gold, the very same bars my father had given him.
I told him that three times the number of gold was his promise. He agreed, and directed me to his personal carriage. There, inside the cargo hold, was at least twenty pounds of gold, if not more, and an uncountable number of sheets of paper. He told me that the gold was mine, and that the paper was mine as well.
I asked him, was anyone buying his paper? Alhazen told me that in Moscow, paper was used for all kinds of accounting and mercantile practices, where the permanancy of clay or papyrus was unnecessary and sometimes unwanted. I nodded, and told him to take my gold and build me as many paper-making machines as possible. The inventor was very pleased, and left to find craftsmen.
December 22nd, 1082 AD
I am now the patron of the paper-millers' guild in Grozny. Already, my investment of Alhazen's gold has paid itself back twice over. I've asked that they produce sheets as large as a table, so that the cartographers of my duchy can produce maps for military use.
January 1st, 1100 ADAside posted:
Paper is soft and absorbent.
And it's also the premiere medium for mapmaking, since it can be produced in large quantities.
I can now trade maps with other civilizations. I got a free map from Hatshepsut, and a map for 10 gold from China. Now I've got a map of the entire home continent.
Though the paper industry will support my duchy in the coming decades, I know for certain that I need the trade of Shanghai and Beijing to sustain my power. I've sent my son to train as a soldier in the barracks of Grozny, and in twenty years, by the grace of Krishna, he will be a knight worthy to lead an army to war.
I pray to Ishvara that he has good fortune in war.
So far...
Above, you can see the picture of the uncultured map around Grozny and Shanghai. War will proceed in the next update, with Knights and Catapults from Grozny and St. Petersburg taking Shanghai, while Elephants and Macemen take Beijing in the far east.
If you want anything specific to happen, or if you'd like to name the knights, this is your chance! (Please use serious names.) Otherwise, I'll see you tomorrow.
