Lenape World Conquest Attempt @ 1.07 EEP 1.31

Early Years – 1419 – 1450.

The Beginning.

Geopolitical situation.

In the beginning, there was boredom. Lots of it. Yawn. Iroquois to the West. Peaceful. Yawn. Sea to the East. Unexplored. Yawn. Some other tribes elsewhere, neutral and very spiritual. Bah. No alliances. Everyone lets everyone live as they want.

We know of some provinces North and South which are not settled by large tribes. Some are coastal. So what. No one of our free citizens wants to settle there. It looks like it will take as at least 5 years to get our first colonist. Oh well. We’ll need to do a bit Naval. Done.

We like trading furs, but we have no Centre of Trade. Shawnees have it. What’s the good of centre of trade when you have no traders and don’t know how to send them? Strange. Let’s ask our wise men, as they smoke their pipes, to focus on thinking how to trade and forget all the rest. Done.

We don’t even know how to collect taxes. What’re taxes anyway? We’ll come back to this issue later.

There is a lake (large one) beyond the lands of Iroquois and between the lands of Huron and Shawnee. It’s quite useless because we cannot navigate it. Just takes a lot of space. But nice nature.

Military situation.

We have no troops. No one else around us has them, too. We might equip a few hunters-gatherers when we want, though. Let’s keep it in mind.

We have no pirogues. We don’t know why. We just don’t have them. No one else does. That’s how it is.

Spiritual situation.

We believe in Great Spirit, and we intend to stay so. We have three totem poles to worship Him.

Financial situation.

We are dirt poor. We never cared about earthly reaches. Maybe we should start, now.

And so the Great Wait begins.

Many thanks to all those who've replied and who are reading! Your comments are very encouraging

BTW, I did not like the original Lanape flag and stuff, so I swapped the graphics with Shawnee. So just note that the guys with the nice feather on the black background are the good guys.

Well, without further ado, next chapter of the Lenape history...

First Political Steps


May 1419

Our Great Chief at the time was a nice old man called Ottawa (Quiet Tide). He liked to think about himself as a man with a vision. Once, he collected us on a nice ocean beach under pine trees and said, looking far into the distance:

'Listen, Delawares (for that was how we call ourselves). Don't you think it would be nice to see how big the Earth really is?'

'What?' we said, thinking what's that with the old man.

But he quietly went on with his vision, as the following events showed.

Once, a young man came into his wigwam. 'I am going to our neighbours Iroquis,' he said. 'Need anything, Chief?'

'Oh yeah, take my daughter with you, marry her to Onondaga, their Chief.'

'Yuk,' said the daughter. And because she must have looked really unhappy when they came to the Iroquis settlements, Onondaga rejected her.

Some Sort of Colonisation

Five years later, another young man came to see our Chief. By that time, the daugher was finally married to Onondaga; and another daughter even married the Onega, the Chief of the Hurons far away beyond the Lakes. Shawnees refused our suggestions to cement friendships through the ties of love, however. Twice.

'Hey Chief,' said this new young man. 'You know, it's so boring here. My wife and I talked, and we thought: why don't we go live elswhere? Maybe it will be more exciting in the Maryland province, to the South.'

'Go,' Ottawa said.

The man came back soon. 'Sorry Chief, there were many natives. They told us to go away.'

Ottawa sighed. He had a secret pact with Great Spirit Manitu, however, which he used very sparingly.

'Since I waited for your for 6 years, I'll give you another chance. Ta-daa!' said the Chief, and sent the man right into the past.

This time, the family settled in the new province. We expanded.


First colony established in Maryland

Overall Progress

And so we went on. First every five years, then every three, then every year, some families went to live in the peaceful provinces to the South.

Meanwhile, our Chief kept sending presents of furs, tobacco and food to the Iroquis. They thought he was doing it out of kindness of his heart, and soon they entered a military alliance with us. So did the Shawnees.

Our Chief, meanwhile, continued to make us naval (even though we had no pirogues). We had no idea what he was up to.

At the same time he encouraged our elders, when they were not drinking, to think how to enrich the tribe's treasury. They eventually came up with two ideas which they, however, really struggled to express clearly: (1) collect taxes and (2) learn to barter with the neighbours.

The following events of note happened:
- Our stability dropped 12 times.
- As no one understood why our Chief engaged into this fury of activity, we rebelled.
- Nothing else, really.


Situation in 1450

For the next period, our Chief set the following objectives:
- Learn to trade.
- Colonise a lot.
- When larger and richer than Iroquis, vassalise them.

He still was working on his vision, you see.

And so the Great Wait continued.

Late Early Years - 1450 - 1500.

Explosive Growth

Our Chief Ottawa lived long. In 1500's, he was still very much alive. Somehow.

We finally understood his vision. We wanted us to dominate the land. Oh well. So we went to dominate it.

After we grew big on the coast and learned Trade and Taxes Collection, we became unexpectedly rich. Everyone around us loved us; so we vassalised them all as soon as our borders reached theirs. As sometimes they did not want to be vassalised, we devised the following tactics:
- Have good relations of course,
- Seduce their leader with great sex performance by one of the countless Ottawa's daughters,
- Have a long common border,
- Agree on military access & Move troops into their capital,
- Suggest vassalisation.

Quite unexpectedly for us, when 15 or 20 years after the vassalisation agreement, we smoked yet another pipe of friendship and suggested to the Iroquis to become a part of our tribe, they agreed.

And then the Shawnee did the same.

Hurons kept rejecting most of our proposals, so we just about managed to vassalise them.

Through these political vistories, we learned about some new lands and about three new tribes:
- Dakota who did not wish to speak to us;
- Cherokee who always waged war on Creek;
- Creek who always waged war on Cherokee.

Vassalising all of these unquiet new neighbours was an annoying process, as they constantly tried to declare war on each other. But after many years of patient attempts, we finally managed to pacify everyone. Apart from Dakota. Because they still refused to talk to us.

Our Chief Ottawa pressed on with his policies: go more and more Naval, Centralise the rule, and keep Plutocracy high. He also reduced our Innovativeness, to push some free thinkers out to colonise the wilderness.

This is how our lands looked in 1500, politically speaking:


Lands of Lenape in 1500

In this first century, we have achieved:
- All technologies - 1, Trade most advanced (1.4)
- Inflation - 4%
- Yearly Income - 457d
- 24 cities and 1 colony
- 3 vassals (not including 2 completed peaceful annexations)
- VPs - 435

We had plenty of spontaneous fortification efforts, and our stability dropped countless times due to various reasons. Wise Ottawa, however, never invested a single fur into regaining stability. 'Time will cure' - he always said.

All in all, this first century was not too bad.

It was not boring any more.

But we still waited for something to happen. You know, something big.

Thanks a lot dear posters

To answer some questions...

Valdemar, thanks that's a compliment indeed!

Nikolay II, I want to stay Pagan all the way, actually. Conversions to another religion have never worked for me: the tech group still stays Pagan, and I would like to avoid sitting on a lot of different-religion provinces at -3 stab

Gytis, thanks - I guess lucky plus using some simple patterns (e.g. putting the troops in, waiting for excellent ministers, checking their dip skills versus mine, etc.)

LaMotta, thanks - I think I will be ready to meet them. Will they be ready to meet me?

Stuyvesant, hmm, what a reputation I've built for myself But, this is a peaceful AAR for now... we'll see how it develops.

EDIT - oops, I look at the screenies from another PC, and they are too big. I will do the next ones smaller.