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Shocking that a nation like Korea should be tolerated having ports in the Mediterranean Sea.

Is Fox going to suck all of the world empty through immigration when you convert to Vic2? :eek:

And how many player slots are you going to have assigned when the Vic2 phase starts? It seems to me like you guys have a lot more players in this stage of the EU4 phase, than can reasonably take part in a Vic2 multiplayer game! Or did Paradox patch the MP part of Vic2 to a higher level of stability and performance in the past 2 years?

Does Vic2 have continental immigration bonuses like Vic1 did? It's been ages since I played it. If so we will likely mod that out, if possible.

I think 12 is reasonably possible? If not we will annex Korea and Japan and see how it goes with 10.
 
Yes, it does - North and South America and Oceania all get significant migration bonuses in Vic2.

By the way, just wondering - after the traditional Hearts of Iron stage, will the game be carried on into Stellaris? As a silent and lurking peanut, I'd still like to see the Great Game carry on into space.
 
I think Stellaris is unlikely; how would you convert it? Besides, it seems probable someone will win in HoI.
 
The Great Work

Men have called them the true lords of the land, and worshipped them in alabaster temples; men have thrown stones and curses, and broken eggs and nests when they could find them. It is no matter; the vultures know nothing and care less for what men think, and they survive, always. Even when there is no war in the land - and it is long and long, even by human lifetimes, since armies marched across Venezia-oltre-il-Mare - there is always something to eat, if you are indiscriminate enough. A stringy goat, a starved feral dog, a mule escaped from its masters and dying for its freedom. Enough to scrape by, decade after decade; sufficient, for a species that demands little of the world.

The vultures have forgotten, if they ever knew, why they draw together. But the species knows what the individuals forget, and the instinct moves the wings towards the scent and the sound, towards the place where men are gathered in a great host. They carry spades and not muskets, but the vultures care nothing for that; and their old instinct is true, though it is five thousand years since the pyramids were built that formed it.

Where men come together for a great work, of war or of peace, there will be food for the vultures.

April 10th, 1795
Near Damietta, Venezia-oltre-il-Mare
Morning

There were buzzards overhead; there always were. Salomone ignored them, as men always ignore the specter of death; what was the use of dwelling on it? He had long since given up the thought of going home, and felt only an abstract curiosity on what would cause him to leave his bones in this desert: Dysentery, heatstroke, the shivering fever, the madness - it was all one in the end, how you came to die in the wilderness. Meanwhile there was the great work to be done.

"Ten more cases today," his aide Tomasso reported, and Salomone nodded, mentally reviewing the work schedule; ten was about the average, so there were no adjustments to make. "Any foremen?" he asked, and was mildly cheered when there weren't; at least he wouldn't have to promote any more hopeful teenagers. Somehow they still had the power to move him, when they ran off excitedly to write home to their families; promotion, responsibility, extra pay to feed the large flock of siblings - and a month later, or two perhaps, a small bundle of clothes, the last pay packet, a crucifix, and a job open for the next younger brother. It wasn't so bad with the workmen, whom he could reduce to a blur of olive-brown faces and slight figures; but he had to know the foremen's names to work effectively with them, and break bread with them once a day. Lots of quick promotion, on ten deaths a day, he thought mordantly. But not today, apparently.

In accordance with the custom, he presided over the brief burials before the work of the day began: The bodies put in the shallow ditch that had been dug the night before - the last thing done before the lanterns were doused; enough dirt shoveled over them to keep the vultures away for a while, at least until the camp moved on; words spoken in Latin by the black-clad priest. The men listened in respectful silence, as they always did; they knew well enough that it might be them, tomorrow or next week. Later in the day there would be black humour and nervous jokes; but for these ten morning minutes they kept their silence, giving the courtesy that they would want for themselves when their turn came.

Usually Salomone kept his mouth shut, confining himself to silently showing that he understood what the work was costing. After all it was he and his who would be drawing the dividends when ships could sail through the desert and pay their tolls, and he did not like to presume too much similarity between himself and the workmen. But today, perhaps because no foremen had died for some time, he felt a desire to say something, to try to explain.

"I have been here a year," he said, and the stirring of men preparing to leave for the day's tasks stilled. "A year, and eight miles, and three thousand dead. A man dead for every five yards we've dug." He saw mute horror on Tomasso's face, and several of the men blanched; though they could hardly have avoided knowing about the death rate, perhaps they had not done the arithmetic, as he had, and realised what a man's death would accomplish. He soldiered on, nonetheless; what were they going to do, down tools and leave?

"Some of you, perhaps, have been here longer than I; but not, I think, very many. And I think you all know, that not everyone who stands here will live to see the day the waters break through and ships sail the desert. But there are only ten miles left, now, to the sea. Ten miles; a year, if we dig hard. Some of us will see The Day. And we will remember; and we will be remembered. As long as men go down to the sea in ships, they will speak of us, who made sea where there had been land; and raise a glass to the men who died for their ease and comfort, at five yards a death. For we are doing a Great Work, such as has not been seen in this land, or any land, for five thousand years; and not for the vanity of dead kings, but so that men might sail freely. And I tell you this: When Pharaoh built the pyramids, the slaves who made bricks without straw died nameless; we honour them, yes, but we must say "the slaves" or "the workers", for we do not know their names. But our future shall know the name of every man who dies, and every one who lifted a spade to dig the Grand Canal. For we are all written into our books, the books of the Republic and of the Aiello both; and though we die we shall not die nameless."

There was silence, only the sound of hundreds of men breathing in unison. For ten breaths, a dozen, the tableau held. Then a man turned, and hoisted his spade, and began to walk towards the great ditch that would become a Grand Canal; and others followed, still in utter silence. Salomone hardly knew what he had expected, but this non-reaction wasn't it; he felt an urge to run after them to ask if they had understood, if his words had helped or harmed, if they were scorning the idea that not dying nameless was important. But he held his tongue, and the men went about their work silently.

April 10th, 1795
Near Damietta, Venezia-oltre-il-Mare
Evening

"We found another," Tomasso said, without preamble, and Salomone felt a jolt of excitement course through him, though he wasn't sure why. He knew, without asking, what they had found another of: Another buried temple, of course, another ancient fane where long-dead gods had shed the tranquil tears of tragic joy. There would be more cases of the madness, this next week; men running off into the desert "looking for something", men seeing ecstatic visions and refusing to take food or water until they keeled over in the heat, men who simply disappeared in the night. That happened every time they uncovered one of the little shrines built in black obsidian inlaid with alabaster runes that shed the eyes; but in spite of the anticipated pain of loss, Salomone felt eager to see the place himself, to look for - something. "Was it there?" he asked, not sure what he meant; but Tomasso seemed to understand.

"This," he said, holding up a necklace from which a cross hung, the size of Salomone's thumb, wrought in a silvery metal he did not recognise. No - not a cross; the top was an oval. An ankh, ancient symbol of life and resurrection in Egypt; older than Christianity, older perhaps even than Salomone's faith from which Christianity had been born.

"Yes," Salomone said. "That's it." He did not understand, consciously, what he was talking about; but he knew, somehow, that the great work was done, in this place ten miles from the coast.

"Hassan found it," Tomasso said, and Salomone nodded. "Then let him go; let him take it south," he said, as though it were the most natural thing in the world that a poor workman, an Arab at that, should be entrusted with a valuable artifact and sent off somewhere as courier. But of course he would not fail in his charge; that was unthinkable, though Salomone was not sure precisely what his charge was, or how he knew that Hassan would go exactly where he was wanted.

Tomasso nodded and left to give the ankh back to Hassan, and Salomone felt something leave him; some certainty that had driven him this past year, something that had caused him to ignore the vultures, to shrug fatalistically at dysentery and heatstroke and shivering fever. Had he really thought that it was the Grand Canal that was worth so many lives? He contemplated the remaining ten miles to the sea, fifteen months and four thousand deaths perhaps, and shuddered. Men going down to the sea in ships, indeed; let them dig their own damn canals, if they wanted so badly to save a few months' sailing. As for him, he would leave for Venice at first light; and was it only this morning he had thought "down tools and leave" as though it might be "grow wings and fly"?

A great work, indeed; something had been completed, today, whose planning had spanned centuries... but the canal that connected the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, that would tie the far-flung net of Venice's eastern possessions to the motherland and cut six months off the journey, was not it. Perhaps he had known, and refused to understand; perhaps he had truly believed it was the Canal that was the Great Work; it hardly mattered now. Ten miles from the sea, and the task for which he had come to the desert was finished.

And if he were lucky, he might be allowed to leave.

AzureThreeBezants.png

The Suez Canal is complete, and my ships have made their final six-month trip around Africa. Apart from this, the session was dominated by the fall of Fandango, which fell victim to that enduring killer of empires: Its player lost interest, missed two sessions, and the jackals descended. It turned out that the AI was actually pretty formidable with most of India and Indochina to draw on, and with several godly generals it put up a good fight both against me and the other scavengers; in the end, nonetheless, I exited with Muscat and Hormuz, and thus control of the Persian Gulf trade. My trade income is up about 50%. I also fought a brief campaign in Egypt against his merchant rebels, which I'm sure Kuipy will spin as some sort of culmination of a plot spanning centuries. The reason all his forts were mothballed at the time is that it's a particularly cunning plot.

World_1795.png


The world, 1795. Not least of the crimes for which London shall burn is the repeated failure to upload the endsave after the session, forcing me to use midsession saves for my world-map screenshots.
 
I don't think that Ankh is very nice. In fact, as a relic, it seems particularly foreboding.
 
Pharaoh hardened his heart
XVII - Inherit the Wound

Sennar, 1784

"Master Jacopo Aiello, from Venice," the doorman announced.

Jacopo entered the small audience room nervously. The emperor he had loved sat enormous on an enormous throne, hewn in a single block of marble ; his advisors in a semicircle of poof chairs, two of them conspicuously empty. Only two? Jacopo looked at each face present, straining to remember names. Khalid al-Nasr and Jalil Obutu were missing, but Yusif bin Barak still sat squirming. Some hope, maybe ? Or maybe not.

There was a rosewind motif on the otherwise gleaming white floor some ten steps in front the throne, and the Venitian supposed it marked where he was to stand. He walked there, as deferentially as he could manage, and bowed. Pharaoh gestured for him to stand.

"The ambassador of Venice is welcome here. But, unless I am mistaken, you are not him."
"No, Your Highness."
"In what capacity do you come to me, then? As a private businessman?"
That hurt more than a little. Jacopo had never expected them to last after Solayman's accession to the throne, but nothing in his behavior showed any hint of affection or kindness. Maybe he had to. Because the others were watching him. And yet...
"Not quite, Your Highness. I represent the Compagnia Africa dell'Est di Veneta. You may remember me..."
"I remember your uncle Abramo heading the Company branch here in Sennar. Am I not important enough for him to come and talk to me himself?"
"I thought I would be more apt to make this particular case."
"What did he he think?" Jacopo would find out tomorrow, he guessed. If he was still alive. Of course he would still be alive! Even if Sulayman denied him he would not dare... Or would he? Would he now?
"My uncle does not know. I am here by my own initiative."

Pharaoh (not Sulayman ?) crafted a mocking smile on his face. As long as Italians as a group knew their place, it seemed to say, their internecine problems were a source of amusement more than anything else.

"State your case, then."
"We have heard that your advisors Khalid al-Nasr and Jalil Obutu are under arrest, expecting judgment."
"You heard correctly."
"May we ask why?"
"It's a matter of state. You will learn more at the same of the good people of Sennar."
"With respect, again, in addition to their duties at court al-Nasr and Obutu are merchants, and in business with us. We would want to know if we can expect that business to continue."
"I would not expect it."

Was it the throne? The Cobra Crown? Suleyman too used to complain of his father harsh, affectless behaviour, as if all capacity for emotion, for human connection was severed from his self. And now that he was Pharaoh, he too had suffered this mutilation of the mind ! He whom he had held so close, he who had found a clandestine solace from the demands of court between their sheets. He would had whispered his love and grievances in his hear, after love. "I wish it would never end," he had said once, between kisses on his wide brown lips. And now it had ended.

"We think," Jacopo dared say, "that they are awaiting trial for treason and conspiracy. We heard rumours..."
"And said nothing."
"... Rumours only. But if it so, Venice would advise..." He stopped. He could not speak for Venice. Or for D.R.A.G.O. He could not even really speak for the Company, although the company had much to lose if the two idiots' heads rolled, and even more if they said too much. "It would be the right thing for Your Highness to show leniency."
"And why is that?"
"It would show that you are merciful."
A contemptuous sneer, manufactured.
"That's a pleonasm, not an argument."
"Your Highness, many men around your realm think highly of al-Nasr and Obutu," Jacopo whiteslained. " And many others, if excessive harm comes to them, will fear the same come to them."
"With some reason."
"There might be troubles."
"And so I should accommodate traitors, at the behest of foreigners, all so they... Spare me their merchants' wrath ? Because, is that your point, they are willing to obey my orders as long as they approve of them? Every word you say gives me more reason to stomp on that nest of snakes. To put an end to the rule of merchants."

Jacopo looked around, quickly. Yusif bin Barak fidgeted. Was Pharaoh cowing or baiting him? all the other advisors' faces were closed. Behind them the walls were adorned with naked, prostrated multitudes in bas-relief, their bodies marble-white but their headsand bodies showing features from the whole world : black and brown men from all the Egypts, tiny jungle men from the Congo valley, vulgar-faced Mediterranean such as himself, dolichocephalic warriors from the North, pudgy Indians, slant-eyed East Asians, and what he supposed were red men from the Fox Kingdom, all kneeling before Pharaoh. Provocative.

"Certainly if they are guilty those men should be punished. Imprisonment, exile, even (his whole merchant upbringing revolted at the thought) a fine. But the merchant class as whole is a force for good in your realm and in the world. I urge you, in our interest but not only, to seek a diplomatic solution with them. They only ask for rights they have kept since..."
"They should ask for no other rights than what I am willing to grant them. To think otherwise is in itself treason of my absolute authority. Let them revolt! I will crush them. There lays the difference between me and your kafir god : any who doubt my power is welcome to a prompt demonstration."

Was that really what he wanted? For this merchant's war to escalate beyond even the riots in Massawa and Modigashu ? Jacopo had but one card yet to play.

"With respect, this is something your late father would have said. Some would have hoped you would make things different after your accession."

He is so hard, Sulayman would tell him as their bodies entwined. He says I am big and strong but stupid ("You certainly are big", Jacopo would joke). But he will not let me live in freedom, like the other princes. He is so... Cold. As if he was wounded long ago, and it never healed. ("You can make things right when you are Pharaoh. His wound is not your own." ). Yet. And then, love.

"My late father and I are of one mind."

So it was said and done. Jacopo repudiated could almost cry.
"Then allow me to fight this war for you. As a symbol of Italian loyalty. Allow me gather Italian troops and fight this revolt. To lay down my life for you, if it is devastation and suffering you want."

Pharaoh dismissed him with one hand.
"If you want. Next."


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So I made a minor mistake, not monitoring properly my merchants' influence. Then an event took it through the roof, it hit 95, and I had to take it down in panic mode. By the end everyone was rioting everywhere and KoM kindly sent an expeditionary force to help fight it.


pictured: only maybe half of the revolution

Even now their loyalty is terrible and gives me a malus at developing while I'm doing last-minute development for the conversion.

It is not ideal.
 
The Madagascar Campaign

Ok, so this is the week HoI4 came out. I am therefore going to write up the session events first, and if I have time not taken up by recreating the Great War on the Belgian front, there will be a narrative section. If you are reading this without any in-character narrative, you'll know what my priorities turned out to be. Incidentally, does it seem to anyone else that the German AI is kind of timid? Sure, the Maginot Line is pretty impenetrable, but once you've overrun the Low Countries it shouldn't be that difficult to get ten panzer divisions together and blow through a line of only infantry. DOWing Switzerland in an apparent attempt to find a weakness in a line that covers frickin' Belgium is really not called for. Especially when you have to thin out the Belgian line to deal with the resulting thirty Swiss divisions, and give France an opportunity to drive for the Ruhr!

Oh right. Europa Universalis, that's the game we were playing.

A while ago I got annoyed at Korean pirates in the Adriatic, and DOWed to remove the Korean bases in the Med. I had won that war when Fox, bribed no doubt by copious amounts of firewater, allied itself to Korea and - give the devil his due - politely informed me that I could either stand down my blockade or lose my fleet, which would be the fourth time this game. I stood down the blockade and ceded Madagascar, gaining some Persian provinces in exchange. You would not know it from my cheerful demeanour and courteous chat, but I was actually a tiny bit annoyed. I therefore spent last week and some of this quietly building up my fleet, from fourth in the world to second; specifically, I went from 100 bigships to 250, narrowly beating out Fox's 230. Then I declared war, and parked my navy off the American coast where the Foxy Fleet was sitting in mothballs. It was, unfortunately, a garrisoned location or I would have landed my marines on the mothballed fort and driven the unprepared ships out to fight and die. As it was, I had a stroke of luck when, shortly after the declaration, his light ships - presumably out [strike]shaking down peaceful merchants going about their lawful business[/strike] protecting trade - blundered into my heavies and sank shortly thereafter.

With complete naval superiority assured, it is of course only a question of time before the continental hegemon suffers economic collapse and bows to the just and reasonable demands of the small yet plucky trading republic. However, on the way to the inevitable victory of capitalists over feudalists dictated by the laws of dialectical materialism, there may arise some small contretemps and setbacks due to the efforts of the doomed ruling class to retain its unjust privileges. In particular, it turns out the Foxy Army has a discipline of 138. Given what I did to his sealift capacity, that isn't the crippling issue it would have been if, for example, he was free to invade Italy; but there were various Foxy forces kicking about hither and yon in Asia and Africa, ranging in size from one-third to two-thirds of the entire Venetian army, and even the smallest turned out to be an individually formidable problem.

Antananarivo_1818.png


Check this out. Outnumbered four to one, the savages still kill three for every one they lose!

The Madagascar garrison is a case in point: Two 30k stacks guarding the war goal, on a three-province island. By the time I got around to them, I was feeling quite cautious about engaging Foxy forces on anything remotely approaching equal terms; I took my time. First I built some additional transports so I could sealift two 24k stacks simultaneously. Then I shipped most of my army to provinces close to Madagascar so I could land them all quickly. Then I landed 48k in Antananarivo, sieged it quickly while shipping in the rest of the army, and marched on one of the 30k stacks. I won the resulting 120k versus 60k battle, with a good general on my side, just barely, and wiped one of the stacks when it retreated to Antananarivo. So far so good. The other one retreated to Boina, where I could not pursue it because of the fort at Menabe. After the casualties I'd taken, it seemed unwise to try to attack it with a -2 landing penalty, so I unwisely left it alone while I sieged down the level-8 fort. Naturally I spread out my units a bit to try to reduce the attrition, including moving the worst-hit stacks across to Africa. That 30k stack, on its home territory, recovered to full strength much faster than my units; it went down to Menabe and killed my siege, boom. Then it turned around and zapped the reinforcements I had rushed into Antananarivo. The current situation is that there is one 30k stack guarding the three-province war goal... and if I take as many casualties reducing that to zero as I did in reducing it to one, I will be out of manpower.

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The one major naval battle of the war; a glorious triumph for the Venetian Navy. I don't know why Fox is still fighting; there's no coming back from this sort of defeat.

Every theater is like this: A small Foxy army (in one case, a large Korean one), but with 138% discipline and enough combat modifiers to launch Poland into space. Nevertheless I persevere. The loss of Venezia-oltre-il-Mare is annoying but not decisive. Egypt is, as I well know, so fortified that it may take a decade to force anything on that front. Peshawar cannot add anything to my troubles on those two fronts; I'm not sure why they entered - I mean, yes, recover Girnar, but what damage do they expect to do so as to compel me to hand it over? Madagascar cannot stand against my full army forever, maneuvering difficulty or not; next time I won't land in only one place and leave a retreating stack a sanctuary. And anyway history and naval superiority are on my side; the dialectic demonstrates it.

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World situation, 1821. Note the near destruction of Fandango and the occupation of the Middle East.
 
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... However, on the way to the inevitable victory of capitalists over feudalists dictated by the laws of dialectical materialism, there may arise some small contretemps and setbacks due to the efforts of the doomed ruling class to retain its unjust privileges. In particular, it turns out the Foxy Army has a discipline of 138. ...
You had me snort coffee and biscuit through my nose with laughter at this phrase! :D
 
Pharaoh hardened his heart
XVIII – You cannot give meaningful consent when under mind control by an eldritch entity bent on world domination

Africa, 1821 or something

The recruit's pretty uniforms did not remain pretty long. Fox Force Five started marching North from the Niger delta, by way of marsh and jungle, traipsing through mud and undergrowth and under torrential downpours and in the sweltering heat and between monstrous, ancient, mossy trunks. The tracks were bad, poorly maintained, and never meant for a whole army to use. The rear invariably found them churned into mud by eighty thousand boots; the front, blocked by vines and fallen trees. In-between, the body of the army lagged and accumulated at chokepoints. No amount of planning and shouting by the officers could make a difference, and they shuddered to think of what would happen if an enemy army had impossibly fallen on them at any time.

A hundred mile inland the jungle became sparser and the ground firmer. At around the same point the jungle ended, so did Fox territory, and Egypt began. The border was unguarded, but marked by a line of small, crude obelisks, each within sight of the previous. They could not claim ignorance, but they had their orders. They crossed the borders.

The country north of the border, apparently, was more developed than ten-year-old reports had suggested. They found small, untended gardens in the shade of acacia, logging sites on the edge of the rainforest, and it was not long before two black hunters dropped their quarry (a small antelope) at the sight of their scouts and ran toward a small walled village North-east of their column.
Well, they may as well get it over with, the General thought. He did not doubt by now messages were rushing toward Sennar at dromedary speed about Fox Force Five entering Egyptian territory. The best he could hope for was his only version of the events to follow not far behind.
The village was well fortified, not enough of course to stop the Force, but enough to mark this region was still a rather lawless frontier, and raids between tribes and settlers a fact of life. When he reached the door on horseback (his poor Storm Wrath had badly suffered in the rainforest) with a few elite guards, two of his officers and a translator, the doors opened.

The village square was right behind them, and the whole population had seemingly amassed there to watch them, but there was a clear space for them to advance, and at the end, by the village well and under the shade of two old acacias, sat a black chief in tribal regalia. Two rather paler men stood on either side of him. One was outright pale and pudgy, and clearly a vulture priest of the Druze Creed; he constantly muttered something with swollen, painted lips: a prayer? Or a curse? The other stood military straight, and even had the bearing of an officer, but he was plainly too old to serve and wore no uniform, only a plain, clean tunic. Some sort of envoy or advisor? The Genral was only left a few heartbeats to wonder.

"I am Macoudou bin Durat, the chief of these parts, the sitting man said. And these are my advisors, Priest Sethi and Veteran Officer Muhammad, who served in the Great European War. Priest Sethi will now speak in the name of the Empire."
The small man gave them a timid, indifferent look, still mumbling, then put his little finger in the loop of an ankh he wore around his neck. Instantly his mumbling ceased, his slouched body jerked upright and his face deformed into a mocking, ferocious grimace. The general himself, his officers and guards, the black throng around them, even chief Macoudou twitched at the violence of the transformation. Only the veteran seemed to have seen such a spectacle before.

"TELL ME, RED MAN, the priest said a wendigo voice. IN WHAT SENSE ARE YOU LOST?" Mocking, threatening, dominating. The general had heard of the witch-priests of Egypt, but this... This!
"I have orders," he defended himself. A heartbeat too late, he realized he felt mortal and imminent danger, even with the guards around him and his army just behind the gate. "But we have no quarrel with Egypt."
"I WILL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT."
"You granted military access to our Venetian enemies. It is only fair we, too, get to walk through your lands to strike at the loathsome Aiellos." It had made sense on the other side of the ocean.
"IT WOULD BE FAIR, YOU SAY. YOU THINK. DID YOU ASK WHAT WE THOUGHT OF IT? NO. YOU ASSUMED OUR CONSENT, AND WALKED ACROSS OUR LAND BY SURPRISE, WITHOUT ASKING FOR PERMISSION."
"I am asking now. But the Fox Empire does not take no for an answer."
"IS YOUR HEAD A NO? MAYBE THEY'LL TAKE IT FOR AN ANSWER."
"You are in no position to threaten me." The General had seen fire before, he had galloped up a slope with a thousand dead cannonballs reaped from him. Some Egyptian shouty priest could not scare him durably. "I will walk through your land, while respecting your people's life and property, and there is nothing you can do about it. Might makes right."
"SO IT DOES, RED MAN. BUT WHAT MAKES MIGHT?"
"Fourty regiments."
"FOURTY REGIMENTS SHALL WALK THROUGH OUR LAND."
"One hundred and twenty. I only command the first of three armies."
"YES. IT IS A GREAT RULE OF JOKES. THE RULE OF THREE. VERY FUNNY. YOU WILL WALK NORTH UNIMPEACHED. DO NOT… Stop…"
The pudgy priest had started shivering violently and suddenly collapsed on the ground. Big men immediately lifted his body and carried him away.
"The Faith has spoken, Foreigner. We will let you through," The chief said. He looked at the veteran who nodded. "We have provisions to sell you, if you want them. Not much."
"It will do. You have my words Fox Force Five will not harm you."

He held his word during the next month. Every man who stole from the locals he would flog half to death, and compensate them well beyond their loss. Every man who struck an Egyptian or laid with a woman he would hang, publicly; accusation was proof.
Even when had followed the Niger to its northernmost bend and started the grueling trek across Sahara, he would not allow taking from the oasis more water than their inhabitants could spare. His own men died for his sense of justice, and worst of all his poor Storm Wrath, but he would not give Egypt an excuse to claim hostility on the part of Fox Empire. The sight of the vulture priest lying immobile in the dust, his face again pudgy and inoffensive, still unsettled him. The other two armies, he learned, followed unimpeded too. As it happened the first one was soon on his heels, as he was often stumbling for the right way and then marking it for the following troops.

When they reached the Mediterranean his men bathed with tears of joy. On the way East the heat was not quite so hard on the men, and they started preparing the fight in the Sinai. It was strange, after months of campaigning, to think of them as unbloodied troops. Certainly they had lost many to thirst and disease and exhaustion, and their uniforms looked rather shabby now. As they entered the dried Fayum depression he looked at the cyclopean fortress of Dimeh on its rocky spur and rejoiced he did not have to take it. The garrison just leaned lazily on the battlements, watching them pass. But on the other side the gates of El-Lahun were closed. On either side of them heavy bastions stood ominously, their parapets brimming with cannons.

One officer and his escort rode toward them. No priest this time.
"I am sorry," the officer explained, "but you cannot pass."
"We have been given access through Egypt." AT this point it was basically tacitly true.
"I know about that. But it does not apply to the Dam Fort of El-Lahun. No foreign army is allowed through the gate. It's tradition, for the protection of the capital. We apologize for the inconvenience, but military access has never meant unlimited access to every part of the host country"
The general's first reaction was of annoyance.
"So you want me to go back," he said (just turning the army around was a several hour task, " exit the depression through the Dimeh pass and go around north."
"Well, there's another problem. The Dimeh fort will not let you through either."
"They let us through yesterday."
"East. But you are not allowed to march West again. That's not the direction of your purported enemy, after all, is it?"

No. No! It suddenly dawned on the General.
"There is no other way out of the Fayum."
"That is correct."
"And no water left in the depression, because, presumably, you closed the dam from the Nile."
"Also yes."
"You are trapping us between two fortresses to die of heat and thirst."
"Well, that's your interpretation. The simple facts are that you are not allowed through these particular fortresses, for safety reasons, and for an undetermined time. The rest is your concern. Be assured we are not to attack you, not at all, unless of course you engage hostility with our forts first. Then we will defend ourselves and condemn Fox aggression."
"That's…"
"Remember, technically not a declaration of war. I'd start saving my saliva now if I were you.


Also anyway, small talk, did you now that the Greeks took advantage of our small disagreement here to attack and annex our allies in Adal, whom we had left undefended?"
"What a bunch of treacherous kafirs!"
"I know, right? Ever since Homeric times their villainy and deviousness has known no bounds."
"Fucking Greeks."
"Truly every stereotype associated to them has a sound factual basis in their actual anatomy and behavior."
"Right."
"Anyway, enjoy dying of thirst and heatstroke in the Fayum depression. Or of gunshot as you launch an unprovoked attack on our forts. I'm heading back for a cool juice, a bath and a nap in the shade."

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Fox and Venice went to war, and because I had given access to my main man King of Men all of a sudden Fox started matching his lame-ass armies uninvited all over my place, ignoring my angry noises about it. Well when he got the fortified North-East I declared and trapped him with my forts. Then something funny happened: when I beat his stacks they had nowhere to run (because of the forts control zone) and were wiped lol.

Well KoM and I thought it was funny.
 
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That sounds too hilarious to be true :D

It happened exactly that way. Although actually killing off 120k Foxy soldiers was no joke.

You had me snort coffee and biscuit through my nose with laughter at this phrase!

Not sure why; Marx does predict, or rather postdict, the victory of capitalist over feudalist. :D
 
Not sure why; Marx does predict, or rather postdict, the victory of capitalist over feudalist. :D

Hmm, dialectic materialism, are you perhaps already preparing a different style for your Vic2 AAR segments? :) Will Venice be turned into a people's republic, and its history be told from the perspective of a Comprehensive History of the Venetian People's Republic, Volume 32 to 55, edited by a professor of Marxism-Aielloism? Is communism really the better economic system in Vic2?
 
Hmm, dialectic materialism, are you perhaps already preparing a different style for your Vic2 AAR segments? :) Will Venice be turned into a people's republic, and its history be told from the perspective of a Comprehensive History of the Venetian People's Republic, Volume 32 to 55, edited by a professor of Marxism-Aielloism? Is communism really the better economic system in Vic2?

Communism is better than laissez-faire, yes, because the AI cappies will insist on building the most insanely stupid factories. It's not necessarily better than state capitalism or interventionism.

Wasn't really planning a different style, no; that's me being funny in my own voice, not an in-character voice. :)
 
Pharaoh hardened his heart
XIX – Power Breaks

1830, the Imperial Palace in Sennar

" Wake up, Your Grace."
Prince Atiya woke in confusion. His favourite servant, Samir, had been touching his arm gently, pleading for his attention, and in the brief grey ebb of sleep it had seemed to him he was called Your Grace, as in the dream. He stared at Samir, wondering if he could tell. The dream always made him feel strange and guilty, but he had to snap out of it and steel himself. His servants would not have woken him for anything but serious business.

“Is my father asking for me?” he said, in his strictest, most princely voice.
“Your Glorious Father…” Samir stopped and knelt. “Your Grace, your Glorious Father has passed.”
So it was true! Or had he not woken after all, just blundered deeper in the meaningless maze of dreams? The last of his sleep still seeped through his unclear thoughts, but it vanished in sudden panic.
“Me absent? Which of my brothers…”
“Alone! He died alone, in his chambers.”

Of course; otherwise they would not have called him Your Grace. With Pharaoh Ali, he would probably not even have woken. With Muhammad, he could have hoped for comfortable captivity somewhere in the provinces, under relentless surveillance. But it did not happen. His father had died alone, the first Pharaoh in centuries. And so the Cobra Crown would go to his eldest, Prince Atiya Kathkuda, unless he blundered, which was easier than it sounded.
“Where are my father’s men? Where are the ministers?”
“They are assembling in the antechamber.”
“Help me dress.”
He looked critically at his princely robes; his father’s, he knew, would be too big for him.
"Samir? Have some royal clothes made for me. Today. No excuses." For now the princely robes will do.
"Fine," he said. I will see them now.

Atiya was not surprised to see Sayed el Karaf, the Chief of Security, or High Cleric Nefer, since the old priest hardly slept anymore. Four junior ministers had joined them, and two civil servants, a clerk from the Foreign Office and some engineer from the West Delta.

"Your Grace." Karak bowed.
"I will want an inquiry in my father's death. And place my two brothers in House arrest. High Cleric Nefer, I want to be crowned tomorrow."
"Without waiting for the foreign ambassadors? And the province delegates? Your Grace, it is…"
"No, you are right, I'll wait. For now, I'll just take homage. Kneel before me. All of you." He should have started with that. When they obeyed, he realized how afraid he had been that they would not.

"In the meantime I want a smaller ceremony, to make it clear I, and only I, am Pharaoh."
The High Cleric sputtered.
"Your Grace, there is no precedent… Really…"
"I might have a solution," the engineer said. "I came here to give your late father a detailed report on the failures of the al-Feyd dam."
Prince… Wait, Pharaoh remembered about it, vaguely.
"So?"
"The damages to the dam are not immediately worrying, and easily reaparable… But at the same time, the consequences of a catastrophic failure would be terrible. Thousands of deaths, at the very minimum. And so it would be very reasonable for you to leave and inspect the dam yourself at once, out of sight of the public, while you decide your politics your government here can arrange the coronation and other, huh, aspects of your reign. It would not be seen as avoiding action, quite the contrary."
"You would show immediately you are in charge and in action," a minister approved.

It made sense.
"What's your name?" Pharaoh asked.
"Ahmed al-Nasr."
"One of the manufacturers in Somalia?"
"Distant cousins."
"Tell me more about that al-Feyd dam."

The next days were grueling, and then they were weeks, and then they were years. Suddenly ___ realized how little he had been prepared for the throne, and he had his brothers guarded tightly. Luckily his advisors and ministers were good, and he could rely on them, merely signing on the ambitious program of economic development in West Africa. Al-Nasr especially was a good one, and soon an irreplaceable minister of economy. So trustworthy. So reliable. Al-Nasr always had the best ideas and the best answers. Which was good because Pharaoh Atiya had found it increasingly difficult to focus and remember things. But as soon as al-Nasr took charge of something, it felt better.

After a few years he realized he no longer remembered what the inquiry in his father's death had concluded. It must have been nothing, old people died all the time. Pharaoh needed not worry. Just trust al-Nasr.


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So yeah it was the last session of EU4 before conversion so I did nothing much expect develop frantically and building buildings everywhere before conversion but then the conversion gimped me and gave me like super-low literacy even though I had universities in literally, not figuratively, every province of mine including South Georgia.
For AAR reward I want my literacy raised by 10%.
 
Is that a pattern I see ?

Interlude
Lush savannah west of the Nile, 3000 years before the Pyramids

The Thousand-Sense system was tiresome after a while, and the mist was all but gone by now, so they stopped it on the way back and raced across the skies to the airbarge. Except for Pharaoh, who was again in a bad mood, they joked and enjoyed the view of the lush savannah beneath, where horizon-spanning herds of horned creatures trotted southward. This world had some spectacular indigenous fauna, especially for a stapledonian like Ozzy. Maybe they could preserve some of it? Company policy allowed for setting up “biomass reservations for bio-study purposes” while they strip-mined and poisoned the rest of the world. With the right paper-work...

They fell from the sky a few paces away from the airbarge. The quasihuman child hurried to get their gear.

“So that’s one we missed.” Pharaoh said. A short-limbed, hairy subhuman was squatting in the grass, his stubby hands between his calloused feet. He rocked his shaggy head back and forth, making weird, rhythmic noise.
Something was flaking off his skin. Mud. Under a foot or so of mud you disappeared from the Thousand senses, unless you had electronics on you, or ferrometal objects. Rather clever for a subhuman. How long could he have hidden like that, Ozzy wondered? Did he breathe through some kind of snorkel?
“So where did you hide?” They had taken their shields down, ready to snap back up in reflex mode: this one looked unharmed but subhumans, especially ferals, had been known to kick and bite.
“Where. Did. You. Hide.”

The sub kept rocking idiotically, he did not even react when Pharaoh prodded him with his boot. So Ozzy’s boss winced in anger and used the override voice.
“STOP THAT ROCKING. RISE.”
The sub stood in snap obedience, faster than thought. And then Ozzy saw what he had been holding in his hand. An unexploded auto-grenade. And still clenched between his toes, the fuse controller.

His reflex shield AI reacted before he could, raising the blue manifold barrier around him just in time to stop the shrapnel. But Pharaoh had been a good five meter closer. The airbarge, he just had time to think. Then the second explosion happened, so close he could feel the blast slam him even through his shield.

“Fuck fuck fuck”. Ozzy started moving even as metal debris and crates were still falling around them. Half of Pta had fallen close to him, torn and charred. The others rose to their feet, all except Pharaoh, lying in a pool of blood, his shield fizzling, the hooded protrusion of his Thousand-Senses ripped form his forehead.
Ozzy activated his own, rushed through the unease, started scanning the body. Its heart was about the only organ working 100%, and even it was throbbing dangerously hard as it tried to compensate for the blood loss. Everything else from skin to lungs to brain to liver was singed, or had shrapnel in it, or ruptured vessels leaking blood inside. Ozzy was not quite sure they could fly him safely to the sea platform.
“Uh, Ozzy? My battery is low.”
“Mine, too.”
Fuck.

“Okay.” He had no idea what to do. “Okay.” The others were looking at him. “We have no time to take him to the vat lab and flip him into a spare body. But there is an emergency station not far. We will take him there and suspend him.”
The jackalheads looked at each other, as if unconvinced. “Get moving,” Ozzy snapped. He clicked a holding field around his friend and lifted him with one hand.
“Hold on, buddy. We’ll get you through there.”


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The answer for the question last time was : every AAR included a quote from a Johnny Cash song.
 
An extraterrestrial human, apparently. The subhumans and quasihumans raise interesting questions about the fossil record.
 
Well evolution is just a theory, that had been proved wrong by many examples. The fossil record is mostly mythopoeia, people seeing a funny-shaped rock and thinking "huh, it looks kind of like a jawbone", like you can look at a cloud and think "huh, it looks kind of like a rabbit." It's not a very good proof for either skyrabbits or monkeypeople.

But even if you believe in it, Pharaoh and his folks are few enough that everyone is on a first-name basis, and new arrivals on the planet. Unlikely to have their bones found. Consider that according to darwinians there were millions (and probably much more) iguanodons, each generation, for millions of generations. And for all these billions creatures that actually live they have a few hundred funny-shaped rocks. So one generation of a few dozen individuals ? Not going to leave a trace.
 
So one generation of a few dozen individuals? Not going to leave a trace.

Sure; obviously. But they appear to be human. (Although you have not canonically stated that they are, or had them interbreed with known Homo Sapiens; so that could be me just defaulting to characters being of my own species unless otherwise stated.) If they are humans not from Terra, that raises the question of where humanity actually originated. Did we evolve on Earth, colonise space, and have a collapse on Earth that didn't touch the colonies? In that case they would likely know that Earth was the origin planet, and perhaps at least comment on the plan of casually strip-mining it. Did we originate off Earth, and the fossil record is misleading, as you suggest in your comment? Then you need to explain how we colonised Earth and lost the tech that let us do so, and also why chimp DNA is so close to human. And so on.

Or to be more accurate, you'd need to do that to write successful hard science fiction; to just write a story, you can do whatever you like. But these are the questions that immediately occur to this hard-science-fiction reader.
 
Well, got to keep something for the third interlude. But your questions are noted (I could have sworn Pharaoh himself had already answered one, but it turns out not).

It would be weird to call other beings subhuman if you're not thinking of yourself as human, though.
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