Game notes: 1455 - 1493
1458 brought two developments. Firstly I got a boundary dispute with my large, somewhat unknown, and rather scary neighbour, Ethiopia. Secondly I reached trade level 2, allowing me to start sending all those colonists to expand my trading posts. I decided to postpone the trading post expansion while I tried my luck in a war with Ethiopia.
In December 1458 Mombasa and Mogadishu therefore ganged up and attacked their scary neighbour. The Mombasa troops were split into infantry, who tried repeatedly to besiege Malindi, but kept having the siege broken by large Ethiopian armies, and the cavalry, who rode off into the unknown to discover new parts of Ethiopia and pillage them. Mogadishu mostly got invaded. During the war I got no less than two Gift to the State events - wow! And of course squandered them reinforcing my shattered armies.
In April 1464, just after Mogadishu had bought their way out of the war for 87 ducats, I finally captured Malindi on the fifth attempt. Then in August, while another large Ethiopian army was heading my way the Ethiopians offered me 131 ducats for peace. Knowing that war exhaustion was just around the corner, I accepted. I hadn’t achieved much, except to discover three more Ethiopian provinces, and I felt like I’d wasted a lot of precious ducats! But at least I knew my enemy a little better.
Now it was time to start expanding trading posts. Also I decided to have a bash at exchanging maps. First stop was Qara Koyunlu, who agreed right away - wow! They knew all the Mediterranean and most of Europe. So then I went to Bengal and swapped my newfound knowledge with them, showing me vast swathes of South Asia. No-one, however, knew about that annoyingly unexplored province just south of my southern border. I was hopeful that the Portuguese or someone might be interested in my wealth of knowledge of the Indian Ocean now, but although I was offering them a good deal, they didn’t want to play ball - consorting with infidels is obviously a no-no.
In the midst of all this, along came the first of THREE corruption events in the space of thirteen years (1468, 1472 and 1481). I had vowed not to take any loans believing that, with my present economy, that route could only lead to bankruptcy, so I ignored it - ouch to my inflation! The second time I took a loan to deal with it, and managed to repay it after 5 years, and the third time, miraculously, I had the cash on hand. It all left my economy in pretty bad shape, however.
In 1471 I staged the first of my extremely dubious, opportunistic wars against Kilwa, which went amazingly well. My four galleys beat the Kilwa Navy back to port in the Zanzibar Strait, while my 10k army captured Rufiji in about 7 months. The only dumb thing was I’d called on Mogadishu to help me for some reason, so had to share the 125 ducats indemnities that Kilwa coughed up with them.
I repeated the operation at intervals, in 1477, 1483 and 1492, leaving Mogadishu out of it and getting about 100 ducats each time for very little outlay on my part - easy money! Of course, this anti-social behaviour wasn’t helping my BB rating (I never had a CB), but then again I wasn’t taking provinces, so by 1493 it was only at 9 (tarnished reputation).
Halfway through the third Kilwa War, in October 1484, Ethiopia decided to attack Mogadishu, who came to me for help. Hoping for a better result this time, and having already captured Rufiji, I accepted, and the Kilwa-bashing army marched north to see how they would get on bashing Ethiopians. In a nutshell, things went a lot better this time, and Malindi fell in January 1486. Not only that but they were able to march on and capture Harerge in April 1487 and Bale in July 1488, before doubling back to quell a revolt in Malindi. In December 1488 Ethiopia agreed to hand over Malindi for peace, which left Mogadishu to buy their way out again two years later.
The only other event of note during this period was the chartering of Mombasa University in 1485. This cost me 200 ducats, which of course I could only get with a loan, but I was determined not to take another hefty VP hit. Once again I managed to repay the loan first time around, despite being at war with Ethiopia for most of the loan period - not bad, and bodes well for another war with the big guy next door!
VPs: 204 (#20)
Monthly income: 7.0
Annual bonus: about 20
Inflation: 34.4%
Manpower 4
Supportable army: 10k
Bad boy: 9.1
And now, merrick, here’s my attempt...
The Fourth Tale
Mamba the Machiavellian Crocodile
There once was a crocodile whose name was Mamba, and he lived by the sandy banks of the Tana River, and he was most assuredly a machiavellian crocodile if ever there was one, Best Beloved, and I don’t need to tell you what that means. He liked to sleep in the heat of the day, but by evening he was usually ready for a smackerel of something to eat, and so he stirred himself, and went slithering off to find his dinner.
Now just down the Tana River from Mamba the crocodile, round a sandy bend and quite hidden by the tall grasses, lived Mwari the pelican, and he was a most thrifty and hard-working bird. He worked from morning till night catching fish in the river, and he saved them all up in his commodious beak. In the morning his beak was long and pointy, like the beak of any stork or egret who flew across the skies above the Tana River, and waded in its shallows and strutted along its sandy banks. But by the evening, when it was quite full with fish, that commodious beak sagged until it nearly touched the ground.
Here is Mwari the pelican hard at work catching fish.
It is only halfway through the day, so his commodious beak is not really full yet.
He is fishing from a rock in the middle of the Tana River and of course Mamba the crocodile is lying asleep round a bend in the river.
And that, of course Best Beloved, was always the time of day when Mamba the crocodile came to visit. Did I mention that he was a machiavellian crocodile, Best Beloved? That was why he always visited his neighbour Mwari the pelican in the evening, and never in the morning, and I surely do not need to explain any more.
And whenever Mamba the crocodile came calling on his neighbour Mwari the pelican, they always had the same conversation, and this is how it went:
“Good evening, Mwari, my thrifty and hard-working neighbour,” said Mamba the crocodile, and he always grinned a most alarming grin as he said this, to show how very machiavellian he was.
“Good evening, Mamba,” replied Mwari the pelican, “I see you have come to call in the evening once again. Why do you never come to visit in the morning, or in the afternoon?”
“The morning is for resting, and the afternoon is for taking a nap,” replied Mamba the crocodile, “and since I am generally asleep at night, that really only leaves the evening to pay social visits.”
“I cannot understand,” remarked Mwari the pelican at this point, “how you always manage to arrive just when my commodious beak is full of fish.”
“It really is an extraordinary coincidence, I agree,” said Mamba the crocodile, “but it seems to have happened once again. Now let us get down to business. I am feeling a little hungry, so I hope you won’t mind if I eat you for dinner, Mwari?”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Mwari the pelican, flapping his wings and jumping around in fright, but quite unable to fly away because of the enormous number of fish stored away in that commodious beak of his, “How could you suggest such a thing, and the two of us such good neighbours and all?”
“You are quite right,” replied Mamba the crocodile, and at this point, Best Beloved, he generally shed a few tears but they were of course only crocodile tears. “It is not the sort of thing that should transpire between such good neighbours, but I am so very hungry, and I really see no other solution. So if you will just lie still on the sandbank here, I will try to make it as painless as possible.”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” cried Mwari the pelican again, and by this time he was usually in a frightful panic. “Wait! I have an idea! What if I just let you have all these fish that I happen to have in my commodious beak? Wouldn’t that at least take the edge off your undoubtedly prodigious appetite?”
Then Mamba the crocodile would wriggle his tail, just so, and he would make a great show of thinking about this proposal long and hard, while Mwari the pelican hopped and flapped in a most pitiful fashion. Then finally he would bare his teeth in his most alarming grin and say:
“Well, well, Mwari, it’s true that we are such very good neighbours, and it does appear that you have a very large number of fish in that commodious beak of yours, so perhaps this once I will be able to make do with a rather smaller dinner.”
Here is Mamba the crocodile showing his alarming grin.
He is quite pleased because he is about to get his dinner.
Then Mwari the pelican would heave a sigh of relief, and pour all those fish out onto the sand and fly away with his beak all straight and empty and hide at the top of an acacia tree until his nerves had settled. And Mamba the crocodile would settle down to enjoy a sumptuous dinner of fish, which in truth was far more than he needed. And of course he would certainly never have thought of actually eating Mwari the pelican, for that is not the sort of thing that a machiavellian crocodile would do. I did tell you, Best Beloved, that he was a machiavellian crocodile, didn’t I?
Now one evening Mwari the pelican was sitting on the sandbank when Mamba the crocodile came calling once again. After they had had their usual conversation, and Mamba the crocodile was wriggling his tail, just so, and pretending to be thinking about whether to eat Mwari the pelican or the fish in his commodious beak, he suddenly felt his tail being caught by something large and squelchy. He looked round in surprise, and imagine his astonishment when who should he see gripping his tail between his large and squelchy jaws, but Kiboko the hippopotamus.
“Excuse me,” said Kiboko the hippopotamus, but he said it without moving his jaws, so that Mamba the crocodile had no chance to escape, “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation, and I think perhaps it would be better if you picked on someone who was nearer your own size.”
“But, but...” said Mamba the crocodile, who was not at all used to being spoken to like this, “I don’t know anyone who is very near my size.”
“There’s me,” said Kiboko the hippopotamus, still speaking through his clenched jaws.
“Oh no, Kiboko,” said Mamba the crocodile, “you are very much bigger than me!”
“I may be very slightly fatter than you are,” said Kiboko the hippopotamus, “but I think you will find that you are longer than I am.”
This is a picture of Kiboko the hippopotamus wading about in the Tana River.
As you can see, he
is slightly fatter than Mambo the crocodile, but he didn’t like people to talk about that.
The white things in the background are storks or egrets, I think.
Then Mamba the crocodile tried very hard to curl his tail up tight so as not to look so very long, but Kiboko the hippopotamus was holding on to it ever so tightly and pulling it backwards, so that Mamba the crocodile himself was being pulled slowly along the sandbank, away from Mwari the pelican, and of course he was being stretched out very long indeed.
Then Mamba the crocodile knew there was nothing for it but to fight that wily old hippopotamus, and so all of a sudden he turned around and began to snap with his great sharp teeth, so that Kiboko the hippopotamus writhed and twisted to try to avoid getting bitten, but he would not let go of Mamba’s tail.
Oh, what a terrible battle there was then Best Beloved, for it was true that Kiboko the hippopotamus was the larger of the two, and he did have some alarmingly large teeth in that cavernous mouth of his, but Mamba the crocodile had a great deal more teeth, and they were very much sharper, and he also had armour plating all up and down the length of his body. And the two of them fought and fought, and they thrashed and they splashed, and they groaned and they moaned, and they bit and they hit, and they jumped and they thumped, and Mwari the pelican poured all the fish from his beak and flew away in alarm to avoid getting crushed in the middle of that fearsome brawl.
And after they had fought together half the night, they lay panting on the sand, and both of them were quite exhausted, but Kiboko the hippopotamus was all covered in gashes and scrapes and bites, and he could only see through one eye, whereas Mamba the crocodile was only very slightly bruised, on account of all his armour plating, and so he said to Kiboko the hippopotamus:
“I do think we have fought quite long enough, Kiboko, and I do think that you are slightly regretting having caught my tail in your jaws now, and so I do think we should come to an amiable agreement, as good neighbours should.”
“What - sort - of - agreement,” panted Kiboko the hippopotamus, trying to get his breath back.
And Mamba the crocodile, who really and truly was the most machiavellian of reptiles, thought for some time, and then he said:
“I think we should agree that this is my part of the Tana River, and that you are not to come down this way ever again, for I do not want to be disturbed in such a way as I was this evening, especially not while I am making social visits.”
And Kiboko the hippopotamus was not at all happy at this, Best Beloved, for he had always regarded that part of the Tana River as his, but he knew that he was beaten fair and square, and when he had quite got his breath back he said:
“Very well, you wicked crocodile, but from now on I will not call you Mamba, I will call you Machiavellian, and so will everyone else up and down the length of the Tana River, for that is what you are!”
“As you wish, Kiboko,” said Mamba the crocodile, and he grinned that most alarming grin of his, to show that what Kiboko said was quite true, and from that day on, Best Beloved, he never was called Mamba the crocodile, but always Machiavellian the crocodile, for that is what he was.