[spoilers] Going Dutch: The Commodore Files

[spacetyrantxenu]

Would probably sell the Peninsula for a healthy stack of cannons. And then reconquer the Peninsula of course..... Do you know a reputable purveyor of cannons who can make quick deliveries?

[Commodore]

Cannon would be better.

What are we, Babylonian?

[Commodore]

WAR!

What is it good for? Absolutely nothing but a 10-turn-NAP.

...yeah, not all that exciting. I burned a few cats, won a few musket and knight fights, then burnt the offending fortress town. I then offer peace, because that's how we're rolling. Plako then accepted, so we're safe now for ten turns in the north. Enough time for another Great Artist, woo.

Plako also then promptly resettles a city one tile back, mooting all progress.

[von Adlercreutz]

What is the price of a mile?

[Commodore]

What is the price of a mile?

$1.62

[Ceiliazul]

What is the price of a mile?

$1.62

IRS says $.55

But there may be a different rate for tea party groups...

[Commodore]

The Six Sisters.

In the Kingdom of Netherland, there are six great cities whose ruling houses make up the ruling elite; while House Dresden has a lock on the monarchy, Grand Dukes of the other great houses often practically take charge of the policies and course of the kingdom. In the past hundred years mass conscription and theocratically charged nationalism have somewhat weakened the political power of the houses, but economically, culturally, and socially the Six Sister Cities still dominate kingdom life.



Storm Front: Ancient Capital of the Kingdom
Great House: Dresden
Symbol:The Starsen Stone
Economic Focus: Training and education center, trading hub (mostly Zulu, Inca, Viking markets).
Civic Values: Great schools of philosophy, science, and art, Dutch Nationalism, mercantile striving.
The choppy Pacific waters of the west slowly calm as they meet the Nortiterranian Sea at the Straits of Nether; and at the southern coast of this transition zone sits the venerable Storm Front, port of call for merchants and scholars worldwide. While not one of the greatest capital cities in the world the kings' seat is a populous, vivid, and cosmopolitan place. Most of the great people of the kingdom's history have hailed from the famously lush home province, which has long been so fecund that for half its history the westernmost coastal clam banks remained unexploited in what baffled historians call The Kuronic Blight. Although the region's carrying capacity is still higher than the modern population, the Kings Dresden have long made a policy of encouraging emigration to the greater kingdom, a key facet of the kingdom's historical and ongoing cultural unity.

Tragic waste of a fine capital, ain't it?


Changes: Economic Center of the Kingdom
Great House: Murph
Symbol:Trading Ship
Economic Focus:: Gem export (including jewelcrafting), regional markets, trading hub (mostly Chinese, English markets).
Civic Values: Mercantile striving, self-sufficiency, practicality.
The balmy, breezy, and lush lands up the River Karin all send their produce and their extra sons both to great Changes, the largest and richest port city on either side of the Atlantic. The Grand Duke Murph is more often than not the true driver of Netherland, but House Murph is concerned primarily with trade and commerce. The city’s jewelcrafters are world-renowned and the Murph family is deeply involved in the trade of luxuries near and far. The prosperous province around the city has the highest standard of living in the kingdom and some of the secondary towns along the river are more peopled than whole provinces elsewhere. If the old and respected Storm Front is the kingdom’s head, it is Changes that is the kingdom’s breath, and the exemplar of all that Netherland can be at its best and most peaceful.

Needs a dike to be able to make a dike, unfortunately.


Death Masks: Forge of the South
Great House: Carpenter
Symbol: Guilder's Hammer
Economic Focus: Metalwork, food transport (including canning), trading hub (mostly Carthaginian, Inca, English, Portuguese markets).
Civic Values: Self-sufficiency, practicality, Netherland Traditionalism.
The hot dry province of the Grand Duke Carpenter revolves around the steady and strong pulsing current of the River Lion. The river flows out to the vast Bay of Nicol through the baking brick city of Death Masks. Hammers and clangs resound throughout the deeply conservative metalworking city, whose hot forges produce countless goods for trade both internal to the kingdom and throughout the Southern Hemisphere. The Wasted Continent’s young markets have recently flooded Death Masks with ever more demand, but the stolid and steady leadership of the city have kept the new wealth flowing peacefully into pursuits of orderliness and civic pride. The rest of South Netherland follows their lead.

Only place in the kingdom that really wants serfdom.


Ghost Story: Home of Heroes
Great House: Winterfae
Symbol:Lance
Economic Focus: Military training and support, arms manufacture.
Civic Values: Netherland Traditionalism, martial reverence, Talmudic Governance.
The rolling hills of Central Netherland are one of the few wild places left within the kingdom, spotted only occasionally with mining villages and grazing lands. In the middle of this beautiful range the city of Ghost Story sprawls out naturally and low. Which to some seems to bear sharp contrast to the militaristic, poetical, and above all fiercely religious people within. Knights, once clad in heavy plate with lances but now ever more prone to simple cuirasses laden with flintlock pistols, train and cavort throughout the barracks and stables of House Winterfae’s domain. Four out of every five cavalry units hail from the province and all are astonishingly disciplined, fierce, and patriotic, easily the finest horsemen and soldiers in the world. And all are absolutely devoted to the religious and social ideals of the Kingdom of Netherland; well might her enemies quake in fear of them.

Add Pentagon and one more GG, we're looking at the dream: Commando Pump.


Fool Moon: Spiritual Heart of the Kingdom
Great House: Ben Uriel
Symbol:Star of David, Western Style
Economic Focus: Regional markets, pilgrimage.
Civic Values: Netherland Traditionalism, Talmudic Governance, self-sufficiency.
The second oldest city in the kingdom, Fool Moon is also the kingdom's holiest of cities, site of the first mass conversion by the Judaisers of England. While the Temple of Solomon remains the heart of Judaism in the world today, a sizable number of the People of the Book in Netherland call Fool Moon the home of G-d in the Western Hemisphere.

Infrastructure is for losers. And winners. But not for the middle pack schmucks.


Turn Coat: The Citizens' Arsenal
Great House: Morgan-Garsea
Symbol:The King's Mine
Economic Focus: Arms manufacture, inner-sea trade, dyemaking.
Civic Values: Dutch Nationalism, martial reverence., practicality.
The youngest of the Six Sisters is turbulent, truculent Turn Coat, seat of the hybrid House Morgan-Garsea. The large and strong city is a hotbed of radicalism, both nationalist and social; it is the only large city in the kingdom without a significant majority of its populace in synagogue. In the narrow strip between high hills and the Norterranian Sea, the modern city does a brisk trade in dyes, while funneling the rich mines of the region into military hardware and the kingdom's largest supply of printing presses and all the other machinery of revolution.

Only thing lacking is a forge, really. Harbor is kind of a weird choice.

[Whosit]

What you lack in food, production, and commerce, you make up in spirit and guns. So, is your plan for the rest of the game to get Plako into the 10-turn peace cycle, or do you think it's going to come down to an all-out brawl to the death sooner or later?

[Commodore]

What you lack in food, production, and commerce, you make up in spirit and guns. So, is your plan for the rest of the game to get Plako into the 10-turn peace cycle, or do you think it's going to come down to an all-out brawl to the death sooner or later?

Well, we're going to have to see. Trouble is, despite the lack of land, what we do have is extremely nice and Dtay has got to be aware of how easily he could utterly cripple us with Sirian fleets. So eventually he's going to pull that trigger then we're going to be forced to decimate him overland and let Plako sweep in behind.

[Ceiliazul]

Surely youll have dikes before he can reach sirian mass... youre not dead yet!