[spoilers]Commodore is Tokugawa of Zulu, or, playing for second place.

[Commodore]

Why raze? Lafayette looked like a fairly strong city. And I'd think you'd prefer to fight Cyneheard in the open at this point.


[SIZE="1"]
And it's also the home of the Fighting Boilermakers![/SIZE]

It was once a fairly strong city, but he'd whipped it to size five, and only the granary survived capture, alas. He's got an impressive, Scooter-damningly huge, stack of muskets holed up in his capital and they could have overwhelmed my defenders...which means Lafayette, with it's 60% defenses and hill location, would be paining me again. That was the logic, at least...it might have been worth it to terminate a large number of muskets, but at the time, I was just not ready to take the damn place all over again.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

Awesome city, but swamped by enemy culture. Best to permanently reduce before they recapture.

How many turns has this war lasted?

[Commodore]

Only 106 turns thus far, minus a 10-turn break at one point.

[Tatan]

Only 106 turns thus far, minus a 10-turn break at one point.

The Hundred Turns' War? (I mean, you did kill Joan D'Arc and all)

He's got an impressive, Scooter-damningly huge, stack of muskets [...]

Nice reporting, btw.

[Commodore]

Thanks Tatan! Yeah, the Hundred Turns' War it is, although at various levels of tempo. The trouble is that Cyneheard seems to have kind of given around when I made the line-drive down the Blood Road, but unfortunately his giving up seems less like the Nakorian or Yurian sort, more like, um, this noise:

[Commodore]

From The Capitals of the Clans: Zulu Cities in the Late Sixteenth Century
On Mimsy Borogoves:


In 1569, the Great Harbor of Mimsy Borogoves was completed, opening the old and rather backward Mimsy Province to the world at large. The capital of the province, Mimsy Borogoves was a fairly middling-sized city by the standards of its time, but nonetheless the place did a very healthy trade with cities as distant as Last Bow in Vikingland and Middletown in Egypt.



For all its relatively small size, Mimsy Borogoves was a bustling center of commerce and industry. Its silver goods were traded the world over, gracing tables as near as in Gyre and as far away as in Last Bow, Vikingland. Famous for its shipyards, the great city was where more than ten percent of the Zulu merchant marine hailed from.


West and south of the city are the Silver Hills, dotted with mines and in the south high sheep pasturelands. Near the city, workshops dotted the valley in between the arms of the hills, but further southwest the tundra valley was still free and wild, its spectacular beauty known only to the occasional shepherd or prospector.


The Mimsy Province was the poorest and least populous in all of the Zulu empire, with the port cities of Jaws Bite and Claws Catch barely large enough to be considered towns in the south. Mutton and rye were the staple foods within the interior of the province, while cod, halibut, and lake trout fed the fishing families of the Walrus Clan along the cold and misty coasts. For all the barrenness of the land, Mimsy Province was a great exporter of copper, silver, and marble throughout the empire.


But it was not the ores of the ground or the fish of the seas that the citizens of Mimsy Borogoves and her province lived for. The cool and beautiful tundra of Mimsy inspired countless poets and songwriters, who under the banners of the impi regiments carried their art all over the continent.


The poems and songs of Mimsy were pastoral and reflective, inspiring artists and musicians even to this day.

[BRickAstley]

If your stupid Borogoves are what kept you from finishing off Cyneherd before I died then :mad:

[Commodore]

If your stupid Borogoves are what kept you from finishing off Cyneherd before I died then :mad:

Haters gonna hate. I'm just glad I got contact the turn before you died.

[Commodore]

As the years pressed on, the mad Grey Emperor grew increasingly paranoid, stripping the outlying towns and farmlands even within the Springfield Dominion itself. The Zulu Empire pressed closer and closer to the heart of Byzantium, but there was still one other city remaining. Columbus, located on the frigid northwest coast, still stood strong against the Zulus, the city's large force commanded by the exiled Aztec general Auitzotl.


General Hamilcar, by now an old and weary man, still knew his way around a fight. The competent Auitzotl held the small city with well-fortified longbowmen and macemen, salted with two companies of musketmen. Although a fast rush might be able to take the city, the cost would be horrific.


Hamilcar respected the harsh winters of the north, and so held the siege of Columbus lightly, fortifying his own army in the misty fortress ruins to the southwest of the city.


All throughout the long and dark winter months, the light catapult train of Barca's army bombarded the fortifications of Columbus. The city garrison sat tight, knowing that as dangerous as the bombardment was, attacking out against the Zulu veterans would be brutal.


In the summer once the sea ice withdrew, reinforcements from the homeland landed north of the city, cutting off the silver mines and sealing the city's fate. Auitzotl send countless pleas southward to the Grey Emperor, but never received even his messengers back, as they were drafted into the Springfield Garrison.


In the midsummer despite a wracking cough and a high fever, Hamilcar mounted his war elephant and commanded the assault to begin. In a devastating coordinated assault, the southern light catapults moved forward the same hour the northern trebuchets began their bombardment.


The attack that followed was swift and unforgiving, as the Zulu chivalry broke in first against the defenders. The well-trained musket companies followed, carefully advancing against the harried and riven defenders. Auitzotl himself led his macemen in a charge against the veteran muskets, but his guard were all cut down in minutes and he surrendered before the guns of Zululand, ordering his men to do likewise.


The city of Columbus was taken with remarkably little looting, with the granary, lighthouse, and forges of the city preserved for the health of the citizens who remained. The port was renamed Eyes Flame, and like Claws Catch and Jaws Bite to the east was a great tundra port for the empire.


Hamilcar, for his part, fought bravely for days and then tireless walked the streets for nights after the victory, ensuring order and discipline among his troops. His cough worsened until at last a doctor saw to him. The doctor was astonished, for the aged general had walking pneumonia that he had ignored for a full week. The general was ordered to his bed and that bed was ordered southeast, along the tundra road to the warmer lands. Two days later, in the beautiful tundra south of the city, Hamilcar Barca breathed his last and was buried where he fell like the rest of his men, out in the wild lands of the north far from his home.


His lieutenants mourned his passing but competently organized the army in his wake, preparing the amassed ranks to head southward. The penultimate city had fallen.


Now, the only place left was the capital of Byzantium itself. The long journey of the Zulu people which had begun so long ago down the Blood Road was nearing its end.

[Commodore]

...and in other news, Scooter needs to stop chattering when I post these updates...