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Old February 10, 2002, 22:21   #1
johncmcleod
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The Saga of Upper Earth
I'd like to dedicate this story to Hawaii Five O who inspired me to write this.



[Note: When I refer to large amounts of one unit, I mean 1 of that unit. I.e. 4000 spearman means one spearman with 4 hit points, 3000 immortals is an immortal with 4 hit points. And when I refer to upper earth, I‘m talking about the earth of the game. It is called upper earth, and has nothing to do with the earth we live on It is like a parallel universe I guess, and obviously the gods of it are not real and I made them up just for the story. And, Byromedes was who I made my leader, he isn‘t someone else whom I‘m writing about. I also don‘t have screenshots because I don‘t know how to add them in a post.]

The Saga of Middle Earth
By John McLeod
[Excerpts from the Collective History of Upper Earth. Unfortunately, much records of Upper Earth were destroyed when the libraries of Persian cities were destroyed in Greek bombardments, and Byromedes couldn’t remember everything that happened (who could if they lived for thousands of years?)]


Before upper earth, there was nothing. Only the gods existed. There were 7 major gods and many minor gods, whom I will not name. The seven major gods were Gukon, Darbrec, Sitos, Togimro, Qou’gard, Juvouc, and Akenfuro. Juvouc was the god of lightning, Qou’gard was the god of air, Akenfuro was the god of fire, Sitos was the god of water, Togimro was the god of earth, Darbrec was the god of the underworld, and Gukon was the head god, the leader of them all. They created upper earth and the whole universe and then started life on everything. Of course almost all of life died because it was too close or too far from their sun. On upper earth, life survived. The gods steered continental drift and uplift and other forces of nature on earth so that the climate would be cold and wet, 60% of upper earth would be covered with water, and the land would be a great big archipelago. Three billion years after the creation of upper earth and the universe, the gods created man and put them on earth. In different areas around the globe. They were different then men that you and me are, though. Once they reached full maturity, they stopped aging and stayed rather young as long as they lived. They weren’t invincible though, they just couldn’t die of old age. This is the story of one group of man put on earth who started a civilization.

In the year 4000 B.C., settlers of this civilization called the Persians formed a town in grasslands on a river by some wild cattle. The leader of the civilization was called Byromedes. In a dream he had, he was told by Qou’gard, his premier god, (at the coming of age every young man must choose a premier god who they worship the most) to name the town Persepolis. He did so. Not much is known of the early beginnings of Persepolis. In circa 3400 B.C., the Persians discovered the Russians. Byromedes didn’t planon letting the Russians live. He hated them. Both civilizations hadn’t been around for too longs, so they both had very tiny armies. Byromedes had 4000 warriors that were exploring territory and 4000 spearman defending Persepolis. Russia didn’t have much more. To Byromedes dismay, the Russians built right near his borders. Byromedes was on the coast, and he knew that if he didn’t do something, Russia would fill up the land next to him and he would be a tiny civilization. He sent his warriors to destroy the town of St. Petersburg. It was defended by 2000 warriors. The Persians won the battle but lost 1000 of their men. St. Petersburg was burned to the ground. He sent his men to destroy Moscow, their only other city. Unfortunately, the Russians killed all of the attackers. Byromedes didn’t want to risk having Persepolis, his only city, unguarded, so he negotiated for peace. Afterwards, a temple started to be built in Persepolis to honor the gods. When it was almost finished, the city revolted. They complained of overcrowding. Progress on the temple stopped Byromedes didn’t want his people to be punished by the gods, so to pacify the public he had to hire entertainers.

After the temple was completed, Byromedes chose settlers to for a new town not far from Persepolis, on the coast near many schools of dolphin. The area it was built on was desert and plains, but Byromedes had workers irrigate the land. In another dream he had, he was told to name the new town Minas Tirith, after a famous city in another world. Not much is know of what happened soon afterwards. All that is known is another city to the south and another one to the southeast of Persepolis was built. In dreams he had, he was told to name those cities Rivendell and Lothlorien after famous cities in the same world as Minas Tirith. Persepolis completed the great project the Pyramids and Minas Tirith completed the great projects the Colossus and the Great Lighthouse.

During that time, Byromedes discovered three other Civilizations all on large islands almost touching his large island. The civilizations were America, which was just north of Persia (Russia was west and south) the Romans, who were farther north, bordering America, and Egypt, who was on their own island way northwest of Persia. Byromedes did has best to stay in peace, for he had been surrounded by Russia and couldn’t grow and become powerful.

In the year circa 110 A.D., Byromedes decided to look around the mostly unexplored world and try to find other civilizations. If the Persians found them first, they’d be able to sell communications with everyone for a high price. Byromedes put workers and settlers on galleys [it was only one unit] and sent them to find other civilizations and maybe build more cities if open land was found. The galleys sailed east across the stormiest waters every. But the seamen were well trained and stayed afloat. Finally, after an extremely long journey, the sailors found Greece. They rejoiced. They traded for contact of 4 other new civilizations, China, Japan, Germany, and Zululand. Byromedes had a dream which told him to stay as close friends as possible to the Zulu. In future times, he fought along side them. Persia traded contact with Egypt, Rome, and America (Byromedes hated Russia and he didn’t want them to come in contact with anyone) with each civilization and they got a ton of money and maps. They learned that Japan was extremely close to America. The sea borders were almost touching. In one of the maps he got he saw an island with only the tip of it explored and no one on it. He sent men to build cities there. It turned out to be a huge island, and Byromedes built a town called Moria (another dream) near some iron. He didn’t trade maps with anyone and he kept the island secret for a while. He only built one city there because having far away cities causes corruption. But the other civilizations found out and filled up the island.

About 100 years later, Byromedes began the construction of the Radab^Itthease Line. It was a system of fortresses that stretched across his whole entire border (later on in history, when it was almost complete, all the fortresses near the coast were destroyed in bombardments every time they were built). The first of it, of course, started on the Russian border. Byromedes started to fill the fortresses with Immortals and Longbowman. At about this time Persia became a republic. Also at this time, Byromedes almost went to war with Russia again as Rome (the most powerful nation in the world) and America started fighting Russia. It was a long war. At first, it looked as if Russia would fall. Byromedes was filled with glee. Russia’s empire was shrinking fast. Many of their towns were held by the Americans and Romans. But then the tide turned. The Russians started beating back their enemies, especially the Americans. Russia recaptured town after town after town. Finally, when the Americans held only one former Russian town, Vladivistock, they signed a peace treaty. This was devastating for the war against Russia. America bordered Russia, and the Romans didn’t. The Romans held on to the last of their former Russian towns until they were all retaken. Rome and Russia signed a peace treaty. Byromedes was filled with utter despair.

Then, in the year circa 1700, gunpowder was discovered right outside of Rivendell. Byromedes started filling the Radab^Itthease Line with musket men. At the time, Moria was only garrisoned with 4000 pikemen. It was an important town, so Byromedes sent galleys [one unit] with 8000 musket men to protect it. Then, in the year 1788, Byromedes decided to help his friends, the Zulu, in their war against Japan. So began the Persian Wars. From there, the Persian civilization took a turn for the worst.

Japan didn’t have any cities near any Persian cities. Byromedes didn’t even intend on doing much fighting. He did it to assert his position in the world and to please the Zulu. Then the unexpected came. Greece and Egypt joined Japan’s war against Persia. But for many years, nothing happened. But then when the Greek town of New Sparta, which bordered Moria sent hordes of hoplites and mounted units at Moria. The Greeks were annihilated. Byromedes thought peace would come. He was wrong. Hundreds and hundreds of Greek and Egyptian frigates headed straight for Moria. Byromedes tried to send riflemen, who had just started to be built, towards Moria to reinforce it against more ground attacks. His message to them was “Whatever you do, hold Moria!” But the reinforcements didn’t make it past the frigates. Moria was doomed.

Massive bombardments began. Had a population of about 500,000 at the time and had a temple, a cathedral, a library, a courthouse, a granary, a barracks, a harbor, and a bank. That was before the bombardments began. Moria had 10,000 musket men and 5000 pikemen defending the city [veterans became elite]. The hundreds of frigates heavily bombarded Moria, and hordes of mounted soldiers of all types attacked it by ground. Though the bombardments destroyed most of the population and all of the city improvements, the Greek ground forces were again annihilated. Afterwards, the frigates started to leave. Byromedes could all but taste the sweet nector of victory! Morale at Moria skyrocketed. But then the same fleet came again, this time accompanied by hundred of ironclads. No one could believe their eyes. The same extremely intense bombardment began again, and the troops defending Moria were almost all destroyed. Then more Greek ground forces came and finished the job by sweeping away all resistance. Byromedes could no longer build frigates without the iron. Moria had finally fallen.

Byromedes thought the Greeks might stop. Then, he saw the same fleet, but even bigger head for the Grey Havens (another dream), which was a coastal city close to the rest of the Persian civilization, but which had American and Russian cities in between it. Grey Havens was a metropolis which had the same city improvements (except it did have a coastal fortess, unlike Moria) as Moria but had as a garrison 10,000 riflemen and 5,000 musket men. As the frigates and ironclads came to Grey Havens, its defense couldn’t be reinforced, for there was no way to get through the line with only galleons. Grey Havens had the same fate as Moria, but worse. Every improvement it had was destroyed, and its population went from 802,000 to less than 100,000. The people of Persia were screaming for peace. For the first time in the whole war, the Greeks listened to Byromedes. But they said give us Grey Havens or no peace. Byromedes had no choice. But before he gave it away he had a dream which told him to rename it to Isengard before he gave it away. So he did, and Isengard was given to the Greeks. One year later, Byromedes traded completed research on combustion engines to her for peace. The same thing happened with Japan. And so, Persia was at peace. New technologies were discovered. A new kind of soldier started to be built, called infantry. Rubber was discovered on Persian territory and a city called Edoras (another dream) was built near it. Three more cities were also built, called Anduin, Hobbiton, and Bree (all dreams). The greatest Persian achievement happened. The Persians were the first to fly in a heavier than air machine (this was probably because, Qou‘gard, the god of air, was Byromedes‘ premier god). The whole dating system was changed, and the year was changed from 2049 A.D. to 4000 B.C. Two Russian cities defected to Persia on the same day, which were renamed to Mirkwood and Minas Ithil (more dreams). Minas Ithil was on the coast. Everything was looking fine for Persia. Then, Byromedes did it again. He helped the Zulu in their war against Japan. But this time it wasn’t so bad. With the Zulu was Rome, the most powerful nation in the world. Byromedes started to build a small navy to defend his coastal cities of Minas Tirith and Minas Ithil. against Japanese bombardment. He built galleons and put them in front of it. But this time, something worse happened. Egyptian and Greek troops were illegally on Persian soil. Byromedes ordered them off the land, and war was started. They brought China (which shocked Byromedes, for China had been their friend and was usually fighting Japan) and America, who unlike the other civilizations bordered Persia.

Massive fleets came to Minas Tirith and Minas Ithil. The Persian navy fought very gallantly and sunk frigates and ironclads alike, but all the Persian galleons were destroyed. Persian infantry waited for the American ground onslaught to come, but luckily it didn’t come. But this time the bombardment of Persian cities wasn’t very successful. Before the war, Persia had researched new technologies, and now had artillery. They garrisoned many at Minas Tirith and Minas Ithil. The artillery began to annihilate the enemy coalition fleet. Some of the fleet began to slowly retreat. Then the public started screaming for peace. “Give peace a chance!” Was their motto. Byromedes had been trying throughout the war for peace though, and no one would listen. He had only one choice. To reduce war weariness by changing governments. Persia would now become a monarchy. As the civilization descended to an anarchy and was waiting for Byromedes to become the monarch, Byromedes decided to do something that no other leader had ever done. Without being asked to or pressured to, he decided he should give up his leadership. He was selfless and he cared more about Persia than he did about having power. He knew he just wasn’t that great of a leader. He needed a better leader. He knew there was two that were great for the job and could bring Persia through these times. They were Zorrk and Hawaii-Five-O.



To be continued when Zorrk or Hawaii-Five-O can be convinced to download the saved game file and finish the story.
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Old March 20, 2002, 01:05   #2
WTE_OzWolf
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Ok,

The pretense of this story is good, but there are some things that need to be looked at.

The main thing I found is that the story is simply a narration of your game. It doesn't have life.

What I try to do is focus on the exciting periods of my civilizations history. In Generations, there was basically a 700 year period where America had to fight each of the other civs on its continent. Episode 4 was a recounting of the first offensive move America made on another continent. The attack on France actually only lasted seven turns.

Rather than just rehash what you did (eg. "We did this, then that, then attacked them, and settled this city...") try expanding on some of the bigger points.

Describe in greater detail the early war on the Russians. Try to get people to visualize 4000 loin-clothed warriors with crude weapons charging across the plains to smash themselves against the walls of Moscow.

But don't just recount your victories. Expand on your defeats. It gets boring to just read about victory after victory.

So, the golden rule is expand on what happened. Dig deeper, create characters and take a little poetic license.

Hope this helps.
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Old March 20, 2002, 20:12   #3
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Quote:
Originally posted by WTE_OzWolf
Ok,



The main thing I found is that the story is simply a narration of your game. It doesn't have life.

So, the golden rule is expand on what happened. Dig deeper, create characters and take a little poetic license.

Hope this helps.
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