Ancient age.

With the support of the new specialists, you have the opportunity to actually keep up rather good in the ancient age. You will pay for it with smaller growth, but for some reason I do not think that will be a very big problem in this game.

Time for one of the more important decisions. Starting location looks really good, with two hills and two bonus food, while a coastline city with access to fresh water. I send my worker to road bonus grass, and reveal some more map before settling though, nope, belay that, I send him to road the wines. It is as good as bonus grass, but a lux as well.

In the year of the Gauls, we start to count time, and year zero, Entremont is founded, and we order warriors to spring forth.
We order the sages to prepare some way of recording our sacred words as brought forth by the high druid.

It is hard, this constriction business. Monoliths to be moved, positioned just so. Thus it takes 200 years after the sacred words were first spoken before our first party is ready to leave Entremont on a journey of discovery. Orders are to head straight north, and follow the coastline, looking for people to enlighten. As all things in nature should have balance, we will send another expedition in another direction as soon as convenient. We do expect it to take a little less than 200 years this time.

It only takes another 120 years, and in the year 350 AE ( After Entremont. ( 3650BC)) we send our second warrior along the southern coast. Also, it is now time to make sure we are not hit unnecessarily by famines and pests, we order large magasines built to store food dry and safe. Since monoliths are not really a suitable construction material for what we have in mind, it will take a long time to construct.

We receive occasional reports of unusual formations created by mother nature, but thus far we are very much alone on our continent. It has been 1100 years since we started to build Entremont, and our pride and joy, the 'Granaries' will be protected by powerful runes deviced by our chief druid. No pests will be able to steal our grain while we have such powerful protection. Lands seem bountiful, and we do expect to be able to spread good and far.

As you can see, the only sign of life resides in mudhuts. We have been careful not to disturb them, in case they will take offense while we have every ablebodied adult building Granaries. We have even used precious and holy wood to make the beams in the roof.

It is not long after this that the people of Egypt pretend they do not see us. They are not interested at all in any kind of trade with such an insignificant nation as us.

No wonder the Egyptians were so haughty. They have been having business with the Carthaginians. Carthage is also not interested at all in our meagre fund of knowledge. Seems like no one appreciates monolithic art.

In the year 1370 AE ( 2630BC ) after we take to the seas, it is time to look for suitable places for taking up residence.
It takes another 320 years before we can found the beautiful Alesia. Our proud nation is now ready to start filling out the nature, in the way nature intended it to be done.

Much planning ensues some 160 years later when the next settler is about to travel. The lure of grapes is to hard to deny, and we send them on their road to secure a more plentiful supply of the good grape, available far to the west.

It is good to know there are people even more poor than us, as we toil in the ground to see the wonder of nature.

We have been tryign to make stronger and stronger runes to protect our magical stuff, and we maek a breakthrough in the year 2130 AE ( 1870BC) when we are certain that if we put our runes together in certani magical sequences, the whole is stronger than the sum of the parts.

We want to prove our neighbourly intentions, and we will share this news with our friends and neighbours the Egyptians, and Cartaginians.
Cleopatry is very impressed with our generosity, and they send over some sages of their own together with a few coins. We learn Mysticism, Wheel and Bronzeworking from Cleopatra for Writing.
Carthage is more stingy, and he will only give me Masonry for Writing. I will remember you next time.

We wonder much about how different life could be, and I think it is time to stop takign chances, and we will try and figure out what life is all about. Much rejoicing amongst our sages for this decision.

There ensues some quiet years while we ponder the meaning of life the universe and everything. We quietly fill in the land with small villages of Celts, and ponder.

It is the year 2450AE ( 1550BC)when we finally reach the disappointing conclusion that such an answer would take millions upon millions of years to reach. Woefully we approach the other leaders to see what they want to do do about the situation as we share with them our musings. We do get a hidden sidebenefit of all the musing though, as we make pictures called maps in order to represent the surroundings. We also make plans for building mighty ships able to take troops across the big seas and see if we can find kindred spirits abroad.

Cleopatra share Ironworking and Mathematics with us for our knowledge of Map Making.
Carthage continue their obstinacy by claiming they are not interested in Map Making after all. We thus share our knowledge of Philosophy with them for Riding and Iron working.

After these deals it is time to start methods to collect wisdom. It is hard to pass all knowledge on to next generations by storytelling.

Carthage is really a bully. It is the otherwise proud year of 2725 AE ( 1275BC) as he comes in claiming he is broke, and we have to help him pay his warriors. Us being the nice neighbour, we give him our money. There was really no need to be rude about it. It is bothersome, as we now need to stop doing deficit research.

It is time to contact our neighbours again in the year 2825 AE ( 1175BC). I think it would be fair to share the art of binding books with my neighbours. It would also be good to see if they have learnt something more earthly to share with us. I would also take this time out to greet our new neighbours the English, whom we have just met. I cannot find any good trades though. In spite of me having a monopoly of Literature. Egypt is really not very generous with their Code of Laws. Seems like a regimented way to live, but we may need some thing like that to keep reign on the more wild druids. England meanwhile tells us that the force of nature is in reality a bunch of gods. Misled souls that they are, nevertheless we are interested in these kind of manifestations of nature as well.

Not long afterwards, we meet a lost roman warrior. They are very ignorant, and no meaningful exchange of knowledge is possible.

The English complete a majestic building guarding the entrance to their harbour. Unimaginatively they call their giant spirit of nature for The Colossus. The year is 2875AE ( 1125BC).

On our millenial travelling, we share knowledge around the world. Taking pity upon the Roman ignoramus, we give them both philosophy and mathematics. Not wanting to be known as unhospitable, they in turn give us copies of their greatest book, Crime and Punishment. England still maintain they are the sole repository allowed for the scrolls of Divine wisdom.

The millenium approaches and the signs are in the air. We meet yet another neighbour, the Portugese. NOW the English wants to talk to us about gods. We know they are wrong, as mother nature serve all our needs, but they have some insights into how nature works. We will give them notebooks to write the stuff down.

As we reach the year 3000 AE ( 1000BC) we have identified the following nodes of nature, but we suspect the Carthaginians are about to steal a node that will develop in the future, as they have a settlerpair way down south in the desert, totally cut off from all other Carthage sources.

Yup, the Carthaginians settled on a spot we had resevred for future use, as rumors have it there might be magical powder abundant in those regions. We will haev to discuss that with them at a later date.

First crisis approaches fast, as the more peaceful of us wants to settle nodes of Nature faster, while the more warlike wanderers want to use our resources to spread the usage of iron weapons, and see if the foreigners blood is as good to sacrifice as our own. For now, a token wanderer presence is ordered up, to patrol borders, and not to let any foreign settlers pass.

Lisbon has managed to manifest what appears to be a genuine school for predictions. The Lisbon school of Oracles. Let them enjoy their false sense of values. We know mother nature is mother to us all.

We spend the years of 3200AE ( 800BC) trading, and learn how to build large buildings, using our monoliths on top of each other, using tools of nature to lovingly shape the blocks of stone. Since we now have so many druids, it is hard to get all to get together, so a scheme involving getting a great druid as ruler is learned from the English.

Not long after this, we implement the Cricle of druids, headed by the high druid. As expected, there are wild discussions around our nodes, but we expect to have firm control very soon.

Egypt gets some strange ideas on how to govern a nation. Just out of our curiosity, we tell them how we do stuff, including how to build our government centers, with running water and all, and they tell us how every male citizen should have a say in the politics of our nation. Weird, and not something for us. No other nation is interested though. Weird, the salesmen of Egypt had assured us we would be able to regain our costs easily.

When the time nears the fourth millenium, we learn our first medieval tech. We trade a little gold, and the knowledge of Republic to the greedy Carthaginians, and in return, they tell us about a system where we split the lands into provinces, and each province is ruled by its own Greater druid, who in turn report to the Grand druid. Neat. Also, incidentally, they send us some warriors trained in warfare. Both for defense, and offence.

We are now truly Medieval.