ALBA

Alba have the Power of Statecraft.

National bonuses

• Logistics Corps : Receive a free Supply Wagon each time a new Siege Workshop is built.
• Military Self-sufficiency : Supply Wagons can heal nearby units.
• Heirs of Rome :Siege units 25% cheaper, 50% faster.
• Master Artisanship : Start with Sawmill. Receive Woodworking upgrades for free.
• Golden City : Woodcutters' Camps hold +2 workers. +10% Commerce Cap on Timber. 

Units and structures

UU gallery:

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Structures:

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Wonders:

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Leaders

Cináed mac Ailpin; Domnall Dasachtach; Áed mac Cináeda;  Dén the Vehement; Causantín mac Áeda

Settlements

History

The Scots first arrived as settlers in the West of Scotland at this time (AD 400-500). They were from a part of the north of Ireland and spoke Old Irish, which changed to become Scottish Gaelic, and eventually replaced Pictish. They sometimes warred with the Picts and Britons and sometimes allied with them, but a unified kingdom under the Scottish king Kenneth Mac Alpin was established in AD 843, called ‘Alba’ (still the Gaelic name for Scotland). This kingdom took over Strathclyde in the early 11th century to form the basis of Mediaeval Scotland.

From Kynaz to Tsar

Scotland has been inhabited since the first Mesolithic hunter-gatherers are thought to have migrated to Scotland. These inhabitants showed advanced knowledge of astronomy, creating several Stonehenge-like monuments. A multitude of tribes and invaders occupied parts of Scotland over the century. After the 8th century BC, Celtic culture and language spread into Scotland. 

The Iron age brought numerous hill forts, brochs, crannogs and fortified settlements. The earliest known inhabitants were the Caledonians or Picts, who occupied most of the land north of the firths of Forth and Clyde. In the southwest were Britons, related to the Welsh. An Irish colony was planted in Argyll about 500 AD, and the Angles reached the southeast from Germany about the same time. Scandinavians came to almost all the shores of Scotland between the 8th and 11th centuries and settled in the north and west. 

At the time of the Romans the tribes in what became Scotland were similar to those further south, and can be considered to be Celtic peoples. Those from the North-East were called ‘Picti’ (Picts) by Roman writers, which could mean ‘painted people' and refer to tattoos. The Romans never subdued these northern tribes, and after a brief period when the Antonine Wall between the Firths of Forth and Clyde was the Roman Empire’s northern frontier, they drew back and had Hadrian’s Wall as the frontier. They did try to influence the tribes between the two Walls, and when kingdoms like Strathclyde emerged in the early Dark Ages, their rulers often bore Roman names or titles, the dynasties having been founded by Roman officials.

The first detailed written histories of Scotland began with the arrival of the Roman Empire. In 43 AD, the Romans invaded Britain, and quickly advanced into what is now England and Wales. Gradually, Roman control moved north into the Southern areas of modern Scotland. Agricola became Governor of Britain in 78 AD, and set out conquer the whole of the island the Romans called Albion. In 84, Agricola defeated the Caledonian tribes but the romans failed to conquer the north districts. After Agricola returned to Rome in 85, most of his forts were abandoned and the Romans pulled back to England. Hadrian's Wall marked the boundary. Emperor Antonine advanced the frontier north and in 142 AD built Antonine's Wall; it lasted only 24 years before the Romans retreated to Hadrian's Wall. However, the walls failed to stop raids by the Picts; the Romans responded by forming alliances with many tribes in southern Scotland. By 410 AD the Romans had left the British Isles for good.

His 

Although there was some earlier missionary work, the conversion of the Scottish people dates from the arrival of St. Columba in 563 AD. This was part of a major migration of Christian Scots from northern Ireland, where Christianity had been well established for a century. Columba's base was his monastery on the island of Iona. Columba reached beyond his own people the Scots and converted the king of the Picts at Inverness. The Irish style of Christianity differed in organization and liturgy from the English varierty that was working its way northward from Kent. At the Synod of Whitby (663 AD) the king of Northumbria, after listening to the advocates of the rival rites, decided in favor of the Roman rites. The Scots went along, and Iona finally agreed about 720 AD. The substitution of Roman for Irish religious ties had a profound effect on Scotland, for it drew the country more closely into the mainstream of European civilization.

Following the Viking attack on the holy island of Lindisfarne  in 793, the Vikings raided the mother abbey of Iona in the Hebrides, within the Gaelic kingdom of Dal Riada, just a year later. The Pictish could not rally to Iona’s aid, and so the Vikings raided again and again. The Vikings had already established a bridgehead on the Shetlands and Orkneys, and they saw the Hebrides as a platform for raids across the Irish Sea. Throughout the 9th century increasing numbers of Norse settlers arrived in the Hebrides. 

This onslaught led to a union between Dalriada and Fortriu (the kingdom of the Picts), forming ‘Alba’, the incipient kingdom of Scotland. Coinneach (Kenneth) MacAlpin, united the Picts and Dal Riada in 832. While the unification was only in name at first, soon enough of the tribes and petty kingdoms were banded together; at least in the Lowlands. In the Highlands, the clans paid little heed to the southern monarchs, and the islanders under nominal Viking "rule" lived quiet lives on the most part, although Somerled's conquest of the Norse-held islands in the 1130s was a notable event. Indeed, the Highlanders ignored the dealings of the kings as much as possible &mdash; civil wars and countless battles meant that many of the early kings of Scotland died in the saddle.

About 840AD the Celtic King Kenneth I (reigned 843-58) united the tribal Picts and the Scots and formed a kingdom in central Scotland. Later kings expanded the realm to include Strathclyde and Lothian. This Celtic monarchy lasted until Macbeth's bloody reign ended (1057); he was killed and replaced by Malcolm III. Under Malcolm and his successors, especially King David I (reigned 1124–53), Scotland became an organized feudal state.

son, Vasily III made several moderate gains, but nothing comparable to what Ivan the Great (Ivan III) had accomplished. However, he did manage to add Smolensk to the domains of the ever-growing Russia. He left behind him a weak family, and after his death in 1533 a regency council led by his wife controlled the nation until Ivan IV, his second son, came of age in 1546 and was crowned Tsar of Russia. During his early reign, the aristocrats and business leaders exerted considerable influence over the government. The leaders of Moscow began campaigns into the Kazan and the Crimea in the 1550s. For the most part these proved costly, but land was gained as a result of minor victories over the various tribes and peoples. In 1558, the Livonian war began, having been started by Ivan's invasion of Livonia. This drew together Sweden, Lithuania, and even Poland in an alliance against Ivan IV. The war ended in 1583 with Russia losing all its claims to Livonia, Lithuania, and her Estonian towns. Despite Ivan IV's intelligence and his patronage of the arts, historians have since then dubbed him Ivan Groznyj, or Ivan the Terrible. He was more famous for his cruel actions than any civil or administrative work he accomplished, and even killed his own son, who should have become Ivan V, with drastic consequences.

The Time of Troubles

Ivan IV's remaining son, Fyodor I was incompetent, and a powerful council of sorts was established again until 1598 when Boris Godunov was crowned Tsar. He made great efforts to reverse Ivan IV's terrible internal policies and helped reform the government. In 1601, a monk named Grigory appeared as the missing son of Ivan IV and gathered support for himself, eventually leading an abortive invasion of Russia to become tsar, but he was defeated by Boris's troops. However, Boris had proved unpopular and Grigory was made Tsar in 1605.

Tsar Grigory did not survive long, and in 1606, Vasily Shuysky murdered Grigory and proclaimed himself Tsar. Next followed a long period of turmoil and pathetic administration. Again, the aristocrats and landowners ruled the nation. In 1613, a descendent of Ivan the Terrible's first wife, Michael became Tsar after Grigory's armies deserted him, ushering in the Romanov dynasty. Michael left the majority of administrative work to his relations, and they managed to bring reform and peace. In 1617 and 1618, peace was made with Sweden and Poland respectively.

The Romanovs

Upon Michael's passing away in 1645, the tsar was succeeded by his young son Alexis. After initial difficulties, the Tsar won a victory for Russia with the Treaty of Andrusovo, which saw several territorial gains for Russia at the expense of the Poles who they had been at war with. Unfortunately, serfdom became a legal reality during his reign in order to prevent the lical peasants from running away and bankrupting the agrarian Russian economy. Alexis did encourage trade and links with the West (Europe) and thus expanded Russian influence and interest into that sphere. In 1676, Fyodor III succeeded his father Alexis to the throne of Russia. Despite increasing protestations from the clergy, Fyodor continued to emphasis building up relations with Russia's neighbours in Europe, but it was not until the arrival of Peter I (Peter the Great) by 1696 that Russia began opening up to Europe. He took a tour of Europe and returned full of new ideas. The turning of the tide came atPoltava in 1709, when Peter's new army managed to turn back the invading Swedes. Russia made several further territorial gains by the end of the war. Peter also worked on internal reforms and modernised the Russian army along European standards amd also began the construction of St Petersburg, one of the greatest cities in Russia.

Upon his death in 1725, a series of successions followed — Peter the Great had left no clear idea as to who was to succeed him after his death. It was in 1762 that stability and strong leadership was again brought to Russia with Catherine II (Catherine the Great). She began an aggressive expansionist policy that brought large territorial gains for Imperial Russia. After several Russian campaigns against the Turks, Frederick the Great of Prussia brought up the Polish question to divert further Russian expansion in the Balkans against the Turks. Russia actively participated in the first and second partitions (dismantling) of Poland, gaining large chunks of land as a result. Catherine continued the modernising and social reforms of Peter the Great, and was herself a skilled diplomat. During the end of her reign however, the populous ideals of the French revolution caused her to become increasingly defensive and conservative in her policies, and many of the liberal reforms she instituted early in her career were reversed and again the peasantry grew further towards distress. In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with a force of over half a million men. Marshal Kutukov of the Russian forces knew he could not defeat Napoleon's massive army head on. So he conducted a defensive campaign, raiding the French Forces whenever the opportunity presented itself. By the time Napoleon made it to Moscow, he has lost two thirds of his forces, and found the city deserted and devoid of supplies and even shelter. The Russians were still not ready to surrender, and waited for Napoleon to grow tired of waiting in Moscow for peace terms, which never came. Napoleon was forced to withdraw empty handed, unfortunately by then winter began to set in. His already withered forces were forced to endure a long match through a vast land battered by the Russian winter, and pursued by the Russian forces. By the time they returned to France, only 10,000 troops remained. Ironically, Russia emerged as more powerful and respected as a result of this invasion then she had been previously been, but there were storm clouds hovering on the horizon.

Decline of the Tsardom

"What is going to happen to me and all of Russia?"

— Tsar Nicholas II Romanovich

The Russian crown since the time of Ivan the Terrible enjoyed near autocratic rule over the nobility, largely at the expense of the ordinary peasantry. By the mid-19th century, this form of control over the people was no longer tolerable. Despite repeated military successes agains the Turks and the Persians, as well as the successful deterrence of further British progression into central Asia, conditions in Russia for the common peasant was so poor that political unrest began to build up. In 1825, a palace coup by some 3,000 soldiers was brutually put down. Next was a popular uprising in Poland, which again was thoroughly routed. Meanwhile, the tsarist government vaccilated between liberal reform and repression, all to no effect, although serfdom was finally abolished by the Emancipation Act of 1861 but this in turn merely crippled the country's growth further by destroying the sole source of effective labour in all Russia. Terrorism as well as anti-Semitic pogroms and persecution increased in intensity and sanguinity - the tsar Alexander II was killed by a bomb planted by anarchists in 1881.

Fall of the Empire

Prior to his death, Alexander II had been planning to convert Russia to a constutional monarchy, but his assassination ended any chances of reform - the last tsars to follow him all strengthened autocratic rule and repression further in an attempt to protect themselves, but to no avail. By 1868, a new nation, Japan was looming on the horizon in the north Pacific. Territorial ambitions bred tensions which led to overt military conflict, which resulted in the Treaty of Portsmouth in 1906, forcing Russia to cede Manchuria and part of the strategically located island to Sakhalin. A decade later, the Russians were drawn into the First World War, and again found itself unprepared in many aspects for modern warfare. Despite the Russian tsar personally joining the fight with his men against Austria and Germany in Poland, Russia continued to suffer defeat after defeat and the reactionary government eventually led the long-suffering people of Russia to finally revolt in 1917, resulting in the fall of the tsardom and the death of the tsar and his family, along with civil war throughout Russia between a variety of pro-tsarist, republican, communist, and anarchist factions as well as intervening expeditions sent by the foreign powers.