TARA

The Tara Confederacy have the Power of Gold.

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. 
• Irish Influence : Can't built Towers or City Watch Guilds, but can erect Daneforts instead for point defence.

Units and structures

UU gallery:

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Structures:

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Wonders:

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Leaders

Cathal mac Finguine; Áed Allán; Donnchad Midi mac Murchado; Áed Oirdnide mac Néill; Conchobar mac Donnchada; Niall Caille mac Áeda; Máel Sechnaill mac Máele Ruanaid; Áed Findliath mac Néill; Flann Sinna mac Máelschnaill; Niall Glúndub; Donnchad Donn mac Flainn; Ruaidrí Ua Canannáin; Congalach Cnogba mac Máelmithig; Domnall ua Néill; Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill

Settlements

History

From Kynaz to Tsar

The earliest inhabitants of Ireland  —people of a mid-Stone Age culture—arrived about 6000 BC. About 4,000 years later, tribes from southern Europe arrived and established a high Neolithic culture, leaving behind gold ornaments and huge stone monuments. The Bronze Age people, who arrived during the next 1,000 years, produced elaborate gold and bronze ornaments and weapons.

The Iron Age arrived abruptly in the fourth century BC with the invasion of the Celts, a tall, energetic people who had spread across mainland Europe and Great Britain in the preceding centuries. The Celts, or Gaels, and their more numerous predecessors divided into five kingdoms in which, despite constant strife, a rich culture flourished.

 "the Great"

His 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

The coming of Christianity from across the Irish Sea brought major changes and civilizing influences. Tradition maintains that St. Patrick arrived on the island in AD 432 and, in the years that followed, worked to convert the Irish to Christianity. The pagan druid tradition collapsed before the spread of the new faith, and Irish scholars excelled in the study of Latin learning and Christian theology in the monasteries that flourished. Missionaries went forth from Ireland to Great Britain and the continent, spreading news of the flowering of learning, and scholars from other nations came to Irish monasteries. The excellence and isolation of these monasteries helped preserve Latin and Greek learning during the Dark Ages. The arts of manuscript illumination, metalworking, and sculpture flourished and produced such treasures as the Book of Kells, ornate jewelry, and the many carved stone crosses that dot the island.

Two hundred years of Viking invasion and settlement was later followed by a Norman conquest in the 12th century. The Norman conquest resulted in the assimilation of the Norman settlers into Irish society. The early 17th century saw the arrival of Scottish and English Protestants, sent as colonists to the north of Ireland and the Pale around Dublin.

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.