Trade and writing had seen the Urapi and their Tevali cousins become wealthier and more centralised than ever before, but there was still a hard cap on their success. Much of their land was neither arable nor easily traversed, and so it was difficult to mobilise people in great numbers or supply them when they could be encouraged to move. Though the reconquest of the fertile plains of Urapivarta remained a priority, attempts had thus far remained unsuccessful; even the hegemons of Adadach could not get together an army large enough to tackle the walled towns - cities, even - of those fertile plains.

And so rather than focusing on what could not be done, the Urapi focused on what could: expansion of trade, governance and influence, and maintaining the tradition of kharubbal to keep the mudborn as weak as possible in the hopes that one day they might be cast away from the holy lands entirely.

Some key fruits of success were from Canaan and the Ban'so'garekan: dedicated harbours and levantine trade ships, which were much more effective at loading, transporting and unloading goods than the otherwise somewhat martial affairs of the Urapi dockside.

Increased trade meant more people dedicated their time to finding and producing valuable trade goods. For this they turned to the trees, extracting Cedarwood oil, and to the seas, obtaining tyrian purple dye.

Getting these goods to market was, of course, a necessity and had to be done as cheaply and effectively as possible. Central standardisation on the size of wheels and axles and the subsequent wagons to fit the width of the roads that they had to go on ensured that a maximal load could be carried on a minimally sized road.

To better protect increased urban wealth from potentially jealous foreigners, or even their poor mountain dwelling brothers, the city-dwellers meanwhile invested in defensive gates.

Currency - I'm gonna write a post and link it before the deadline, I just want to throw this post up before I go to work.

Urapi Techs

Research post

Tech sheet

Administrative Focus

• General techs

  • Wheels and axles (MST, have Potter's wheel)
  • Wagons (MST, have cattle, wheel and axle if approved above)

• Military

  • Defensive gates (MST, have defensive walls.)

• Administrative Focus

  • Currency (not MST) RP

• Cultural

  • Cedarwood oil (Not MST)
  • Tyrian purple dye (MST)

• Diffused (From trade partners Canaan/Ban'so'garekan)

  • Harbours (MST)
  • Levantine trade ships (MST, have basic boats, sails, steering oars, plank hulls and caulking)