...Against him came up Shalmaneser king of Assyria. And Hoshea became his vassal and paid him tribute. But the king of Assyria found treachery in Hoshea, for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and offered no tribute to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year. Therefore the king of Assyria shut him up and bound him in prison. Then the king of Assyria invaded all the land and came to Samaria, and for three years he besieged it. In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria, and he carried the Israelites away to Assyria and placed them in Halah, and on the Habor, the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes...
... And he will stretch out his hand against the north and destroy Assyria, and he will make Nineveh a desolation, a dry waste like the desert...
... And the Assyrian shall fall by a sword, not of man; and a sword, not of man, shall devour him; and he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be put to forced labor...
(various parts of the Bible)
The river lands and the prosperous east mediterranean coast of the late seventh century BC. Five major powers - Egyptian, Lydian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Median, each with their own gods and divine rulers - are pitted against each other for a clash over supremacy of these cradles of civilisations. In their way stand minor powers - Hebrew, Phoenician, Cypriote, Ionian Greek, Bithynian Thracian, Cimmerian, Urartian, Mannaean, Elamite, and Persian - that can be enslaved and summoned to serve in their masters' armies. And along the frontiers to the wilderness and barbarian territories stand tribal powers - Scythian, Arab, and Libyan - ready to ravage settled lands but also potentially to be used as forces in the wars of gods and men.
The Wars of Gods and Men tournament involves five players, each representing one of the Egyptian, Lydian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Median major powers and battling all the other powers of the region. Players will also get to play as minor or tribal powers against the other players' major powers.
Final situation (end of round 8)
- SnuggleBunnies (Egyptian): 21
- rbodleyscott (Median): 11
- kronenblatt (Assyrian): 8
- deeter (Lydian): 6
- TomoeGozen (Babylonian): 1