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pikesfan
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Oh, its so cute!
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mrmitchell
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We're already exploring the Americas? Gosh, how time flies.
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pikesfan
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I like the ship because its such a cheerful avatar. It makes me proud to be Dutch... except Im not Dutch.
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Aidun
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The Hague, the capital of the civilized world
Nov 2002
time: 06:26
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Thank you all, I'm proud too. My avatar is a ship of the VOC, the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, the Dutch East India Company. The company was the first multinational in the history of our world and was the result of the unification of a lot of individual traders.
The company was founded in 1602 and lasted until 1798, exactly 200 years.
The core business of the company was to trade gold for spices, such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, sage and many more, textiles, chinese porcelain, silk, and pepper.
Especially pepper was extremely expensive. It is still remembered in the dutch saying "expensive like pepper". The company could make enormous profits because of the intercontinental trade and the different values of products in the different areas in Asia. Example: the company bought textiles for 50 gold in India and sold them for 100 gold in Indonesia. With the 100 gold they bought spices in Indonesia and and sold them for 300 gold in Europe, where those spices were extremely scarce, especially pepper with wich enormous profits were made.
The company attracted capital via shares that could be traded at the stockexchange in Amsterdam.
The company had so called factories, businesses, in southern Persia, India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) Bengalen (Bangladesh), China, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Irian Yaya/Papua New Guinea, Capetown and of course the Netherlands.
The most important businesses were in Amsterdam and Batavia (Jakarta)
The company was also allowed to have war in the name of the dutch Stadtholder against other countries who liked to compete with the company. This was with especially the English.
For the intercontinental trade the company used big vessels. These vessels sailed in a fleet several times a year to East Asia. The fleets were protected by some warships, but the tradingvessels were also well armored themselves.
The Dutch East India Company finally lost the competition due to major scandals of corruption, and mismanagement. This occurred at the same time as the dicline of the dutch supremacy, in favor of England that took over the title of Ruler of the Waves from the Dutch.
I'm still wanting to create a patch that replaces the Smith Trading company by the Dutch East India Company, which was founded more than a century earlier, it should work in the same way as the Forbidden Palace: reducing corruption in the surrounding cities of trhe the citiy in which it is being built.
Aidun
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OliverFA
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Leeds, UK
Sep 2002
time: 06:26
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Aidun, your avatar is a more Spanish one than before. ;-)
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OliverFA
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Leeds, UK
Sep 2002
time: 06:26
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Honoring the starter of the thread:
Pikesfan, I've noticed that you recently reached your 500th. Which avatar are you going to choose?
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06-03-2003 06:23
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