1999
Peace and well to you, travellers! Well, "peace" if you can conquer and keep it, of course! In Common's Italy - we're around A.D. 1176, give or take a few days - peace comes at a premium: among the quarrels between our towns and external threats from Frederick the Read Bearded (Barbarossa) there is few peace to enjoy! Here in the hectic Mediolanum, pulsing heart of the Padania plane - the old Latin recommendation "Si vis pacem para bellum" (If you want peace be ready for war) is carefully followed. The town protects its treasures (did you notice the marvellous dungeons, the towers and the bell-towers, symbol of power for the civic, the bourgeois and the clergy classes?) with an imposing ring of walls, from the top of which the Communal Militia carefully guards against invaders and riots. 
Inside town a solemn ceremony is taking place: clergy in procession and parading militiamen honour the Bishop who, standing on the doorstep of Saint Ambrogio's Basilic, blesses the town symbol, the oxen-carried flag-adorned Carroccio.
Under the Merchant's Palace - sponsored by a famous local factory - commerce flourishes: there is a seasonal sale of mixing heads (it seams that cheap imitations are available now, and we are really fed up with this stuff! Where will we end, with these clones?)