About two thousand years ago in Mid-America in the city of Tikal a young man was born. He was the son of the king. When his father died his brother became king. He abandoned his hometown of Tikal and decided to make his own city called Dos Pilas. While in Tikal the other brother learned of what his brother was doing and sent troops over there. That started a whole sequence of battles between them. The ruler of Dos Pilas died in the first battle.

       The next battle was very different than the last. Dos Pilas was more prepared than last time they had a new ruler and they had protective walls to protect the people from intruders. This time Dos Pilas was successful in keeping them out. After more and more battles Tikal finally gave up and quit their attempts to stop the progress of the growth of Dos Pilas.

  The second and third rulers of Dos Pilas changed the purpose of warfare.  They used war to acquire land. They had over 1,500 Square miles of land when the third ruler of Dos Pilas died. They had taken over 11 cities too. None of the cities were very well known but that is still a lot of land to take over.