Background info: I have replaced most of the normal leaders with WW2 leaders, and I have replaced Persia with Finland (being a Finn myself, I just had to :groucho: ). In this game, I was playing with Germany (led by Hitler). Other civs included Russia (led by Stalin), America (Roosevelt), Finland (Mannerheim), India (Gandhi), China (Mao), Japan (Hirohito) and England (Churchill). The map was normal-sized, everything else was random (later the world appeared to be a one huge continent - altough the Indians had their own island). The difficulty level was monarchy.

But enough with the BS, here's the real thing:

The civilization of Germany was still young and the age of fast expansion was only at it's beginning, when Germanic warriors first realized that they were living in a peninsula of a huge continent. The peninsula was pretty big itself, and in the south, there was a small passage to the big continent. And behind this passage, the Germanic warriors found another nation. These people called themselves "russians", and they had a leader who had a big, ugly moustache. He called himself "Stalin". And it is known that from the first day when Stalin had contact with Germany, he considered Germany to be a primitive civilization (which it was, compared to the big Russian empire), ready to be crushed (which it wasn't, as Stalin would soon find out).

But Hitler was scared; for he knew, that if the Mighty Russian Empire would expand it's borders into the Germany Peninsula, it could very well be the end of his small nation that was behind Russia in score, in power, in culture - and, the worst of all, in weapon technology. So, Hitler send some spearmen to guard the small passage and to ensure that no Russian settler or soldier would ever stand it's foot on the large Peninsula that Hitler was reserving for his own expansion. And indeed, there were times when Russian settlers tried to pass the Guardians of the Peninsula. But each time such caravan approached the small passage, the captain of the Spearmen would tell the approacher that none of the Guardians would move. And each time the settlers (or warriors or whoever were trying to pass) decided to turn back.

Until finaly Stalin got tired of this. "You do not have cities in the southern part of the peninsula, where the passage to the continent is; let my settlers pass and create a good borderline for our two nations!" he yelled to Hitler in one of their meetings. But Hitler refused once again. "Then give me your world map and 50 pieces of gold, or prepare yourself for war!" he yelled in furious rage. But Hitler believed strongly that Stalin was only bluffing.

Stalin wasn't.

He attacked the Spearmen that were guarding the peninsula with archers and swordmen. Needles to say, the Russians broke through easily and were already approacing the gates of the southern German city of Munich, when the German scientists invented feudalism. New pikemen could defend Munich and the Russian attackers were killed. Hitler would bring new guardians to the passage, but this time they were combined with swordmen; and even though the war went on for a few hundred years, Stalin would never again set his foot on the soil of Germany. From time to time, Hitler tried to attack the city of Odessa, but the defence was too strong. Soon, the war ended, and nothing was really achieved.

But the peace didn't last for long. The entire Germany Peninsula was now territory of Germany except for the north corner, and Hitler's explorers found out that two russian cities were established there! Without a doubt, Hitler immediatly attacked and annexed these cities, without any declaration of war and despite the fact that the peace treaty between him and Stalin would not grow old for 2 more turns. Apparently, Stalin had brought the settlers to the north with galleys.

Hitler's knights (something that Russia hadn't yet developed) attacked and conquered the big city of Odessa next. And so, the Guardians of the Peninsula would no longer be needed, as Germany had expanded it's borders to the big continent. But the war was far from over; and in Moscow, Hitler's knights were no match for pikemen who were protected with catapults and the walls of the big capital city of Russia...

TO BE CONTINUED (if I have the time and the will and/or if other posters like this shyte)

Good story. Now go kill some more Ruskies.

Stormrider

After getting all of his knights killed, Hitler had to admit the fact that for the time being, the big city of Moscow was unconquerable. And after that the Russian counter-attack begun. Longbowmen (Russia's newest invention in the field of weapon technology) approached the city of Odessa, that Germnay had captured at the beginning of the war.

Hitler called his domestic advisor for a meeting. "My trusted advisor, tell me, how can we keep Odessa when it will soon be surrounded by the enemy and all our magnificient knights are dead?" Hitler asked, smilingly. His advisor saw in his eyes that he had some sort of a plan.

"Well, we could... uhm... hurry the training of our pikemen?" advisor asked. "But sir, that would cost the lives of many of our people!".

"Haha! But that's where you're wrong!" replied Hitler. "People who live in Odessa are mostly Russians. They are slavic people, not aryan - therefore, they deserve to be killed!" He said, and laughed in an evil way.

And so, the pikemen that were trained with the blood of Russian citizens of Odessa managed to stop the Russian attackers after a really tight battle. Stalin was ready for peace, and actually he was willing to pay some money for the peace. But Hitler wanted to get rid of the Russian threat for good.

Years passed, and a new army of knights were trained in Berlin, Munich, Leipzig and other big German cities that had barrackses. But this time Hitler knew not to go against Moscow. Instead, his knights travelled south to look for more small Russian cities - but instead, they found a city of Atlanta that belonged to another nation. So, Hitler made contact with Roosevelt, the leader of the American people. From Mister Roosevelt he got connections with Mao, who led the Chinese (a northern civilization, located right behind northern Russia), Mannerheim, who led the Finns (shared borderline with America and China in the south), Churchill and Hirohito (leaders of England and Japan, both countries being in the fareast part of the big continent) and even with Gandhi, who led the Indians that weren’t even on the continent, they had a big island in the northeastern corner of the map.

And for his amazement, Hitler noticed that all other nations were annoyed with him - except one, the Finns. Perhaps the Russians had spread stories of how Hitler had betrayed Stalin by declaring war while the old peace treaty was still valid? Perhaps. Either way, the Finns apparently disliked the Russians as much as Hitler, and Mannerheim, their leader, invited Hitler to a meeting in Helsinki after Hitler had established an embassy there - the first embassy that Germany had ever established anywhere.

"So... you're having problems with Stalin?" asked Mannerheim. "Well, yes", replied Hitler. "I would be in great debt if you could provide any assistance in this war", he continued.

"Well,", started Mannerheim, "we could sell you the invention of Gunpowder for quite a low price! Say, 200 gold pieces? You could start training musketmen... they are stronger defenders than pikemen, I can tell you that!"

"Perfect. Now... perhaps you would like to join us in our war against the evil Russians for, say yet another 200 gold pieces?" asked Hitler.

"I thought you'd never ask!"

---

And so, Hitler was no longer alone. Hitler asked America to join, too, but Roosevelt, that coward, wouldn't join for no matter how much Hitler was ready to pay him. But indeed the Finns were a powerful ally, as they were somehow able to get China and America (both having borders with Russia) to join. And so, Mao, Roosevelt, Mannerheim and Hitler started to conquer city after another. Finaly, Finnish and German knights were again surrounding Moscow. But this time Moscow could not defend itself; it was the last city to fall. Unfortunately for Hitler, Mannerheim was finaly the one who claimed Moscow for himself.

The war was over and Stalin's empire that had once been so great was divided, but not exactly the way Hitler had wanted it. In the end, all Hitler had gained from the war were 3 russian cities (2 small cities in the peninsula, the city of Odessa in the continent), and his knights had also destroyed one small city, leaving a spot open for a place where the city of Brandenburg would be established in the future. But that was nothing compared to what China had accomplished; it had conquered all the big Russian cities in the east, including Minsk, St. Petersburg, Sevastopol and Sverdlovsk.

The small Germany had risen to be a moderately strong empire because of the war, but it was still far away from being as powerful as China, which was the greatest nation at the time.

---

Some time after the war had ended, Mannerheim and Roosevelt came to visit Hitler in Nuremberg, where Hitler had build another palace for himself.

"I tried to build it in south, to the city of Odessa, so I would easily control the happenings of Russia from this other palace. Unfortunately, the corruption in Russian cities is so great that I had to remove my palace-building to Nuremberg, which stands in the former border of Russia and Germay", Hitler told to Mannerheim and Roosevelt, while they were climbing up the stairs to the Forbidden Palace of Nuremberg. "Actually, this city is better fir historical reasons; it stands in the exact same location where the Defenders of the Peninsula so bravely defended Germany from Russian invasion over a thousand years ago!" he continued his lecture.

"So, what was the reason you came to see me?" Hitler asked, once they got inside the palace.

"Well", Mannerheim started, "America and Finland have signed a Holy Pact; if any nation would attack us, we would stand together in the war!"

"And we would like you to join the Pact", Roosevelt continued. "When America, Finland and Germany unite their forces, there is no stopping us!"

"And.. what would I get?" Hitler asked.

"Well", Roosevelt replied, "we couldn't help but notice that your civilization is a bit... ahem... primitive. Make this pact with us and you shall get the theory of Gravity from us!"

"And I shall give you the secrets of Magnetism, so you could evolve to the same industral era that we are living", Mannerheim continued.

---

And so it happened. The Holy Alliance was formed between Germany, America and Finland; but it was not the only thing that was agreed in Nuremberg on that night. Hitler was not sure how he had convinced Roosevelt and Mannerheim to agree a trade embargo against their former ally, the Chinese - and for free! But it had happened, and Hitler couldn't have been happier.

But in Beijing, Chairman Mao was furious with rage. He felt betrayed: he had helped Germany and the others to destroy Russia, and now his allies had agreed a trade embargo against him!?! Mao decided to increase the training of Riders.

"We shall see how long this 'holy alliance' will last", he muttered to himself, when his Riders attacked and destroyed the recently established and basically defendless German city of Brandenburg, thus making Germany, Finland and America all declare war against the biggest and the strongest empire in the world...

TO BE CONTINUED

Great story!

Its getting interesting!!

man nice story, a few screen shots wouldnt hurt but never the less, really good story!!

nice story. how far exactly are you behind in tech? usually by this time on monarchy, i have left the other civs behind with TOE

Bewareofgnomes: At this point I'm pretty much on the same level in tech with USA and Finland (they were the two lonely tech leaders in the world before I joined their alliance). Now me, USA and Finland are on the same level and others are a bit behind.

I don't really have much time nowdays, but I'll try to continue my story during the next couble of days, if I'll manage to find time...

General_kill: For some reason I've always failed to attach images (like screenshots) in vbulletinboard discussions. I'm propably doing something wrong... but I don't have the time to really get to know what I'm doing wrong. Now after my extra-long (11 days :p) spring break is over, I'm already having hard time finding the time to write my story.

But I promise to try later this week ;)

The story continues - and without screenshots, I'm afraid :)


The Chinese riders are known for their fast speed and good mobility, and indeed, they were fast, as they conquered (or burned down) city after another in Western Russia. And soon they were in control of all the areas that once had belonged to Stalin's empire. They had Moscow, they had Brandenburg, they had Novgorod - soon they had either destroyed or conquered every city in the are except for Germany's city of Odessa (that was the only city in the area that had musketeers as it's defence. Most cities had no defence at all).

Hitler was sobbing quietly in his Forbidden Palace in Nuremberg. His scientists had invented nationalism immediately after forming the Holy Alliance, but the new great defenders known as riflemen had not made it to Russia in time through the roads, and Mao's attack had came to him as a total surprise.

---

"We... we need to invent faster kind of transportation system...", Hitler sobbed to his scientific advisor. "you need to... you need to come up with something before... <sobsob> before China does..."

"Yes, Fuhrer! We will begin working on that right away!" replied the advisor. "Now, perhaps you would like to... ahem... clean yourself a bit in the bathroom before president Mannerheim arrives?"

Hitler jumped off from his chair. He had totally forgotten that Finland's president had asked for an audience. An hour later, Hitler was ready to meet the president of Finland.

"Ah! Hitler, my old friend, I bring news of joy to you! We have developed this new invention in the army headquarters. It's a new doctorine we like to call "military tradition". With this, we have been able to create new, better kind of offensive units. They're a bit better than knights in offence, as they do not use swords as knights do. Would you perhaps like to buy this invention from us for a moderately low price?"

"yes... YES! That's it! Thank you, Mannerheim, you saved my ass, you really did!"

---

Hitler had already decided that he wouldn't sacrifice his knights against Chinese musketmen. He had experience of how difficult it was to capture big cities that had pikemen defending them with knights - and now he was standing against chinese musketmen. But luckily, chinese musketmen were no match for the new "cavalries", and Germany quickly conquered many Russian cities that they (and Finland and USA) had lost only a few years back. They also captured Atlanta, a city that China had been able to take away from USA. But even more cities they had to destroy, as they had simply became too small to conquer. This left some huge holes in central Russia.

At this point, there were two clear fronts in the war: in the southern front, Finland and America were surrounding the city of Nanchow. The battle for Hangchow was a long one: altough either Finland or America would from time to time capture it, it always ended up going back to China. The surrounding of Hangchow ended up lasting for over 100 years before Finland would be able to capture it for good.

In the western front, the front line was moving a lot faster. Both Germany and China would send settlers to take over the empty lands of scattered Russia. And always the other side would either capture or (usually) destroy the city. Hundreds of thousands of civilians got killed, but both parties continued building new "suicide cities" to the area. They did this because apparently both China and Germany wanted to keep American settlers away - both believed that they could become the rulers of Russia.

---

"Why are you doing this? Our noble and brave settlers will die!" asked Hitler's domestic advisor once.

"It really pleases me to see those... those... asians get killed. And what comes to our civilians getting killed, well... most settlers I have send from Odessa. They are Russians. Do you think I would send there people from the Pure Aryan race? Nooo... the russian and chinese civilians that get killed in the central russian mayhem are a slow price to pay for getting room for the Pure Aryan people of Germany. Once we have secured the land, we will start bringing settlers from Germany and occupy the former lands of Russia with aryans", Hitler replied smilingly.

Hitler had his evil side, as his advisors had seen so many times before.

---

Once Hitler got railroads, he was able to send cavalries to Russia fast. Meanwhile, China also got cavalries, but they had not been able to build any kind of road connections to Central Russia. After Minsk (controlled by China), there was a small jungle that Chinese cavalries could not pass very fast. And so, Germany slowly took over the empty lands of Russia, and finally passed China as world's number one power nation. And then, German cavalries started to take over the big eastern Chinese cities. First Minsk was captured, and then St. Petersburgh. Altough St. Petersburgh culture-flipped once back to China; China was indeed a strong cultural power compared to Germany and all other nations on the continent (altough the distant India, that had it's own island, was the real cultural leader of the world).

This culture flip made Hitler think. He started thinking about how all nations were democratic except for China (communist) and Germany (monarchy). He started thinking about how every other nation had at least one wonder and Germany had none. He started thinking about building a wonder that would ensure the low war-weariness in Germany even if Germany became democratic. And indeed, he decided that an Iron Works must be build in Berlin (Berlin had both iron and coal near it). And, after it was finished, Hitler would start to build the Universal Suffrage.

"Once it is finished, we will immediately turn democratic", Hitler promised to it's allies, America and Finland, as well as to other democratic nations, Japan, India and England. Prime minister Winston Churchill and Emperor Hirohito didn't seem to buy this: both were really annoyed with Hitler for some reason - perhaps they could see through his charisma and false promises.

---

China started to fall, as the first really big and culturally enormous city of Macao (that had JC Bach's cathedral) was captured by Germany after a long struggle. Macao had had tons of drafted riflemen protecting the city, but it had not been enough, as new railroads were build by Chinese and Russian slaves and Germany could bring new cavalries to replace those that had died in action. And finaly things started to develope in the southern front as well: After capturing Hangchow, Finland broke it's way through to Shanghai, which was another cultural "giant", having such wonders as Art of War and Magellan's Expedition.

But Germany, that had in the meanwhile completed it's Universal Suffrage and was now turning democratic, decided that right now it was more important to fill the empty lands of scattered Russia with aryan settlers than to complete the battle against big Chinese cities (only 4 big cities were left, and all would have been extremely hard to conquer). But for Hitlers utter amazement, China had - along with those 4 big cities - 2 little cities in the former Russia. Somehow they had managed to sneak a few settlers through the strong German defence lines! And both of those cities had riflemen defending them.

Hitler knew that he had a mutual protection pack with America and Finland so he knew that if he made peace with China, he would have to break it.

He didn't care.

Hitler simply wanted to get those two cities and thus secure the unity of German lands, and that's excatly what he did. Germany also got a couble of techs from China (they had fallen behind in tech, as Hitler wanted to spend more money on buying military stuff and he had needed money for that). And so, by having these two cities and by building new ones on the scattered Russia (such as New Berlin, New Leiptzig and many other), Germany had created an empire that was easily the greatest in the world.

Japan also joined the war against China at the very end of the war (apparently Finland had agreed a military alliance with them) and conquered the last Chinese cities that were also the biggest ones and the hardest to conquer: Sverdlovsk, Bejing and Nanking, among others. When Finland expanded north by taking over Tsingtao, China was finaly destroyed and Mao was executed in Berlin.

But apparently the rest of the world didn't want to forget the fact that Hitler had betrayed China by signing a peace that he was bound to break. America demanded money in order for Hitler to keep the mutual protection pack going. Finland might have quessed that Hitler wanted to become strong by wars, as Mannerheim refused to continue the pact no matter how much money Germany offered them. But still, Mannerheim stood polite towards Hitler and kept the Right of Passage that they had.

In the east, Japan, England and India were not only cautios but actually quite annoyed towards Germany now. Gandhi of the Indians changed his mind after starting a trading contract and signing a Right of Passage. But Churchill and Hirohito stood annoyed even after signing right of passages.

Hitler was not afraid of Churchill. England wasn't very powerful, and they were European civilized people, just as the Germans. But the Japanese... oh boy! Not only that Germany was now sharing a borderline with Japan, the Japanese had such a strong culture that they might actually culture-flip some of the former Chinese towns (and still, India was so powerful in culture that Japan couldn't even be compared to it; India had already culture flipped two Japanese towns, to give "the people of the island" a solid footstand in the continent!)

Hitler had recently developed these new magnificient things called "panzers", and they were the greatest war-machine the world had ever seen! America had tanks, too, but they weren't nearly as fast as German panzers. And Hitler knew that making these great things and not using them would be a total waste. So, he started to place battleships and tanks near the borders of Japan and Germany. He planned to wait until the right of passage treatment would dissolve, which would take place in 10 turns.

He really did plan that.

But then German scinetists invented computers, and Germany developed a new great defending unit called Mechanical Infantry. And the capabilities of this unit scared Hitler; he knew that Japan (2nd in tech while Germany was leading) would be capable of soon having the same technology.

It was time to throw the Right of Passage agreement to carbage can. So, Hitler's panzers crossed the line of Japan and Germany - and the only fear that Hitler had was how other nations would take the fact that he had broken yet another treaty...

very nice, keep it up! Could us some pics, tho :).

The war against Japan started when battlecruisers started bombing the roads around the Japanese city of Sverdlovsk - a city they had captured from China and had already became a strong cultural center in the southeast Japan, having over a million inhabitants. And before the Japanese could react in any ways, the fast German panzers had already taken the city. And so, the originally Russian city of Sverdlovsk had once again different host nation - Germany was now the 4th owner of the city, after Russia, China and Japan.

Now the German panzers could use the railroad from Germany to Sverdlovsk, and Hitler saw that the small city of Hakodate was also capturable from Sverdlovsk. So, he send more panzers from Germany to Sverdlovsk and from there, these fast panzers were able to reach Hakodate and capture it. Germany had been so fast that Japan still had not reacted in any ways.

It was during these times when Hitler first had the idea of building an organization where all nations of the world could have worked together. Hitler called his invention "the United Nations", and the construction started immediatly in Berlin.

At the same time, Japan had invented computers and their defence was now greater than ever. Hitler's tanks and battlecruisers (as well as bombers) gathered around the huge city of Kagoshima that was located north from Hakodate, near the very central of Japan. And the battle for Kagoshima was long; during that time, Finland captured Bejing and England (that had been dragged to the war by Finland) captured Nanking. Kagoshima seemed invincible.

But it wasn't. After getting more and more bombers and more and more battlecruisers to the area, the town started slowly falling. And finally the last Mech Infantry was destroyed by a German elite tank in a shor battle outside of town.

The panzers marched in. The German Empire was now at it's greatest peak; a golden age had started following the first victories that panzers had taken earlier, in Sverdlovsk. But now, Germany had to start defending themselves; the Japanese started to take strong actions to take Kagoshima back. At the same time, the German people were getting annoyed with the war. And so were some of the world leaders: Mannerheim didn't like the fact that Germany had broken a Right of Passage agreement with Japan without any warning.

Finland ended their Mutual Protection pack with Germany.

"I've got no need to worry", told Hitler to himself. "Japan is still the second biggest country after Germany, so if there will be a voting between these two nations, Germany WILL WIN!"

And next, his agents came in.

"Heil Fuhrer! We have found out that the Brits are building the very same wonder we are - the United Nations - and they are a little bit ahead of us!" said Hitler's agent. Hitler started sobbing quitely.

"Sabotage.... we need to sabotage..." Hitler whispered in tears.

"What did you say?" asked the agent, who hadn't heard Hitler's whispering.

"SABOTAGE! DESTROY THEIR CONSTRUCTION WORK IN LONDON!"

Hitler knew what a great risk he was taking. If the sabotage would for some reason fail, he would have lost all his play cards in the field of international relations. And at the same time, democracy was slowly falling in Germany, as more and more people started to protest against the war of Japan.

But Hitler's plan worked. The United Nations were build in Berlin, as he had planned, and all the leaders of other nations - Hirohito, Gandhi, Mannerheim, Roosevelt, and Churchill - were sitting on their places, when Hitler started to talk.

"We are here to vote for the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The candidates are the two leaders of two biggest nations. And, due to losses that Japan has lost in it's war, England has apparently passed Japan in size. So, the candidates are Hitler of Germany and Churchill of England. We shall now vote."

And the result of the voting was:

Hitler (Germany) - Hitler
Roosevelt (America) - Hitler
Mannerheim (Finland) - Churchill
Hirohito (Japan) - Abstain
Churchill (England) - Churchill
Gandhi (India) - Hitler

No majority was found in the elections. Hitler looked at the results, shocked; Germany's oldest friend, Finland, had voted for Churchill. And, while usually neutral India had perhaps a bit surprisingly voted for Hitler, it was Mannerheim's surprising vote that was now stopping Hitler.

"We will declare war on them! We will make peace with Japan and then go against Finland!" Hitler yelled to his advisor.

"But sire, there is an easier way. Just renew the Mutual Protection Pack that Finland cancelled some time ago!" his advisor answered.

And Hitler did just that. Altough he paid Mannerheim a huge price for it; the technology of Ecology, and 500 pieces of gold. At the same time, Japanese armies took back the city of Kagoshima. And Hitler had to spend more and more of his money on luxuries to keep the people happy! Hitler knew that, altough Germany might now be at the peak of it's power, having a golden age and all, Germany was now closer of falling into depression; anarchy was knocking at the door when more and more people rebelled, and the only way to avoid anarchy would have been to end the war of Japan - and that would have required braking of yet another treaty (Finland and America had signed alliance against Japanese).

A new election took place soon. People voted the following way:

Hitler (Germany) - Hitler
Roosevelt (America) - Hitler
Mannerheim (Finland) - Hitler
Hirohito (Japan) - Abstain
Churchill (England) - Churchill
Gandhi (India) - Hitler

Hitler got 4 votes out of 6. That was enough.

---

That's it. I would have never imagined that I would end up taking a diplomatic victory out of this one :p. Got a bit over 3000 points, the game ended in about 1600 AD, I can't quite remember the exact date.

Anyways... I promise to learn to attach images before writing more stories :D