Lonely Hearts Club, BtS Edition, Chapter XLIX: Mao Zedong

Dark times were expected. Dark times came.

Feeling overconfident because of his people's advancements in knowledge, the learned yet brutal Russian leader decided he would attack us, peaceful neighbors.




He barely knew that what we lacked in technology we had in numbers. He sent one Cuirassier to escort a batallion of siege. Not on my watch!




A while later, the savage of the northern island sensed blood and joined his uneasy ally.




All of our troops were stationed to quickly respond to the Russian threat and we didn't see it coming. Beijing fell.




Would this be the end of the glorious Middle Kingdom?
Not before Rifles!!!


Nearly all of the inhabitants who were still loyal to Beijing had to be sacrificed to rebuild the palace for our king's return. The Russians, seeing the futility of their endeavours, came back to reason.



The English evil overlord wasn't being reasonable and refused to even sign a cease fire. Fortunately, Chamberlain, one of the most influential English politicians, offered to mediate our conflicts. We all celebrated his appeasement policy.


Our kingdom is no longer so backwards. We still have a lot of catching up to do, but we will soon have the chance to claim a pay back for this humiliation. There are rumours of personal liberties in other nations making our people uneasy. So we're researching Democracy to calm them down. After that it's war! We're heading straight to Chemistry then Steel to crush the mighty Russian bear while teching Rifling. Then John Bull shall become an ox.


Not much love going on.



Stalin is once again preparing for war. We'll have our muskets blast fire upon his little soldiers and our Knights will stomp their fancy Cuirassiers. This is definitely going to be a warmonger late game. We'll survive the upcoming battles, then take control of the British/Russian island. After that the world will bow in submission or be stomped!

So I DOW Stalin. I knew he had Assembly Line on me. I knew he had a defensive pact with Churchill. I know I should have waited him to attack someone to fight him alone. What I didn't know was that he already had Artillery. I'd been monitoring his research ever since I met him, but I guess I missed him trading it with somebody. If he didn't have Arties, my stack would have cut it, but I'd need twice as many troops to deal with him the way it was. My bad!

So this is what I sent:


BTW, why did Moscow have to be on a hill with two gold mines? Why was it Stalin and not Mansa Musa? But, this is what he had as garrison:



The impossible happened:



He sent a stack on me. Can I fight it off?






Yes, I can!!! Now, this is where I quit:



I should have prepared a second stack to join my troops then. If I had done it, I might have kept the city. The way it was, it was just waiting to get killed.


Now I'm mad! I'm going to replay this LHC tomorrow from the start. It's not going to be such an honest game because I already know the map, but I'm not going to do it because I'm a nice guy, I'll do it because I'll pound that f*cking Russian!

PS. Forgive my language.

I restarted the game. I chose to avoid early contact with Stalin and place less cities. When I expand, this will pay off - I guess. De Gaulle is the top dog here and he already demanded tribute twice. I happily gave in. The weirdest thing happened: he was already in red fist mode and demanded tribute. Now we have a peace treaty but I guess he was already planning to attack me, so he disembarked a lot of knights in my island. I still have some unclaimed tiles there. I guess I'll hurry a settler so that his troops will fly away when and if he declares.
The plan remains the same: Domination, Conquest or Let's get this over with Diplomatic.

Once more, I restarted this map. Let's hope this time I can bring home a victory. I experimented with the so called Hammer Economy this time. The first few cities I founded fueled my research by building Wealth. The riverside ones in the jungle and the capital were cottaged. This was possible because I got Metal Casting with the Oracle. (I was going to test that double click and get all the techs bug, but I forgot it when I completed both the Oracle and Liberalism. ) I built the Great Wall once more. Come on, we all know I'll be DOWed and the double GG production will help me a lot. My GNP is one of the smallest, but I'm second in production (Stalin already has AL), so I can catch up easy. I want to get to AL, Flight, Fascism, Artillery and possibly Industrialism to go to war. I won't rush things this time. The People's Republic of China will take over the world!
















I'll have to wait until Saturday to report the rest. I won't have electricity tomorrow. Unless I finish the game today.

Stalin almost won Domination. He vassalized the whole continent of Pacal and AC and declared war on the de Gaulle / Alex team. They didn't even have Rifling and he was getting close to Industrialism. I had to mess my whole diplomacy (they were pariahs and WEs of pretty much everyone) to give (yes, give) corporation, steam power, rifling, assembly line and railroad to de Gaulle. Two turns later Stalin signed a peace treaty. A while later Augustus Caesar broke free from Stalin. When I saw Stalin getting close to being unstoppable, I had to stop everything I was doing, start a Golden Age and build research in all my cities with the slider at 100% science. I could get the basic military techs (some I already had): Assembly Line, Combustion (forget about big cities), Flight, Fascism and Artillery. I prepared a stack that I believe will be able to fight Stalin and am in the turn I'll declare war. I only have those odd Arties to protect myself from other Arties. Stalin already has Industrialism so I'm a little afraid. I think I might have too few Anti-Tanks... Let's see. Anywho, I think I only have a shot here because it's Marathon. I don't know about Epic, but I'd be hopeless on Normal. (Normal speed lovers: enjoy it, I don't usually admit that Normal can be harder than Marathon).

Finally won this game!!! The game lasted until October of 1973, but I won Domination. That stack was more than enough to conquer Stalin. I was mistaken and he didn't have Industrialism. I conquered his whole homeland, but he wouldn't cap. We made peace and he could keep two former Maya cities in permanent revolt. I decided I wouldn't take any vassals either.

After Stalin, it was time to tackle Churchill. I doubled my stack and attacked him in two fronts. I had to be fast because he was some turns away from Advanced Flight. He already had Mechanized Infantries, but they couldn't stop my Paras/Fighters combo. I learned that one cannot capture the Internet.

As soon as the war ended, I regrouped my attacking stacks and sent them to have a chat with Pacal (unfortunately I deleted the screenshot). It was easy because I had to face mostly Infantries and Marines. Then de Gaulle declared war on Washington and asked for my help. Conquering Washington was already in my plans, so I obliged. It was good because those stupid AIs would have become master and vassal and that would be a problem. De Gaulle got to keep one American city until the end.

Then it was time to finish what I started with Stalin. As he only had two cities, plus four of Bismarck, it was really quick.

I had already prepared a third stack to attack Rome, so I put them in the right places then declared. Augustus already had Mechanized Infantries too, but I learned that with Air Superiority, they became soft targets.

After the war against Rome, I had 60ish% of the world land. I adjusted my culture slider (was already in Free Speech) and relaxed. A few turns later, I won. BTW, I had a defensive pact with de Gaulle, in case aliens attacked either of us.

Awesome, I love how you turned the tables on Stalin, who was about to win Domination. Very well-played.

Thank you very much, but I was already familiar with the map and its dynamics. That made things way easier.