Sitting Bull looked at the map, cross-referencing it against his troop manifests. The pieces were finally coming together. Europe would soon be his.
But first, the predatory East Indiamen patrolling the North Atlantic would need to be dealt with:
Rotterdam was a pitiful encampment huddled against the Scandinavian mountains, defended only by an antiquated order of Knights and an archaic garrison of Longbows. Nevertheless, the natural ebullience of the Dutch, as well as their fiercely independent streak, pushed the borders of Sitting Bull's English colonies and allowed them to serve as a symbol of defiance for Willem.
The settlement fell quickly:
And burned. The Dutch, at this point, could plainly see that they were embroiled in a war of annihilation that they could not hope to win. Willem the Silent offered everything, even capitulation, if Sitting Bull would only call off his assault.
The Native American king briefly considered the offer, but the Dutch were practically annihilated, and this, coupled with the fact that they would forever chafe beneath foreign rule, led Sitting Bull to decide against it.
A trio of Riflemen units landed outside Willem's polar redoubt:
The fighting was intense. Sitting Bull's Riflemen were better equipped, and even trained themselves in fighting against bowmen before making their assault. The Longbows, though, made full use of the rocky terrain, fortifying behind the river and bringing the battle to a stalemate.
Reinforcements were needed:
And the Netherlands were no more. Willem the Silent was made to scream in secret interrogation chambers below Cahokia. But he knew very little, so he was allowed to live out the rest of his days in relative peace and luxury on a Cuban Spice Plantation.
The next target of opportunity was, of course, Joao on the Iberian peninsula. He held fantastic lands, but he lacked the sheer bulk of it to be a major player in world politics. Indeed, he was reduced to being the lackey of the Khmer, who were, themselves, outcast and despised. So there would be no real love lost when Sitting Bull declared war:
Forces could not be spared to move against Suryavarman, but he was no threat, and he could not hate America any more than he already did.
Apparently, on this world,
Heron of Alexandria was actually born somewhere in Nevada:
+1 relations with the rest of the world was tempting in the short run, but, in the long run, Sitting Bull was going to be declaring war on everyone anyway, and two turns' worth of free research was nothing to scoff at.
By 1450, Native American troops had taken up positions outside of the Portuguese capital:
The Portuguese were not the fighters that the Dutch were. They had never known real war, and so spent their days seeking riches and cultivating a Spy network rather than preparing for battle.
The Battle of Lisbon was a rout:
And what a prize the city was! The Great Lighthouse was obsolete, but the city was full of valuable infrastructure and even staffed with a pair of Great Prophets.
Farther north, meanwhile, Hammurabi threw his weight around a little bit:
Vienne would forever suffer unless Babylon's grip on the continent could be loosened. Sitting Bull foresaw that he would be our first serious enemy in the Old World.
Before that could happen, though, Portugal would have to be destroyed:
Joao had never really offended Sitting Bull, so he was sent, straightaway, to Cuba, where he met his old neighbor Willem (Boudica, being a warrior princess, had chosen instead to die on the front lines in the Battle of Vienne).
By this point, tales of the relative freedoms of the Old World had reached the ears of the New:
This was a brewing crisis, but it could, at least, be postponed with the gratuitous application of more luxuries. At this point, the peoples of North America had two jobs: To build guns and to research bigger guns. For them to worry about such piddling things as "rights" was an insult to their glorious leader. You will also notice the odd assortment of Specialists in Hawkeye. With our Great Scientist already cooling his heels, and a Great Merchant from Tenochtitlan (He was supposed to be a Priest!), Sitting Bull pressed for anything other than a duplicate. If the people wanted Emancipation, Sitting Bull wasn't going to let them indulge in any Anarchy to get it.
With Portugal removed from the world stage and Joao II cooling his heels in the Caribbean, hostilities with the Khmer served no further purpose:
War would come again with southeast Asia, but not yet.
Now it was time to think about Hammurabi:
This would be a limited war, focused solely on kicking him out of Europe. It would, nevertheless, be Sitting Bull's first real clash against a major world power. Success would turn his beachhead into a real presence on the continent. Failure could push him off its shores entirely.
Here is a glance at the future battleground, northwestern Europe:
And our intelligence, thus far, as to how our forces stack up:
Thankfully, Hammurabi is rather backward in terms of military tech:
Unfortunately, quite a few of our opponents are on the cusp of Assembly Line, which could prove a major problem if we plan on overrunning the continent.
Finally, here's the Domestic Advisor:
The Hawkeye Great Person ended up being a second Scientist. Too little, too late in terms of adjustments, I guess. So we have two Scientists and a Merchant. What should we do with them? Does war with Babylon seem to be the next logical step? We'll have Railroads shortly. Should our next target be Communism or Democracy? Or maybe Assembly Line? Hopefully we have more discussion than the last round spawned
The save:
) is with almost 10% of revolting chance to Hannibal. That is expectable in a highly pressured city with only 2 units in .
?
Very nice. But bring enough troops to take care of the rest of Eurpoe.
All right, that makes the Assembly Line route that much less appealing. Artillery it is, then! And then maybe Combustion and Flight. Early Airports would make a big difference in the logistics of an intercontinental war and, well, I don't think I need to go over the military boon that early Bombers would be... In the interim, Combustion would allow us to modernize our Navy. I'm not really seeing a downside.
