Catherine was so pleased, those evil brutes Tokugawa & Xerxes had been punished for the earlier insults and her nation reigned as the leader in all important categories. In 1000 AD with Persia & Japan reduced to single cities, Catherine granted each nation a reprieve and signed peace with them. At about the same time a Wonder Cascade began with JS Bachs Cathedral in Washington, Copernicus in Ur, Newtons in Mohacs and Smiths in Moscow. After a trade with Babylon to acquire Medicine and silks, Catherine called her generals together. Ive just returned from Rome and after careful consideration, I have selected Caesars capital as the location that I want to move the palace to. Youll need to plan for the complete assimilation of Rome as I would be concerned about partisans creating trouble if they had a shred of hope left.
In 1870 AD, Ivan the Terrible waited on his horse for the sun to break the horizon and signal the beginning of the end of Rome. The mighty Cossacks were well beyond anything the Roman pikes & muskets were ready for and Rome with the Pyramids and Great Wall fell with little fanfare. Catherine had also decided to end the Japanese threat and a brief stop by a couple of Cossacks ended Tokugawas time on the planet. One by one the Roman Empire went from Red to Brown and in 1160 AD the final city fell. This battle also produced the birth of Ivan the Terrible as the first great leader of Russia. He sped to Rome to complete Catherines dream of a warm weather palace in 1170 AD. For the next century, peace would be the order of the day as Catherine busied herself in improving the lands that had once been Caesars.
The time for expansion has come again Catherine said to her military leaders And the Zulu shall be the first to face the pair of mighty Cossack Armies now leading the forces of Russia. Shaka was surprised at the declaration of war and swore to see Catherines head on a platter as he ranted in his palace. While he was screaming at the walls, the Russian troops seemingly appeared from nowhere and steamrolled the Impi defenders of nine Zulu cities. The great Leaders Peter the Great and Lenin made appearances and were quickly given command of Cossack Armies. Seeing the Zulu in a weakened state, the Iroquois and Americans jumped into the fray and began grabbing cities until in 1320 AD, when Shaka was exiled in the island city of Tugela, where Hiawatha would execute him in 1370 AD. During the period of his exile, Catherine decided to remove Xerxes from the planet and her revenge on her early tormentors was complete. She now had only Brennus, who had twice blackmailed her for wines, left to punish.
With the completion of the Military Academy in Moscow, Catherine began stockpiling armies for a rainy day. The Heroic Epic would also complete in Tblisi and would lead to many Great Leaders in the future for Russia. The discovery of Replacement Parts brought an amazing quirk of fate to light. Russia controlled seven of the ten sources of rubber on the planet and the remaining three were obtainable. Without rubber, her opponents would be greatly handicapped and would be without a key component of the space ship. The completion of Universal Suffrage greatly pleased Catherine, though it would be of little help as time went on. Also with the stationing of an infantryman defender in each border city, Russia had finally gained some sense of security. The completion of the Theory of Evolution, led to Russia cementing her hold on the top of the scientific ladder. With the acquisition of Sanitation, Russia began to sprout Metropolis across her lands.
The second target of the Russian Cossacks would be the Vikings. However, after the initial offensive razing one and capturing from Ragnar, China attacked without warning and captured Kagoshima killing the infantry defender. Catherine was in a quandary, her troops were on the wrong side of Ragnar to reach the Chinese core and most of the Russian offensive forces were out of position. Quickly arranged pacts brought the Iroquois, Americans and Aztecs in against the Chinese and the Russians returned to concentrate on the Vikings capturing twelve additional cities, including Nidaros with Shakespeares Theater. During these conquests, a trio of great leaders was born and a pair went to Moscow to become future army leaders and the third went to Tbilsi to hurry along the Hoover Dam. After losing Norrkoping and a Cossack Army on R&R, the remaining northern Viking cities were quickly crushed, leaving Ragnar to hide out in his remaining city on the southern tundra until Hiawatha executed him in 1505 AD. The completion of the Pentagon in 1485 AD provided Catherine with sufficient power, that once the troops were healed, to turn on China. China had been steadily losing cities to the Iroquois and had few defenders to counter the speedy Cossacks who overran the final Chinese city in 1510 AD.
After a brief respite, a weakened America was next. With only a couple of rifles and cavalry defending their eight cities, six including Washington with JS Bachs Cathedral & Sun Tzus War Academy went to Russia, with the Iroquois finishing America off in 1565 AD. Once again it was time for peace and with the discovery of flight in 1605 AD Russia entered the Modern Era getting fission. The completion of Wall Street in Rome had now assured that Russia would be the commercial leader of the world.
With the completion of the United Nations in 1660 AD Russia now was in control of all of the possible endings for this story. The completion of SETI and the upgrading to Mechanized Infantry of all of the border guards highlighted 1675 AD. With spies planted in Babylon & Entremont, Catherine was now able to monitor the armies and space ship progress of her closest competitors.
As Catherine sat in Rome admiring the fireworks in the sky she thought how the new breakthrough in genetics had led to both the Cure for Cancer and Longevity. Where to go now she thought, I suppose a space ship ride home is something I should start considering. But first theres a little issue with Montezuma and control of the final two sources of rubber not in my lands. The Aztecs had rubber, but had yet to reach the industrial age, so didnt know what to do with it. The war was brief and quite uneventful and in 1778 AD Montezuma was only a paragraph in history textbooks. With the completion of the Manhattan Project in Rome and the acquisition of rocketry from the Celts, the potential of a nuclear war frightened Catherine. She had spent the last 100 years directing pollution cleanup and was terrified of the labor needs to recover from just a small exchange of nukes. With the discovery of Synthetic Fibers in 1782 AD, the over 100 tank crews were quickly retrained to operate Modern Tanks and formed into 23 Armies of Modern Armor. With Mutual Protection Pacts with all the nations in place, Catherine knew it would only be a matter of time before they would be battle tested.
I guess we got those Modern Armor Armies trained just in time as in 1784, Babylon declared on the Celts and Russia was suddenly at war with the Celts (Hammurabi was smart enough to attack only in his own lands). While the Celts were a major power on the planet, the cavalry, rifles and guerilla units were no match for Modern Armor Armies. By 1794, the Celts were gone, Russia owned Newtons University in Mohacs and there was a new Russian Great Leader (the 8th) plus 7 more cities were gifted to Babylon. Just when Catherine began to worry about a cultural victory Babylon completed the Internet in Ur. By packing in new cities and then gifting them to Babylon she would be able to prevent that undesirable conclusion.
In 1814 AD, Space Flight and the accompanying Apollo Program came to the world stage and Romes production was now focused on parts for the new Space Ship. With four pieces in the space ship complete, the time came for Hiawatha to leave. The Great Library and Hanging Gardens joined Catherines World Wonder collection and by relocating San Francisco slightly east, the Iron Works wonder was completed there under the auspices of Trotsky (9th GL). By 1860 Hiawatha was trapped in the same final city as Shaka and Russia had now spawned four more great leaders (now up to 13). And in 1868 its just Hammurabi and Catherine. The space race had begun with Russia having the ship 60% complete and Babylon 30% in 1884, when Hammurabi made the first of three fatal errors, by abusing the right of passage with Russia and capturing the undefended city of Veii. The defenders of Babylon had no chance. The capital with the Sistine Chapel, Colossus, the Oracle and Babylons Space Ship was captured. Also Ashur with Magellans and six other of Hammurabis cities were captured as the Russian armor rolled over the few infantry the Babylon managed to create when he had brief rubber access. Great Leaders, 14, 15 & 16 joined the roster of heroes of Russia as three more cities of Hammurabi were razed before Catherine granted the beleaguered Hammurabi peace. And in 1900 AD with the seventh part added to the spaceship, Catherine began to wonder if the clock might run out before shed be able to complete her quest to 2050 AD.
The next 100 years seemed like an eternity of irrigation, railroading and pollution cleanup. Two more pieces were added to the spaceship (9 of 10) and in 1989 the Strategic Missile Defense was completed in Rome, leaving only Copernicus, the Internet and Magellan (in the flipped city of Ashur) left to complete her wonder collection. During this century Babylon resurrected its space program and in 1986 was 80% of the way to a working spaceship.
In 2038 AD, Catherine sat daydreaming in another of what seemed to be an endless series of daily staff meetings discussing new pollution cleanup and what too research now that Advanced Flight was discovered, when her foreign minister caused a minor riot by stating that our spy in Babylon has discovered the presence of an ICBM in Nineveh (the new capital of Babylon). While Russia had over 50 nuclear weapons ranging from the four tactical nukes on submarines off the Babylonian coastlines to the 48 ICBMs quietly sleeping in silos throughout the Kingdom of Russia, the fact that Babylon had first strike ability troubled Catherine. Her SDI project was in place, but her scientists could not assure her a 100% rate in knocking down incoming missiles.
With her goal in sight just 10 years from completion, Hammurabi made mistake number two, by abusing the right of passage once again in capturing Persepolis. Catherines response was fast and furious capturing Ur with the Internet and Copernicus Observatory and Ashur with Magellans Voyage giving her a full wonder set. By razing Nineveh both the Babylonian SS and an ICBM (1 of 2) were destroyed. Nine other Babylonian cities were put to the torch before Hammurabi made his third and final error by launching his remaining ICBM at Moscow. The SDI project proved that the 50% effectiveness is all you need by knocking out the nuke before impact. The gloves were off now and Hammurabi would pay a terrible price as every city in his empire suffered a nuclear strike (some got two or more hits) and 28 of them would be razed before peace was signed for a final time in 2045 AD.
Finally in 2050 AD Catherine was called home to celebrate her victory.
[Editors Note: Histographic victory in 2050 AD taking 150 hours 26 minutes. Firaxis score: 11289 Jason score: 5567]
Paperbeetle: Sometimes you've got to let the little guy know who's boss. In the words of Dirty Harry "A man's got to know his limitation" and Hammurabi just made my day.
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
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![[civ3mac]](/images/smilies/macciv3.gif "Mac Civ3 Icon [civ3mac]")
Open
, only 11K Firaxis & 5500 Jason - That's my second (first was GOTM # 1) and last attempt at histographic victory. 
