1955 AD - The Pentagon is completed in Ephesus! Our armies will grow as soon as we get a few more troops!
Our first priority is reclaiming the city of Veii. Persia has just one Immortal guarding it, so we expect an easy battle.
That is just what it is, and the city is Greek once again. Going so quickly from Roman to Greek to Mongol to Persia to Greek again is
getting it fairly close to Frankfurt fairly quickly in the change-of-ownership category.
Our Artillery units move inside the city to be guarded by the tank, as they currently lack any other sufficient guard unit. By Cumae, an Elite Marine defeats the Infantry threatening the Redlined Elite Marine guarding the city, and the front is as secure as we can get it before reinforcements arrive.
There is good news, though - reinforcements are coming this turn! A Tank leads the way towards saving our weary troops.
Unfortunately that redlined Infantry redlines my Tank before falling. The tank can still reach Cumae, helping the defense slightly, but we were hoping for a slightly more definitive triumph.
It didn't come from the second tank, either, which repeated the narrow victory of the first.
Naval battle time already? Well, we spotted a Persian Ironclad, so we figure why delay its sinking?
The main task, though, is to destroy the Korean offensive once and for all. Our Bombers get us a good start on that.
It takes just three bombing runs to destroy the last Korean Infantry in the Middle East. The Korean offensive there was nearly a complete defeat, only a couple of our tanks falling saving them from that fate. With the Middle Eastern invasion gone, Hector begins work on defeating the Korean guerillas in the Gobi.
He makes quick work of them. Theodoros Kolokotronis was planning to be the next to help against the Guerillas, but headed a bit north first and spotted some Persian Cavalry threatening the Byzantine city of Nicaea.
So, helping our allies a bit, as well as insuring the Persians don't come south and attack Gergovia, Theodoros attacks the Cavalry and defeats three of the five. Another tank finishes the rest, and Persia is back down to seven Cavalry. A quick survey of Byzantine land by Ajax shows few Persian troops remaining in Byzantine territory and shows Parsagadae, Gordium, Tsingtao, and Beijing to all be within one-turn strike distance for Greek tanks. We still lack the sufficient troops to actually do this, but when we have the tanks...
Our efforts against the Gobi Guerillas run into some difficulties, with the first four attacks after those by Hector resulting in one victory, one dead Elite Marine, and two retreats, one from a Tank and one from a Mechanized Infantry. Mind, we had 2:1 attack:defense advantages in all of these battles. Not willing to give up victory this turn, we send the injured Mech Inf and Tank to defend positions in India, and have the Infantry defending two Indian cities come out to fight the Guerillas. These foot soldiers do much better than the units built for offense, and the Gobi is clear of Guerillas.
Back at sea, one of our Cruisers defeats an Incan Galley - but takes one hitpoint of damage
! An Elite Cruiser being damaged by arrows? Sad, but true.
1955 IBT - "Your honor, an envoy from Queen Isabella wishes to deliver a message in person," the King's advisor informed him.
"In person? What news can be so important?" asked the King.
"They would not say, but assured me the meeting would not take long. I can only guess they have achieved a great victory they think we will be impressed with and are hoping for accolades for that - or perhaps that they decided to join us on another front. Will you see them?"
"Very well," replied the King. He didn't expect anything too extraordinary, maybe a trade offer with a considerable sum of gold behind it. So long as the meeting wasn't too long, however, it was acceptable.
And indeed their message was quite short:
Rather stunned, the King allowed them to return with their heads. The Spanish had been friendly the last time he remembered meeting with them, what had changed them so quickly? He could only guess large amounts of Korean resources were at play.
Three days later, a similar request came from a Scandinavian convoy. They hadn't been as friendly recently, and the Spanish message was still quite present on the King's mind, but he figured, what are the chances of another similar message? Well, he soon found out:
The Greeks were now at war with every civilization on the Europe-Asia-Africa landmass except the Byzantines, Mongols, Babylonians, and Zulu, and only the first two of those were useful allies. At least none of the enemies had been too fear-inspiring on the battlefield recently. But Korea, the one who had most failed in their offensives, soon gave signs that this might change soon.
They had Flight, and they had Bombers. The AI were advancing. No AI tanks were yet known of, but any advance into Korea would now be frought with bombs - and the safety of Armies in such an invasion was not guaranteed.
The tides of war had swung back and forth in the past five years, from a clear Greek advantage, to the Greeks facing a huge invasion, to the invasion being repelled and the Greeks just about to go on the offensive again, to now facing two new enemies and bombers from one of their foes. It could only be wondered what would be next.
And there you have it. China becoming an ally against a new enemy. Or, in other words, China making a case for us not to conquer them despite our realizing they are within striking distance.
Many other alliances were also signed this turn, none of them likely to result in any city captures. The Americans and Inca made peace, but all in all, the trend was very much towards war this turn. In a fair number of cases, war against Greece.
The new wars are an inconvenience to Greece, certainly, but will they really hamper us? And will the AI Bombers prove a significant danger? Only the future will tell.
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
! I'll have the latest save file uploaded in just a moment. The size of the saves has exceeded the maximum for attaching it directly to posts for several centuries now.
