kiwitt
Road to War Modder
Not yet
Earth 2010 PBEM
- Thread starter Tigranes
- Start date
Tigranes
Armenian
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2008
- Messages
- 10,422
... Which particular Reply needs to be quoted?
Eclipse4449
Deity
"Rubbish"
Tigranes
Armenian
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2008
- Messages
- 10,422
Still not sure if I understand ... do you want me to quote you reply to my private proposal to you? 
And what does Rubbish has to do with this? You mean you've posted something you didn't want to post? Or is it your automatic forum robot makes posts you did not intend to make?
And what does Rubbish has to do with this? You mean you've posted something you didn't want to post? Or is it your automatic forum robot makes posts you did not intend to make?
kiwitt
Road to War Modder
Sent on the 26th
Luthor_Saxburg
Vassal of Civilization
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2005
- Messages
- 4,455
File finnally sent.
Asia is now free of Evil forces that eat babys for breakfast!
Chinese forces conquer it's first Arabian city! The education of the islamic arabics has started!
Onwards... let's create a new reality -a happy consumist communist society!!!
PS Nighthhawk, when I think about it... maybe you shouldn't have retired but allowed your allies to play with the remains of your nations?
Asia is now free of Evil forces that eat babys for breakfast!
Chinese forces conquer it's first Arabian city! The education of the islamic arabics has started!
Onwards... let's create a new reality -a happy consumist communist society!!!
PS Nighthhawk, when I think about it... maybe you shouldn't have retired but allowed your allies to play with the remains of your nations?
Tigranes
Armenian
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2008
- Messages
- 10,422
October 2014 is the 4th anniversary for the game that started October 2010. Russian forces celebrated the leadership of their charismatic leader Putin by bold conquest of England and Scotland. Former grey cardinal of Russian politics and now fervent opponent of our president -- fugitive Boris Berezovsky, who was hiding in London, was promptly arrested and brought to justice.
On the other side of the Atlantic Russian army emerged from the secret hide-out and invaded Washington. State of Washington, that is, no sweat, kiwitt
On the other side of the Atlantic Russian army emerged from the secret hide-out and invaded Washington. State of Washington, that is, no sweat, kiwitt
kiwitt
Road to War Modder
I may retire this game too! 2 against one is not fair 
Well done Tigranes and Luthor. We'll meet again and with more lessons learnt
Well done Tigranes and Luthor. We'll meet again and with more lessons learnt
Eclipse4449
Deity
Sent to Kiwitt
kiwitt
Road to War Modder
But Not just yetI may retire this game too! 2 against one is not fair
Well done Tigranes and Luthor. We'll meet again and with more lessons learnt
Nighthawk419
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2011
- Messages
- 4,321
There was really nothing that could do with it. All productive cities were taken and I had less then 10 units left, most of them injured. Believe me, if there was anything useful there, I would have handed it over or not retired at least!
Tigranes
Armenian
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2008
- Messages
- 10,422
Oh treacherous UK! Today is one year anniversary of you nuking wonderful beautiful peaceful Iceland! And then Germany conquering our Northern Capital Saint-Petersburg! How symbolic is that Germany ceased to exist exactly one year after. EU is no longer vassal and can breath freely with few cities liberated by benevolent Russians. Last UK city was liberated this turn -- symbolically Reykjavik in Iceland! I wonder what do they think in France? Isn't it time to join the victors? Disastrous omens follow one after another in France. First that nuclear meltdown in Paris, now this volcano eruption near Marseilles... Sarkozy, don't you believe in signs?
Eclipse4449
Deity
Even if we weren't locked into an alliance threw a checked box, an Alliance is an Alliance to the End whether it is though Victory or Defeat. France will never side with his Enemy!!!
Luthor_Saxburg
Vassal of Civilization
- Joined
- Jan 19, 2005
- Messages
- 4,455
Conclusion: the French rather be silly and dead than alive and wealthy.... good! More french wine for the rest of us!!! 
Nighthawk419
Deity
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2011
- Messages
- 4,321
I just wanted to post this for you guys... I wrote all this up over the course of a few days, its the E! True Hollywood Story of the Muslim Confederacy! Thought you'd all be interested to see it... I ran out of steam towards the end, but its a nice recap of the game, from my perspective, that of the two-faced double agent double crosser! If things had gone my way, rest assured I would have been at war with all of you, so the chances of me winning were probably down to zero from turn 1 with the way I think! I added a few screenshots in there (unedited) for some visual reminders. It's long, so happy reading...
Earth 2010 – The Rise and Fall of the Muslim Confederacy
At the start of the game I had the goal of consolidating these 6 civs into one giant Muslim caliphate, hence the coining of the term “Muslim Confederacy”. I knew I couldn’t compete with these civs acting individually, but combined they might be able to be feared. I also had the advantage of being able to declare war on the AI, which I had hoped to use quickly. Originally, I wanted to consolidate the entire Middle East into one entity, expand south and control Africa, and with a massive empire I’d be able to make up for the fact that the world powers were more advanced with my sheer numbers. Not that the human players would just let me do this, but it was an early plan at least. Based on the victory conditions and my position, the only chance I had to win was some form of domination. Luckily all of Africa was below me and is very large. The tough part was going to be taking Iraq and Israel, since they started as American vassals… I couldn’t just take those cities without declaring war on America, which was a very real possibility in my mind before the game even started. Originally, I expect to be declaring war on America at some point, which is why from the very beginning I started making threats about all the human players leaving the Middle East. I wanted all the human players units away from me, but specifically USA’s units. If he moved them back into Europe, I could then take Israel and Iraq before he could move units back, and then I’d be able to be defensive against USA’s limited units, with no easy way of reinforcing those units.
Of course this plan quickly went out the window, since after the first turn most of the world had vassaled to the human powers in some form or another, the biggest being the African countries vassaling to Russia. This effectively took away what little advantage I did get and I knew sooner or later I would be in a war with a world power, probably USA. I knew I needed to align myself with someone, whether it was secretly or not, in order to have a fighting chance in a war. Luckily for me, Tigranes of Russia soon left me a private message offering to be “secret allies”.
Tigranes was willing to support me secretly, since that was an easy way for him to cause problems with the rest of the humans without the real-life diplomatic hit. Around turn 1 this was still just a vague concept, I wasn’t really sure how it would work, but the idea was there. Having an ally so close to me was a huge benefit, and I was hoping to gain some military support to ultimately take Israel and Iraq and clear the “Old World” of all the American troops. Unfortunately he also mentioned how he would not support me if I consolidated my civs, so I couldn’t put my original plan into action from turn 1, it would need to wait.
With most of the world vassaled to the humans, I would need to pick my spots when it comes to war with the AI. I had no intention of going to war with any human anytime soon, I needed to prepare. However on one of the early turns, Iran broke free as a vassal from China (Luthor). This was my first mistake. For some reason I didn’t think anything through, and just saw an AI with no vassal relationships, defensive pacts, or alliances, and thought it was a good time to take it out. I essentially consolidated my starting military units among the 6, and moved them to Iran. I did not think of the diplomatic repercussions that I was essentially stealing Luthor’s vassal from him. After the “secret allies” email from Tigranes, and based on the public posturing from Europe and USA, I guess I just assumed Luthor would support me “helping” him in a war and I wouldn’t get any heat from the other humans other than public finger wagging. Obviously, I was completely wrong.
Tigranes completely turned on me out of nowhere, playing “peacekeeper” publicly. He tried to have a UN motion to have all the other humans fight me, and when that failed, took it upon himself to remove me from the area. At least I can say I read Eclipse (Europe) and kiwitt (USA) correctly, in that they stayed passive and didn’t care to do anything about my invasion. USA even took notice of my threats and moved his army to a pile in Israel, theoretically leaving Iraq open for the taking, if I wanted to go there. Anyway, I was furious with what I saw as a backstab from Russia and even though I was unprepared to fight a human, decided to try and fight him anyway. I didn’t know to what extent he would send troops to me, and I HAD taken generally excess troops from 6 different civs, gifted them to Arabia and made a pretty nice sized army...
Unfortunately, while troop numbers were fairly even, Russia’s air superiority proved to be too much. Ultimately I was using weaker units against his full strength units, and with no other wars going on, I got the full brunt of Russian military. China did eventually get some units in the area, although we never actually fought, since I was forced to capitulate and sign a peace treaty or else risk getting wiped out. There is no way I could take on Russia and China combined by myself. The terms of peace were actually pretty favorable, all things considered.
As a result of the war, Pakistan formally became China’s vassal and paid them tribute in the form of gpt. Arabia/MC1 (being the main and true Muslim Confederacy, since I had begun consolidating the countries at the start of the war) unofficially capitulated to Russia. We were not formally a vassal, but gave gpt tribute as well. Also China wanted to keep me from being nuclear, so my only source of Uranium at the time in Pakistan was to be given to China. As part of the peace talks, I informed them that I had traded the Uranium and couldn’t cancel the deal right away, but I would cancel and gift it to China as soon as it was available. They would have been able to check up on me by checking the trade screen for the Uranium and as long as I couldn’t build nukes I think they were happy.
Meanwhile as the war is ending, Eclipse as Europe temporarily was replaced with sohleks, the world’s pre-eminent warmonger. Eclipse had been working on a corporate victory, but sohleks immediately noticed the threat of a Russian invasion and started working on preparing for a war. Sneakily, I had temporarily gifted my Uranium to Germany (during the peace talks above) to allow them to build a Nuke Weapons Facility which would be used for a nuclear war with Russia. Even after the 10 turns, I never mentioned the idea of cancelling the trade and sending the Uranium to China, hoping they would forget (which they did, or didn’t care where it was, as long as I didn’t have it).
After the terms of peace were agreed, I went into my shell and tried to act like I was mainly working on building up my infrastructure and was a peaceful non-threat to the world… which in a way I did. I consolidated the rest of the Muslim Confederacy except for Indonesia, which was separated anyway, and Pakistan, which was a vassal and couldn’t really be touched. I pretty much shut down teching and built up gold for rush-buying buildings to support the infrastructure… but also ran at 20% espionage, sending all of my points into Russia, because I was vowing to myself I would have revenge.
View attachment 344552
(Random picture of my spying in Russia)
The world situation at this time appeared peaceful on the surface, but I knew there was a world war brewing. Kiwitt had vowed to support the UK/Europe in any military action, and with sohleks at the helm, he was effectively preparing to defend against or attack Russia. Russia and China were acting like they were not 100% allies and the recent war was only a temporary alliance, but I’m pretty sure everyone saw through that and knew they were allied at this point. I was the 5th wheel and just pretended to be relatively neutral on the world stage while I was doing a lot in private communications.
After the end of our war, Tigranes immediately reached out to me again to offer support in a big brother-little brother situation. Tigranes wanted me on his team, but he wanted to make the decisions for me and have me do his bidding. Obviously he had the military strength to back it up, so even though I was planning on turning on him at some point, it only made sense to go along with him for now. There were no obvious AI’s worth attacking, and I needed to rebuild my military, among other things. I figured getting back on his good side would be useful to me down the line.
My master plan at this point was to get my revenge on Russia, but I also thought I could potentially win the game if the brewing world war was close enough that my involvement would swing it from one side to another. I hoped to play double agent for both the east and west, getting on both of their good sides, so that when the war did happen I could choose who to fight with to balance the scales… hopefully the ensuing nuclear fight would decimate both sides enough that the humans would be down to my level of third-world pathetic, and at least make the game more balanced and raise my chances of victory.
View attachment 344554
(More spying in Russia)
Getting on Russia’s good side was easy, since Tigranes was already willing to make concessions to get back on my good side, because that’s what he wanted all along. We had our “secret alliance” again, except this time he was able to dictate terms, as he wished. However getting on the west’s good side was tougher. Kiwitt at the time was not very talkative with diplomacy, and I think he was unsure of my position (for good reason!) because of my early threats against his forces in Israel and Iraq. He did not fully trust me. By this time I had sight into all of Russia’s cities and was working on spy points against China, and had gotten in so good so quickly with Tigranes, that I believed I knew their entire plan. Tigranes already had told me he was planning to invade Europe and basically win by domination, sight into his cities, lack of teching, and builds confirmed it. I wanted to tell the western allies all this info, and all I wanted to get was a guarantee that they would support me if I was attacked by Russia again. It’s for this reason that I didn’t tell the west about the eastern military buildup straight out sooner, which may have helped the west defend against Russia. Ultimately I did play double agent and told the west everything about the east, including nice screenshots of all of Russia’s units and builds (cue: Tigranes
!)
View attachment 344553
(Mad yet?)
mainly because I knew the east was building up military and the west probably was not able to keep up unless they were 100% focused on it (which they weren’t). At this point the idea of having an equal war was out the window – I knew the east would win at the rate things were going. It was no longer an option to choose sides in a war, I knew I’d be aligned with the west to try and help out. Luckily I did have an ace up my sleeve.
During all these behind the scenes discussions, the public discussion was on nuclear disarmament. An agreement had been made to slowly delete nukes, which I was conveniently left out of because everyone assumed I was no longer nuclear. This is where a major mistake was made by the west, after forgetting to delete a nuke for 1 rotation, Kiwitt decided to delete ALL OF HIS NUKES AT ONCE (hand-slap-to-forehead!). I KNEW the east was planning a war and deleting the nukes was only a ruse. Tigranes’ screenshots didn’t exactly show a before and after of his nuke unit count going down, it was simply a screenshot saying “are you sure you want to delete?” which could easily be cancelled. For all I knew Tigranes did actually delete ICBM’s, but it wasn’t all of them, that I knew. After USA deleted all their nukes, the east now had the nuclear advantage as well as military advantage. I quickly told the west all this info, to MAKE SURE THEY CONFIRMED THE DELETIONS… I needed all the nukes gone. Minimal response from the west, but they can’t say I didn’t keep them updated.
Anyway, back to my ace in the hole – there is Uranium in the Sahara desert south of Libya which required multiple border pops to get to… but I had pumped culture enough to get it and build a mine on it. Then I used the great farms of Cairo (my best city by a wide margin) to pop a Great Engineer and use it to build a 1-turn Nuke Weapons Facility in Khartoum. I was worried about eastern spies catching me going nuclear which would have surely ended our peaceful arrangement, but I also needed to take advantage of the nuclear disarmament talks to get nuclear myself if I was to have any chance in a world war. The fact that I built a Nuke Facility never would have been shown on anyone’s turn even if they could see my builds, because I switched over production, used the GE and the build switched back to the last production when the turn ended. The only way anyone could see it would be if they got sight into my cities and happened to open Khartoum, which was a risk I had to take. Khartoum was a strategic selection too – Cairo was a good enough city to build military units very fast which I would need for the war, so that city was out. Khartoum I had focused on a lot and managed to make it a decent production city that could build tactical nukes in 4-5 turns, but it also was not known as being such a great city that someone would be keying in on it. Also, it was in Africa, away from those Middle Eastern Arabian cities that would surely be the first to fall. Production on nukes was immediate, and I was rush-buying them as much as I could while still keeping up with building military.
My hope was that the disarmament plan would come to fruition and I would become the only guy in the world with nukes… which would then turn me into a key piece of the war. And with nukes in hand, I could actually help the west survive and maybe even win against the east. Of course my ultimate end-game was still the same, and as soon as the west started winning I would turn on them as well… the nuclear Middle East vs non-nuclear everyone else, who would have thought it??? Of course this would require a LOT of nukes, so I was hoping to keep the tentative world peace as long as I could, at least until I was ready. It was a delicate balance – I wanted to keep the peace until I was ready, so hopefully keep the east from attacking the west; I wanted the nuclear disarmament to actually happen without anyone knowing that I had nukes, so I also needed to store a bunch of nukes somewhere, then I also had to have the west and east get into a fight started by each other, so I would not be the main target and they could fight each other for a while before they got to me…
Here we pause and talk about internal developments with the east. As the east’s puppet, they wanted me to attack the AI. The east was hoping to draw western troops far out from their homes, so the east could then invade their empires and shut down production, eventually winning a war against them. Tigranes mentioned the idea of having me ultimately attack an AI in the Americas so as to have a base of operations for all of us to invade the USA, if the western allies didn’t respond. Of course I still needed more time and couldn’t afford to have the west and east fight just yet, so I warned the west that I was ordered to attack the AI by the east, and to publicly denounce the attack, but not actually do anything about it. I assured them I would return the cities eventually (lie) and it was being done to attempt to draw out western armies from their bases before an ultimate invasion in the Americas (convenient truth). Again, a cold response from the west… but I did gather some info when Kiwitt told me that he would not allow any attack on the AI in the Americas. Here is where I learned the tipping point of an ultimate war. I assured Kiwitt and the west that I would let them know when an attack on the Americas was coming so he could be prepared. (truth) I hoped to hold out as long as I could, but if an invasion of the Americas was about to happen, I planned on making sure I had a force ready to invade and nuke Russia the moment their army was sitting ducks in the middle of the ocean, with a big warning to the USA so they could sink as many transports as possible… I didn’t tell the west how I planned to react and turn on the east when the time came, just that I would turn on them before the invasion. The secret of my nukes needed to be kept that way, or else the world might consider me a real threat!
Anyway – Tigranes offered to sell me T-90’s, which considering a backstab was planned all along, I was basically willing to pay any reasonable price to buy them and reduce his army. I knew he wouldn’t sell me enough that would really reduce his army much, but every unit counts. I haggled the price down and looking back, I wish I had bought a lot more.
I used his units to attack our first target of Thailand after various other targets vassaled to humans, then quickly moved them back home to Arabia to be prepared for anything with my main forces.
Moving back to nuclear secrets – as I expected Tigranes was playing a game with nuclear disarmament talks and came to me wanting to hide his tactical nukes with me, since he was running out of ICBM’s to delete and ultimately a screenshot was going to be needed showing he has no more nukes. In a moment I still laugh about, he offered to pay me tanks in exchange for gifting me tactical nukes which I would hide in the Sahara in forts!! I tried to contain my enthusiasm and pretended to act like I didn’t want to do it because I was afraid of the west noticing I had nukes and attacking me. I also got a little greedy and attempted to ask for more in exchange, knowing full well that I would ultimately accept. If the nuclear disarmament ended with Russia gifting me a bunch of tactical nukes to hide for him, that basically just accelerated my ultimate plan anyway. It was nice thinking in my head that I’d be gifted the only remaining nukes in the world, and I’d give them back alright… except when I give them back they’d be exploded
View attachment 344555
(The only one I got to land, and it got taken back)
I will give Tigranes credit here – he was unwilling to do any deal unless I vassaled to him, which would have prevented me from using them on him or backstabbing him at all. This was the sticking point that we were discussing when Muslimgate exploded.
As I had mentioned above, I had been running 20% espionage for a long time, all of it going into Russia. One thing I didn’t know was that any player can see the espionage points spent against them by anyone else at any time. Tigranes this whole time hadn’t been checking for points spent by me against him, and during a random turn and doing his checks, he spotted the 8,000+ points I had built up against him, enough to overcome his counter-espionage efforts and have direct sight into his cities.
View attachment 344558
(This is what I'd like to think i started!)
Obviously this enraged him and he immediately said to vassal to him or die. I couldn’t backstab him as a vassal, so vassalization was not an option. I never received any gifted nukes, and couldn’t delay a war any longer, so accepting a fight was my only option. The only thing I had going for me at this point was that I was nuclear and could hopefully hit on a few nukes when he invaded. I also had warned Europe and the USA that an invasion was coming, so with a very long-winded post in the public thread, I was able to publicly plea for the west’s help, with the reasoning being that after the east takes me out, they would turn to the west and win the game. Between all of my warnings, screenshots and then telling them everything about Russia wanting to hide nukes, it all finally clicked and the west came to my defense against the east… unfortunately the war did not go well and the east ultimately won, as we all know.
View attachment 344556
(Nukes suck!)
There were no more secrets to hide, the east had more nukes, more units, better luck, and won a relatively quick war in civ terms. I was able to hold off Russia’s attacks from both his African vassals and from the Middle East, but once most of Europe fell, he brought his main force down to me and I just didn’t have enough firepower to win. In the second replay of 4 turns, none of my 2 tactical nukes landed (which they did the first time), and the other 2 I was able to build before Khartoum was taken also both missed, terrible luck. Marathon speed makes it tough to get a lot of nukes in a pretty short period of time, especially as a third world country. I didn’t really have any air force, I was building 1 turn F-15’s in Cairo, but it wasn’t enough to get air superiority, and without being able to easily build mass units, attrition finally got to me. I was hoping the west would be able to hold up better against the east and make it a longer war, where I might have been able to gain an advantage pumping out nukes, but sadly it was not to be. Once Khartoum and Cairo fell, my ability to produce was down to limited drafting and there was no way I’d be able to stop the onslaught.
View attachment 344557
(You have been defeated, my first PBEM loss, oh no!)
Turning points and lessons learned:
- Getting involved when Iran broke free from China was my first mistake, I should have stayed out of it.
- I didn’t know enough about modern war – having an air force is critical, and I never had a big one.
- I didn’t know enough about vassalage between humans. I wasn’t able to have Pakistan break free from China, so my guess is as a peace-vassal I wouldn’t be able to break free from Russia and turn on them, but I really didn’t know for sure. If I was able to vassal to Russia and break free when I wanted, that might have changed things big time.
- Ultimately, the east was just more prepared. They wanted a war from the first turn, the west didn’t, which led to their demise.
Thought you'd all be interested to see it... I ran out of steam towards the end, but its a nice recap of the game, from my perspective, that of the two-faced double agent double crosser! If things had gone my way, rest assured I would have been at war with all of you, so the chances of me winning were probably down to zero from turn 1 with the way I think! I added a few screenshots in there (unedited) for some visual reminders. It's long, so happy reading...Earth 2010 – The Rise and Fall of the Muslim Confederacy
At the start of the game I had the goal of consolidating these 6 civs into one giant Muslim caliphate, hence the coining of the term “Muslim Confederacy”. I knew I couldn’t compete with these civs acting individually, but combined they might be able to be feared. I also had the advantage of being able to declare war on the AI, which I had hoped to use quickly. Originally, I wanted to consolidate the entire Middle East into one entity, expand south and control Africa, and with a massive empire I’d be able to make up for the fact that the world powers were more advanced with my sheer numbers. Not that the human players would just let me do this, but it was an early plan at least. Based on the victory conditions and my position, the only chance I had to win was some form of domination. Luckily all of Africa was below me and is very large. The tough part was going to be taking Iraq and Israel, since they started as American vassals… I couldn’t just take those cities without declaring war on America, which was a very real possibility in my mind before the game even started. Originally, I expect to be declaring war on America at some point, which is why from the very beginning I started making threats about all the human players leaving the Middle East. I wanted all the human players units away from me, but specifically USA’s units. If he moved them back into Europe, I could then take Israel and Iraq before he could move units back, and then I’d be able to be defensive against USA’s limited units, with no easy way of reinforcing those units.
Of course this plan quickly went out the window, since after the first turn most of the world had vassaled to the human powers in some form or another, the biggest being the African countries vassaling to Russia. This effectively took away what little advantage I did get and I knew sooner or later I would be in a war with a world power, probably USA. I knew I needed to align myself with someone, whether it was secretly or not, in order to have a fighting chance in a war. Luckily for me, Tigranes of Russia soon left me a private message offering to be “secret allies”.
Tigranes was willing to support me secretly, since that was an easy way for him to cause problems with the rest of the humans without the real-life diplomatic hit. Around turn 1 this was still just a vague concept, I wasn’t really sure how it would work, but the idea was there. Having an ally so close to me was a huge benefit, and I was hoping to gain some military support to ultimately take Israel and Iraq and clear the “Old World” of all the American troops. Unfortunately he also mentioned how he would not support me if I consolidated my civs, so I couldn’t put my original plan into action from turn 1, it would need to wait.
With most of the world vassaled to the humans, I would need to pick my spots when it comes to war with the AI. I had no intention of going to war with any human anytime soon, I needed to prepare. However on one of the early turns, Iran broke free as a vassal from China (Luthor). This was my first mistake. For some reason I didn’t think anything through, and just saw an AI with no vassal relationships, defensive pacts, or alliances, and thought it was a good time to take it out. I essentially consolidated my starting military units among the 6, and moved them to Iran. I did not think of the diplomatic repercussions that I was essentially stealing Luthor’s vassal from him. After the “secret allies” email from Tigranes, and based on the public posturing from Europe and USA, I guess I just assumed Luthor would support me “helping” him in a war and I wouldn’t get any heat from the other humans other than public finger wagging. Obviously, I was completely wrong.
Tigranes completely turned on me out of nowhere, playing “peacekeeper” publicly. He tried to have a UN motion to have all the other humans fight me, and when that failed, took it upon himself to remove me from the area. At least I can say I read Eclipse (Europe) and kiwitt (USA) correctly, in that they stayed passive and didn’t care to do anything about my invasion. USA even took notice of my threats and moved his army to a pile in Israel, theoretically leaving Iraq open for the taking, if I wanted to go there. Anyway, I was furious with what I saw as a backstab from Russia and even though I was unprepared to fight a human, decided to try and fight him anyway. I didn’t know to what extent he would send troops to me, and I HAD taken generally excess troops from 6 different civs, gifted them to Arabia and made a pretty nice sized army...
Unfortunately, while troop numbers were fairly even, Russia’s air superiority proved to be too much. Ultimately I was using weaker units against his full strength units, and with no other wars going on, I got the full brunt of Russian military. China did eventually get some units in the area, although we never actually fought, since I was forced to capitulate and sign a peace treaty or else risk getting wiped out. There is no way I could take on Russia and China combined by myself. The terms of peace were actually pretty favorable, all things considered.
As a result of the war, Pakistan formally became China’s vassal and paid them tribute in the form of gpt. Arabia/MC1 (being the main and true Muslim Confederacy, since I had begun consolidating the countries at the start of the war) unofficially capitulated to Russia. We were not formally a vassal, but gave gpt tribute as well. Also China wanted to keep me from being nuclear, so my only source of Uranium at the time in Pakistan was to be given to China. As part of the peace talks, I informed them that I had traded the Uranium and couldn’t cancel the deal right away, but I would cancel and gift it to China as soon as it was available. They would have been able to check up on me by checking the trade screen for the Uranium and as long as I couldn’t build nukes I think they were happy.
Meanwhile as the war is ending, Eclipse as Europe temporarily was replaced with sohleks, the world’s pre-eminent warmonger. Eclipse had been working on a corporate victory, but sohleks immediately noticed the threat of a Russian invasion and started working on preparing for a war. Sneakily, I had temporarily gifted my Uranium to Germany (during the peace talks above) to allow them to build a Nuke Weapons Facility which would be used for a nuclear war with Russia. Even after the 10 turns, I never mentioned the idea of cancelling the trade and sending the Uranium to China, hoping they would forget (which they did, or didn’t care where it was, as long as I didn’t have it).
After the terms of peace were agreed, I went into my shell and tried to act like I was mainly working on building up my infrastructure and was a peaceful non-threat to the world… which in a way I did. I consolidated the rest of the Muslim Confederacy except for Indonesia, which was separated anyway, and Pakistan, which was a vassal and couldn’t really be touched. I pretty much shut down teching and built up gold for rush-buying buildings to support the infrastructure… but also ran at 20% espionage, sending all of my points into Russia, because I was vowing to myself I would have revenge.
View attachment 344552
(Random picture of my spying in Russia)
The world situation at this time appeared peaceful on the surface, but I knew there was a world war brewing. Kiwitt had vowed to support the UK/Europe in any military action, and with sohleks at the helm, he was effectively preparing to defend against or attack Russia. Russia and China were acting like they were not 100% allies and the recent war was only a temporary alliance, but I’m pretty sure everyone saw through that and knew they were allied at this point. I was the 5th wheel and just pretended to be relatively neutral on the world stage while I was doing a lot in private communications.
After the end of our war, Tigranes immediately reached out to me again to offer support in a big brother-little brother situation. Tigranes wanted me on his team, but he wanted to make the decisions for me and have me do his bidding. Obviously he had the military strength to back it up, so even though I was planning on turning on him at some point, it only made sense to go along with him for now. There were no obvious AI’s worth attacking, and I needed to rebuild my military, among other things. I figured getting back on his good side would be useful to me down the line.
My master plan at this point was to get my revenge on Russia, but I also thought I could potentially win the game if the brewing world war was close enough that my involvement would swing it from one side to another. I hoped to play double agent for both the east and west, getting on both of their good sides, so that when the war did happen I could choose who to fight with to balance the scales… hopefully the ensuing nuclear fight would decimate both sides enough that the humans would be down to my level of third-world pathetic, and at least make the game more balanced and raise my chances of victory.
View attachment 344554
(More spying in Russia)
Getting on Russia’s good side was easy, since Tigranes was already willing to make concessions to get back on my good side, because that’s what he wanted all along. We had our “secret alliance” again, except this time he was able to dictate terms, as he wished. However getting on the west’s good side was tougher. Kiwitt at the time was not very talkative with diplomacy, and I think he was unsure of my position (for good reason!) because of my early threats against his forces in Israel and Iraq. He did not fully trust me. By this time I had sight into all of Russia’s cities and was working on spy points against China, and had gotten in so good so quickly with Tigranes, that I believed I knew their entire plan. Tigranes already had told me he was planning to invade Europe and basically win by domination, sight into his cities, lack of teching, and builds confirmed it. I wanted to tell the western allies all this info, and all I wanted to get was a guarantee that they would support me if I was attacked by Russia again. It’s for this reason that I didn’t tell the west about the eastern military buildup straight out sooner, which may have helped the west defend against Russia. Ultimately I did play double agent and told the west everything about the east, including nice screenshots of all of Russia’s units and builds (cue: Tigranes
!) View attachment 344553
(Mad yet?)
mainly because I knew the east was building up military and the west probably was not able to keep up unless they were 100% focused on it (which they weren’t). At this point the idea of having an equal war was out the window – I knew the east would win at the rate things were going. It was no longer an option to choose sides in a war, I knew I’d be aligned with the west to try and help out. Luckily I did have an ace up my sleeve.
During all these behind the scenes discussions, the public discussion was on nuclear disarmament. An agreement had been made to slowly delete nukes, which I was conveniently left out of because everyone assumed I was no longer nuclear. This is where a major mistake was made by the west, after forgetting to delete a nuke for 1 rotation, Kiwitt decided to delete ALL OF HIS NUKES AT ONCE (hand-slap-to-forehead!). I KNEW the east was planning a war and deleting the nukes was only a ruse. Tigranes’ screenshots didn’t exactly show a before and after of his nuke unit count going down, it was simply a screenshot saying “are you sure you want to delete?” which could easily be cancelled. For all I knew Tigranes did actually delete ICBM’s, but it wasn’t all of them, that I knew. After USA deleted all their nukes, the east now had the nuclear advantage as well as military advantage. I quickly told the west all this info, to MAKE SURE THEY CONFIRMED THE DELETIONS… I needed all the nukes gone. Minimal response from the west, but they can’t say I didn’t keep them updated.
Anyway, back to my ace in the hole – there is Uranium in the Sahara desert south of Libya which required multiple border pops to get to… but I had pumped culture enough to get it and build a mine on it. Then I used the great farms of Cairo (my best city by a wide margin) to pop a Great Engineer and use it to build a 1-turn Nuke Weapons Facility in Khartoum. I was worried about eastern spies catching me going nuclear which would have surely ended our peaceful arrangement, but I also needed to take advantage of the nuclear disarmament talks to get nuclear myself if I was to have any chance in a world war. The fact that I built a Nuke Facility never would have been shown on anyone’s turn even if they could see my builds, because I switched over production, used the GE and the build switched back to the last production when the turn ended. The only way anyone could see it would be if they got sight into my cities and happened to open Khartoum, which was a risk I had to take. Khartoum was a strategic selection too – Cairo was a good enough city to build military units very fast which I would need for the war, so that city was out. Khartoum I had focused on a lot and managed to make it a decent production city that could build tactical nukes in 4-5 turns, but it also was not known as being such a great city that someone would be keying in on it. Also, it was in Africa, away from those Middle Eastern Arabian cities that would surely be the first to fall. Production on nukes was immediate, and I was rush-buying them as much as I could while still keeping up with building military.
My hope was that the disarmament plan would come to fruition and I would become the only guy in the world with nukes… which would then turn me into a key piece of the war. And with nukes in hand, I could actually help the west survive and maybe even win against the east. Of course my ultimate end-game was still the same, and as soon as the west started winning I would turn on them as well… the nuclear Middle East vs non-nuclear everyone else, who would have thought it??? Of course this would require a LOT of nukes, so I was hoping to keep the tentative world peace as long as I could, at least until I was ready. It was a delicate balance – I wanted to keep the peace until I was ready, so hopefully keep the east from attacking the west; I wanted the nuclear disarmament to actually happen without anyone knowing that I had nukes, so I also needed to store a bunch of nukes somewhere, then I also had to have the west and east get into a fight started by each other, so I would not be the main target and they could fight each other for a while before they got to me…
Here we pause and talk about internal developments with the east. As the east’s puppet, they wanted me to attack the AI. The east was hoping to draw western troops far out from their homes, so the east could then invade their empires and shut down production, eventually winning a war against them. Tigranes mentioned the idea of having me ultimately attack an AI in the Americas so as to have a base of operations for all of us to invade the USA, if the western allies didn’t respond. Of course I still needed more time and couldn’t afford to have the west and east fight just yet, so I warned the west that I was ordered to attack the AI by the east, and to publicly denounce the attack, but not actually do anything about it. I assured them I would return the cities eventually (lie) and it was being done to attempt to draw out western armies from their bases before an ultimate invasion in the Americas (convenient truth). Again, a cold response from the west… but I did gather some info when Kiwitt told me that he would not allow any attack on the AI in the Americas. Here is where I learned the tipping point of an ultimate war. I assured Kiwitt and the west that I would let them know when an attack on the Americas was coming so he could be prepared. (truth) I hoped to hold out as long as I could, but if an invasion of the Americas was about to happen, I planned on making sure I had a force ready to invade and nuke Russia the moment their army was sitting ducks in the middle of the ocean, with a big warning to the USA so they could sink as many transports as possible… I didn’t tell the west how I planned to react and turn on the east when the time came, just that I would turn on them before the invasion. The secret of my nukes needed to be kept that way, or else the world might consider me a real threat!
Anyway – Tigranes offered to sell me T-90’s, which considering a backstab was planned all along, I was basically willing to pay any reasonable price to buy them and reduce his army. I knew he wouldn’t sell me enough that would really reduce his army much, but every unit counts. I haggled the price down and looking back, I wish I had bought a lot more.
I used his units to attack our first target of Thailand after various other targets vassaled to humans, then quickly moved them back home to Arabia to be prepared for anything with my main forces.Moving back to nuclear secrets – as I expected Tigranes was playing a game with nuclear disarmament talks and came to me wanting to hide his tactical nukes with me, since he was running out of ICBM’s to delete and ultimately a screenshot was going to be needed showing he has no more nukes. In a moment I still laugh about, he offered to pay me tanks in exchange for gifting me tactical nukes which I would hide in the Sahara in forts!! I tried to contain my enthusiasm and pretended to act like I didn’t want to do it because I was afraid of the west noticing I had nukes and attacking me. I also got a little greedy and attempted to ask for more in exchange, knowing full well that I would ultimately accept. If the nuclear disarmament ended with Russia gifting me a bunch of tactical nukes to hide for him, that basically just accelerated my ultimate plan anyway. It was nice thinking in my head that I’d be gifted the only remaining nukes in the world, and I’d give them back alright… except when I give them back they’d be exploded
View attachment 344555
(The only one I got to land, and it got taken back)
I will give Tigranes credit here – he was unwilling to do any deal unless I vassaled to him, which would have prevented me from using them on him or backstabbing him at all. This was the sticking point that we were discussing when Muslimgate exploded.
As I had mentioned above, I had been running 20% espionage for a long time, all of it going into Russia. One thing I didn’t know was that any player can see the espionage points spent against them by anyone else at any time. Tigranes this whole time hadn’t been checking for points spent by me against him, and during a random turn and doing his checks, he spotted the 8,000+ points I had built up against him, enough to overcome his counter-espionage efforts and have direct sight into his cities.
View attachment 344558
(This is what I'd like to think i started!)
Obviously this enraged him and he immediately said to vassal to him or die. I couldn’t backstab him as a vassal, so vassalization was not an option. I never received any gifted nukes, and couldn’t delay a war any longer, so accepting a fight was my only option. The only thing I had going for me at this point was that I was nuclear and could hopefully hit on a few nukes when he invaded. I also had warned Europe and the USA that an invasion was coming, so with a very long-winded post in the public thread, I was able to publicly plea for the west’s help, with the reasoning being that after the east takes me out, they would turn to the west and win the game. Between all of my warnings, screenshots and then telling them everything about Russia wanting to hide nukes, it all finally clicked and the west came to my defense against the east… unfortunately the war did not go well and the east ultimately won, as we all know.
View attachment 344556
(Nukes suck!)
There were no more secrets to hide, the east had more nukes, more units, better luck, and won a relatively quick war in civ terms. I was able to hold off Russia’s attacks from both his African vassals and from the Middle East, but once most of Europe fell, he brought his main force down to me and I just didn’t have enough firepower to win. In the second replay of 4 turns, none of my 2 tactical nukes landed (which they did the first time), and the other 2 I was able to build before Khartoum was taken also both missed, terrible luck. Marathon speed makes it tough to get a lot of nukes in a pretty short period of time, especially as a third world country. I didn’t really have any air force, I was building 1 turn F-15’s in Cairo, but it wasn’t enough to get air superiority, and without being able to easily build mass units, attrition finally got to me. I was hoping the west would be able to hold up better against the east and make it a longer war, where I might have been able to gain an advantage pumping out nukes, but sadly it was not to be. Once Khartoum and Cairo fell, my ability to produce was down to limited drafting and there was no way I’d be able to stop the onslaught.
View attachment 344557
(You have been defeated, my first PBEM loss, oh no!)
Turning points and lessons learned:
- Getting involved when Iran broke free from China was my first mistake, I should have stayed out of it.
- I didn’t know enough about modern war – having an air force is critical, and I never had a big one.
- I didn’t know enough about vassalage between humans. I wasn’t able to have Pakistan break free from China, so my guess is as a peace-vassal I wouldn’t be able to break free from Russia and turn on them, but I really didn’t know for sure. If I was able to vassal to Russia and break free when I wanted, that might have changed things big time.
- Ultimately, the east was just more prepared. They wanted a war from the first turn, the west didn’t, which led to their demise.
Tigranes
Armenian
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2008
- Messages
- 10,422
Wow, what a story. This makes me to want you in every game I play here, hehe 
I admire strategic thinkers, even if I have to kill them eventually
Many of you here have a false impression that I am more experienced in modern wars or with PBEMs or this particular scenario. If anything I would only claim some expertise in RFC universe, ask me about things like stability or Historical Victories, I might share some tricks there. I even bought BTS exclusively because of Rhye's mod, whom I consider my favorite modder of all time, closely fallowed by embryodead.
So in reality I never even finished a single game as a single player with Earth 2010, just did a lot of testing before I started my first BTS PBEM, in order to make sure everything will run smoothly.
My only advantage was that for a long time this PBEM was the only one I played, so obviously I was laser focused on my goals. Human diplomacy was the hardest part, actually. Until Luthor made a permanent alliance with me (after pretty heated exchange, I must confess) -- I was not sure about China's true intentions. I got nuked in November 2013, China became one with Russia in January 2014. I had a terrible December 2013 and was prepared to resign if China would fail my hopes, just like Muslims did. West had all the advantage of their first strike, my economic and military strength was halved in November and December nukings. January 2014 it all changed. With Chinese gifted nukes and Great People I was able to start Golden Age, switch to Draft without Anarchy, nuke those terrible stacks and wipe them off with drafted and Chinese troops. It helped that I read few things about real life nuclear warfare doctrines, which clearly stated that big stacks of doom of the past have no place in nuclear age. Many units in one place = 1 nuke to kill them all. Well or make the rest of them yellow. So having the largest stack (which West+Muslims did) is not critical. Smart use of Tactical nukes (50% evasion chance), Miscile Submarines, Helicopters and Paratroopers is the key. My hero Submarine died this turn with 80% of odds -- she is largely responsible for the current fall of Europe. Luck does play major role too -- while one nuke exploded, sohleks misfired 6 nukes(!) with 100% -75%/2 = 62.5% favorable odds on Moscow/Volgograd 
. So if anybody is winning the war -- its because of Luthor and the Luck.
If Nighthawks would allow any criticism -- you really under-researched the possibility of Permanent Alliance. It is turned off by default, so many people don't know how awesome it can be, but it is. Why combine 6 civs into 3? And then into 1 civ... 1 alliance of 6 would be a better idea. Each civ pays only its maintenance, but all 6 research towards the common goal. Each 6 can have nuke production (with enough Uranium). Each 6 can have their own National Wonders (6 capitals with 6 Bureaucracies with 6 Wall Streets, etc!) but if one civ has a World Wonder --- all 6 will enjoy the benefit: Chinese Three Gorges Dam powers all my cities. I discovered all these by the chance while playing this game. Learned a lot actually! All these things can be tested in hot seat mode with the original file I have posted for everyone. I believe game's host needs to know just as much about starting situation as everyone else -- it's only fair. So compared to Nighthawks plots my idea was really one-dimensional: no IBCMs for any human, massive first strike with tactical nukes, Chinese and Muslim aid, Paratroopers and Helicopters. But Muslimgate changed everything forever -- I kick myself in the head for being so naive. In fact I discovered that one can check espionage points completely randomly -- which became my new routine now,
Check out our Spy wars with Brazil in Minor League!
I admire strategic thinkers, even if I have to kill them eventually Many of you here have a false impression that I am more experienced in modern wars or with PBEMs or this particular scenario. If anything I would only claim some expertise in RFC universe, ask me about things like stability or Historical Victories, I might share some tricks there. I even bought BTS exclusively because of Rhye's mod, whom I consider my favorite modder of all time, closely fallowed by embryodead.
So in reality I never even finished a single game as a single player with Earth 2010, just did a lot of testing before I started my first BTS PBEM, in order to make sure everything will run smoothly.
My only advantage was that for a long time this PBEM was the only one I played, so obviously I was laser focused on my goals. Human diplomacy was the hardest part, actually. Until Luthor made a permanent alliance with me (after pretty heated exchange, I must confess) -- I was not sure about China's true intentions. I got nuked in November 2013, China became one with Russia in January 2014. I had a terrible December 2013 and was prepared to resign if China would fail my hopes, just like Muslims did. West had all the advantage of their first strike, my economic and military strength was halved in November and December nukings. January 2014 it all changed. With Chinese gifted nukes and Great People I was able to start Golden Age, switch to Draft without Anarchy, nuke those terrible stacks and wipe them off with drafted and Chinese troops. It helped that I read few things about real life nuclear warfare doctrines, which clearly stated that big stacks of doom of the past have no place in nuclear age. Many units in one place = 1 nuke to kill them all. Well or make the rest of them yellow. So having the largest stack (which West+Muslims did) is not critical. Smart use of Tactical nukes (50% evasion chance), Miscile Submarines, Helicopters and Paratroopers is the key. My hero Submarine died this turn with 80% of odds
-- she is largely responsible for the current fall of Europe. Luck does play major role too -- while one nuke exploded, sohleks misfired 6 nukes(!) with 100% -75%/2 = 62.5% favorable odds on Moscow/Volgograd . So if anybody is winning the war -- its because of Luthor and the Luck.If Nighthawks would allow any criticism -- you really under-researched the possibility of Permanent Alliance. It is turned off by default, so many people don't know how awesome it can be, but it is. Why combine 6 civs into 3? And then into 1 civ... 1 alliance of 6 would be a better idea. Each civ pays only its maintenance, but all 6 research towards the common goal. Each 6 can have nuke production (with enough Uranium). Each 6 can have their own National Wonders (6 capitals with 6 Bureaucracies with 6 Wall Streets, etc!) but if one civ has a World Wonder --- all 6 will enjoy the benefit: Chinese Three Gorges Dam powers all my cities. I discovered all these by the chance while playing this game. Learned a lot actually! All these things can be tested in hot seat mode with the original file I have posted for everyone. I believe game's host needs to know just as much about starting situation as everyone else -- it's only fair. So compared to Nighthawks plots my idea was really one-dimensional: no IBCMs for any human, massive first strike with tactical nukes, Chinese and Muslim aid, Paratroopers and Helicopters. But Muslimgate changed everything forever -- I kick myself in the head for being so naive. In fact I discovered that one can check espionage points completely randomly -- which became my new routine now,
Check out our Spy wars with Brazil in Minor League!
kiwitt
Road to War Modder
Its still had its ups and downs.
Eclipse4449
Deity
Sent to Kiwitt
kiwitt
Road to War Modder
"It is now with a heavy heart that 63 years after the anniversary of the start of WWII, once again America has been forced to defend its homeland. A large group of Russian forces have attempted to enter the United States via the state named after our founding father - Washington. The force was planning to invade and take over the capital of that state - Seattle.
Due to the weakened strength of our Armed Forces in overseas conflicts we only have our admirable National Guard forces to defend the United States. These forces would have been no match for the battle hardened Russian forces now threatening our peaceful existence.
It is for this reason we have had to resort to the use our secret weaponry and like at the end of WWII these are very devastating. The "Elite" Russian Forces were no match for this enormous fire power and were blown to pieces and our Mobile forces quickly cleaned up the remaining survivors.
However, unlike WWII, civilian casualties were kept to a minimum and we even invited members of the press to witness this special event, albeit with antique cameras as more modern electronic cameras would have been affected by the electromagnetic pulse.
Link to video.
I deeply regret having to make the hard decision recommended by the joint chiefs of staff being to use these weapons on American soil, but we are thankful it was in a sparsely populated area and most civilians had already fled area from the advancing Russian forces.
God Bless America !!!
Due to the weakened strength of our Armed Forces in overseas conflicts we only have our admirable National Guard forces to defend the United States. These forces would have been no match for the battle hardened Russian forces now threatening our peaceful existence.
It is for this reason we have had to resort to the use our secret weaponry and like at the end of WWII these are very devastating. The "Elite" Russian Forces were no match for this enormous fire power and were blown to pieces and our Mobile forces quickly cleaned up the remaining survivors.
However, unlike WWII, civilian casualties were kept to a minimum and we even invited members of the press to witness this special event, albeit with antique cameras as more modern electronic cameras would have been affected by the electromagnetic pulse.
Link to video.
I deeply regret having to make the hard decision recommended by the joint chiefs of staff being to use these weapons on American soil, but we are thankful it was in a sparsely populated area and most civilians had already fled area from the advancing Russian forces.
God Bless America !!!
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