From Zee Immortal Meatgrinder

[Heerlo]

Whoa, that looked like quite a hard invasion.

 

[strijder20]

I'd say take China on.

 

[smallfish]

Whoa, that looked like quite a hard invasion.

I'd say take China on.

You are standing before Attila (the Terrible), Conqueror of Rome and Genghis Khan. Do not let hubris be your downfall as well!

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Throughout the entire game, no one has managed to catch us stealing techs. Its a sort of surprising that the other civs aren't paying much attention to counterespionage... then again, some turns ago some unidentified bugger stole the secrets of Dynamite from us.

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Meanwhile, spy sats revealed heavy fighting on Danish-Persian borders, and that looks like a Citadel sitting on that coal tile.

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The largest military in the world, a true runaway superpower in almost every sense of the word

Almost

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The Danes, though we were never on their side and they hated us, finally offers us a hand in Friendship

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A look at what we are massing for our western push. Yes, we are heading west. My current plans are basically twofold:

1) Establish a beachhead on the other continent. Their southeastern peninsula looks nice enough... plus we are still at war with one of the city-states there (Quebec City)
2) Create a second massive invasion force off the shores of Istakhr for (immediate) future operations against Carthage

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The Danes have a lot of their navy stuck in this psuedo-lake... which is probably why we haven't seen much of their ships prowling the world at all

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They managed to get a Missile Cruiser in their Barcelona puppet... and this seems to have stopped the Red Army from trying to push in

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Ah yes, friends.

For now.

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A look at the current policies of Hunnic Society. Intention is now to quickly fill up the left side of Commerce for sweet Protectionism (+2 happiness per lux) and cheaper rushbuying costs.

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The rather slow streaming of our stuff across the... Indian Ocean!

Our target is Venice there, one of the two allies of the (deceased) Khan

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We lost a submarine, but this opened up the small Venetian navy to our battlewagon line.

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Pretty soon it was swimming in Davy Jones' locker or on our side, and this show of force demonstrated why it was a bad idea being a Mongol lackey.

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The creation of a supply link between our future beachheads and the homelands is crucial. What we are doing here is essentially island-hoping... we could for example take out the Poles to the north to ensure a tighter link security, but that would be a waste of effort and eventually since we will turn Venice into a rushbuy/production center, the Poles can be dealt with should some (nefarious) power enlist their aid in harassing us.

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The other continent was rapidly becoming a tale of the Communism's triumph against Democracy. Carthaginians finally struck the Danes at Barcelona...

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Good thing they were distracted with this because we were coming for them

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A line of BBs plus our 5 carrier groups and destroyers ensured that the Quebecois stood no chance against the full weight of Hun

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Then we saw that President Bluetooth still had a lot of fight in him, and that the Red Army would have to bleed even harder to even begin taking the war to Danish fatherland.

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So we finally decided to initiate proper diplomatic contact with Carthage...

(not shown: selling them 5 aluminium and 5 uraniums for 150g. The plan was to hopefully initiate thermonuclear war between the two)

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Beachhead was too small... so we expanded it by taking another CS out, this time innocent Bucharest here

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Now we can start Operation... Ichi-Go

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[strijder20]

Bye Darius.
Surprised you didn't get any message of him asking what that gigantic army was doing on his borders.

 

[smallfish]

Bye Darius.
Surprised you didn't get any message of him asking what that gigantic army was doing on his borders.

Well, you'll see.


The opening moves of Operation Ichi-Go were nothing more than provocative - stealing of land through citadel placement. Not only did that give us more border room to maneuver against that Persian city there, but we also got something like 12 (or was it 20?) free Oil.

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Note the Citadel icon

Darius was indeed quick to wonder our intentions... such a massive fleet and land force sitting along his borders. What could they possibly mean?

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The Great Hunnic Leader was not amused, and this prompted an immediate declaration of war instead of a careful sneak attack. Ichi-Go had gone off to an overt, and perhaps not a good start.

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The Ecbatana garrison was too small and few to do anything against the massed Hunnic armies, and it quickly fell to a combined envelopment

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Denouncements from our supposed friend the Danes were quick and prompt... despite joining in the good fight against Communism and their hated Socialist Persian foes, Harald Bluetooth reacted to Hunnic aggression rather badly. Perhaps they may have caught on to the fact that we were only selling strategic resources to the Carthaginians as well...

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Carthaginian Giant Deathmech in action - the operations of these infernal machines were made possible by Hunnic supplies of uranium

Fearing the possibility that the Chinese might do the same as the Danes, even though they were engaged in life-and-death struggle to the north against the Carthaginian Red Army, Hunnic forces were fronted against the city of Xian

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Mongolian Soothsayers estimated that there were plenty of ground and naval forces in the Persian Fatherland itself.

To clear it one by one would be immensely wasteful, and would increase likelihood that we lose entire special units.

Therefore, the decision was made to cut back on those potential losses by employing a previously untested type of weapon on the battlefield.

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It proved to be the correct one, and they worked very, very well.

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A look at how Hunnic fleets were positioned to create safezone for the push against Persepolis. Note the use of submarines and destroyers to create baits and zones of fire.

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In the meantime, another Citadel was set down towards Xian

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The Chinese did not take it well at all, and this was followed by Wu's denouncement the very next turn

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Meanwhile, the inability of the Carthaginian Red Army to hold Barcelona had apparently an effect on forcing their Politburo - Chairman Dido, General Secretary of the Supreme Soviet and the People's Commissar of Defense - to consider employing their strategic arsenals to tip the balance

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In the meantime, through another round of bombardment from air and naval forces, a Hunnic destroyer squadron manages to take the beating heart of Persia

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Darius' response was to order an immediate counterattack to take back his beloved capital

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Unfortunately for the Persians, who apparently hadn't bothered with mining their ill-gotten uranium tile in their war with the Danes, further application of nuclear weaponry obliterated any hopes of the Persian armies fighting on

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From this point on, they would be only the defensive, crumbling on every corner of their shrunken empire

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The Chinese meanwhile had managed to take a Carthaginian city, perhaps due to Dido being distracted with the Barcelona Front

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So we paid off Harald Bluetooth to immediately declare war on Wu Zetian, breaking whatever existing friendships both democracies had (???)... and with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging on his doorstep, the Danes now obliged to whatever peace treaty the Carthaginians offered.

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The further crumbling of the Persian Empire... also note the worrisome buildup of a Danish amphibious force at Occupied Genoa

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Bye bye Darius indeed

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But this was followed by the Carthaginians stealing our land with Citadel... the next step of Operation Ichi-Go had to commence immediately before anything else could happen here

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The reasons were simple and borne out of paranoia - a Chinese naval fleet was seen milling about the straits between Xian, Venice and Quebec City, and it was armed with atomic weaponry. There was apparently a "fishing incident" near said fleet - the details sparse and contradictory, but it was serious enough to warrant high military alert, to levels that were barely toeing "War".

This was apparently the casus belli Attila (the Terrible) needed to launch an all-out nuclear war against China: Operation Tomodachi

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[smallfish]

The next target to be hit by the opening strike was the Chinese border city of Guangzhou... approximately 600,000 dead and millions more wounded or poisoned by the radiation, and destroying whatever offensive capacity their border garrison had

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Now with Total War against China to be had, Hong Kong was brought in to be a massive thorn on Wu's side

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Another nuclear strike, this time against the rail lines between Shanghai and Beijing, where a major uranium mine was situated

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Just then, intelligence reports from the heart of Carthage had uncovered a communist plot to launch a sneak attack against us

True enough, the Danes and now the Chinese had made peace with Dido recently...

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Paranoia was heightened when we spotted this Danish fleet off our Ichi-Go beachheads. Did those two powers made peace solely to plot a massive attack against us the Huns while we were busy eviscerating the Chinese to the north?

Then we remembered that Harald too was at war with Wu Zetian

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Just like clockwork, the Enlightened Chairman Dido declared a war "of Global Liberation for Glorious Socialism with Carthaginian Principles", starting with the foreign invaders the Huns. They couldn't have done it at a better time than this

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The brave people of Hong Kong taking the brunt of both Chinese and Carthaginian assaults

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The sinking of a Hunnic diesel sub on patrol in the Atlantic Ocean

The Chinese responded to this news of Carthaginian entrance into the war with a mixture of relief and wariness, but then reports came in that their air force managed to drop an atomic device on Pasargadae...

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Nothing of note was lost... except pop reduction, some damages to surrounding units

The Hunnic response was nothing short of massive, perhaps even monstrous

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The Glassing of the Fulda Gap

This was followed by a couple more nuclear strikes on China... and the obliteration of the Polish armed forces (communist lapdogs)

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The taking of Guangzhou following another nuclear strike in response to Pasargadae's bombing

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The front with China as of current:

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[Heerlo]

Two words:

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World war!

 

[Mike III]

holy .... not even my beat down of Elizabeth could beat that...

 

[smallfish]

Two words:

It's a one-sided world war, if there was one. 2(3?) v 1.

holy .... not even my beat down of Elizabeth could beat that...

I presume you are new to higher difficulties? Yeah, Immortal is like that.


But for now, I did mention about creation of an equally massive fleet off the Kremlin city of Istakhr. It was still under formation when the War broke out, and will continue to remain so for the forseeable future... till the geostrategic balance on that Pangaea changes to our favor.

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The Chinese surprisingly still had a ton of fight in them, and here is them showing off their special brand of naval ZOC rush

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While another nuke was being used to clear the path towards Beijing, targeteers here had a conundrum - to target the Chinese fleet (and lose the only missile cruiser in the area?), or to... wait (and perhaps allow cruiser to be sunk?)

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Decided to transfer the nuke to Xian... and get this doomed missile cruiser to kill one of the "weak" units in this fleet

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Well, maybe not doomed at all - the Danish fleet was maneuvering itself north after all, drawing Chinese attention onto them instead

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Meanwhile, the Hong Kong(er)s were now in some serious trouble... they had lost their sole Guardian unit through constant Stealth bombing and artillery fire, and any hopes of them carrying through a massive offensive into either Chinese or Carthaginian lands was out of the question without artillery units of their own.

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Then... What, how did they get there?!

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Carthaginian Red Army pushes through the irradiated Fulda Gap, to try and have a go at Singapore

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Gunlines dealt with them in short order, and before long, the Chinese front was rapidly rolling into their heartland as we took Shanghai

Operation Tomodachi had thus far been nothing more than a resounding success

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Carthaginians pressing onwards despite heavy Hunnic naval presence behind S'pore; their Political Commissars rallied their men and women forth without pity, at the barrel of their revolvers for failure meant death

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Hong Kong's fate was rapidly looking grim and grimmer

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Then we checked the only other power Hun was not at war with... last we checked he was Guarded, and now it was Neutral? Military statistics showed their armies numbered close to a million strong

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Yeah, this isn't right at all; Ketsu-Go was still too early to happen

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So we did something that also surprised us - a cheap trade off for Danish (re)entry into war against Carthage

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Advance fleet elements preparing the invasion grounds by softening Carthaginian naval elements - due to high kills repeatedly score by Hunnic submariners, this period will be known as the Happy Time

(and yes, that carrier was so sunk)

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To prevent Danes from getting any further ideas about penetrating our defenses... the main fleet in the Mediterranean fronted its nuke boats towards (but not too close) our mutual borders

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With some more judicious nuclear strikes and a hefty bombing raid and Giant Death Robos... Beijing fell.

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Wu Zetian came forth to offer her surrender terms, but they were too unconditional. So we responded... with another strike, this time close to her last production city

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40 Happiness? Pah, beat 71 Happiness with the powerful Protectionism! This will allow us to annex several key cities without focusing on courthouses first

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Hong Kong was indeed, for lack of better word, doomed

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To show off her absolute mastery of this point of the battlefield, and in retaliation to wanton Hunnic nuclear usage, Chairman Dido orders the nuclear bombing of Susa

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The Fall of Hong Kong:

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Surprisingly, or perhaps not so given the distractions at hand... Harald Bluetooth sees no point in attempting a sneak attack on us.

Thus the stance switch from Neutral to Guarded

For now

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Then after we forced the Chinese to a puppet city, the Serbians were called in to provide a new front in the war against Dido and Wu Zetian

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Unfortunately, trying to take that last Chinese city was proving too costly

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At this point, we began annexing several puppets on this Pangaea and rushbought some Modern Armor and Giant Death Robos. Some highly promoted bombers were rebased to cities and upgraded to powerful Stealth. Roads were being build to eventual link them all for expedient's sake, but they were too slow and all this fallout was beginning to become a double-edged blade.

Thusly, we come to the rather premature commencement of final phase of Operation Ichi-Go: Ketsu-Go, the final destruction of Carthage and Denmark as Civilizations, and the permanent establishment of a Hunnic World Order

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[Heerlo]

It looks like the world will soon belong to you.

 

[strijder20]

I had no clue you had another fleet in the water.

 

[smallfish]

It looks like the world will soon belong to you.

I haven't tried Total Domination for a long time. More importantly, Total Domination on Immortal settings.

I had no clue you had another fleet in the water.

I mentioned it in the brief sketch of plans couple entries ago, that fleet being built off Istakhr? That's the one, although in hindsight I should have added another picture or two to accompany that tidbit

Ah well, we now come to the beginning of the end - for Wu Zetian, it ended the same way as we ended Genghis Khan

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Truly an ignominious end

With Carthage being massively distracted with us and thus losing her forces rapidly, the Forces of (Viking) Freedom were able to breakthrough and take Madrid

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Now we come to the point where I will show you what a Nuclear Corridor is... well, maybe not

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The liberation of Hong Kong at hand:

(Carthage threw an A-Bomb at Beijing, took out my 3 highly-promoted SBs there)

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And then this was the point where our nuclear missiles knew no boundaries, and stopped for no one but our CS allies

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With this new front to handle as we continue pushing south... another new CS ally was brought in to tear the Danes and Carthaginians in their rears

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Hong Kong liberated; the Doom of Carthage

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All the cities and locales that have been hit by Hunnic nuclear strikes in the wake of Ketsu-Go:

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Taking another Carthaginian city

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The fleet in the Mediterranean forming up a powerful battlegroup to carry the war into Danish heartland

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We then rushbought some nuclear missiles and a ton more units... these will prove invaluable in hammering our last two foes

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The Danes were furious that we nuked them, so they nuked us (an ICBM)!

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Saguntum was easy prey for our Sidonese friends, once we got it hammered down with Bombers/Stealth (and a nuke)

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With the constant nuclear barrage and massive superiority of Hunnic military power from all sides, Red Carthage could no longer sustain its socialist society and began collapsing everywhere

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Meanwhile, we dealt the Danes another harsh blow by nuking Genoa and massing our other superfleet to pummel it down

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It was rather quick

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Harald Bluetooth responded to this violation of his territories... by launching another nuke, this time at poor Quebec

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The taking of Saguntum by Sidonese forces - Carthaginian "special" units came into play too little and too late to matter

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Another Danish city taken, this time an actual production city (Turnsberg)

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And on that very same turn, Dido lost her capital and her last production city to quick blitzkrieg by Hunnic mech/armor units

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The death knell of Carthage - by this point, order had completely collapsed in Carthaginian society. One last attempt was made to sway the Huns off annihilating them, by tossing an atomic bomb at the Hunnic puppet of Nanjing (not shown)

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The Danes began counterattacking, to take back Turnsberg and Genoa

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We also spotted them basing atomic weaponry near Madrid... so another nuke was launched at that city!

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The massed gunlines proved too much for the Danes involved in that counteroffensive attempt, and so we began prodding deeper into the Danish Fatherland

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And with a thunderous ring of artillery fire from all sides, Seville was taken

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And as to the fate of Chairman Dido, who could really say?

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[smallfish]

The Power of Hammer Overflow in an Industrial Start, now with Statue of Liberty boosts

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With these two screenshots, you might be able to guess what happened. The renderer for some reason had massive problems loading up a decent explosion scene, but this close to the end... I hope this Fall Patch will fix that as well

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Panormus taken - now the Danes were well and truly on the defensive, having lost the capability build a decent nuclear arsenal and sustain their Giant Death Robots

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They nuked Genoa with an A-Bomb, it seems, but as with the Chinese retaliation, nothing of value was ultimately lost.

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Then we took the war into Danish Fatherland by taking Aarhus.

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It's also kinda cool to note that Helicopter Gunships can now drop out of the water and move across land on the same turn, provided they have the movement points left to do so

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Our current front with the Danes:

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This will be immediately changed with a small but powerful amiphibious assault on their flank

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We also took the opportunity to liberate Valletta (a Carthaginian ally who got conquered several turns ago)

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At this point, President Harald Bluetooth knew the writing was on that wall, and sought a peace with honor with us.

Bluntly refused

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With long-range Stealth and the backing of mobile carrier groups, Ribe was taken with a rather costly armor push

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This is the end

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Beautiful friend

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My only friend, the End

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Of everything that stands, The End

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get over it Harald, you were weak and you didn't choose Autocracy, now you and your fellow Vikings are paying the price of negligence

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It must be so lonely after this... eventually, someday in the far future, perhaps Attila will pick Freedom instead of Autocracy, but that day is still far and the beginnings of a new world order at hand

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Fin

 

[Heerlo]

Nicely done.That's what I call an empire!

By the way, what were you calling an ICBM?Are there actually nukes that have unlimited range on G&K, or were you just referring to a regular nuclear missile as an ICBM?

 

[smallfish]

Nicely done.That's what I call an empire!

By the way, what were you calling an ICBM?Are there actually nukes that have unlimited range on G&K, or were you just referring to a regular nuclear missile as an ICBM?

Nah, Nuclear Missiles are just ICBMs, not with true global strike capability but then again even modern Minutemen-III have their range limits too.

Now we wait for Zee Patch. Probably even create a new thread for it and get this one archived into history or something

 

[Heerlo]

This has been a good thread, Mr.smallfish.Good stories, I must say.

 

[Mike III]

pretty cool. i wonder what the fall patch is, and when I finish my king game in the future era, I will start a new immortal game. I don't know what will happen, but I DO know is that in the early days, it will be a fight for survival against barbaric neighbors. If I can get from the industrial era to the age of nuclear missiles, I can sing the song everything is gonna be alright. not to mention modern armor. tech stealing will be needed.

 

[strijder20]

This has been a good thread, Mr.smallfish.Good stories, I must say.

Completely agreed.

Also, thanks for the stealth bomber tip Smallfish. I was rather stunned when I saw a logistics siege3 SB could take down a city in one turn. Now I've captured London and am preparing for another attack to take out all of England.

 

[Mike III]

a tip for that is just make b17s, have autocracy, and there you you go! they are awesome

 

[strijder20]

a tip for that is just make b17s, have autocracy, and there you you go! they are awesome

Yes, but that would have meant I'd have to play as America - so no Mandekalus, Naresuans, Keshiks or Camel archers
Of course, it's fun on a modern start, I suppose. I've already completed a game as America, but I don't think I ever reached bombers.