Où sont mes vins?

[Big Pig]

Thanks for waiting.

Not a great deal to report this time round:
Tech

• Finished railroad. Workers now scurrying around building RRs on mines and lumber mills
• Used GS to bulb part of Physics. Not the best move unfortunately as Mansa completed Physics 1 turn later
• Traded for Astronomy with Mansa
  
• About to finish Combustion (for transports and destroyers)

Wars

• JC stubbornly refused to give us Arretium (wine island) - eventually I lost patience and got a ceasefire after taking all his mainland cities
  
• We are currently at peace (for a change). We currently have 50% of land - we need to be careful not to pop the dom limit before we have all the wine (?and have completed the Tour Eiffel?)

and that Statue finally got completed......


I guess we need to beeline to Radio if we need the Eiffel Tower. And build a few transports and destroyers to get JC's wine island. To the boats!

 

[stuge]

Nice. It's up to Sommelier to finish Caesar. A transport full of whatever should see to that. And you should polish off Hatty too, while you're at it.

Let's go towards radio for the Eiffel tower. Meanwhile we can prepare for a war against Curys, as we'll have to attack him anyway. Let's finish this in a massive modern war. Mmm, bombers... (Drool in a Homer Simpsonesque fashion.)

 

[patagonia]

I decided to give the troops a well-earned rest and play a builder set, researching assembly line once combustion was done (we're currently 1 turn from physics, so biology next maybe?). Factories are now going up across France to mass produce weapons that can be speedily transported across our growing railroad network.

Based on Loup's modern war comment, I decided Caesar and Hatty could wait until we had marines before being put out of their misery.

Here's the save, and the Mfg graph since it's quite amusing.

 

[stuge]

That was quick, and at that graph.

Methinks that industrialism and artillery will give us everything we need.
Pour la gloire de la France!

 

[stuge]

Quiet years in France.

I used the GS we had to speed biology along, then researched electricity and radio. Research is currently into industrialism. Mansa is willing to trade artillery but wants electricity for it. Also, watch the Roman wine island. Mansa is at war with Caesar and if he's about to capture the city, we'll have to bribe them into peace.

We popped a GM in Paris this turnset. I went ahead and merged him into Calais. I thought about a trade mission but dismissed it. We'll have to build our tanks up from scratch, anyway.

Yes, we now have the Pentagon. Athens cranked it out in 13 turns. Currently
the city is working on Broadway.

The invention of the radio brought us into the modern era. Paris is currently working on the Eiffel, with an ETA of 17 turns. After the tower is complete, I suggest that we adopt the modern way of free speech.

And in the beginning of the 19th century, in the beginning of a new era of prosperity, it would be said that "the sun never sets in the French empire".

And the empire was indeed mighty. None could rival her in her days of splendour. Pitiful were her rivals in comparison.

Cochon, you're up.

 

[Big Pig]

Quiet years in France.

I used the GS we had to speed biology along, then researched electricity and radio. Research is currently into industrialism. Mansa is willing to trade artillery but wants electricity for it. Also, watch the Roman wine island. Mansa is at war with Caesar and if he's about to capture the city, we'll have to bribe them into peace.

We popped a GM in Paris this turnset. I went ahead and merged him into Calais. I thought about a trade mission but dismissed it. We'll have to build our tanks up from scratch, anyway.

Clearly we have (or had) a surfeit of GSs - I used one I found sleeping in 1 of our cities for Physics during my turnset. The returns from GPs seems to be diminishing - we should probably try to use our next two for a Golden Age

Louis won't be happy he's number 2 in approval rating......

 

[stuge]

D'oh! Should have thought about a Golden Age. Oh, well. We probably won't be seeing two GPs before the game is over. Chalk up one silly move for me.

 

[patagonia]

With Le Tour Eiffel and free speech, we can probably hit the domination limit just by running the culture slider. Rather a cheeky way of doing it though.

What's the overall plan from here? Nab the last two wine islands and blitzkreig through Persia with tanks and bombers?

 

[stuge]

About so. For the wine islands, 2/3 boatloads of marines apiece with battleship escorts should do the trick. Curys is probably heading for rocketry now, but we can churn out bombers at such a rate that his SAMs will be rather hard pressed. And our tanks will have two promotions out of the gate.

Btw Sommelier, would you be interested in joining Warlords SGOTM 4? We could use another player at team Trash.

 

[Big Pig]

Ok, 1 more wine island to go

• Finished Scotland Yard to enable us to keep a close eye on our neighbours - and blow up any Greenpeace ships that might venture into neutral ports
• Built a bunch of tanks, marines and infantry
• Our navy which had been shamefully neglected by Loup and Sommelier has been built into an armada which now rules the waves (ie we now have 3 or 4 transports and destroyers, with a few battleships in the pipeline)
• Teched Industrialism and Flight. Our factories up and down the land are beavering away building Bombers (well 1 or 2 at least) to placate le Loup
• Louis was getting rather bored by all the building and demanded more wine. I duly obliged by liberating Arretium and a few bottles of Chianti

I would advocate a big push through China (as Mao is still backwards and a longway from Rocketry) together with a sneak amphib assault on Cyrus's wine island when we are nearing the Dom Level. In keeping with the spirit of the variant we should try to wrap this up in the 1800s given the less than successful outcome of French 20th century warmongering......

Surely can't be long now.

 

[stuge]

I can imagine Louis' eyes shining, as the grape hegemony draws ever closer.

I say we attack only Persia. Seems more... sporting to to me. Anyway this should be well over before the 1900s.

 

[stuge]

Sommelier, you know that you're up? Should probably post a roster more often...

Just give us a word whether you can play or need a skip.

 

[patagonia]

Sorry, didn't realise I was up again.

I've played now, exterminated the Egyptians and left it to Loup to march us to victory.

Gustav Eiffel also completed a tribute to Louis, which pleased Le Roi no end.

Our army is in Calais, ready to declare on Cyrus after pressing enter. The bombers there can reach five Persian cities, so shouldn't need rebasing for a while. We've also got smaller forces, one south of Paris to take out Persian oil, the other in the Malinese city of Naini to open the war on two fronts. A small fleet is ready to capture the final wine city on the next turn.

The only real question that remains is, can we rampage all the way through Persia before we hit the domination limit? There's a GA in Calais to help with the last part.

Enjoy!

 

[stuge]

Let the tanks roll.

 

[stuge]

Sorry to keep you guys waiting but my schedule is a bit ... tight right now.
If you're eager to finish this game, skip me and play ahead, 'cos I doubt that I'll be able to play before the weekend.

 

[stuge]

The administration would like to thank you for your patience. The war report will be published tomorrow. (Hopefully.)

 

[Big Pig]

The administration would like to thank you for your patience. The war report will be published tomorrow. (Hopefully.)

Look forward to it
Have we won yet?

 

[stuge]

Have we won yet?

You'd like to know wouldn't you...

Let's just say, that SAMs, despite their ultra-macho pose, aren't much use against tanks.

 

[stuge]

Yeah, it took me this long to play freaking three turns. I'm afraid that my comp isn't quite up to modern warfare on such a massive scale. In play time, with the crashes and all, this round took about 4 hours to play.

Before declaring on Curys, I made sure that Mansa would be too busy to attack us.

Then I gave Curys a chance to be useful for the last time.

And then, well, shame really. He was always such a jolly good fellow.

This war isn't quite fair. The few Persian SAMs are completely unable to stop our airforce. After the bombers smash the city, it's clean-up work for our tanks and choppers. And where the bombers can't reach, there's our navy bombing the defences down. Couple this with our superior production capability and you've got an unstoppable multi-front blitzkrieg.

Thusly, the following cities were joined to the Empire.

Samaria.
Gordium.
Tarsus.
Dariush Kabir.
Aaand... (drumroll please.)

The hegemony, at last! Now Louis can finally be certain that he is the greatest monarch of them all.

Yeah, I know, we totally rock.

Curys managed to pull off one nice move.

That attack fleet was in Chinese waters, and caused some head-scratching. The wisest course of action would have been to let the stack land and then crush them.

Bull. The coolest course of action was to give Mao the finger and send that fleet to sleep with the fishes.

Mao's a joke so no big deal.

Some tactical screenies.

Mao's known forces. I've circled a small invasion force in red. There aren't any ships nearby to sink it, but we've got four gunships in the area, so no problem. Just watch 'em.

The bulk of our forces are on the border between Tarsus and Gordium. Note also a small fleet, circled in blue, ready to attack Tyre on the west coast.

Another amusing graph.

Cochon is up - kickass.

 

[Big Pig]

Well, I have to say modern warfare is rather dull - particularly when it is so 1-sided

The Good News:
- Cyrus est mort

The Bad News:
- we still haven't won (quite)

The Highlights:-Our tank-heavy army continued their inexorable advance thru' Persia - none could stand in their way


- Mao impertinently razed a vineyard near Thebes. It was swiftly rebuilt and retribution followed in the form of tanks and gunships (vs. Rifles)


A French heroine received her martyrdom rather later than history would suggest - and in a somewhat different manner....


We are currently ~1% shy of the land area domination level. Sommelier has the honour of wrapping things up