Okay, so I very recently won my first game of CIV on Marathon speed and Warlord difficulty (I know, it's not that high of a difficulty, but I'm not great at the game and usually play quick games) on an Earth 2 map which essentially takes Earth and changes the coastlines a little, it was also my first time playing as Portugal. So this should be fun, right? I'm entirely new to the civ I'm playing, only done a few games on Warlord, and done one or two games on Marathon.
With Earth 2 maps, if you have a vague knowledge of geography, you can usually figure out where you are pretty early on. My first time as the Portuguese. Started in South Africa. So I figured, yeah, dude, I'm going Draka on some people.
So I find out that my two northern neighbors are the Aztecs and the Ethiopians. No big deal. Monty's pretty aggressive, but if I make a big enough army, I should be able to hold him off when he inevitably attacks; Ethiopia should be a valuable ally in the future. Not much of a warrior, but we can always piggy back off of his tech research.
I send my first warrior to explore a bit and discover that the Zulu have set up shop in the Middle East. Okay, no big deal. The Persians were in Northern Europe, but Persepolis was overtaken by barbarians early on and they died out. I sent up some archers and took the city (reeeeeally far from home, but it was a good city and served as my second capitol for a long time). To the east of Persepolis, in Asia Minor and the Steppes, are the Carthaginians, the Celts rule the Iberian peninsula. Asia is divided between Japan (India and Asia Minor), Sumeria (South East Asia) Germany (China), and the Holy Roman Empire (Siberia and northern China). Most of them are way too far away to really do much to me, but they could be valuable trading partners. Cool enough. I settle in, build up a few cities, and develop my civilization a bit.
Then Monty attacks! And, given that I'd spent up my military capturing Persepolis, I'm pretty well defenseless. So what do I do? I pray to the might World Builder and a vast army springs up from the very ground itself to conquer Aztlan.
Yeah, I cheated. But, hey, it couldn't be the Draka without Alien Space Bats. And I only supplemented my existing army with maybe five swordsmen to make the fight even. So my vast army marched on the Aztec cities and did conquer. And it was cool.
With the Aztecs defeated, we were left the rulers of pretty much all of Africa, except for the North West. A time of peace came. We built cities and wonders and a great army was born.
Then the Celts and Ethiopians got into this argument with the Zulu about...something, I dunno, and I was asked to join in. I thought, "well, hey, this'll make me some friends!" So I joined in on their reindeer games. My still standing stack of doom marched into Zululand. And promptly pillaged entire cities to the ground for kicks and giggles. And Shaka was maaaaaaad. But he couldn't do much to us, we were owning him. Burned down three of his cities and were marching into his mainland when the Japs founded a city in our way, blocking us off. See, in those days, the Japs were isolationist, a policy they kept well into the Renaissance. So we were pretty well forced into making the Zulu give us a bunch of money and a technology to get us to stop fighting them. Guess they thought we'd march troops out of Persepolis to attack next. We weren't that clever for at least a few centuries.
So peace came again. The Japs build a city blocking us into Africa, Hinduism and Judaism duked it out peacefully to see who was the best religion while Buddhism just kinda hung out and spread around Asia. We founded a few religions of our own, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, but none of them really spread. We stayed a secular nation. Didn't wanna get caught up in a potential holy war. The Celts and Ethiopians were Hindu, the Middle East was Jewish. Holy Rome and Germany were Buddhist. And we were a little of everything, we welcomed everybody. While they were caught up in their religion, we knew what REALLY brought fortune: the World Builder.
So we let them do their thing. We, on the other hand, kept building cities and wonders and improving our army for the inevitable next conflict. Whoever it may be with. The second stack was born in Europe, it would defend Persepolis. Our main stack was left on the border with Japan. In response, they had a major military build up there as well and we...kinda had a medieval cold war. It was weird.
Well, we proved the world to be round in the 1300s or so, sent some soldiers there to begin colonizing by conquering the native barbarian tribes. Slowly but surely, our knights and macemen did their jobs and eventually, we spawned a sprawling colonial empire across South America. But it was a bit far for us to manage ourselves. Barbarian raids were common. So we said, "to heck with it" and set up this nice fellow named Washington as the governor. As just like that, America was born.
Next we continued colonizing northward, across the Straight of Mexico (because, here, there was no land bridge, there actually was a passage) into North America where we continued our campaign of bringing civilization to the savage lands. Ultimately, we drove the barbarians from their cities and gave control to the newly crowned governor Hammurabi and, just like that Babylon was formed.
Meanwhile in the Old World, Carthage got into some hot water with the Celts. I dunno about what or what happened, I didn't really pay much attention. We'll just say it was a holy war because the next thing you know the Japs and Shaka were in wars too, albeit with different people. The Old World pretty well devolved into warfare while we were founding the New World. We pretty much stayed out of it until the Ethiopians marched across the border into Japan and started taking cities with a pretty darn big stack of doom. We took this as a cue to launch our own invasion of Japan. But with Ethiopia gobbling up their cities, we decided we'd just adopted a scorched earth policy. Whoever claimed the land after the Japs were dead could deal with the rebuilding. We were gonna go full on genocide.
But that didn't pan out. Before we could DOW, the Apostolic Palace run by the Ethiopians and the Hindu Church issued a mandate that all member nations declare war on Carthage. Well...we did have a stack in the area...on that border, in fact...might as well march on in. first few turns were heavy combat. Our riflemen and cavalry swooped in and captured all three of their cities in Scandinavia with ease. Left with the entire world bearing down on them and the whole of Scandinavia taken away from them, Carthage was quick to accept our demands of capitulation.
Now the world is divided between a scarce few powers. Ethiopia vassalized Japan, rather than conquering it outright. Germany (I believe) capitulated to the Celts after a brief war. The Holy Romans colonized Australia and founded Russia there. And I control the New World and Carthage as puppet states.
Basically, Europe dominated again. But how long could it possibly be until it explodes into warfare? Not long.
So there we were, no joke, the biggest empire in the world with Ethiopia and Celtia right behind us. African Portugal ruled the world. We had built wonders and two vast armies, colonized the Americas, and were ahead of the rest of the world technologically by decades. We had infantry, everyone else was still working with riflemen at best. We had began constructing a giant railroad that reached upwards from the southern tip of our continent all the way to the most northern city on that continent. Our colonies in the Americas were slowly spreading their influence across their regions, albeit with some problems for the Babylonians in North America at the hands of Celtic and Japanese colonial claims. We were in the middle of our third, unprecedented Golden Age that lasted from the late 17th century all the way to the early 19th century. Yes, things were good for mighty Portugal.
But still we wanted more.
And so it was in the late 1700s that we decided to declare war on the Zulu, to annex their land into our empire by force as was our wont, using the build up of Zulu forces on our border as a casus belli. The Zulu, as I have mentioned previously, were a backwards people, the world's ghetto, in fact. While we were an industrial society, the Zulu were not but savages still fighting with knights and macemen.
Our newly upgraded Northern Army marched on their northern border, easily overcoming their puny stack of doom with only our massive cavalry division, suffering only the loss of one cannon in the opening volley. With the majority of their forces defeated in a single battle, our infantry moved in and captured the first city. Soon thereafter, our Southern Army, entering through Ethiopian territory, conquered the second city with minimal resistance. Once again, our cavalry did most of the heavy lifting.
In no time, our armies stood outside their capitol, ready to gobble it up. But instead, we made an attempt at peace. The Zulu would be allowed to regain their lost cities and retain their holdings on the mainland Eurasian continent provided they accept us as their masters and pay us tribute. Like the Carthaginians before them, they accepted unconditionally.
And so a time of peace came, again. Our armies returned home and grew. The Southern Army was reequipped into infantrymen and the whole of our army garrisoned in our cities were upgraded. Our Southern Cavalry was sent north to join with their counterparts. Both armies grew. But in this time, the Japanese declared their independence from Ethiopia leaving them wide open to an invasion.
And so, we began making plans for the invasion of Japan at the close of our Golden Age. We would fight a two-pronged war invading both from the north AND from the west through Carthage and Ethiopia respectively. This war would cause tensions between ourselves and the Celts, possibly leading to a future war between us, but for the present, they present no direct threat to our mainland.
Positioning our armies on the borders, we declared war and quickly overwhelmed their defenses in three of their cities and, as per our standard operating procedure, crippled their army...with our fleets of zeppelins! We gave two of their cities to our Zulu and Carthaginian vassals and prepared to continue our onslaught. But before that, we saw the Ethiopian cultural borders encroaching upon our claims in the Japanese mainland. Frustrated by this, we declared peace, accepting the Japanese as our vassals. And so, the world is divided...
It had been a good game, but still not quite good enough. I was the world's major power, sure, but there needed to be something awesome to spice the game up.
So I made the Martians invade.
That's right, in 1889 I decided it was time for a War of the Worlds, Civ style. I World Buildered up several very large stacks of barbarian mechanized infantry and various other tanks around the world and let them have at it.
In July of 1890, the War of the Worlds began as the Martians landed in key points around the world, oddly enough in the northern hemisphere. Celtia, Germany, Sumeria, Ethiopia, and Portugal soon found themselves under attack by forces far beyond the reaches of those present civilizations. Metal beasts roamed the countryside and killed many.
Those invaded soon found themselves being overwhelmed by the Martian invasion, cities were taken and the plague of the Martians spread out across the world. Ethiopia lost two cities immediately while the Martians in Celtia were slower to conquer. Germany was perhaps hit the hardest at first. Then Sumeria. Portugal was somehow able to drive their Martian invaders west into Ethiopia, primarily thanks to the efforts of the Southern Army and never lost a city. This war led directly to Portugal's efforts to weaponize fission energy which ultimately paid off, but we'll get to that in a moment.
As the Martian plague washed over the world, the Holy Romans were quick to respond, gobbling up fallen cities with their stack of doom which had previously been unknown to the world. Many German and Sumerian cities soon found themselves saved by the Holy Romans and placed within that empire.
Celtia was hit the hardest out of the three Western Empires losing three cities with a quickness. This led to the Portuguese sending the Cavalry division to aid in retaining their second capitol while the Northern Army retook another of their cities and drove the Martians back in spite of heavy losses. Inspired by this, the Celts quickly responded with their own stack of doom and reclaimed a great deal of their lost land including their first capitol.
Sumeria was likewise hit hard, losing over half its land to the Martian hordes. Ultimately, this led to their Russian vassals declaring independence uncontested and the Sumerians eventually asking for sanctuary under the protection of the Portuguese. Responding in kind, Portugal sent the whole of its armed forces into Sumeria after reclaiming some Carthaginian cities, including Carthage itself, from Martian invaders. In the end, the Martians held off all attempted attacks on the last of their Sumerian cities until finally Portugal was able to utilize its last resort, an ICBM. The missile devastated the city, but was able to free it from the Martian presence, in spite of heavy losses to the Portuguese Cavalry (hereafter dubbed the Martian Slayers for their prominent use in the war).
The Ethiopians perhaps handled the war the best, driving the legions of Mars back by themselves and ultimately reclaiming their territories in spite of what must have been insanely high casualty rates.
And so, the War of the Worlds ended over a decade after it began in January 1901. Portugal remains as the world's greatest power, even more so now with the addition of Sumeria to its ranks and the decimation of the rest of the world's armed forces. However, a new player has entered the world stage, strengthened by victories over the Martians and emboldened by it's new found jingoism. It is Holy Rome, the Eastern Empire. What's more, Holy Rome has taken a distrusting attitude towards Portugal and, indeed, all of the Western Empires.
And so we entered the 1900s in peace. Anticipating a coming war with the Holy Romans, I began building up a large nuclear arsenal to act as a last resort should the Holy Romans somehow find their way through my vassal states and to my borders. Portugal will aggressively defend its borders at all costs.
With the invention of flight, we have renovated our air force from airships to fighter planes and bombers and began constructing ports for air traffic across our empire which will continue to utilize the older airships which will be switched to civilian use only. I can see the application of air planes for our military, but they have little use in civilian life. No one needs to travel that fast.
The Southern Army has been resupplied and is back at full strength as we approach the 1920s while the Northern Army and the Cav are still being reinforced with new troops out of Persepolis. The construction of two new branches of our Army, the Airborne and the Marines, continues on at a steady pace in that region as well, though I doubt they will have much use in a war against Charlemagne. Their possible applications in a potential war with the Celts or even the Ethiopians, however, makes them useful.
In other news, both Ethiopia AND Portugal have began projects focusing on the possibility of space travel utilizing reverse engineered Martian technology, though the Portuguese lead the field in this area having already successfully launched some minor orbital missions and work has began on creating a great shuttle craft that may allow mankind to strike back at the Martians in the future. Though it is still too early to safely speculate on a date, it is hoped that a manned mission to Luna will occur within the following decades, followed by a mission to Mars itself. It is hoped that in a century's time, Portugal will be capable of founding colonies on Luna and perhaps even launching a full military campaign against Mars in that time. The Portuguese military are in charge of the operations.
In the mid 1910s, Portugal announced the founding of a "Unified League of Nations" which hopes to further unite the world in the wake of the Martian invasion and spread world peace. A Portuguese representative was quickly elected Secretary General of this League defeating an Ethiopian opponent. The organization has already successfully proposed the creation of a universal currency which all nations save Ethiopian seemed eager to institute.
With the Portuguese economy booming, humanity anxious to declare war against the beings that came from the heavens, and the threat of the increasingly militaristic Holy Romans, the 1920s will surely be an interesting time...
And indeed they were. Nearly half a century had passed since humanity's war with the Martians drove the invading creatures from the Earth and a time of peace had come. Portugal, that great nation, had attempted in vain to unite the world through diplomacy but was quick coming to the realization that mankind would never be united when so many different leaders prevailed upon the Earth. Moreover, the Eastern Empire, Holy Rome, had continued in its jingoistic tendencies and had built up a large army. Intelligence reports even indicated that the Holy Romans were building an arsenal of nuclear weapons and positioning them on its German border, possibly in preparations for outright war with the Celts, who had control over the German territories.
Dutifully, Portugal informed the Celts of this treachery and, with some persuasion, was able to convince the Celts into a war with the Holy Romans. But not before passing a resolution through the Unified League of Nations requiring all member nations to agree to forgo the production of nuclear arms from that point forward, leaving Portugal with the largest supply of such weapons the world over.
Portugal's plan was simple. The world would not be unified by peace, this much was clear. There for, the only alternative was to unify it through warfare. First, a war between the Celts and the Holy Romans would begin. Then, seeing a growing distrust in the Ethiopians, Portugal would use its technological advantage to persuade Ethiopia into a war with Celtia while the Celtic armies were away. Finally, using its vast armies and its new armored division made up of heavily armored assault vehicles based on captured Martian technology, Portugal would sweep in like a tempest and conquer the three weakened and warring factions. It would be a daring plan to be sure and one that would see heavy losses on all sides. But to unite the world, it was worth it.
But, like all Xanatos Gambits that are only half-thought out, it didn't work. The Three Year War began in 1937, just as planned. But soon, the Celts would bring the Ethiopians into the fold as their allies, convincing them to do so based on their past relations and their common faith. Soon enough, the Celts likewise asked Portugal itself to help them in the war, as Germany had began losing cities as the Holy Romans marched across their borders. Knowing that their initial plan had failed, Portugal honored the agreement and began its march on Holy Rome through its many vassal states.
The initial battles saw heavy losses for both the Holy Romans and the Portuguese as the Southern Army marched in through Nuremberg, defeating the defending armies and capturing the city in spite of numerous casualties. Next, the Northern Army clashed with defending armies in Luxembourg and, in the aftermath of the fighting, sacked the city leading to the few surviving citizens taking up arms as partisan fighters who continued to harass Portuguese troops for the remainder of that year. In response to these guerrilla attacks, the Portuguese Cavalry, recently upgraded from horse cavalry to gunship units, were ordered to raze the Holy Roman countryside and sack any towns it came across. In Germany, the Portuguese Armored Division attempted to help defend the German capitol from the invading HR stack of doom which had laid waste to the Martian tanks decades before. As might be expected, nearly half of the Armored Division was utterly crushed in the fighting, but not before dealing several heavy blows to the stack including destroying many of their most talented soldiers.
As time wore on, it became clear that the Holy Romans would do anything to defend their homeland possibly including the use of their as yet undiscovered nuclear stockpile. Portugal was left with only one option: the Nuclear Option. And so, in January 1938, Portugal launched a tactical nuclear warhead on a mountaintop near the Holy Roman city of Vienna. Shortly thereafter, the Holy Roman Empire agreed to and signed the Nuremberg Accords agreeing to pay reparations to the conquering Portuguese as well as surrender all of its acquired German possessions and becoming a vassal state to the Portuguese Empire.
With the Three Year War over, Portugal (as well as the rest of Earth) stands one step closer to world peace. But now, with the world divided in three and the increasing Ethiopian outcry against Portugal's use of nuclear weapons, how long can it be until the Three Empires of the West descend into an even bloodier civil war?
Short answer: There was no such war. It kinda just ended when I got a diplomatic victory in 1961 by having all of my vassals vote for me in the ULON elections. Sure, Celtia, Ethiopia, and Russia didn't vote for me, but who cares? They're just the independent nations of the world! All the people who depend on me to continue living did!
And so, I'm left to speculate about the future of this world. I also wrote a short story exploring the world's future a bit, mostly because I just felt like writing being happy about my first Warlord victory and all...
With Earth 2 maps, if you have a vague knowledge of geography, you can usually figure out where you are pretty early on. My first time as the Portuguese. Started in South Africa. So I figured, yeah, dude, I'm going Draka on some people.
So I find out that my two northern neighbors are the Aztecs and the Ethiopians. No big deal. Monty's pretty aggressive, but if I make a big enough army, I should be able to hold him off when he inevitably attacks; Ethiopia should be a valuable ally in the future. Not much of a warrior, but we can always piggy back off of his tech research.
I send my first warrior to explore a bit and discover that the Zulu have set up shop in the Middle East. Okay, no big deal. The Persians were in Northern Europe, but Persepolis was overtaken by barbarians early on and they died out. I sent up some archers and took the city (reeeeeally far from home, but it was a good city and served as my second capitol for a long time). To the east of Persepolis, in Asia Minor and the Steppes, are the Carthaginians, the Celts rule the Iberian peninsula. Asia is divided between Japan (India and Asia Minor), Sumeria (South East Asia) Germany (China), and the Holy Roman Empire (Siberia and northern China). Most of them are way too far away to really do much to me, but they could be valuable trading partners. Cool enough. I settle in, build up a few cities, and develop my civilization a bit.
Then Monty attacks! And, given that I'd spent up my military capturing Persepolis, I'm pretty well defenseless. So what do I do? I pray to the might World Builder and a vast army springs up from the very ground itself to conquer Aztlan.
Yeah, I cheated. But, hey, it couldn't be the Draka without Alien Space Bats. And I only supplemented my existing army with maybe five swordsmen to make the fight even. So my vast army marched on the Aztec cities and did conquer. And it was cool.
With the Aztecs defeated, we were left the rulers of pretty much all of Africa, except for the North West. A time of peace came. We built cities and wonders and a great army was born.
Then the Celts and Ethiopians got into this argument with the Zulu about...something, I dunno, and I was asked to join in. I thought, "well, hey, this'll make me some friends!" So I joined in on their reindeer games. My still standing stack of doom marched into Zululand. And promptly pillaged entire cities to the ground for kicks and giggles. And Shaka was maaaaaaad. But he couldn't do much to us, we were owning him. Burned down three of his cities and were marching into his mainland when the Japs founded a city in our way, blocking us off. See, in those days, the Japs were isolationist, a policy they kept well into the Renaissance. So we were pretty well forced into making the Zulu give us a bunch of money and a technology to get us to stop fighting them. Guess they thought we'd march troops out of Persepolis to attack next. We weren't that clever for at least a few centuries.
So peace came again. The Japs build a city blocking us into Africa, Hinduism and Judaism duked it out peacefully to see who was the best religion while Buddhism just kinda hung out and spread around Asia. We founded a few religions of our own, Taoism, Christianity, Islam, but none of them really spread. We stayed a secular nation. Didn't wanna get caught up in a potential holy war. The Celts and Ethiopians were Hindu, the Middle East was Jewish. Holy Rome and Germany were Buddhist. And we were a little of everything, we welcomed everybody. While they were caught up in their religion, we knew what REALLY brought fortune: the World Builder.
So we let them do their thing. We, on the other hand, kept building cities and wonders and improving our army for the inevitable next conflict. Whoever it may be with. The second stack was born in Europe, it would defend Persepolis. Our main stack was left on the border with Japan. In response, they had a major military build up there as well and we...kinda had a medieval cold war. It was weird.
Well, we proved the world to be round in the 1300s or so, sent some soldiers there to begin colonizing by conquering the native barbarian tribes. Slowly but surely, our knights and macemen did their jobs and eventually, we spawned a sprawling colonial empire across South America. But it was a bit far for us to manage ourselves. Barbarian raids were common. So we said, "to heck with it" and set up this nice fellow named Washington as the governor. As just like that, America was born.
Next we continued colonizing northward, across the Straight of Mexico (because, here, there was no land bridge, there actually was a passage) into North America where we continued our campaign of bringing civilization to the savage lands. Ultimately, we drove the barbarians from their cities and gave control to the newly crowned governor Hammurabi and, just like that Babylon was formed.
Meanwhile in the Old World, Carthage got into some hot water with the Celts. I dunno about what or what happened, I didn't really pay much attention. We'll just say it was a holy war because the next thing you know the Japs and Shaka were in wars too, albeit with different people. The Old World pretty well devolved into warfare while we were founding the New World. We pretty much stayed out of it until the Ethiopians marched across the border into Japan and started taking cities with a pretty darn big stack of doom. We took this as a cue to launch our own invasion of Japan. But with Ethiopia gobbling up their cities, we decided we'd just adopted a scorched earth policy. Whoever claimed the land after the Japs were dead could deal with the rebuilding. We were gonna go full on genocide.
But that didn't pan out. Before we could DOW, the Apostolic Palace run by the Ethiopians and the Hindu Church issued a mandate that all member nations declare war on Carthage. Well...we did have a stack in the area...on that border, in fact...might as well march on in. first few turns were heavy combat. Our riflemen and cavalry swooped in and captured all three of their cities in Scandinavia with ease. Left with the entire world bearing down on them and the whole of Scandinavia taken away from them, Carthage was quick to accept our demands of capitulation.
Now the world is divided between a scarce few powers. Ethiopia vassalized Japan, rather than conquering it outright. Germany (I believe) capitulated to the Celts after a brief war. The Holy Romans colonized Australia and founded Russia there. And I control the New World and Carthage as puppet states.
Basically, Europe dominated again. But how long could it possibly be until it explodes into warfare? Not long.
So there we were, no joke, the biggest empire in the world with Ethiopia and Celtia right behind us. African Portugal ruled the world. We had built wonders and two vast armies, colonized the Americas, and were ahead of the rest of the world technologically by decades. We had infantry, everyone else was still working with riflemen at best. We had began constructing a giant railroad that reached upwards from the southern tip of our continent all the way to the most northern city on that continent. Our colonies in the Americas were slowly spreading their influence across their regions, albeit with some problems for the Babylonians in North America at the hands of Celtic and Japanese colonial claims. We were in the middle of our third, unprecedented Golden Age that lasted from the late 17th century all the way to the early 19th century. Yes, things were good for mighty Portugal.
But still we wanted more.
And so it was in the late 1700s that we decided to declare war on the Zulu, to annex their land into our empire by force as was our wont, using the build up of Zulu forces on our border as a casus belli. The Zulu, as I have mentioned previously, were a backwards people, the world's ghetto, in fact. While we were an industrial society, the Zulu were not but savages still fighting with knights and macemen.
Our newly upgraded Northern Army marched on their northern border, easily overcoming their puny stack of doom with only our massive cavalry division, suffering only the loss of one cannon in the opening volley. With the majority of their forces defeated in a single battle, our infantry moved in and captured the first city. Soon thereafter, our Southern Army, entering through Ethiopian territory, conquered the second city with minimal resistance. Once again, our cavalry did most of the heavy lifting.
In no time, our armies stood outside their capitol, ready to gobble it up. But instead, we made an attempt at peace. The Zulu would be allowed to regain their lost cities and retain their holdings on the mainland Eurasian continent provided they accept us as their masters and pay us tribute. Like the Carthaginians before them, they accepted unconditionally.
And so a time of peace came, again. Our armies returned home and grew. The Southern Army was reequipped into infantrymen and the whole of our army garrisoned in our cities were upgraded. Our Southern Cavalry was sent north to join with their counterparts. Both armies grew. But in this time, the Japanese declared their independence from Ethiopia leaving them wide open to an invasion.
And so, we began making plans for the invasion of Japan at the close of our Golden Age. We would fight a two-pronged war invading both from the north AND from the west through Carthage and Ethiopia respectively. This war would cause tensions between ourselves and the Celts, possibly leading to a future war between us, but for the present, they present no direct threat to our mainland.
Positioning our armies on the borders, we declared war and quickly overwhelmed their defenses in three of their cities and, as per our standard operating procedure, crippled their army...with our fleets of zeppelins! We gave two of their cities to our Zulu and Carthaginian vassals and prepared to continue our onslaught. But before that, we saw the Ethiopian cultural borders encroaching upon our claims in the Japanese mainland. Frustrated by this, we declared peace, accepting the Japanese as our vassals. And so, the world is divided...
It had been a good game, but still not quite good enough. I was the world's major power, sure, but there needed to be something awesome to spice the game up.
So I made the Martians invade.
That's right, in 1889 I decided it was time for a War of the Worlds, Civ style. I World Buildered up several very large stacks of barbarian mechanized infantry and various other tanks around the world and let them have at it.
In July of 1890, the War of the Worlds began as the Martians landed in key points around the world, oddly enough in the northern hemisphere. Celtia, Germany, Sumeria, Ethiopia, and Portugal soon found themselves under attack by forces far beyond the reaches of those present civilizations. Metal beasts roamed the countryside and killed many.
Those invaded soon found themselves being overwhelmed by the Martian invasion, cities were taken and the plague of the Martians spread out across the world. Ethiopia lost two cities immediately while the Martians in Celtia were slower to conquer. Germany was perhaps hit the hardest at first. Then Sumeria. Portugal was somehow able to drive their Martian invaders west into Ethiopia, primarily thanks to the efforts of the Southern Army and never lost a city. This war led directly to Portugal's efforts to weaponize fission energy which ultimately paid off, but we'll get to that in a moment.
As the Martian plague washed over the world, the Holy Romans were quick to respond, gobbling up fallen cities with their stack of doom which had previously been unknown to the world. Many German and Sumerian cities soon found themselves saved by the Holy Romans and placed within that empire.
Celtia was hit the hardest out of the three Western Empires losing three cities with a quickness. This led to the Portuguese sending the Cavalry division to aid in retaining their second capitol while the Northern Army retook another of their cities and drove the Martians back in spite of heavy losses. Inspired by this, the Celts quickly responded with their own stack of doom and reclaimed a great deal of their lost land including their first capitol.
Sumeria was likewise hit hard, losing over half its land to the Martian hordes. Ultimately, this led to their Russian vassals declaring independence uncontested and the Sumerians eventually asking for sanctuary under the protection of the Portuguese. Responding in kind, Portugal sent the whole of its armed forces into Sumeria after reclaiming some Carthaginian cities, including Carthage itself, from Martian invaders. In the end, the Martians held off all attempted attacks on the last of their Sumerian cities until finally Portugal was able to utilize its last resort, an ICBM. The missile devastated the city, but was able to free it from the Martian presence, in spite of heavy losses to the Portuguese Cavalry (hereafter dubbed the Martian Slayers for their prominent use in the war).
The Ethiopians perhaps handled the war the best, driving the legions of Mars back by themselves and ultimately reclaiming their territories in spite of what must have been insanely high casualty rates.
And so, the War of the Worlds ended over a decade after it began in January 1901. Portugal remains as the world's greatest power, even more so now with the addition of Sumeria to its ranks and the decimation of the rest of the world's armed forces. However, a new player has entered the world stage, strengthened by victories over the Martians and emboldened by it's new found jingoism. It is Holy Rome, the Eastern Empire. What's more, Holy Rome has taken a distrusting attitude towards Portugal and, indeed, all of the Western Empires.
And so we entered the 1900s in peace. Anticipating a coming war with the Holy Romans, I began building up a large nuclear arsenal to act as a last resort should the Holy Romans somehow find their way through my vassal states and to my borders. Portugal will aggressively defend its borders at all costs.
With the invention of flight, we have renovated our air force from airships to fighter planes and bombers and began constructing ports for air traffic across our empire which will continue to utilize the older airships which will be switched to civilian use only. I can see the application of air planes for our military, but they have little use in civilian life. No one needs to travel that fast.
The Southern Army has been resupplied and is back at full strength as we approach the 1920s while the Northern Army and the Cav are still being reinforced with new troops out of Persepolis. The construction of two new branches of our Army, the Airborne and the Marines, continues on at a steady pace in that region as well, though I doubt they will have much use in a war against Charlemagne. Their possible applications in a potential war with the Celts or even the Ethiopians, however, makes them useful.
In other news, both Ethiopia AND Portugal have began projects focusing on the possibility of space travel utilizing reverse engineered Martian technology, though the Portuguese lead the field in this area having already successfully launched some minor orbital missions and work has began on creating a great shuttle craft that may allow mankind to strike back at the Martians in the future. Though it is still too early to safely speculate on a date, it is hoped that a manned mission to Luna will occur within the following decades, followed by a mission to Mars itself. It is hoped that in a century's time, Portugal will be capable of founding colonies on Luna and perhaps even launching a full military campaign against Mars in that time. The Portuguese military are in charge of the operations.
In the mid 1910s, Portugal announced the founding of a "Unified League of Nations" which hopes to further unite the world in the wake of the Martian invasion and spread world peace. A Portuguese representative was quickly elected Secretary General of this League defeating an Ethiopian opponent. The organization has already successfully proposed the creation of a universal currency which all nations save Ethiopian seemed eager to institute.
With the Portuguese economy booming, humanity anxious to declare war against the beings that came from the heavens, and the threat of the increasingly militaristic Holy Romans, the 1920s will surely be an interesting time...
And indeed they were. Nearly half a century had passed since humanity's war with the Martians drove the invading creatures from the Earth and a time of peace had come. Portugal, that great nation, had attempted in vain to unite the world through diplomacy but was quick coming to the realization that mankind would never be united when so many different leaders prevailed upon the Earth. Moreover, the Eastern Empire, Holy Rome, had continued in its jingoistic tendencies and had built up a large army. Intelligence reports even indicated that the Holy Romans were building an arsenal of nuclear weapons and positioning them on its German border, possibly in preparations for outright war with the Celts, who had control over the German territories.
Dutifully, Portugal informed the Celts of this treachery and, with some persuasion, was able to convince the Celts into a war with the Holy Romans. But not before passing a resolution through the Unified League of Nations requiring all member nations to agree to forgo the production of nuclear arms from that point forward, leaving Portugal with the largest supply of such weapons the world over.
Portugal's plan was simple. The world would not be unified by peace, this much was clear. There for, the only alternative was to unify it through warfare. First, a war between the Celts and the Holy Romans would begin. Then, seeing a growing distrust in the Ethiopians, Portugal would use its technological advantage to persuade Ethiopia into a war with Celtia while the Celtic armies were away. Finally, using its vast armies and its new armored division made up of heavily armored assault vehicles based on captured Martian technology, Portugal would sweep in like a tempest and conquer the three weakened and warring factions. It would be a daring plan to be sure and one that would see heavy losses on all sides. But to unite the world, it was worth it.
But, like all Xanatos Gambits that are only half-thought out, it didn't work. The Three Year War began in 1937, just as planned. But soon, the Celts would bring the Ethiopians into the fold as their allies, convincing them to do so based on their past relations and their common faith. Soon enough, the Celts likewise asked Portugal itself to help them in the war, as Germany had began losing cities as the Holy Romans marched across their borders. Knowing that their initial plan had failed, Portugal honored the agreement and began its march on Holy Rome through its many vassal states.
The initial battles saw heavy losses for both the Holy Romans and the Portuguese as the Southern Army marched in through Nuremberg, defeating the defending armies and capturing the city in spite of numerous casualties. Next, the Northern Army clashed with defending armies in Luxembourg and, in the aftermath of the fighting, sacked the city leading to the few surviving citizens taking up arms as partisan fighters who continued to harass Portuguese troops for the remainder of that year. In response to these guerrilla attacks, the Portuguese Cavalry, recently upgraded from horse cavalry to gunship units, were ordered to raze the Holy Roman countryside and sack any towns it came across. In Germany, the Portuguese Armored Division attempted to help defend the German capitol from the invading HR stack of doom which had laid waste to the Martian tanks decades before. As might be expected, nearly half of the Armored Division was utterly crushed in the fighting, but not before dealing several heavy blows to the stack including destroying many of their most talented soldiers.
As time wore on, it became clear that the Holy Romans would do anything to defend their homeland possibly including the use of their as yet undiscovered nuclear stockpile. Portugal was left with only one option: the Nuclear Option. And so, in January 1938, Portugal launched a tactical nuclear warhead on a mountaintop near the Holy Roman city of Vienna. Shortly thereafter, the Holy Roman Empire agreed to and signed the Nuremberg Accords agreeing to pay reparations to the conquering Portuguese as well as surrender all of its acquired German possessions and becoming a vassal state to the Portuguese Empire.
With the Three Year War over, Portugal (as well as the rest of Earth) stands one step closer to world peace. But now, with the world divided in three and the increasing Ethiopian outcry against Portugal's use of nuclear weapons, how long can it be until the Three Empires of the West descend into an even bloodier civil war?
Short answer: There was no such war. It kinda just ended when I got a diplomatic victory in 1961 by having all of my vassals vote for me in the ULON elections. Sure, Celtia, Ethiopia, and Russia didn't vote for me, but who cares? They're just the independent nations of the world! All the people who depend on me to continue living did!
And so, I'm left to speculate about the future of this world. I also wrote a short story exploring the world's future a bit, mostly because I just felt like writing being happy about my first Warlord victory and all...
