Hello. I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack. ^.^ So, is this the place to be?
Figured I'd go back to my old tradition of writing about particularly interesting games I've played. About a week ago, I played a game as The Peacekeepers, all standard rules except Ironman, random huge map, Transcend difficulty. I did the entire game over the course of maybe four hours, if that.
The main area of action was a single massive ribbon continent. My Peacekeepers occupied the northwesternmost position. The continent was somewhat U shaped, dipping south, traveling east quite a ways, then returning north. Immediately southeast of me were Santiago's Spartan Federation, to whom I initially payed a protection fee, which she apparently appreciated enough to ally with me. East of her were Deirdre's Stepdaughters of Gaia, with whom I allied shortly after contacting to protect her from the Believers, who were East of her. East of the Believers were the Hive and the University, and I don't recall exactly how they were arranged.
Kind of in the middle of this U, just across a channel, were the lands of Morgan Industries, who had a smaller continent to themselves. I also ended up allying with them.
I sent a token force to help the Gaians hold off the Believers as I developed my economy (one city was dedicated to military production). This ultimately proved insufficient, as the Believers slowly ground away at our defenses. The big problem was that the terrain did not favor defense, particularly against a mobile force that included elite infantry. To succeed here, I would have had to send a full scale army of my own, go on the offense; well, you live and learn. At any rate, there came a point when all my units were wounded, many destroyed, and we pulled back to Spartan territory. Meanwhile, the Believers were winning their two front war, conquering not only the Gaians, but also the Hive and the University.
Spartan territory proved even more exposed. There was just too much territory to protect, so we fell back even further, to our territory which was protected by a convenient bottleneck. However, by this point, I'd run out of civilian projects, and so was ready to field a true army. It was also around this point that the Morganites, apparently maintaining neutrality despite our Pact, tipped their hand: their plan to corner the Energy market was initiated.
Better them than the Believers, I figured, and so maintained our Pact.
The Believers reached my territory, at which point I crushed their invasion force. My own force began advancing back through Spartan territory, and I took two former Spartan bases. It was at this point that Miriam offered a conditionless Blood Truce, which I accepted... and then she foolishly broke that very turn, bringing Morgan formally into the war.
I like to imagine Morgan did what he did on behalf of the Alliance (by now consisting of everyone against Miriam). Miriam and I traded a few bases back and forth (with my forces growing in strength), and then Morgan's plan came to fruition. I like to imagine Miriam's ambitions collapsed on account of her troops simply not being paid, their economy collapsing, their people, likely devoted in theory to a monetary system of "just weights and measures", suddenly discovering that they were up to their ears in debt to the Morgans... and the Morgans had called the debt.
At any rate, I discovered that an economic victory can be shared, as the game was counted as a victory for me. Not the biggest score I've ever gotten... but it was a satisfying game.
