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grayghost: well, if they had banded together it would've been more interesting, but yeah, also more difficult given how most of my corps in Turkey are commanded by Major Generals...:p

canonized: indeed. situation dictates that the AI must always declare war on the players even if the victim countries aren't in their sphere of influence (grrr Italy, though to be fair they had a lot to worry about if the Soviets get access to the Mediterranean, from a purely geopolitical point of view...) :p

this is comment day again, so the next update will be tomorrow ;)
 
Myth said:
rcduggan: actually, its just a copy and paste :D
I discovered it when I was modding HoI2 techs. I thought that the effect had something to do with burn, so I tried that but it didn't work. it seemed like it was halfway there, but not entirely. then I noticed a .psd in gfx\interface\tech called techs_template. and, yup, all you need to do is resize it appropriate, then copy and paste into that. then I save as a .jpg and open that up, use the magic wand to grab all the green around the photo and export it as a transparent image. and...ta-da! :D

update coming up in a bit!

what format would preserve the transparency?
 
rcduggan said:
what format would preserve the transparency?
PNG or GIF

PNG is generally the god of all image formats.
 
Greece joining the Turks is definitely a surprise I did not see coming. But at least the post ended upbeat. A hell of a victory!
 
Discomb: stab.

rcduggan: as Discomb said, png or gif. I personally use png.

Discomb: except when it comes to compression. it tends to be 1.5-2x bigger than the exact same jpg (except with transparency as opposed to greenery)

coz1: yes, those Greeks certainly have an odd foreign policy! as for the victory, it's only one division but nevertheless, it's one less division to worry about :p

update coming up!
 
10 kilometers west of Erzurum
January 28, 1936


Kuznetsov groped around for his bottle of vodka. Rather, his fifteenth bottle of vodka; ever since the beginning of the campaign he had been drinking far too much. He attempted to rationalize it; the stress was getting to him. He was a lieutenant general, a corps commander and a front commander. However, the past few days had revealed that he was also something more. He was also a theater commander and thus was the frontline when it came to political decisions as well. The Greek declaration of war had hinted at this. However, the most recent development had struck out of the blue and, though he knew what to do, it had shocked and surprised him. Thus, the vodka. Again.

It didn't help his mental stability that the battles for Sivas appeared never ending, as the Turks continually threw single divisions into the battle in a desperate attempt to halt his advance. Major General Marchenkov had even reached Erzurum by this time and was also lending the weight of his staff-crippled 4th Mountain Corps to the advance. The Turks still sacrificed their divisions in their ultimately futile defense of Sivas. Kuznetsov had smashed a division under the command of Colonel General Namut in six hours on the 26th, and his and Marchenkov's corps were embroiled in yet another fight, against Gürzlin's already hard-hit cavalry division. Rather, Gürzlin's division was embroiled, some of Kuznetsov's divisions pushing toward Sivas only heard the occasional artillery reports in the distance they were so far away from the fighting.

011-01-SecondBattleforSivas.png

Kuznetsov and Marchenkov's two corps thrashed Namut's single infantry division during the night and early morning of the 26th.

In contrast to the seeming lack of progress in the north and center—as Deev had earlier been stymied in front of Samsun and the conflict for Sivas appeared to be going on forever—Berman had been tearing through the light Turkish in front of his cavalry corps. After having crushed a Turkish division outside of Van, he turned around and began racing toward his original objective, Gazientep. Though he had hoped to reach the coastal town before the withdrawing Turks reached it, he did not succeed in this ambitious goal as Colonel General Karabekir's infantry reached the area first and forced Berman to fight in the mountainous terrain. Despite their earlier defeats, Karabekir's infantry stood their ground for a full thirteen hours before finally breaking at midnight, as the 27th turned into the 28th. Kuznetsov sighed as he finally poured himself a shot of vodka, before downing it. He'd do anything for another cavalry corps. Or adequate staffing; he was sure that adequate staffing would also ease his woes. He shook his head wryly. The Turks had colonel generals commanding single divisions. The Soviet Union had lieutenant generals commanding theaters. He was unsure which was worse.

011-02-BattleforGazientep.png

Berman, with his cavalry and his adequate command staff, easily broke the light Turkish defenses opposing him.

The south was certainly where the most progress was being made, Kuznetsov realized. As Berman wrestled with the Turks for control of Gazientep, Major General Saladze's 3rd Mountain Corps occupied Elazig, to the southwest of Erzurum, and attacked toward Kayseri. His advance was so fast and unpredicted by the Turks that he caught a cavalry division at Kayseri that was separated from its command staff and thus effectively leaderless. It was unfortunate that Saladze hadn't the command staff to effectively control his corps in actual battle, else the nine hours that the fighting occupied may have been much shorter. Nevertheless, Kuznetsov realized that the incident revealed one of two possibilities: either the Turks were sloppy and allowed divisional command staffs to travel separately from the division itself or the Turkish government was becoming disillusioned with its general staff and looking for scapegoats to blame defeat on.

In light of what he had received mere hours ago, Kuznetsov was beginning to believe that the Turkish government was in the process of falling apart.

011-03-BattleforKayseri.png

Saladze's 3rd Mountain Corps roughly handed a Turkish infantry division near Kayseri.

Kuznetsov poured himself another shot of vodka and quickly downed it. Holding the bottle, he peered into it and swirled the vodka around, realizing that there was only a single shot's worth left. With a shrug he put the entire bottle to his lips and tilted his head back, allowing the fiery liquid to burn its way down into his stomach. With a satisfied sigh, he set the bottle aside before turning his gaze, at last, back to the piece of paper in front of him. It with, however, with a disgusted sigh that he actually picked it up to look at it again. He was a theater commander, and he hated it. He hated politics.

The slip of paper was from Nazim Hikmet Ran, a member of the underground Turkish Communist Party. He had ambitions to become the foreign minister of a communist Turkey, and had promised to enlist the aid of others in delivering half of Turkey to the Soviet Union if they would let the rest of Turkey remain free and unmolested—if, of course, in the Soviet sphere of influence. Kuznetsov sighed, he disliked disappointing people and this Nazim Hikmet Ran character seemed reasonable enough. However, he knew what his supreme objective was: Istanbul.

011-04-TurkishPeaceOffer.png

Nazim Hikmet Ran's secret peace offer.

Kuznetsov could not help but note that Istanbul was not in the list of localities that Nazim Hikmet Ran proposed to turn over to Soviet suzerainty. He could also not help but realize that if he accepted such a peace offer, Stalin would order him and all his corps commanders shot, or at best sent to Siberia, and that STAVKA would enthusiastically carry out this demand. Kuznetsov yelled to a guard outside the room to fetch the Turkish messenger. Once he had been ushered inside, Kuznetsov leaned forward in his chair, simply looking at the messenger. With motions that bordered on deliberate, he cast his arms in such a way as to bring the cuffs of his jacket back, picked up a pen and drew a large 'x' on the Turkish peace offer. He silently handed it to the messenger, who took it with apparent fear and despair. As the guard ushered the stunned messenger out of the room, Kuznetsov leaned back. Now that the political decision was made, he could return to his profession: war. He smiled and wondered whether this event was of great enough magnitude for him to open another bottle of vodka and pour himself a shot in celebration.
 
Wow , sweeping victories striking fear into those silly Turks ! Haha pretty dramatic way to reject a peace treaty too !
 
Myth said:
Discomb: except when it comes to compression. it tends to be 1.5-2x bigger than the exact same jpg (except with transparency as opposed to greenery)

Very very untrue. They simply stem from two very opposite compression algorhythms. I won't go into detail on how exactly they work, but let me just say that pictures with a lot of color variation and few mostly monotone spaces will weigh less as a JPG. This applies to photographs. However, a good deal of web designers (depending on the specific design of course) will use PNG. I can vouch that 75% of my own artworks weigh at least half of what they would as a JPG in their current PNG state.

In conclusion, the format of choice depends entirely on the nature of the graphic. Carry on.
 
Myth said:
He smiled and wondered whether this event was of great enough magnitude for him to open another bottle of vodka and pour himself a shot in celebration.

:rofl: It's definitely is great enough, also it would be nice if you could post map of Turkey/Persia to sho your progress, as I don't remember location of all their provinces by name and I think I am not the only one :p
 
Of course, if he had more staff, he'd have to share his vodka. ;)

So you turned down the peace to get Istanbul? Interesting. Of course, that X could be considered a legal "mark" thus signifying his acceptance, but without identifying who actually signed it (and thus, who was lined up to get shot by Stalin's men.)
 
Myth said:
rcduggan: as Discomb said, png or gif. I personally use png.

png works, thanks.


great updates too.
 
canonized: yep, dramatic indeed ;)

Discomb: well all I know is that my max-quality jpg's are x kb while my max quality png's are 1.5-2x kb

Edzako: yeah, sorry about that. its just that when we were playing I tended to take screenshots of the battles since they were relatively pivotal and not of the campaigns as much. but you'll get a map of Turkey not in the next update, but the one afterwards
nods.gif


coz1: that's true, he would have to share it...:eek: also, didn't think of that second interpretation for the x, maybe he should've simply ripped the treaty in two--but yeah, the whole point of the campaign in Turkey is to take Istanbul and thus gain control of the Bosporus so that the Germans and (perhaps more importantly) the British don't try anything fancy during our war...

rcduggan: you're welcome, and thanks! :D

The_Carbonater: thanks! :D

since this is comment day, the update will be tomorrow ;)
 
170 Kilometers south of Kirovabad
February 5, 1936


Vacietis smirked. Communist sympathizers in the court of the Persian king, led by Dinshah Irani, a pretender to the throne, had made contact with him concerning a cessation of violence and an end to the invasion in return for the transition of considerable territories from Persian rule to Soviet sovereignty. He fiddled with the slip of paper with two fingers as he looked at the map of Persia, in his mind drawing the Persian-suggested demarcation lines. The Persians Communists insisted that they'd be perfectly willing to accept a greatly weakened Persia, one which held onto only Teheran, Babolsar and Abadan. All the rest, they suggested, would go to the Soviet Union, even its major port in the Persian Gulf, which was located at Bandar Abbas.

012-01-PersianPeaceOffer.png

The Persian Communists' peace offer, which gave most of Persia to the Soviet Union.

Vacietis finished playing with the paper, having mentally drawn out the lines. In one sense, it was a very tempting offer; the amount of territory the Soviet Union gained dwarfed the possible territory it could gain in Europe when measured by sheer land mass. However, Vacietis did not judge anything simply by sheer amount of land. Vacietis was wily enough to know that the territory the Persians were willing to give up was worthless; mountain and desert. Its total worth was less than that of Kharkov, Kiev or Sevastopol. However, he could not alienate the Persian Communists for they would be the men running the country once it was a Moscow-directed client state. To alienate them would be to invite difficulties later.

Thus Vacietis wiped the smirk off his face, hoping that the man in front of him would take it as merely a smile of interest rather than of disdain. The man in front of him already styled himself as some sort of foreign minister, his name was Ja'fer Pishevari. However, Vacietis noted that his style was lacking. He preferred browbeating his opponent into submission, with liberal use of shouting, arm-waving, face reddening and table pounding, rather than using anything that might possibly resemble tact. He was quite a brute, and one iron fisted enough to keep his job no matter how incompetent he actually was. Vacietis suspected that he was very incompetent.

Certainly, Vacietis was not impressed by the man's already red face. He had already gone on at length on the amount of land the Soviet Union would be gaining from accepting the peace offer. He hinted that with such a defeat, the Persian king would topple from his throne and the Communists might possibly gain control. Vacietis smiled at this; Ja'fer Pishevari only thought he was hinting. Rather, he was actually arguing this bluntly enough that even he might blush with shame should he actually hear himself speak. Vacietis knew that the Persians could not imagine that the Soviets had no use for land in this region of the world, especially not useless land. Nor could the Persians imagine that the entire purpose of Vacietis' campaign was to place the Persian Communists in power. Looking up from his seat at Ja'fer Pishevari, however, Vacietis knew he could not reveal this. Ja'fer Pishevari was far too tactless, and simply undeserving of knowing such information.

Vacietis looked down on the map again, ignoring the Persian in front of him, who was beginning to fidget as much in anger as awkwardness. This time, he studied the map to map out how far into Persia his Front had reached. In the west, Tabriz had still not fallen, which disappointed Vacietis and left him feeling slightly ashamed. In the east, however, not only had Rasht fallen, but Teheran as well. Petrushevskij's cavalry had already begun dashing southward toward Esfahan. Though the infantry was trailing his fast-moving corps and was still located between Rasht and Teheran. The Persian army had been pushed aside into the deserts to the east of their capital and had become nearly irrelevant. The Persians were in no position to propose peace offers when soon they might be left with nothing, if the men in the Kremlin changed their minds on the fate of Persia. Vacietis smiled at that. Persia was a powerless spectator in its own defeat.

He looked back up at Ja'fer Pishevari and sighed before bluntly firing a question at him. “How valuable is all this land you wish to give us?”

Pishevari was taken aback by the question and stood agape at Vacietis as he continued. “As far as I can tell, there are only three truly strategically valuable locations in Persia. The first is obviously Teheran, the capital. Which, incidentally, we currently hold. The second is Bandar Abbas with its major naval facilities, which are you willing to give us. The third is Abadan with its fuel refinery. We have no interest in expanding further into the Persian Gulf area at the moment; Bandar Abbas is worthless to us at the moment. Teheran's factories do not interest the Soviet Union either for they pale into insignificance. This leaves Abadan, which we do not have yet but which you do not yet wish to give us. Oil is always of vital import to an industrialized nation. We are an industrialized nation, you are not. If your generals had had any sense they would have realized this from the beginning and fought at Tabriz, not spend their soldiers at Teheran and Rasht. Now Persia will pay for the mistake of its blundering leadership.”

Ja'fer Pishevari could only open and close his mouth, split between fury, humiliation, shock and, admittely, some admiration. Vacietis pretended not to see as he continued even further. “With no Persian defenses between Tabriz and Abadan, the latter will fall soon. Bandar Abbas shall as well. Persia will have no choice but to succumb. Even the most powerful of Persians can do little but watch as history turns against them at last. Persia had survived the Greeks, the Mongols and the Turks unbowed. Persia will, however, finally bow down and receive its new and final master: the Soviet Union.”

With a gesture, he dismissed Ja'fer Pishevari, who was escorted out by a guard, still speechless. Vacietis chuckled to himsel. His time as the commander-in-chief of the Red Army had served him well; he was a damn good theater commander.
 
Wow , great speech there at the end too . The subtle interplay of the smiling and the misconceptions were well crafted ! Persia will succumb indeed !
 
So, both Turkey and Persia offered peace and you turned them down, quite right. Their scum, grind them under your boots and teach those dogs to fear their rightful soviet masters.

I liked the X ing of the peace offer. Made me think of Bastogne and "Nuts".:D
 
And so Persia is won. That was a lovely forced peace, and I particularly liked this line:

Persia was a powerless spectator in its own defeat.
Excellent. :cool:
 
I feel like such an idiot. I just realized, yesterday, that Lamps Before the Wind was over. :eek:

because I was on vacation when the last updates + posts in that thread were made, so I never saw the ending until yesterday... :wacko:

doh
 
rcduggan said:
I feel like such an idiot. I just realized, yesterday, that Lamps Before the Wind was over. :eek:

because I was on vacation when the last updates + posts in that thread were made, so I never saw the ending until yesterday... :wacko:

doh

ROFL XD you're always on vacation , Duggy !