Riga
August 8, 2007
And that was the end of our first LAN session, invading Poland. While it took us over seven months to get to that point in this here AAR, during the gaming itself it only took us, say, about ten or eleven hours I believe. 1936 alone was probably three hours, there was just so much going on. Pretty fittingly, it got fifty-five updates in this AAR—and this is the seventy-sixth. Going on that, actually, 1936 was probably four or five hours…it was a long year.
Nevertheless, 1936 did eventually end and so too did our first LAN session. We had slightly thoroughly partitioned Europe up; only two neutral European nations remained at this point. The first was Sweden, and it was bound to fall sooner or later. The second…well, the second was Luxembourg. The Germans were too frightened of their outrageously enormous war machine to even consider the invasion of that grandiose superpower. Or, well, Discomb decided that it would be funny not to invade them and have those poor souls living in fear for the rest of their mortal lives.
Europe by the end of 1939, mostly partitioned.
With the game saved and quit, there was nothing left to do at that late hour but go home and sleep. Therefore, I quite sensibly packed up my laptop and was off back home, at one or two or three or some time in the early morning. I don’t remember quite when, but I do remember that I was laughing on the way home because I had a devious plan to defeat Discomb. Rather, because I hadn’t been out walking late at night in Riga alone for a year and a half at least and it was good to do it again. Supposedly dangerous, but that never bothered me and I’ve not yet ever been molested by strange peoples in the dark. Once at home, I do the sensible thing and go to sleep.
The story picks up again in the early afternoon on that same day, as my time is strictly limited. Primarily because the very next day (or the day after, whichever) I was going to fly to the Netherlands. Discomb was also going to fly somewhere in the next few days, but that’s irrelevant. Anyway, it was back to his place to set up the laptop and begin playing again. I was in a new room this time and, if anything, my setup was even messier and more ridiculous than before. Proof:
Messy, ridiculous setup.
We begin playing pretty much immediately and since there’s nothing much to say about the next two and a bit years I’ll just do a quick overview here. They can, in fact, be summed up by one single word: ‘production.’ Also possibly, ‘preparation.’ With nothing left to conquer (Sweden being conquered quickly by Discomb and his brother), all attention turned to straining our economies to the utmost to prepare for the final showdown. Discomb and his brother also apparently declare war on Equatorial Africa to take a handful of territories, but that’s kind of irrelevant. In any case, during this time I alone began the following production lines:
Code:
2x3 HQ ’39 (Cost = 37 IC)
Begin February 11, 1940
Ends July 28, 1941
Total Production = 6/11 HQ
1x2 Engineers (Cost = 3.1 IC)
Begins March 17, 1940
Ends May 25, 1940
Total Production = 2/2 Engineer Brigades
3x4 Armored Cars (Cost = 6.3 IC)
Begins March 17, 1940
Ends August 7, 1940
Total Production = 12/12 Armored Car Brigades
1x12 Self-Propelled Artillery Brigades
Begins March 17, 1940
Ends April 16, 1941
Total Production = 12/12 Self-Propelled Artillery Brigades
2x6 Mechanized ’42 (Cost = 20.2 IC)
Begins September 29, 1940
Ends December 20, 1941
Total Production = 12/26 Mechanized Infantry Divisions
2x7 Mechanized ’42 (Cost = 20.2 IC)
Begins September 29, 1940
Ends February 18, 1942
Total Production = 14/26 Mechanized Infantry Divisions
There were others from earlier that were still going on as well. Discomb was similarly boosting the size of his forces.
And finally, it was 1942. Time went by slowly; we were counting down the days as they crawled by. January 1…2…3…February 1…2…3…March 1…2…29…30…
April 1, 1942.
Our armies were in place. The date was right. The time had come to declare war.