The Great Game IV: The Final Struggle

[King of Men]

Actually, though, I disagree with Blayne's claim that he destroyed my invasion of Russia. If his Indian troops had been three days slower in occupying Maikop, I would have held all the VP provinces and been able to puppet the place; that would have changed the military balance quite a bit. Of course, if I'd still had those 1.5 million troops that got wiped out in the first week, then his advanced units wouldn't have been able to hold me out of Maikop. But my point is, in Russia I could go anywhere I wanted to go and there was bugger-all to stop me except for Maikop.

 

[Sid Meier]

*wheres Harry Turtledove when you need him*

I'll post my thoughts soonish.

 

[Sid Meier]

Determining how this goes from here i highly doubt would be accurate since had we played with say Armageddon expansion we coul at least get to 1965.

But I do know some things:

The war with England would have happened, Japan is far to strategically close to the mainland to allow for the presence of nuclear weapons. At least as things are now Beijing is at the farthest most limit of Norways range.

Japan would have been liberated and Canada liberated with various islands captured, the Royal Navy while large is mostly obsolete and China's CVG's would have made short work of the battleships in clear skies.

Norway as King of Men can attest to would have while the sole real opposition to the Comintern would have been quiet, a Cold War of sorts would have ensued with the two sides supporting bloody proxy wars between their puppets, Romania-Hungary, Slovenia-Croatia. Russia-Poland, and Chinese occupied California would have been consolidated with fortresses, infrastructure, naval bases and significant PLA presence due to Yngling presence in the midlands and the Eastern seaboard.

The modernization of the world's militaries will result in a relative shrinking of standing militaries (Although the Comintern forces will seem large), abolished peasant militias and a sudden spurt in industrial and GDP output from the Comintern states as China and Russia with peace final and heavy can focus on industrialization.

The spiraling costs of the arms race, while subtle at first will make all second and third tier nations dependent on either dependent on the 2 camps for arms and training as the costs are far to great for any single nation to handle.

Industrialization forces the ewnewed search for new oil resovoirs and the research into feasible civilian nuclear power making the material depletion issue a non issue as Romanian, Siberian, and Middle Eastern oil provide the Comintern with all of their needs while the "Axis" and the Non Aligned States are forced to discover seaside oil wells, Texan and Canadian oil to provide theirs.

If we had continued I suspect some edits to the map would have been done to add in some new mines and wells.

The costs of navies would have forced England to scrap large portions of its fleet and replace them with nuclear powered vessels and a new focus on Carrier airpower, Norway needing to protect the flow of oil would have invested in a modern navy as well.

The relative size of their industries would have forced Ynglings to make a renewed effort to improve upon quality rather then quantity.

Spain would have held onto its Empire through Chinese aid alone, as the multiethnic forces used by Spain to defeat at first the Burgundians and then he Ynglings and would have returned home only to demand autonomy, escalating into full fledged revolutions and wars where Spain buckling under th strain and with confused domestic politics call upon China to crush the rebellions in Columbia, Chile, Veneuzela, and Argentina, this is the first major proxy war of the new Cold war as Norway sends covertly guns, volunteers, and money to the insurgents.

With the Ynglings giving the appearance of conciliation and passivity at first the Chinese pushed plans for B.E.M.O fall through, as bickerings between the various governments cause a collapse of Socialist workers solidarity and the first skirmishes occur between Romania and the Democratic Workers Republic of Byzantium, and likewise between Croatia and Serbia fighting over the fate of poor Montenegro, escalating as the Croats are the first to forgo restraint and against Chinese wishes to mediate send 2 divisions of soldiers to occupy the City state brushing aside its feeble city guard.

The situation further escalates when Croat infantry execute children accused of throwing rocks at Croatian tanks. Causing unrest in th city and a disparate urban fight for the city ensues between the Croatian People's Army, and the Montenegro Liberation Front.

Serbia takes advantage of the poorly handled situation and seeing a inactive and distracted China as its opportunity to invade Croatia over the Montenegro question, the fight between the Serbs and Croats escalates from a broder skirmish into a full blown war as both sides employ their full arsenals to the fight, the terrain, and the ethnic make out of the respective nations makes a modern war following traditional rules of war and opaque lanes of advance deteriorate as the entire region plunges into warfare and ethnic strife.

China distracted at the crucial time by the insurgency in South America reluctantly sells weapons to both sides as per its agreement, as the Comintern charter did not have adequate means of dealing with intermember conflicts, so China was forced to sell weapons to both sides, neither side luckily pressed the issue to stop China from selling to the other preferring to focus their efforts on the conflict.

The Romanian-Greek war over the status of the Autonomus Region of Varna was thankfully for China quieter as it had devolved to a stalemate due to poor terrain and with Chinese observers muted in their conflict the 2 sides lacked the military tradition to effectively wage an offensive war and soon both sides requested Chinese mediation and a cease fire after 6 months of intense fighting was declared.


And not a moment too soon..... As Hungarian Tanks rolled over the border simultaneously invading Romania and Croatia with Slovenia upset over the treatment of ethnic Slovenians also send troops past the border.

Greece hurting from the war withdrew into neutrality and withdrew its forces while Romania, Croatia, and Serbia all retooled their war efforts to fight the common foe. Hungary supported by Polish air support and Yngling volunteers and equipment was able to militarize into possibly the most heavily armed state in the northern Balkans and made striving successes.

Burgundy firmly in the Yngling camp stayed quiet.

India and China had issues over the status of the Indus valley region, but a compromise was reached where while sovereignty of the Indus was transfered to India while rights to station troops and utilize the port of Kutch.

Since Siberia was never fully colonized by Russians except in the sense of sent political exiles there wasnt much of a claim by Russia on Chinese held siberia, but pen border agreements and a common passport allowed the free flow of ethnic russians back and forth through the regions as China treated Siberia more as an economic zone rather then as a colony relying on Hungarians and Russians to colonize the region as the Chinese imputus to colonize it was limited.

The war between the Universal People's Republic and England would have ended with the fall of Japan, losing the more territories detailed above should have they have fought on which seems unlikely considering their economic and financial difficulties, its plausible that the costs of holding Japan would have been greater then cutting it off.

An independent and Beijing friendly Japan would help Beijing share the defence burden of East Asia as Japan could focus on marines and a surface navy as China beyond the Great 8 Fleets could retool to more of a strategic nuclear submarine force with CVG's in more a support role.

economically the path of socialization for the Comintern due to the large front of left wing parties would have resulted in a softening of Mao's rhetoric against the capitalist "cats" allowing for a military-industrial complex with a friendlier relation with prominent businessmen and private property giving a free market dynamic to a planned system ensuring that while the economies of the rest of the block did grow, China's would continue to grow faster as its far greater reserves of cheap labour and open market dynamics could keep the system efficient and fully functioning.

The Chinese economy could focus on manufacturing, and services and depart heavy industrial growth and focus more on consumer products as the wars being fought were mostly by smaller flexible forces and supported primarily by naval task forces.

Absolutely and relatively Chinese GDP would outpace the rest of the world by 1970 although it was not absolutely greater then the whole world put together the economy of China was very much the bedrock the world was based on, even the opposing superstates of the Ynglings would be forced to admit a certain level of interdpendence in the money markets and global trade between them and China overall.

fleets, armies and airforces will continue to shrink every generation as weapon costs spiral exponentially, so that the "9 Million" man Chinese army will never occur again, by 1960 the PLA would have been reduced to 2.5 Million servicement plus 1 million paramilitary "reserves", with a significant focus on its naval and airpower. 60 Tupolev heavy stratobombers being the speer head in its nuclear strategic bomber detterent with some 200 Dongfeng-8 ICBMs to deter the Norwegian "Empire" from trying anything funny.

Some 50 airdivisions would defend China's airspace from aggressors.

The People's Liberation Army Navy would by this time possess some 20 Modern aircraft carriers based on 1954 projections, 5 modern battleships, 3 modern battlecruisers, 100 destroyers, 20 Heavy cruisers 34 Light cruisers and some 10 nuclear submarines and some 150 conventional diesel attack subs.

This is of course "planned" I suspect the real figures would have been ploser to 14 modern aircraft carriers 4 of those still in drydock, 1 modern battlecruiser, 56 destoryers, 10 hvy cruisers, 28 light cruisers and 4 nuclear submarines.

China's military would probably be the most strained, considering the insurgency, the massive requirements to defend all of the Cominterns defence commitments, and the added strain of footing the bill for the Balkans.

England and Norway would have an even worse time competing due to their smaller sizes but theyre more active private sector can plausibly provide them some of their defence requirements. Norway would undoubtably try to give active combat training by supplying volunteers to fight the various proxy wars, a casus beli ignored by China as neither side would rationally risk a nuclear war over the relatively minor issues.

Yes China could by 1965 bring Norway to its knees and cripple it but so could norway through Englands trident missile system bring them to their knees, the chances of China "winning" a nuclear standoff gets steadily less as each year goes by to the point that nuclear think tanks switch from a more aggressive minded doctrine to that of deterrent and what is soon called "MAD" Mutually Assured Destruction as the nuclear arsenals of all the major powers could destroy the world 5 times over, further tightening the level of restraint that the two sides have for fear of starting Armageddon.

Hungary's wareffort would enevitably collapse as war eschaustion and the eventual entry of Greece into the war brought about the final formation of "B.E.M.O" allowing China the added framework to smooth over ethnic rivalries in the region and formulate a centralized military command to be chaired by the Greeks to be prosecuted against the Hungarians with Chinese officers providing assistence.

The Republic of Hungary would soon collapse as one coup after another paralyzed its war effort allowing the 3rd Shock Army to be destroyed by combined Romanian, Greek and Balkan forces, Yngling intervention prevented the total collapse or partitioning of Hungary but it was a brutal political blow to the Axis as Hungary was forced via treaty to yield to BEMO's demands, Presov was annexed by Romania and the country was to be occupied by BEMO peace keepers until a "peaceful, responsible government could be freely elected by the people". A compromise was reached where Montenegro while maintaining its independence would be stationed with Chinese and Greek troops to assuage Serbian and Croation fears of the other side using it as a staging point and both nations had to pay the costs of rebuilding the city state.

Greece as such became the de facto leader of the Non Aligned Movement, becomming the Balkans mouthpiece to the Comintern Congresses, China would due to public pressure at home and mounting costs abroad withdrew from South America and pressured Spain to allow democratic elections for new governments.

The United States of Central & South America where formed where while Chinese and Spanish troops kept a presense in the Panama canal, Veneuzela, Columbia, Chile, and parts of Argentina, Guatemala and Nicaragua all formed this new "nation" joining the non aligned movement but agreeing via treaty certain arms and political limitations.

Miht post more later.

 

[King of Men]

I disagree with Blayne's analysis here; I do not think a rational Chinese government would have started a war for Japan, knowing that Norway would be certain to interfere. (It's worth remembering that Beijing went up in radioactive smoke a few days into the war. I think that would weigh rather more heavily with a real Chinese government than with a human player of computer games.) That leaves us with a long-drawn Cold War with three camps, although England is markedly less powerful than either the Comintern or the Yngling Realm. I suspect that England would incline towards the Ynglings at least to start with, for two reasons: First, remember who nuked London; second, only the Yngling nuclear shield would keep Japan under English rule. (Let me mention that the British Empire at this point is essentially the Isles, Japan, Australia, and Canada.) As the British developed a credible deterrent of their own, this quasi-alliance would grow weaker; but the Comintern is the largest of the three power blocs, so it makes sense for the two weaker ones to cooperate to a certain extent.

So we get three empires, holding each other at bay with vast nuclear arsenals (clearly they are going to grow a lot faster here than in OTL, and it's not as though the USSR and USA were sluggards), and skirmishing for influence in the various nominally independent nations. In particular, the Balkans would be a flashpoint for all sorts of intrigues, not that this should be a surprise to anyone. I will point out that Norway still has the rightful Byzantine Emperor stashed away somewhere; something might be made of that at some point.

I think Finland would change sides quite rapidly; it is a totally artificial construct upheld only by Comintern bayonets. In the first place it's surrounded by Norway, which controls its trade routes through the Baltic; in the second place it was heavily colonised by Ynglings from roughly 1200 onwards; in the third place it is ethnically Norse, and its inhabitants are therefore all considered Ynglings by law, since the Twenty Years' war that ended around 1900. This is not Africa we are talking about; these people are Ynglings and proud of it, and they'll be chucking out their Communist occupiers at the first opportunity. Conceivably they could maintain a nominal independence as a sop to the Comintern, but there would certainly be no question of tariffs or barriers to movement, and they would do whatever the Storting said, at least as much as any other region of the Norwegian Empire. Admittedly, the said regions do have quite a bit of independence.

Europe is more of a problem for the Ynglings; certainly we're not going to make any headway in the Balkans for the first twenty years or so, while people there remember the occupation. Eventually they'll probably get tired of being Communists, just as they did in OTL; but unlike the US, the Ynglinga Rike is hardly a shining beacon of freedom and affluence for the workers and peasants to aspire to. Any liberation movements might take money and weapons from Norway, but they'd be extremely wary of anything even remotely resembling Yngling troops coming to their aid. The way for Norway to do anything here might be to propagandise about the rightful Byzantine Emperor and his Senate-in-Exile; the Greek government probably wasn't all that great, but it did have some semblance of democracy and personal freedom, and time tends to blur over the bad parts of a former regime when dealing with an oppressive new one. It is just barely possible that Greece could recover, become a genuinely independent Power again, and assert its dominance in the Balkans. Of course, there would be no question of any permanent alliance with the Ynglings; such a Greece would acquire its own nuclear deterrent in short order and point its rockets both north and east, thanks. The Ynglings would probably be happy just to weaken China, though, and would work for such a development even knowing that there would be no long-term ally. This doesn't depend on any guerrilla movements or suchlike chancy stuff, mind you; it could conceivably be sufficient just to supply the nominally-independent government of Greece with some rockets capable of reaching Beijing, a few nuclear warheads for them, and their Emperor and Senate. It all depends on just how annoyed the mid-level bureaucrats and the army in Greece become at having to take orders from Beijing.

Africa, I think, is going to remain a thorn in the side of whoever owns it, in this case Spain. Norway and England will supply weapons to the tribes, and Spain will smash 'em with airpower. In the former Norwegian colonies, they've been fighting the foreign oppressor for two hundred years anyway, and England has been supplying them with weapons about as long; smuggling guns to the Gold Coast is how bright young officers make their name in the Royal Navy. All that's changed is just how much coast is available to smuggle to. Plus ca change. So Spain will basically be busy and oppressive and maybe not very interested in helping China out with the Balkans. Let's not forget that the Iberian Peninsula was on the receiving end of quite a few nukes; I would think they're stretched pretty thin just occupying their huge empire. They might even exit the Comintern, much like the Sino-Russian split in OTL, just in exchange for some peace and quiet from their European tormentors.

The Middle East, however, will stay firmly under China's thumb, thanks. Two-thirds of the world's oil supply! If Spain does split from the Chinese, I expect we'd see a quick little conventional war, China taking over what are currently Spanish puppets in the oil-producing regions. Similarly, India and Kazakhstan are not going anywhere, they're nowhere big enough to fight China and they are too far away and the wrong colour for receiving any nuclear warheads from Norway. It's possible that Russia could go a little more independent, they're quite far away from China over some of the world's worst roads, but I don't really expect it - they ought to be aware that they're right next to Norway, sitting on lands that were ours for several hundred years, and have no independent nuclear deterrent. Spain is one thing, but if Russia were to try retreating into neutrality, Norway would be all over them like strils on a salt mine.

Speaking of salt mines, what would be the economic development of this world? In a word, slow. There is no single free-market economy here to form a driving motor of innovation; without a war to force the governments to invest heavily in research, there's not going to be much happening. Expect computers to remain building-sized monstrosities well into the nineties, and the Internet as we know it just won't happen - the very thought of researchers freely sharing their data (the original purpose of the WWW, as you may recall) would give these governments kittens. Cars are going to remain a curio for the rich: In Norway, because the little oil we produce has to be sequestered for military and industrial purposes, in China because "Well, why do you need that much personal mobility anyway, comrade? Aren't you happy in your factory?" In short, we'll have a much poorer world, carrying a much heavier military burden relative to the size of the economy. No globalisation, either: The blocs may even have internal tariffs (eg between Norway and Poland) as a means of extracting money from the population, and there will certainly be the mother of all export barriers between the blocs.

I mentioned the problems China will have in trying to keep the Balkans under control; what about Norway keeping Burgundy, Poland and Italy under its thumb? After all these are large, homogenous nations with proud histories as independent empires - more difficult to keep down than the squabbling, feud-rich, resource-poor Balkans, to be sure. Against this it's worth noting that the Ynglings are not going to object to using nukes as riot control, if they absolutely have to - either metaphorically or literally. Certainly Rome, Brussels (or whatever non-radioactive non-crater ends up holding the Burgundian government) and Cracow are all going to have large Yngling garrisons, thanks kindly. And after the bleeding Poland received (0 manpower, estimated 4 million casualties), not to mention two large armies fighting all through Germany, there's not going to be much enthusiasm for fighting in these nations for a generation or two. It's not as though they are democracies, either; the Ynglings can farm out their daughters to the governing elite and absorb them by marriage and blood. It's how we colonised Germany in the first place. You just have to find the right noble to marry. So if that works, we'll see a large Yngling Empire centered on Norway, where the population is something like 40% Yngling; and there will be tributary nations through Europe where only the absolute top layer, say maybe 0.1-0.5%, are Ynglings, but the strils have a lot more rights than they do in Norway proper. The Ynglings won't have a problem with that, they're used to having different rules for different parts of the Empire; the important part is that Ynglings are on top, not the precise form that being on top takes.

A Protracted Struggle, then, waged in the shadow of the mushroom cloud. Three blocs to start with, possibly expanding to four or five later on if Greece or Spain should make a successful break for it. (Don't bet on this happening, though.) It might not even end in tears. Perhaps there'll be a movement towards economic and personal liberty in one of the blocs. It might be China, as seems to be happening in OTL - but then again, our Chinese communists have had the advantages of a free-market economy rather conclusively demonstrated to them. It might be England, which has been a democratic nation in living memory; Mosley won't live forever any more than Cromwell did. But then again, England is definitely the least of the blocs; even if its people gained some freedom, most of the world would still be living in chains. It might be Norway, where after all 40% of the population does have rights - rights to vote, even, and freedom of speech at least where the code duello does not censor. It is possible that the unstable equilibrium of deterrent won't break down, and that one of the blocs will have a Gorbachev unwilling to turn the machine guns and the tanks on his own people. It's possible that there will be peace.

And maybe the horse will learn to sing.

 

[Sid Meier]

Spain due to its deeply embedded aristocratic leanings even with Socialist administrations in power is in theory nominally separate from the Comintern, cooperating militarily but maintaining its own internal affairs with no intefearence from Beijing, I would like to draw the parrelell between Spain in our timeline and the Centarui Republic of Babylon 5.

Also it should be noted that the original purpose of the internet was veyr much largely to have a communications network that could survive a nuclear war, there would be some form of internet in the 90's, as Bolshevikism having to ameliate the differences in doctrine between dozens of Communist parties would have been somewhat more moderate and Kirov's wish for a freer flow of information for research would have been possible albeit with some safe gaurds, a internet at first meant for the military and then expended for major firms, and senior researcehrs, then to universities and then for greater public use would accelerate once the first and second generation fo leaders died out or retired and more moderate and forward thinking technocrats took upo the reigns.

Also, I am fairly certain that China having such friendly relations to the Greek monarchy before it got annexed by Burgundy would have had the Emperor-in-Exile somewhere safe not Norway, and while yes the new Greek republic would probably have had the Emperor restored in a head of state nominal role. China has generally been less concerned with idealogy and more concerned with practical solutions in OTL as long as China's interests were safe gaurded one way or another.

The Soviet economy in OTL grew fairly fast as long as it had ample manpower to focus on it, I have no doubt tthat economic growth even without the open free market laissez faire eocnomy beyond britain economies would have adapted and still grown. That Britain would to some extent side with Norway is plausible but Greece making a break for it is not likely, as long as when Greece recovered and was given a free hand in being the de facto leader of the Baltic states being protected by China's nukes from Polish invasion and an easily negotiable economic position makes it far more likely to integrate with China then with the rest of europe past BEMO.

 

[Gollevainen]

Sorry been bit busy...


Without a doupt and any anhy bias I would decleare Republican Spain being the biggest winner in this last part of the Great Game. Starting up with minor power with alot of oversea colonies, mostly in very underevelopted areas and ending up with Complete domination of Africa and South America, Middle East and expanding its power in Europe as well. Spain also controls all the major channels and straight which have any value to worlds trade. If I recall correctly, Republican Spain was number one in victory points.

As for the last "unoffical" session, the succes of Spanish armed forces was somewhat Variable.
After Comitern defeating the Yngling realm, we realized that in the midst of the Axis-Comitern war, the UK had expanded its power to unacceptable limits. It contolled all of the Northern America and had huge fleet that dominated the 7 seas. Republican Spain tried to raise these concerns to Beijings ears but for long time the chinese comrads just ignored them and accepted the situation. Finally Beijing woke up and common battle plan was drafted. From Spanish point of View there were basicly two choises to counter the UK dominance and that was either in Africa where the Tommies still hold some ground or in America. Logical choise was to go for America as it possesed much larger energy and resource stockpiles than the jungles of West African coast.
Yeat Spanish suffered from its limited IC ability and thus there was not much troops to be sended there (and no idea how much troops brittish would have to put against us). Main bulk of the army had to be kept in France as Ynglings had nasty habbit of stabbing you when you turn your back to Europe. The greation of Soviet Union led to the situation where the middle east was rather free from any real threat and the 50+ divisions could be sended to Mexico.
But things didn't go as planned. Just before the war, some diplomatic deals made UK to release its holdings in America and The areas were given to Belgium and Norway which at this point weren't in war with comitern (nor supposed to be in the future). So the generals cried out: "whom are we to fight now?"
Inspired by the plan to free Japan, Spain retrived its old plans to free Australia dated back to the Allies-era (we actually did try that with Ethiopian troops). So in the last moments before the D-day, The troops were sended to New Guniea with two transport ship eskardons and the Grand Fleet. The RN was the greatest concern but intelligent reports told that only small, few capital ship sized squardons moved in those waters.

After D-day in that front everything went as planned. The 50+ divs were quickly moved to the "land down under" and Grand Fleet crushed all attempts of RN to interven the invasion. Australians hardly put any resistance and the war-streched Spanish legions made spam out of any attempt to stop the march towards Sydney.
But...Rats cannot loose their fur...Nor can the Ynglings change their nature and soon the Madrid was sended a telegram with Norway declearing war to Finland. As the Danish straits were controlled by Norway, there wasen't much hope for Finland. Our nine divisions fought bravely and with the small part of what was left form Kansalaisvaltuuskunnan Punakaarti the remainders retreated to Tampere where totally encircled and cut out of supply units fought from every piece of land and streets of "Nääsville". But impossible is impossble and the finnish expediton force was destroyed to the last men.
France was however the main arena for the war events that cocerned Spain. The quantivity of troops form Spain and Norway were quite mach but the vast divisions of Belgium were bit of proplem. Luckily the chinese nuclear arsenall was wide enough to ease their western allies pain. Just prior the war the sixth reactor was finished and Spain finally got its onw nuclear weapon. Two were ready for the war and both used against Norweigian troops in the France front. Altghoug the nuclear strikes did demolish the Belgian army's large infantry corps, no real benefit was given to Comitern from those. The war was like KoM descriped it, a WWI with tanks. Little by little the spanish troops did advance, exspecially in the nort, but it was mainly "Two steps forwards, one step back" type of rambling. In the south Norweigians did manage to make a break trough, or at least it seemed that way but they were propaply to exhausted to exploid the cap in the front and our equally driven-out divisions managed to push it partially back and tie the spearhead troops to defencive mode. In the south coast of Meditereinian it was on-of type of fighting from Lyon, none could hold it as the opponent kept pushing back all invaders from both sides.
As the reality of the war was christal clear to Madrid it was tought of great waste of 50+ divisions fighting in Australia against 3 divs and bunch of Kangaruu's. Those troops could have made a huge difference in France's front. A bold decicion was made to trasfer 23 divisons of those, all that could be stucked to the transport ships to europe escorted by the Grand Fleet. It was an adventurous journey and the Armanda fought bravely against the pursuing RN task forces. After several navalbattles the Armanda reached to Suez with loss of only few escorting light cruisers. But in Suez the luck changed. Time is everything in war and the High Command didn't have the patience to wait untill the force was strategically deployed to Croatia where the 50 divs could have made equally striking suprise as the earlier landings to Norway in last war.
But the decicion were to move the troops directly by sea to South France to help the main front. 15 transport ships steamed to the sea alongside the Grand Fleet. In the early hours it run into ambush of around 20 modern submarines of Belgian fleet just few hundred nautical miles from Greete. The Grand Fleet was used to battle against large battleships and carriers and its ASW ability was desperdly weak. No sonars were fitted and only primitive Depth charges were carried. The whole armanda was sunked. Over 50 000 mens were taken by the sea and the invincible and all mighty backbone and greatest legend in the whole bloody early 20th century was gone. Its affect among the publicity was almoust greater than the Belgium invasion few years earlier. The Armanda was lost...
The war ended in sad athmosphere altough the intiative in the France front was slowly moving on behalv of the Spanish troops.

But regardless of all this campaing has been a great thrill and entertaiment. It was my first ever in computercaming history and I cannot wait another one, something were I could start right from the begining and not to jump into anotherones trousers. So if anyone is planning to start multi-player campaing with DD, don't dare to ask me in, if it by any means suites my schedule, I'm in!!
Thanks to KoM, Dano, Skarion, Lord Jarski, The Carponater and all other players that were involved and ofcourse to Sid who invated me in and teached me quite alot of nice tricks...

 

[Skarion]

About the Byzantine emperor I must inform you that either the Burgundians got him after the fall of Constantinople or else he fled into exile together with the Chinese army that was rellocated with the help of the Chinese navy through the Suez at the end of the Byzantine independence.

The Byzantines had close ties to Beijing and even closer ties unto Spain.

I am also assured that the Chinese and the Spanish empire would desire a independent Byzantine with the former Byzantine emperor as head of state, whom would most likely be positive towards the Commintern.

Though if possible the Emperor will stay neutral in future conflicts (as last time the Byzantines got involved in the intrigues everyone know what happend and the lack of support from the Commintern).

 

[King of Men]

It should be noted that the original purpose of the internet was very much to have a communications network that could survive a nuclear war, there would be some form of internet in the 90's.

Yes, quite so, that's why I said "The Internet as we know it." What I mean is that there would certainly be some form of ARPAnet, with great big mainframes controlling missile bases and whatnot connected together. But what you would not see is the decentralised World Wide Web, with personal webpages containing pictures of lolcats, and anyone at all being allowed to register a new domain.

As for economic growth, yes, there would be. Soviet-style, with a total emphasis on heavy industry convertible on short notice to war purposes. Mind you, China might also have a Great Leap Forward and a Cultural Revolution, since the external threats would be pretty much gone. Which would be Really Bad for its economy.

As for Norway, I should note that in theory it does have a free-market economy for the 40% Yngling population. But that free market is distorted by two huge facts: First, the vast burden of supplying all those Ynglings with a really first-class military education (see my post way back in this thread); second, the additional burden of matching the Comintern militarily with something like one-third the population. By the time you've thrown that lot onto a nominally free economy, it doesn't look so efficient as all that. And then, most of the 30 to 50 nukes (not quite sure of the exact numbers) that were unleashed in this war landed somewhere in Europe. It'll take some time to rebuild all that.

 

[King of Men]

September 5th, 1950
Eindhoven

The Burgundians had sent back the envoy alive, but he would never fight again. Ivar snarled at the ruin, and as if in response, a rifle cracked from a chink in the bricks and the bullet went whining off into the distance. Sloppy, he thought contemptuously, but he knew it wasn't really; the Burgundians had plenty of ammunition but no hope, so if they needed an occasional stray shot to keep their spirits up, well, it might even hit someone.

At this point, Ivar could have used some keeping up of his own spirits, but fire discipline had been drilled too deep into him from kindergarten onwards. Instead, he mentally went over the options again, hoping that a magical solution would suddenly occur to him. Call for surrender. Right enough, and get the envoy back maimed. Didn't these Burgundians know that Ynglings made an absolute point of taking a horrible revenge for things like that? Certainly, a POW camp and eventually a factory weren't too desirable, but compared to having the Blood Eagle drawn with your own personal lungs... Then again, perhaps they thought they could be brave and not be taken alive. Or perhaps they really were brave. Call for air support. A bitter jest; the word was that corps commanders had requested single bomber sorties and been turned down. There was barely enough fuel for tanks. Bypass the enemy strongpoint. A splendid strategy, to be sure, and III Yngling Panser had applied it perfectly in their drive for Brussels. And now here was Ivar with the follow-up elements, a road with supply trucks waiting to pass down it, an enemy machine gun dominating the road, and damn well out of clever options.

Well then, it came down to the most important page of the Tactics Book, the first one: When in doubt, kill. It would just have to be brute force and massive casualties, and hope they fell among the more unreliable of his strils, the ones he'd get commended for losing. He took a quick look at the ground: Base of fire there, one squad - no, better make it two - to approach up the road, another to flank up the steep part of the hill - ah, he was out of squads. The machine gun would not be able to shift fire quickly from one attack to the other, they'd have to pick it up and move it and that would take time. With a large amount of luck they might not even notice the second group. He turned to his men, forcing a grim smile onto his face.

"All right, then, we'll do it the hard way. Cheer up, at least you won't die virgins." That brought a brief, barking laugh; Yngling, Burgundian, Chinese, and Polish armies had rolled over this land three times in succession, and if there was a virgin left above the age of twelve - soldier or civilian - it was likely a dog. And there were rumours about the Chinese rations they'd captured, at that. "Sambo, take your squad and - form a base of fire at the wall, there." Ivar had originally intended to order the big black to lead the charge, but the strils had made it clear that they wouldn't put up with too-blatant attempts to kill particularly inconvenient soldiers, and he'd put Sambo on point in the last two dangerous attacks. Sambo claimed that his tribal fetish, having no one else to watch out for, put all its attention into deflecting the bullets, and Ivar was beginning to believe him. If this went on, they might have to make him an Yngling after all, black skin or none. "Kjetil, Gunther, you'll attack up the road; I'll lead a flanking attack from that house. Questions?"

"You want prisoners?"

"Eh. One or two maybe, to crucify as examples. Don't want people messing with our envoys. But the fighting front is up ahead, so it's not too likely anyone will come here and see what we do to them. Don't take any risks for it."

There were no more questions; most of the soldiers had been fighting for years, and the two newbies - German strils who had preferred a chance at Yngling status to the certainty of the salt mines - knew better than to bother an officer. It took them five minutes to get into position; Sambo, being able to see both attack groups, gave the signal for the charge by opening fire. Ivar bounced to his feet at the first crackle of Krag-Jørgensen automatics; ordinarily he would have held back a little to give his stril soldiers a chance to keep up, but the important thing here was to get one man across the wall, not to keep the squad together. The Belgians were alert; the machine gun opened fire almost instantly, and screams told Ivar that his main attack up the road was being slaughtered, as he had expected. He winced internally but kept his main attention on scaling the hill; it had looked less steep from the bottom. But he had climbed worse; that was the whole point of Yngling schooling, no matter what shit you dropped into in combat, you were always supposed to have experienced worse. It took him half a minute of struggle to get to the top; by that time his squad was about halfway up and his main attack was pinned down. But it didn't matter; between the shouts and the firing, the Belgians hadn't noticed his black uniform coming at them out of the dark until too late. Shots rang out, cracking past him unpleasantly close, but it's a rare surprised soldier that can hit a fast-moving, man-sized target at ten meters by anything other than sheer chance. In a second he was over the wall. His bayonet went out, carefully flat to not get stuck in anyone's ribs, and a dark Belgian man-shape went down. Rare to get into hand-to-hand fighting in this day and age; Ivar grinned savagely, in his element now. This was what Ynglings were born for, and so rarely got the chance to do against gunpowder weapons.

Somebody on the other side had registered that there was a problem. Dark shapes were rushing from the road side of the the ruin, where the machine gun was still pinning down his other squads with its deadly roar, towards him. He smashed the butt of his rifle into someone's face, clearing some space around himself, then opened up. Automatic rifles were nowhere near as fun as a bayonet, but there was a time and place for everything. The Belgians were good; they hadn't started a fire to steal their night vision or silhouette the men attacking him. But he had spent thousands of hours in shooting galleries, with targets that were mere slivers of movement in a darkened room, and no dinner if you missed too many - ``Dead people need no food.'' Crack, a man down clutching his belly. No time to get fancy with head shots now. Traverse the rifle smoothly, and crack, another man dead. Time to move, the muzzle blast would pick out his position for them and the shout of ``Yngling!'' was going up; they wouldn't be so stupid as to get within arm's-reach of him now. He sprinted left, right into the sudden flash and blast of the grenade that some brilliant Belgian had thrown at him. Can't win every time, he thought as he spun down into darkness. Somebody will get lucky eventually...

 

[King of Men]

October 14th, 2007
Rome, Italy
Our timeline

The AAR-writer drew a deep breath.

Ah, but no, I jest. It's over. It's been one hell of a long game, and I'm the only survivor of the ten or so that started out, more than two years ago. (Ye gods!) In that time I've moved several times, bought a car, gotten married, proved that the measurement I thought was going to be my PhD thesis can't actually be done, started another measurement, and gotten into any number of flamewars. In a sense the Ynglings have been one of the few constants, although, to be sure, they've changed too. I'll be sad to see them go, fascist bastards that they are; it's an unpleasant world they've built for themselves, with their dream of dominance. Let's hope they remain rational enough not to start the Last War, even when the Chinese, with their larger resource base, build around them into space, and at last reduce the Yngling Realm to impotence and irrelevance. Life without dominion is still life, and there are other worlds than these.

Other worlds, yes. But humans are humans, and only one thing is certain: Wherever we go, There Will Be War.

 

[Skarion]

*applauds*

 

[The_Carbonater]

*seconding applauds*

 

[Sid Meier]

Hey! I was here all the way from Europa.

 

[Dysken]

Thunderous Applause, absolutely marvelous work and dedication!

 

[Joohoo]

wow amazing that you made it! Congrats!

 

[I Killed Kenny]

IT would be great if someone put all the AARs ( without the comments ) Toguether in a pdf, or something like that...

 

[unmerged(71980)]

End picture?

 

[Sid Meier]

ill try to have one up.

 

[unmerged(71980)]

About time? =P

 

[unmerged(61606)]

I missed the finish.. sad to see it end, but congrats on seeing it through entirely though. I would like a pdf too...