You wonder, of course, where all the miltech rants are coming from. The answer is the gigantic Carthaginian naval presence in the straits between me and the Aztecs. Well, that and I'm preparing to make Babylon safe for democracy.

What's that? Babylon's already a democracy? Lies. Lies, I tell you.

We plant the spy in Kish... a worker, a guerilla, and 11 riflemen. Not looking so good there, Hammurabbi.

The 4 battleship/4 carrier/AEGIS cruiser/32 rifleman fleet sails up...

And we give war a chance. Lagash falls, 1957. Eridu and Sammara fall, 1958. As for Kish...

Foolish Aztecs.

But we can sign them to an alliance, which hopefully eliminates that stupid guerilla.

FINALLY he dies in 1963. Of course, Eridu deposes me the same turn, but we can't have everything.

Kish falls in 1965. Eridu falls again in 1966, and...

Yes, that was about the most pointless war I've ever had. Well, it got me back to first place in territory, but really.

And in 1966, we get the full palace. Yay.

1972 comes and goes, and...Shaka hit the modern age? About time.

Japan, meanwhile, is still down Atomic Theory and Combustion. Sad.

For 1980, I get a bunch of pollution. Happy birthday, me. The fact we can't build mass transit systems REALLY, REALLY sucks. Not game-threatening, just annoying as hell.

I'm bored, I'm bored, end turn, end turn, the Aztecs declare war on us, end tu...wait a sec. Bad Aztecs. What's more, because I had friend animations off and show friend moves off, they capture St. Louis. Nuh-uh. Monty, you die. Now.

Stealth bombers are annoying. Foolish stealth bombers. I say, as Monty and I mutually level each other's countries.

So, you get score for having future tech, right?

Or do you, really...

We note that I'm on Future Tech 6, here.

And in 1991, we sign up the entire world coalition against Montezuma Hussein. Fortunately, THIS Hussein hasn't got the uranium to develop nukes. Then again, I do have that SDI floating around up there.

Help me, Obi-wan Enormous Carthaginian Fleet. You're my only hope. Foolish AIs, leaving the Aztecs at peace and letting them build lots of stuff. Well, that day is over.

And in 1992, St. Louis falls back to me.

Dwip's Rule of Stealth Bombers: Being bombed by things you can't shoot back at sucks a lot.

Corollary: But it sure is fun to drop a whole bunch in the middle of somebody's place and blow things up.

Also: Ponder, for a moment, how WWII jet fighters are supposed to catch stealth bombers to intercept them.

Helooo New York!

And then we slam in an airport ASAP, and then the flood of riflemen starts.

Did I mention I like stealth bombers?

1999 is the Year of War Weariness. I actually go from having half-full on happy faces to a quarter full of content ones. Yeowch.

And the Picture of the Millennium:

How I learned to stop worrying and love the stealth bomber.

Once again, the Zulus jump ship early.

I feel like Sherman. Really. Behold, the march upcountry.

And this is a new one on me.

Riflemen. Wave of the future, baby.

And you remember the Enormous Carthaginian Fleet? Yeah. That's a small part.

And in 2011, we finally get a foothold on the dilapidated Aztec main island with the capture of Tlaxcala.

The French, we note, have a stealth fighter. Go figure.

Germany, 1945. The Aztecs, 2015.

France wins, as it happens. And nets half the Aztec ICBM force. Yes, people apparently have them, but nobody's used one yet.

And in 2019, with the last approachable Aztec city being Calixtlahuaca and me not going to have a chance to get it, it would appear to be time to make peace. Just to be a dick, I take Calix and 800 gold for peace, thus denying Carthage the pleasure.

And from there it's all formalities, up to and including Future Tech 11 in 2049.

31 hours, 34 minutes, and 35 seconds later, I am RBCiv-32 the Great, 2909 points. 7th on my HoF listing.

The replay was, as always, informative and interesting.

Aftermathal commentary.

Fun scenario. Not, perhaps, what I was expecting, but fun nonetheless. I'm fairly certain I didn't play it the Way It Was Meant To Be Played, but oh well. I'm glad I didn't, really. I don't think I have the patience for the sort of brutal slogfests required in that sort of world conquering. I may, in fact, be the only one of us to go for a histogram win from the outset, though I expect there will be others besides me. In any case, had I desired to conquer the world, there was a good stretch when I could have with fair ease. I dominated that game in harsh, harsh ways. Carthage was my only competition, really. Imagine running research on Emp for half the modern age. Massive world wars really help one out.

Among other things, this game gave me a pretty good look at how the modern age works. I've had them before, but it's been since Regent, and I modded the hell out of it back in the day anyway. I don't especially like what I see. Yes, it was fun. But it seems to me that air combat and sea combat are missing some great big large chunks and things. First and foremost: There doesn't appear to be a way to deal with interceptors. Considering I lost upwards of 10 or 15 stealth bombers to Spitfire intercepts during the Aztec war, I find that to be a tad broken. Secondly, I miss having a jet bomber unit of some sort. Something with a bit more freaking range. Thirdly, the stealth fighter unit is completely and totally useless except as a cheap stealth bomber. On my crap shield cities, I was still building them in 3-4 turns anyway. In a normal game... Fourthly, bombing annoys me a lot. The way it appears to work is that it checks to see if it works, then checks again to see what it hit: improvement/pop/unit. If you've already blown up all the improvements or something, and it hits that, it apparently counts as nothing, which means as you pound somebody into snot, it's likely you hit nothing more often. Bah. Not even sure if it works that way, but...

I could say a few things about sea combat, too, I guess. Like how the Age of Sail is pretty pathetic, or how 5 ship movement just isn't cutting it these days. Or I could talk about how transports are all heavily armored and are capable of taking out destroyers on occasion. Or how planes can't sink ships, thus leading to battleship navies which is totally ahistorical and sort of stupid. Or how stealth bombers can base on carriers, thus making the stealth fighter even more pointless and redundant. Or how subs and nuke subs are pretty much useless in the face of battleships. Yeah, you can hide, but if you can't hurt anything anyway, who cares? And then there's the lack of shipboard SAMs. Or how carriers have only 4 capacity - we need a WWII carrier and a supercarrier, I say.

Ah well. It's not like the game is less fun or anything - I should hope not, since I played this and Epic 33 in the space of two weekends back to back. Still, there's the occasional nostalgia for the days when I could actually make a mod.

Oh yes. And the obligatory scenario ponderances. The scenario I was expecting was more along the lines of...nah. Forget it. Maybe I'll run an SG or something.

And there's an...outtake.  Went back, post-game, to one of my saves where the Aztecs were less than sucking.  Used one of my 15 ICBMs or so to start leveling the world's metropoli.  Probably 40 or so dropped back on me, and of those, probably 10 made it through the SDI.  Just enough to level my country.  Oh, the pain.