At the end of the war, incidentally, we had both 3-infantry armies, thirty-three cav, and sixty-seven (!) arty. Now we begin melting down that same arty, turning into temples and libraries in the conquered lands.

And while we're here, a public service announcement about workers: We have 75 of them - 11 of our own, 20 from the Iroquois in one way shape or form, and 44 Babylonians. I wasn't kidding about building our rail net on the back of slaves.

1874 AD (2) - More tanks roll off the line and prepare for embarking.

1876 AD (3) - Flight comes in, and we begin work on Radio. The last tanks roll off the lines, and we work on some transports.

1878 AD (4) - Queue up a bunch of airports. Just waiting on transports, now.

1880 AD (5) - 1888 AD (9) Still waiting.

1890 AD (10) - The last transport crams in the last few tanks and sets sail. 10 turns to landfall. This is it.

1892 AD (11) - A sailing we will go, a sailing we will go...

1894 AD (12) - Radio comes in, and we are in the Modern Age, the most advanced by far of any nation on the planet. We begin on computers.

1896 AD (13) - 1904 AD (17) - A sailing we will go, a sailing we will go...

1906 AD (18) - So the great irony here is that I'm about to sneak attack both Japan and their MPP partners India, when...

Oh, please Toku. Bring it ON. Mr. Please-Can-I-Have-Metallurgy-And-Your-Map-Please Toku. Ha!

We go ahead and land on both Toku and Gandhi, and move tanks into position around the incursion force. This should be fun.

Dial up Toku.

"Uh, hi, Toku? You're not serious, right?"

"Serious? About what?"

"About sneak attacking my Modern Age country that's something like twenty times your size with Ancient Age units."

"Well, actually, we were serious."

"Oh, I see then. Well, would you mind terribly removing them? I'd rather not have to do it for you."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. Consider yourself at war with Japan."

"Well, if you insist, I guess."

Those of you who've read Riders on the Storm know the whole Toku and Goliath story. Well, this transcends that. I mean, this Japan is one of the most disadvantaged pieces of real estate I've ever seen in my Civ career. Take a look:

While they do have one of the world's rubbers, they're still stuck at, uh, gunpowder muskets. And they have no saltpeter or iron. As in, the best units they have are from the Ancient age. And I not moments ago landed 30+ cavalry on top of them. This should be...short.

Gandhi, on the other hand, is all the way up to Radio and Replaceable Parts, and has been fighting for quite some time so has a decent army, though of the remaining powers he's behind both me and England. Nevertheless, this will be a hard fight.

1908 AD (19) - In 1908 AD, war was beginning... Unfortunately for me, I don't get the option to say I'll leave in a turn from Gandhi, which means my tanks are stuck, pretty much unprotected, right out in the middle of his country. Ah well. We can survive his entire army coming over the rails, right? Right? And I'll be damned if we don't do just that, never mind that he's got 99 infantry. He HAD about 20 cav, but they all died attacking the tanks. Of my 48 attackers, I lose...7. Not bad odds.

As it happens, Delhi is ridiculously tough to crack, even with tanks, due simply to the fact that a non-trivial amount of Gandhi's entire army was in that one city - 10 of his infantry, 4 of his cav. Hopefully he just burnt his entire offensive army, there.

Japan, you ask?

1910 AD (20) - Sure, Japan takes back a good chunk of their country IBT, but that's not the point now, is it?

During the cleanup on assorted Japanese units, I randomly pick up a leader, Richelieu. Um... What to do with you? Uh, how about you rush an airport in rioting, disorderly Kagoshima so I can lift some tanks in? You like that? Great.

And I'll be damned if not 3 combats later I pick up De Gaulle. What do I do with YOU? I end up parking him on top of one of my armies. He'll make a third, but not yet. I need to take Kyoto back first.

Gandhi's entire problem is that he has 84 infantry and 4 cavalry. This is a problem because due to city radii, he cannot actually attack me. This totally screws him over to the point where I will be invulnerable if my airport in Delhi completes.

1912 AD (21) - IBT, the Marechals of the Empire go down, but not before taking 6 or 7 Japanese units with them. Tough SOBs. Especially given that fortified spears in size 10 cities are a lot tougher than you might think.

In any case, Japan is starting to look fairly devoid of units. Just in case, I airlift a fairly rediculous amount of tanks to help them out. Meanwhile, I take Bengal just because it's there and I have a lot of tanks.

1914 AD (22) - First thing, I rush Delhi's airport. Then, because I can, I take Kyoto, then rush De Gaulle to Kagoshima to form a tank army. Then I rush the troops to all corners of Japan as fast as I can get them there.

1916 AD (24) - I take Bombay at a costly hit in tanks, not that it matters at this point. I also airlift a whole bunch of tanks into Delhi.

1918 AD (25) - I take Satsuma, and airlift a LOT of tanks.

1920 AD (26) - The big news of 1920 is not the fall of Madras, it is:

1922 AD (27) - By this time, Gandhi's fading fast. Punjab (his new capitol) and Lahore fall, and Bangalore (his newest capitol) is about to go. I'm airlifting 10 or 15 tanks in per turn.

Because, really, it's all about flying the friendly skies:

1924 AD (28) - Our fight to gain ground in India is led by no other than Charlemagne himself. Despite this, we still can't take Bangalore.

1926 AD (29) - The skies, incidentally, become much safer when we take Calcutta and destroy a couple of bombers on the ground. Yes, India has bombers, and they're fairly annoying.

1928 AD (30) - I must've missed a turn somewhere, because this is turn 29, really. Oh well. IBT, India attacks us with their first tank, which goes up against a redlined tank of ours and dies. Everybody in India is so totally amazed by this, they stop resisting - all our cities had 5 or more resisters, and they just...stopped. Bonus.

Among other things, we take advantage of a bunch of healed tanks and a bunch of densely-packed cities to capture New Bombay, Pune, and Chittagong. Thusly.

1930 AD (31) - After taking the lingering pockets of resistance at Karachi and Jaipur, then taking Astrakhan, I realize that 112 tanks is probably going to see this thing to a successful conclusion as it is, and that modern armors are going to show up far too late to be any real good. So I shut down research, stop production, and go into wealth mode. The Eternal Infrastructure Christmas is about to visit the newly conquered lands.

1932 AD (32) - A great leader, Napoleon, leads us to victory at Kolhapur, Ganges, and Hyerdabad. The original Marechals having served very very well, it's only fitting that there's a tribute:

Napoleon himself rushes the cathedral in Lahore.

1934 AD (33) - Odessa is the only new gain this turn. Modern Armor's 3 movement would REALLY help here.

1936 AD (34) - In our final Blitzkreig of the war, we take Sverdlovsk, Riga, and St. Petersburg, and the Indians are left with Kiev and a little island city, Indus.

1938 AD (35) - Suddenly, in the final assault to take Indus...

Kiev, too, goes down, but the Indians don't die...WTF?

Oh.

Well, we can fix that. Hey Beth, how about a RoP? Oh, you want 150 gold? Ok.

From here on out, it should be just a matter of banging end turn until domination kicks in. If not, the RoP with England ends in 20 turns, and we'll kill them then.

1940 AD (36) - Much movement of tanks into stacks and rushing of temples and such.

1942 AD (37) - Ditto. Also, we start up research again in case we need Modern Armors to run over the English.

1944 AD (38) - We run a bunch of ex-Bab workers over from the mainland, and put them to work clearing up the gigantic chemical spill that is India.

Eh. Turn log isn't worth it anymore.

In 1948, SETI completes in Paris.

In 1956, right before I'm about to invade England, she comes demanding wines. Argh. I give in. I'll break the deal in 3 turns anyway, but that's just too bad.

It's 1958. Synth Fibers has just come in, and I'm about to upgrade all my tanks, when it hits me: You need aluminum for modern armor. Crap. And everyone went Fission, not Rocketry. Argh. Slam research on full for Rocketry, due in 7.

And, among other things, I suddenly realize that England doesn't have oil. That's going to be very tragic RSN.

In 1964, our ROP with England runs out. In 1965, Rocketry comes in, and we put the slider to null. This is it. No more research needed.

And then there's this:

We also switch everywhere that's on wealth to MA production, not that it'll be needed.

The year is 1967. We dial up Beth, and declare.

Here's the before minimap shot:

The fighting is beyond brutal. Of all those modern armors, I'm down to 49 by the end of the turn, and I've only taken this:

The cities I've taken, I don't hold - the only garrison is the taker unit - I don't have the units to hold all of that. That will come, but not yet.

The English counterattack, for what it is, is surprisingly weak. They take back a couple of cities, but it's all cav, infantry. They have mech inf, but it's apparently guarding cities, and they apparently JUST got oil online. This is good. For my part, I'm producing around 10 or 20 modern armor a turn. So it doesn't take all that long:

And there it is.

The replay ranks among the most satisfying that I have ever watched. In retrospect, we planned well, and you could tell. One thing that wasn't entirely obvious is that the AIs were fighting themselves the ENTIRE game. Literally, there was never a time when the AIs weren't fighting each other. The England/Russia/India triumvirate spent AGES beating on each other in one form or another, in especially brutal wars right around the time the original game ended.

The final score is 2954, Joan d'Arc the Great.

That's as true of my finishing it as of the original, though for different reasons. In the original, it was the thrill of trying to deal with what is perhaps the third worst start I've ever seen, behind only RBP-10 and Epic 33 in it's harshness. And yet we pulled it off. Reading back over the thread, there are good strategy sessions there, and moments of amazing luck (mostly involving our insane war leader, Stormboy ;)). In my finishing game, the fun was in the warmongering. This was, with the exception of Riders on the Storm (played just prior to this), my first heavy warmongering game in quite some time. That's just fun in and of itself.

And I know this is more of a private exercise than anything, but I hope I've made it readable and enjoyable to everyone else, as well. I don't think it can ever be as fun for the rest of you as it was for me, but I hope it IS enjoyable.