My Adventures in Civilization 5
Episode 2: Napoleon's Folly
Episode 2: Napoleon's Folly
Pachbel and myself decided to try and repeat the success from our previous campaign. This time around, Pachbel picked the Americans, while I stuck with the Chinese. Having already achieved a military victory, we decided to try our hands at a scientific victory for this particular campaign. I figured the Chinese bonus to our Science score would help to that end. But honestly, how hard could it be to win with technology, right?
Our journey to technological superiority started the usual way: Pachbel and I spawned on opposite sides of a very large map, with Pach ending up in the far east while I was stuck in the northwestern corner. I started with an abundance of resources at my disposal, while my American ally started in the middle of a desert with nothing but - well, sand. Unlike last game, we knew it was wiser to simply hang back and try and get a foothold on our respective continents before attempting to join our borders. It didn't take long for some sweaty barbarians to show up in Pachbel's desert paradise, ready to troll the life out of him. While Pach dealt with the endless barbarian raids, I scouted my own continent as quickly as I could - secretly hoping to find a world wonder. As I explored my immediate surroundings, I gathered up the secrets found within several ancient ruins, while being sure to defend my territory from the marauding barbarian hordes. I wasn't immediately able to find any wonders, but it wasn't long before I happened upon my soon-to-be good friend Montezuma. I'm not sure how well you know your history, but the Aztecs were not exactly opposed to war. I attempted some diplomacy with the angry Aztec lord, but talking didn't appear to be his strong suit. This is when I learned my second Civ 5 life lesson: Montezuma hates everyone. The game had been going for only a few dozen turns before I was being attacked by Monty's noble Jaguar Warriors. Thankfully, I had a few military units at my disposal and was able to repel the attack rather easily. Monty had already made it clear that his civilization would be the first on my list of things to erase from the collective memory of the world.
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| Like this, but less literal and more destructive. |
Meanwhile, in the sandy wasteland known as America, Pachbel was still dealing with his friendly neighborhood barbarians. The fun-loving trolls had already kidnapped several of Pachbel's settlers and workers. When they weren't kidnapping everything that had a pulse, they were happy to run around and set fire to everything beautiful in the world. Pach held his ground though, and through sheer tenacity he managed to stem the tide of barbarians long enough to expand his borders with several new cities. During the expansion process, Pachbel happened upon some French scouts. Knowing the Frenchman's tendencies from last game, the leader of the free world decided to keep a close eye on the outlying American cities - in fear of the inevitable French hostilities. We were well aware of Napoleon's thirst for treachery. Things calmed down for a little while on the American front while Pachbel started to claw his way back up the ladder of dominance - upon which I was firmly planted at the top (mostly due to my starting resources).
On my side of the world, things were fairly peaceful, outside of the occasional Aztec uprisings - which were immediately quelled by my superior Chinese army. The might of the Chu-Ko-Nu crossbowmen were too much for Monty to bear, but that didn't stop him from trying again, and again, and again. The Aztec emperor suffered from a bad case of bloodthirst, and it wasn't winning him any points with the other civilizations. Due to his apparent allergy to peace, Monty had successfully alienated himself from the entirety of the world, with the exception of Gandhi (his ally). The warmongering got so bad that even Gandhi was starting to question his loyalty to the Aztec warlord. Luckily, Gandhi was much more diplomatic, which allowed me to keep the peace for short periods of time. Like any addict, Montezuma would still declare war every chance he got, but having Gandhi around meant that I could simply look toward the Indian leader for momentary peace if I didn't feel like stomping Monty's army into the ground for the 23rd time. There was also still the question of the remaining civilization that we had not yet met, the Songhai Empire. Pachbel and I had no idea what to expect from Askia, Songhai's mysterious leader. All that we knew at that point was that Askia was ranked 2nd behind myself as "Strongest Civilization." Since Napoleon and Gandhi were both situated on the same continent as America, it was a foregone conclusion that the Songhai leader was on my continent. It appeared as though a "clash of the titans" was inevitable.
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| I will be playing the role of Perseus, except I'm decidedly more awesome. |
It was around this point in time that barbarians were no longer an issue for America. Instead, Pachbel found himself on the business end of several musketeer battalions, courtesy of (you guessed it) the French. You see, Mr. Pachbel doesn't always play it safe in Civ 5, he tends to just let things fly and see what happens. This was one of those instances where his philosophy of throwing caution to the wind came back to bite him in his American ass. Pach had successfully managed to found cities near every valuable resource within his relatively short reach. The problem was that each resource was nowhere near his capital, leaving his cities scattered and difficult to reinforce. Napoleon, ever the opportunist, was probably salivating over the prospect of claiming himself some sweet American soil - and Pachbel's southernmost city made for some tempting Napoleon bait. The city itself was newly founded, so it had a small population and meager defenses. The threat of Napoleon's advancing army forced Pach to fortify the city with everything he had. While it would normally be a problem to start a war with the sole ally of the Chinese juggernaut, Pach and I were so far apart that there was no feasible way I could send a contingent of troops that would reach him in time to be of benefit. I was forced to sit and watch the war unfold from the outside.
Far away in the northwest, I was more than content to just sit back and let the technology flow. Since Montezuma's paltry forces were now nothing more than a swarm of feeble gnats compared to my massive, sprawling empire, I could easily afford to funnel resources and money into the American war effort. While I generally don't spend money on anyone but myself (because I'm one of the greediest Civ 5 players of all time), I decided to help out, and this was good for Pachbel - because he was up to his ears in musketeers at the moment. The musket-wielding french infantry were also backed by cannons and other siege weapons, so we knew they meant business. Unfortunately for the French, business is one thing that Americans definitely understand, so Pach was able to show the French a little bit of American business. Due to my considerable scientific progress, we were able to research a few technologies that allowed us to jump ahead of Napoleon in the midst of the war. This became the primary reason that Pachbel would stay alive, and yet another reason why you should never piss off the Chinese. Suddenly the American minutemen were replaced by riflemen, and the poor French musketeers were annihilated just as quickly as they appeared. With the stench of failure in his nostrils, Napoleon vacated the American borders heavy-hearted. The Frenchman knew he had been beaten, and that it was unlikely he would ever reach our level of technological prowess. Despite Napoleon's less-than-glorious retreat, Pachbel was not finished with the French just yet. During the war, the French had founded a city right next to one of Pach's American cities, in an attempt to steal a valuable silver mine. Now that Pachbel could actually do something about it, he set upon the small French city with the kind of fury thought to be attainable only by spree killers. By attacking America early on, Napoleon had once again opened Pandora's box, and he would come to regret it tenfold.
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| I'm not sure you understand the point of this list, Napoleon... |
With The Purge in the east, my continent was fairly boring in comparison. Askia of Songhai continued to expand closer to my borders, gobbling up every single resource he could find. I was nearing my breaking point when it came to the trifling Songhai empire and the annoying pest that was Montezuma, but I did not attack either one of them just yet. Instead, I waited patiently. I knew that my scientific progress was ahead of theirs by leaps and bounds, so I decided to fortify my lead even further. I churned out as many military units as I could muster, setting up defensive barricades around any city that I deemed to be even the least bit vulnerable. Once I was satisfied with my defensive posture, I reverted back into science mode - to increase my lead even further. Due to the war in the east, Napoleon was also reaching out to any city states that were willing to lend him a sympathetic ear. He managed to create an alliance with two city-states, Rio de Janeiro and Florence, both of which were just north of my capital city. While I was aware of the city-states' existence, I did not figure them to be a threat, until Florence decided to capture one of my workers. Unknown to Florence, that would be the last mistake they ever made. While Florence's technology was nearly comparable to mine, they didn't stand a chance. I quickly glanced over at Florence's forces, to get an idea of what I would have to go up against. After seeing it was mostly ground-based, I took my Attack Helicopters and proceeded to burn Florence to the ground. Rio de Janeiro decided to muster up a counter-attack to defend the memory of Florence, but infantry do not fare very well against flying, bullet-spraying machines - generally speaking. Having successfully cut off Napoleon's proverbial arm in the west, I quietly went back to researching.
The city-eating snake known as America had already conquered its fourth French city by this point. Napoleon was getting caught in a fairly shameful pattern of attempting to defend a city with his entire army, then retreating when the city fell. While retreating, the French units would get cut off and subsequently obliterated by the Americans. Because of this, the Frenchman's army was being slowly, but purposefully whittled down to nothing. Sure, the Blue Coats would reinforce their numbers periodically (before being instantaneously eradicated), but it would only serve to temporarily sate Pachbel's bloodlust. After the fifth French city was placed under American rule, the Chinese-American alliance began the Manhattan Project (this, for those of you who are not familiar with the name). This meant two things: (1) we were about to have a nearly endless supply of glass on our hands, and (2) Napoleon was not long for this world. As soon as we were able, we began to stockpile an unhealthy amount of atomic bombs. When I say "we," I'm actually only referring to myself, because Pachbel could only hold onto his nukes for 15 seconds before they began to burn a hole in his pocket (figuratively, and possibly literally). Unfortunately for Napoleon, France became Pach's nuclear testing ground. France's primary exports were no longer champagne, wine, and cheese. As it turns out, it's quite difficult to make any of those three products when 95% of your country is covered in ash and/or nuclear fallout. Instead, France could only manufacture anguish and suffering.
It didn't take long for France to simply cease existing, although Napoleon did give it the old college try. As a last ditch effort to preserve his civilization, he sent out a dozen settlers to found as many cities as he could before Paris evaporated. Sadly, this did not go unnoticed by the Americans. Any living settlers were immediately kidnapped by the American military. Those that had managed to start cities were immediately blasted with a barrage of concentrated artillery fire. France was nothing more than a radioactive pile of ash, a memorial to Napoleon's shattered dreams and bad decisions. Gandhi watched the slaughter transpire, but never rose a complaint or even a whisper against it. Gandhi knew that he had to keep his mouth shut, or face potential retribution. The rest of the game followed in short order, just as you would expect. I systematically dismantled the entire Aztec army, taking their lands for my own. Askia knew the outcome if he retaliated after Napoleon's destruction, so he remained quiet. Our technology continued to advance at its nearly warp-speed pace. Shortly after I took over Montezuma's last city, Pachbel and I launched our space program and put a man on the moon. The science victory was ours! It wasn't quite the same cathartic victory that we experienced in our previous game, but it was still a victory all the same. Through the powers of technology, we had surpassed every other civilization and achieved a relatively easy victory.
Stay tuned for the next installment of My Adventures in Civ 5, where Pachbel and I increase the AI difficulty levels - with frightening results.
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