The Let's Play Archive

Shattered Union

by pesty13480

Part 17




Alright, I'm returning to full scale pictures but I will try to keep down the updates per page of the thread to make things tolerable; if you want to insist, trying to make it so that we actually move along the thread at a faster rate (which you've been doing, so good work).

Plot Information:

We've had two videos in the corner that I'll try to rip for you, though they're not impressive. First of all, we've been invaded by the Russians; they attack and seized control of Alaska, claiming that it was never really US territory to begin with. They're bastards but we have too much to worry about on the mainland to really care.

The second news update just revealed to us that Interpol discovered that the current president of Russia is an arms dealer and may have links to the nuclear attack on Washington DC. I don't see what the big deal is as Pacifica has been involved with nuclear attacks on Saint Louis and a few other cities. Apparently, the people of Moscow are protesting this turn of events and the city is now under martial law.

The state of America at the start of this turn:



I'm not happy with that grey down there, so I'm going to hit Oklahoma. You know the standard pre-battle update, so here it is.









This looks like a nice, straight line to a victory point win, so it's what I'm going to do.



Here's a view of the area.



And upon deployment, I find some confederates in Oklahoma city. They're all crappy light infantry with a singe chaparral, so they're easily dispatched.



And on the enemy's turn, they send a humvee that has no hope of killing our airfield to attack our airfield. Really, the airfield regenerates health faster than this thing can damage it.



After dealing with the hummer, I send my forces North to Tulsa to seize the city and obtain our victory points. Naturally I burn everything in reach of my artillery and bombers in the meanwhile. Next time maybe the people will surrender and allow us in without hostility, instead of always resisting.



Nothing happens during the AI turn. When my turn begins, I push up and into Tulsa only to see a few enemy and worthless partisans.



I burn them and move into the city.





I take the time to literally burn Oklahoma City with white phosphorus, thanks to the tank I have stationed there to prevent enemy partisans from slipping in behind and recapturing the city. If you're not paying attention, you can find yourself actually losing maps in this game because of the AI's scouting.



As we move North from Tulsa, I hit what I can with what I can. Here's Muskogee getting bombared by artillery.



My apache has a full load of chemical rockets on board, and then has no chemicals on board because they're all in happy little clouds over Tulsa.



Springdale isn't so lucky. It takes a full blown nuclear MIRV strike and is reduced to rubble.





I carefully move a Stuart into Springdale, plant a flag, and speed out of there before the radiation can poison the crew. With three out of four major cities behind me, I achieve victory through conquest and the Confederates bugger off.



This is what our territory looks like with the addition of Oklahoma and friends.



And something unexpected happens. The Great Plains Federation, once again, tries to seize the Dakotas. I don't know why. It's not like Minneapolis or Saint Paul's are even habitable.



I draft the entire defense force, curious to see what the enemy can throw at us now that I've given them some money.



The battle damage to the Dakotas is still on the map. It's fun to drop the bomb on a city and then fight out in the ruins two weeks later. I never nuked Minneapolis, however, just bombarded it with artillery and they're in okay condition. I move up into the city, intent on raising it before the eyes of the people who so badly want it. I discover some cheap scouts there as well.





I cleared out the scouts and on the enemy's next turn, look at that, more scouts.



I deliberately overkill a partisan unit sitting on a bridge, just to slow down the enemy progress. If it's going to be hitting me with a lot of light vehicles, I'm going to deny them their only advantage of speed.



So what do they do? They send more light armour and scouts.



I deal with them and hold position.

Only for:



So I kill them again and hold position. Only for:



This picture didn't turn out so well, but if you look at the slight bit of damage everyone took, I got hit with the Great Plains Federation's mortar attack special ability. Which is only really useful against infantry, but I suppose they felt necessary - the mortars further destroy the rubble of the city they want to capture.



And then they snuck a chaparral out against my CAP, almost downing the bird, before reinforcing with some light infantry, which again I cleared out.



They moved even more light infantry and vehicles into the combat area. Since I have chemical weapons to spare, I use them. Notice the big pile of dead infantry across the river?



I guess the Great Plains Federation doesn't like being gassed.



And we're left with this at the start of our next turn.



Why? Because the EU attacked the Confederates and FAILED, which was a shocker.

Some observations:


I'm glad I edited the money, the enemy AI can now reinforce itself between battles - I have so much territory that I'm making enough money each turn to buy significant assets and therefore require no help in the form of cheating. I need to give the AI more money so it buys a real army instead of the cheapo stuff when it can, however. Nice to see the plan worked in principle.

If I do another thread, I'm definitely going to give the AI a bonus, probably about 300k per territory they control, so that there can be full battles each and every time. That being said, I can't will myself extra money except right at the start of the game so to make it so that I'm not completely overrun on the first two turns by infinite legions of enemies, I'm going to edit myself up a complete army, right at the start.

And then my fortune will depend on conquest (I will still only receive the standard 10k to 15k per territory) which isn't fair but I'll just tough it out or try to find out how to edit the actual worth of each territory in general.