Part 18

A Table of Contents is a good idea.

We're going after the central heartland in this mission, intent on doing grave harm to Madison Wisconsin and Gary Illinois.



The Drill:





And the battle is over.



Hurrah! My apologies to those who wanted me to nuke Gary. I would have enjoyed doing it but it's not polite to slaughter those who bend to the will of Pacifica.



Instead we go for Columbus/Detroit/Toledo/Cincinnati in the great lakes region.





This is how I deploy, notice that since the EU conquered the land during our previous turn I go all out with the attack.



And this is Detroit's famous landmark. Detroit's a rubbish city and I intend to permanently lower America's crime rate by annihilating it.



Here's me making good on a previous promise, fucking motorsports, by destroying this landmark out in Indianpolis. Yes, I have three B2 Spirits right now. I've put the warthog on defense.









End of turn situation.



Still no enemy contact so we move up by Dayton.



On the next turn, the PC goes berserk with helicopters and a few antiquated tanks before trying to blitz Cincinnati with a partisan unit - which is evenly matched to our newly bought scouting hummers.







On my turn, I send up one of my helicopters to see what's coming down out of the Columbus area. Behold, the mighty European Union Peacekeeping Force.





This calls for firepower, so I hand out the DU to a cluster of my military.



And then hurl some artillery into Cincinnati to deal with the partisan.



It's an EU Goliath on interstate 71, their special heavy tank; it's supposed to be an engineer tank, capable of clearing mines and laying them. However, I've never seen the AI use mines and they definitely don't lay them.

It's moderately better than our FCS Stuarts in that it's perhaps the second fastest tank in the game and is slightly better in armour-vs-armour conflicts. It causes a lot less collateral damage as well, which is good for the good guys and bad for the bad guys.



The best way to deal with uppity Europeans is to gas them.



And then hit them from afar with apaches. You're not so tough now, are you, Mr. Goliath?



The EU helicopters deployed too far into my range during their turn so it was only a matter of clicking them to bring them down.



and the other one:



And putting the artillery to work on their ground forces.



I was wrong about that Goliath by the way, seeing as how it survived being chemically weakened (which gives it a terrible armour penalty), and a set of hellfire rockets from the local apaches. Our Stuart finishes it off though.









The 'standard' European tank is the German-made Leopard II and it's newer and better than our standard Abrams. That being said, I don't intend to fight it fairly.



Mortally wound with the apaches, polish off with the Stuarts.



Challengers are crappy and British. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN.



More Leopard IIs getting taken down.



I knew a real prick from Dayton Ohio, so I go out of my way to burn the city to the ground and hopefully kill his entire family and their pets. Does that sound petty? Well it's not. If this were the Bible, God would blight him with a pox, and his family, and his servants, and the family of his servants, and all the livestock. You can imagine there'd be plenty of boils worked into the punishment as well.

Blame God, I'm only following His example.



I also occasionally lob a few shells into Cincinnati. I never liked WKRP.



PS - If you're wondering what my 3 B3s are doing in this mission instead of helping out at the front lines where there seems to be no AA, they're constantly bombing Indianapolis into rubble. I planned to nuke the rubble as well. Why do I hate NASCAR and the Grand Prix so much? Well, when I was a little kid on the weekends my mother would always take me to visit her mother - and no matter what else was on, and no matter what we could have been doing, they'd always be watching fucking car racing on the television.

I wasn't allowed out of their sight out of fear that coyotes and bears would get me out in the wilderness, or maybe an angry bull moose, so I was forced to sit there. Oh no, I couldn't go do something in another room, we were there to visit grandma after all, so what would be the point of doing that! And of course I wasn't allowed to speak or make noise of any sort during this time because everyone was too busy listening to the commentary.

God damn that fucking sucked. Then again, I liked it when we would watch Mary Anne Espazeto or however that cook was called on Sunday evenings, which preceded the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, so it's not like all the weekends were ass. Except the ones when car racing was on. Bah. On a side note, I think one of my favourite childhood memories was the car ride home with my mother on Sunday afternoons, after the lame as shit painter that came on after him, and watching the sun reflect off the snow in the mountains.

How about that for a random life story?

Moving on, the enemy advanced even more helicopters against me from around Columbus, targeting my artillery.



And my Stuarts.



But with DU and a fantastic bonus to AA, the Stuarts can fight back in a big way.



Start of the turn update.



You can imagine what I do to those choppers.





I even polish one off with the Stuarts.



And decide to take out the Cincinnati Reds once and for all.



And Cincinnati.



End of turn update, I sent a Stuart over to Columbus itself to claim its victory points and set the wounded near Cincinnati to heal and conduct repairs. Notice the CAP.



Unfortunately for the Stuart in Columbus, a city I try my best to spare because it isn't half bad as far as I'm concerned even though the suburbs are filled with colossal hicks, the EU has some pretty devastating bombers.



They're made out of glass, however, and the Stuart teaches it a lesson.



And then the Stuart learns a lesson about safety in numbers.



I approach the river now, intent on swinging up through Toledo and into Detroit to win by victory points since the EU seemingly has endless resources on hand. This is what I discover on the off turn.



That cross denotes a special power, either Glory or Eulogy of Freedom, either increase the armor values and attack rates and movement rates of all the troops they touch, making even the shittiest of units into a deadly strike force.

Lord, and they can attack twice as well per turn.

Like I said, the good guy powers are pretty nifty.



These rape-powered artillery are a heinous nuisance.







On my turn, however, I decide to counter the supertanks with a special little tactic called: "Move the Apache into visual range and then annihilate with nuclear weapons."





Everything bloody survived. Jesus Christ, time to do it the old fashioned way.





Gerards and Tritons are supremely effective AA cover in this game, and they both do a fair amount of damage to vehicles and infantry. Our chaparrals are just as good at anti-air, in comparison, but cannot fight back against ground troops at all.





Sorry MERL, it was too close and got snuffed out in the counter attack.



But it did hurt the triton enough to Apache the shit out of its face.



Even with the permanent penalties attached to being stuck in radiation, and the permanent reduction in defense from being hit with the bomb itself, these things are still holding out.



Their Tornado dies in one round.



And I draft the B2s into a more useful role than city burning, though city burning caused Chicago to wisely surrender without a fight.





End of the turn for me, as I bring up the now repaired units to the front lines, in fear of whatever EU trick is in store. Damn their force powers are awesome. I mean, they're not as flashy as thermonuclear war, but they're more effective.

On the enemy's turn, they polish off one of my wounded Stuarts that got stuck in the Ohio river.



And attack my chaparral with a partisan unit. The chaparral can't fight back, so the partisans take no damage, but the partisan doesn't even take a single hit point of damage off the chaparral. Pretty shitty to be fought to a draw by someone who isn't even fighting back.



The EU is down for the count.



A fresh new territory for us.



Is it just me or did Pacifica drop the EU's power strength indicator from a full bar into nothingness?



No matter, a new week dawns.