Civ Battle Royale November 03, 2021
bloodyaltima
The great dying continues and yet somehow still the Cylinder frustrates the finishing of foes.
Welcome back to your regularly scheduled semimonthly slaughter simulation. I’m BloodyAltima (daemonnic on the reddits), a power ranker, lurker, and adorer of alliteration and assonance alike, and I’ll be guiding you (and frankly, myself) through this episode.
As is tradition, here’s your Vihrean map of the Cylinder. Notable changes since last episode: fewer colors, more corpses.
Today’s OC comes from Seamang’s Olmec v. Jamaica video, which like most of the civ duels, I recommend if for nothing other than the factor of getting a better head for how competent some of these AI can be when they don’t have to work with reality-based starts.
All hail the Ko-Fi supporters, without whom we would have no digital bloodshed!
Malacca takes ranking number one for the first time in a hot minute, as we power rankers find ourselves torn on who to actually give that throne to. Any of the top three have a strong argument for it, and as Aaron put it, at any point something could happen to make us the fool for the one we pick. C’est ’la vie.
Lines of men dressed in two different shades of green stood between the bombed out ruins of Kurdistan and the Zairan military, between Zaire and victory. That Zaire brought nothing but airpower, Zairepower as the soldiers took to saying, made the matter easier; one of the principal faults of peace corps around the cylinder was always that their men were restless to a fault, and sometimes, their wandering let an enemy sneak through the lines.
Carlos sat in his Sevillan office, sipping anís. He already knew what the messenger has to say. Salamanca had fallen. How the hell couldn’t it? It was line infantry fighting tanks; galleases against battleships. This war was lost when it began. His musicians played songs of the days before, when Spanish naval might went toe-to-toe with the Gauls and held its own, his priests pondered what sins led Spain to this point, and he bemoaned the fact that collectively, musicians and missionaries almost outnumbered his remaining land forces.
On the beaches of Bottle Creek, a peculiar scene played out. Five divisions of Paraguayan Parajumpers and an Armatan Arbalast unit claimed refuge on this island in the frozen north. The refugees outnumbered the local Mississipian forces by quite a bit, but most importantly, their camps filled up all the space available to them such that the heavy vehicles of the Dene invaders couldn’t make landfall without destroying them. Such an act of unprovoked violence on a group of refugees was utterly unthinkable even in the violent hellscape of the Cylinder; at least not without a formal declaration of war.
Thanadelthur, leader of the Dene, flexed a pen in frustration. She couldn’t exactly declare war on a people with no cities, no actual office to receive the war declaration. Worse, these refugees literally have nowhere else to go, trapped within closed borders. She had an aide bring her to speed on events in someone else’s lands. A distraction, someone else’s misery. That aide began running through the stagnant Zairan invasion of Kurdistan. Her mind began to wander.
Elsewhere, with her efforts focused on finishing off a longtime rival, the Malaccan front stalemated. The only breakthrough forces in theater were a handful of Dene armored railguns just outside of Tibahanga and a Malaccan XCOM just north of Yaanga. Airpower favored the Malaccans, but a perilous portion of that power was parked in Juyubit, a city on the verge of flipping and in range of that aforementioned railgun. The city would almost certainly flip back, but those planes would still be scuttled.
The Cylinder had another navally-oriented southern Pacific frontrunner civ beyond Malacca, the Kulin. Australia was standing room only right now; flush to the brim with hybrid drones and parajumpers. A naval landing would be a bloodbath for the invader, even ignoring the Kulin air and naval forces.
Just outside the continent, in the city of Hilo, Liliuokalani made a stand, one not of arms but of morals. Denouncing the fascistic bloodlust of her neighbors, she incorporated Permisian ideas of liberal democracy, of citizen election, government by and for the people. A missive came in from the USSR. It reads only, “How well did this go for Perm?” Liliuokalani nodded solemnly, and returned to her work.
The defenses of Sevilla lay in shambles. Salamanca was a beachhead. Carlos thought back to eons past, to when all this started, to when he was a frontrunner. It all started so well. A news report showed tales of missionaries gunned down in the streets by Gaulish tanks, of the navy collapsing to just a caravelle and a work boat. He requested his butler fetch more booze.
Nasni was the pilot of a Dene stealth bomber based out of Mound Bottom. Her daily routine consisted of maintaining training with new techniques to bomb Bottle Creek, working out to stay within military regulation fitness so she can bomb Bottle Creek, piloting the plane to Bottle Creek to bomb it, and wondering why the hell she’s still bombing Bottle Creek. The Mississippi were already effectively dead, she figured, and there was no way any of the ground forces were getting through the refugee camps without causing an international clusterfuck. To say nothing of all the helicopters and vertols in the nearby Dene forces that couldn’t occupy ground in the first place! It cost a fat pound of gold to keep her bird flying, and an even fatter one to pay for the munitions she drops on that crater of a city. What the hell was it all for at this point?
In the deserts of North Africa, a small displaced Kurdish anti-air detachment took shelter in an iron mine from an even-more-displaced Northern Yuan artillery barrage.
Meanwhile, Nigeria bristled with flying steel.
Carlos the third, Carlos the last, fled Sevilla for the Vandal border as the last wave of Gallic forces advanced into his last city. His last ships sunk or captured, his last combat capable division stayed behind to cover his flight. There would be no defiant last stand, no great flipfest. He pondered at how this all went so wrong.
He was the first to really get his national engine going, the first to fully claim his core region. While others were ruined by their geography, he claimed a fortress of a region. And yet somehow, it wasn’t enough. Spain stagnated, trapped in the very fortress that should have made it defensible. Amphibious assaults from the Vandals crippled him, leaving him a scrap, someone else’s meal, someone else’s diplomatic disaster. And now someone else is finishing that meal.
A mysterious stranger met him partway, and brought him to the submarine. He heard her curse under her breath, “Damn, I really thought Mississippi would die first.”
Somewhere in the Atlantic, some of the last remnants of the Paraguayan navy floated on by a large Nigerian Navy buildup. “Well maybe if we had some of that shit…” thought a captain. A large detachment of Kosovar parajumpers swam out as far as it can.
Awolowo made an impassioned speech on behalf of his faith, and how embracing it globally could only make the world a better place. Everyone else listened politely, before immediately vetoing the resolution.
Afterwards, Kaiser Wilhelm, having had a bout of bad itchiness on his glove hand, blamed it on the cotton fibers and thus decided that the Fluff Devil must be banned.
Malacca’s control over Juyubit fliped back and forth, costing Mansur Shah nine whole airframes. The Dene also took Puvunga, although without much in the way of remaining breakthrough forces to take it back should the Malaccan navy do its job.
“My people, it is time for us to finish the great work we began so long ago. Burkina Faso must be finished.” Awolowo’s forces were already ready to descend upon their eternal foe before the television crews even arrived to record his speech. The Burkinan megalopolis of the desert stood no chance. Millions would die today.
Thanadelthur examined the report closely, before examining the scene. Just like herself, Nigeria was about to execute a longtime rival, but something was different. All of Sankara’s forces in theater this time were his own, unlike the last Burkina-Nigeria war, unlike Tuskaloosa. Last time, the ‘peacekeepers’ were his salvation, this time, there were no such saviors handy. It was as if some cosmic force was punishing weak states for building militaries of their own.
In a single year, the entire Burkinan military was destroyed. As he followed the strange woman who offered him escape, Sankara too thought of what had gone so terribly wrong.
He too had begun strong, with a powerful early spread that looked to dominate North Africa with sheer density of cities- but then that bastard Awolowo swept in and ruined everything. It was all his fault. He smashed into Burkina Faso before they were able to build up a military force to protect their fledgling empire, and killed their early lead. From there, he could only stagnate, able to sometimes threaten the Ptolomies when they turned their back to focus on eastern matters, until a disastrous pair of sequential wars against the Vandals and Nigeria left him a broken runt of an empire.
As he arrived at the sub, he met Carlos in the waiting room. Carlos simply nodded in a strange camaraderie, two men who could have been contenders, and offered some smuggled booze. Sankara accepted it.
In a desperate attempt to impress his mother, Kaiser Wilhelm II declared war upon Sweden; “Look mother! I can command a mighty navy just as strong as your homeland! Even through a narrow channel that might well be blocked by those insufferable peacekeepers, I shall finish what I started in Sweden so many years ago!”
His generals rolled their eyes in private, but were happy to finally be fighting someone other than Ferdinand for once.
The Swedish corvette Najadan sailed by Kulin Lima in desperate search for port, half a sail remaining, two thirds of the crew slain by the newfound enemies of her homeland. The crew could see a German privateer on the horizon. They knew their days were numbered.
Meanwhile, in Kulin Lima, the Kulin generals surveyed their situation. Should a total war come, they had force superiority in theater. Their forces spilled deeply into the Marajoaran lands, to say nothing of their naval forces. Meanwhile, Malacanan Tacna had no forces stationed to speak of. The generals weren’t foolish men, they weren’t going to count these unhatched eggs as chicken, but they liked their odds.
Half of the Sigtunan navy had already fallen, some of it destroyed, some of it captured by the Germans. Karl was seen stalking the halls of Lund in a dirty lion onesie, mutter only, “Karimov! Karimov! Give me back my legions!” His guards pretended to ignore it, but could not help but be demoralized by the sight regardless.
A division of Paraguayan parajumpers pushed deep into the strange, futuristic structures, seeking any refuge they could find from the fire sent their way. They had no idea who the hell was shooting them, or from where, or most aggravatingly, why. They had to leave comrades dead on the road in a land as far as is physically possible from their home, and they didn’t even know why. Such is the life of the refugee soldier.
Wilhelm giggled himself silly at the thought of having stolen privateers, before congratulating his soldiers in an overly long speech that, despite going on for hours, failed to really address much of the actual contributions of any of the actual fighting men, but somehow found space for a dig at his mother and her “stupid Britain.” A soldier was heard asking, “What the fuck is a Britain?” An officer shrugged.
Meanwhile, P’kuee sent Tamar an apology. “Sorry, thought you were a region in Vandal occupied North America. Peace?” Tamar rolled her eyes and accepted the treaty.
Malaccan forces stabilized the beachhead, pushing away any hostile breakthrough units and bringing armor to the front. However, the next nearest target, Tibahagna, was surrounded by Marajoaran peacekeepers. Kuruvunga was also solidly beaten down, and with the utter absence of any Dene resistance, they had a clear path.
Three great powers sat in peace. Uzbekistan, Punjab, Zaire. No soldier present could hide their unease- this peace could not last, and when it broke, a whole lot of lead was going to start firing from all directions.
Wilhelm’s Imperial Navy continued to smash through the Swedish navy without much resistance. Wilhelm wrote his mother a fawning letter about how good he was doing at warlording and how she should really be quite impressed by it and hold his hands softly. She sent the letter back with its grammar corrected.
Meanwhile, Karl was messy crying into a pair of cat ears.
Hetu Ala should not stand. It is a fortress of glass; fragile, indefensible. Yet so long as a single peacekeeper occupies the tile, no-one can break it. Right now, that peacekeeper is Georgian. Thanadelthur took notes. A pathetic runt of a power was still managing to disrupt wars by just building more troops than she could house. As she signed a peace treaty with the Malaccans, letting them keep their Californian holdings, she started to compile those notes.
In a shock to none, Itan was not elevated to global canon. Spices were banned, however. When asked why he proposed such a thing, Wilhelm reportedly said that he “just wanted to start emulating the cuisine of his mother’s motherland.”
A single vertol made landfall on Bottle Creek’s island, battered, near-crashing. If they could hold on, they could clear a tile for embarked allies to take more ground. If. And even if they did, the Dene forces would still need to break through the one remaining tile, and the way things were going, that one tile may as well have been a thousand miles long. A submarine based missile began firing alongside a complement of rockets from the city itself. Emplaced machine guns began firing. The pilot braced himself for pain.
A Swedish scientist made a report on their reverse-engineering of nuclear science. Karl just looked him dead in the eye with disgust. “What does it matter, if we’ll never be able to build one? Why did we waste time on this when we should have made more men!” He slammed the desk. The scientist paused. “Would more men have done anything, as outmatched as we are?” Karl could answer with nothing but sobs.
Lund fell shortly after. While the remaining Swedish soldiers might have been able to retake the city, they never succeeded at doing so. Karl fled the city, escorted by a strange woman, forced to abandon his beloved onesie with a body double to disguise himself. That double did not survive the capture of the city.
Wilhelm wrote to his mother, asking if she was finally proud of him after his valiant conquest. “No, you killed a kitten, why would I be?” Wilhelm was heard screaming incoherent fury from across the palace. He would commission a proper eulogy for the fallen lion, in attempt to salvage more glory from the kill.
“Thus falls Karl XII, ruler of Swedes; certainly, he stumbled early on, one time he somehow had worse stats than those Gran Columbians who lost their settler to a scout before they had even started recovering. Apparently he just didn’t have terrain or something. Certainly, he never accomplished anything of note, losing ground to us early on despite us being on the opposite side of the bay and then getting rocked by Uzbek peacekeepers. But out of all the leaders in the Cylinder, he was certainly one of them.”
The Chinook were down, but they were maybe not out. A single settler remained. If they could navigate the sea of ships to a valid tile, they could maybe find a new home, if someone would set a city alight again.
Two Taiping tanks tried to trash the tiny remnants of the Laotian empire. They would not succeed, but there are those who grant points for effort.
A list was compiled of all the richest powers in the world. For once, observers on the sub took note- with many powers on the sub experiencing crippling economic collapse, this list showed who could still afford to fund their sciences fully.
Seeing the economic pressure maintaining a large army was wrecking on his peers, Ranjit Singh decided to simply let Chukchi forces guard the Northern Yuan flank of his northern enclave.
Thanadelthur took note of this too. The massive swarms of useless peacekeepers were bankrupting their states, ruining their abilities to develop on top of their namesake disruption of wars. That it was ideal to let another defend your lands so that you can spare the cash cost of doing so yourself went in her notes.
Awolowo sighed. “Well, if you will not accept our faith, can you at least lift the embargo on us?” All assembled leaders pointed right at the seat Sankara used to occupy. “Okay, fair enough.
Wilhelm, still furious at his mother’s disapproval, demanded that the world cease any and all trade with any surviving Swedish refugees.
The Kurdish Anti-Air detachment survived the Yuan bombardment, with most of their aggressors having either left or died. Their spotter looked around to see a huge throng of Uzbek forces start to creep into Nigeria and the Vandal territory, a giant green glob of soldiers stretching deeper and deeper into the holdings of these powers.
Vercingetorix, high off of his recent killing of Spain, off of watching Germany kill Sweden, decided there was only one thing to do: Murder another runt. Further deciding to join the Germans in having a single random American colony, he ordered a task force to assault the final Quilomban city of Papaloapan, but in his murderous euphoria, forgot to actually attach any breakthrough units to the force, sending nothing but aircraft carriers with no escorts or destroyers to finish the job.
From raw attrition, the last of the Dene land units in the Bottle Bay had died with no progress to be seen. A lone Mississipian AA battery stood defiant sentinel on the coast of the island. Thanadelthur could be heard raging in her office- “It’s one island! How is this so hard! Do we have traitors in our midst? A conspiracy against us? How!”
Wilhelm took a deep breath in. “My friends, I think that it is time for all to join in reverence of-” the sound of the ‘no’ votes rang out before he even finished his speech. “Seriously?”
Awolowo meanwhile pushed for increased infrastructural support for sites of cultural importance.
Mustafa Barzini stared long and hard into the window at the marching Uzbek formations. Long had they protected his people from their Zairian foe; long had they filled space Kurdistan could never have properly filled on their own. But at what cost? Was it worth it to protect his nation at the cost of their dignity as a people? To survive only at the mercy of another? After a long call from Thanadelthur, he came to a conclusion: the Kurds would live and die on their own terms. Rejecting the Uzbek contract, he watched as the Zairian army immediately began advancing over the hills, immediately taking his capital. He loaded his rifle. The fighting had only begun.
Mannerheim, bored of being the Ghost of Europe, threw a dart at a board. Seeing that it landed on Georgia rather than someone actually scary, he immediately authorized a declaration of war against the mountain state.
Mustafa agreed to join him, although from the sound of the call, he may have been too busy getting rung out by Zaire to actually think the matter through. Mustafa immediately realized the folly of his actions, and as the Zairian forces ran roughshod over his people, sued for the quickest peace he could just for the sake of survival, a peace that would cost him dearly.
From the network of citadels and fortifications across her domain and deep into what ought have been Taiping, Mandukhai surveyed her forces with pride. Sure, maintaining them was ruining the economy, but they were a force to respect regardless. And how much could superior tech actually matter in the face of these raw numbers, anyway? An advisor hesitatingly mentioned that superior tech can make superior numbers, but she just brushed him off.
A joint group of researchers from the Kulin, Nigerian, and Malaccan research divisions met in secret. Sharing notes, they came to an alarming conclusion: there was nothing left to research. They had finished science, as a concept. Looking at where other powers sat, the Vandals and Rio Grande weren’t far behind. Their technological superiority over all the midpowers suddenly looked a lot more finite.
Ferdinand was still mourning the loss of his father, Carlos III of Spain, when the letter arrived. “I want Alessia back.” Looking to his agents, he saw on the surveillance screens the invading Gallic forces. He knew they would take it. “Well, let’s see if they can hold it!”
As Vercingetorix rallied to settle an age-old score, Lenin decided that now was the time to settle one of his own. The Uzbeks were a massive thorn in his attempts to destroy Perm, their ‘peacekeepers’ flooding the Cylinder and jamming up conflicts everywhere. He had just had a nice chat with Thanadelthur about that very issue. Now was the time, he decided, to cut off that snake at its head. His superior robotic forces would surely cut through the Uzbek Parajumper hordes like butter. His generals were less certain- sure, pound-for-pound, the Soviet GDRs were far more powerful than what the Uzbeks were fielding, but the Uzbeks had a lot more already on the field. Still, their leader had cast the die.
At the very least, they would clean up this random enclave in their midst.
Randit Singh also signed on to the war against Ferdinand. It didn’t mean a lot, but it gave him an excuse to test some of his naval forces by ruining this random boat in their midst.
A huge throng of forces from Uzbek Sweden rushed into the Western Russian flank, slamming into Konigsberg. “I may have miscalculated a bit,” Lenin thought.
Lenin settled on “Nope, definitely miscalculated.”
Sevastopol and Konigsberg fell alarmingly fast. A rush of Russian robots readied to reclaim them.
On the Eastern Front, things were going better somehow. Throngs of parajumpers threw themselves at the USSR, only to be torn apart by entrenched defenders in the cities. The GDR “Honey Badger” plowed straight into Nikopsia, seemingly apathetic to the danger involed.
A small force of Uzbek parajumpers backed up by powered armor advanced on the outskirts of Krasnodar. While they were unlikely to accomplish much, they could still at least pin down some Russians in the north to help maintain momentum near Konigsberg.
In the seas south of Nigeria and Zaire, a floating legion of drones and infantry sat idling. “You think we should go back to help fight the USSR?” asked one private to his sergeant. “Do you wanna go fight giant death robots?” the sergeant answered. “Hell no,” replied the private. And so they sat, eating the tax revenue of Uzbekistan to do nothing.
Alessia held for longer than anyone thought that it would. The raw naval power behind it made it harder to siege than you’d think.
The war on the Eastern Front seemed stable, at least for the moment. A force of Uzbek Airborn, PJs, and helicopters rallied on the outskirts, but overall the tide had been pushed back.
Vercingetorix sighed. Finally, they had retaken that which they had lost so many centuries ago. He knew it wouldn’t be quite this easy- in the coming days, they’d need to attrition down the Sicilian navy to keep Alessia. But Gaul had more sons to sacrifice than Sicily. It could pay that cost
Russian forces retook Sevastopol, with only light Uzbek forces nearby. The Western Front too looked to be calming down.
Barghash binh Said greeted Mustafa as he entered the clubhouse, a dinky little building ill-suited to the leader of a power. “Welcome to the city-state club, my friend!” Zumbi nodded. “Good to get some new blood in here. Had quite a bit of culling of late.”
Control of Nikopsia was flipping back and forth, and the Uzbek tide firmly stuck in its borders. The fighting was far from done- the Uzbek fleet would see to that- but the advantage seemed to have flipped back to the Russians, if only slightly.
Meanwhile, Tamar cried out in anger and in pain, “WHO THE FUCK BOMBED ME?!”
The Uzbek Enclave was conquered, and the threat of a deeper push stopped. Still, Soviet citizens felt unease- there was no real inland military to protect them from potential future incursion.
As the two leaders left the conference, neither Karimov nor Lenin knew which of them had really won the war. The USSR took Batumi, but at the cost of Konigsberg, and of failing to keep Nikopsia. Ultimately, it was a mostly a wash for both powers.
Sicilian troops retook Alesia. Each of them knew in their hearts that the only way they would keep the city by the end of the war would be to just keep losing and retaking it until the Gauls gave up again, paying in blood for each cycle. They didn’t know if they had enough blood to keep it going.
The Cholan Indonesian fleet sat at the maw of the Malaccans. The admiralty knew that their ships were more advanced than the Blue and Gold fleet, but at the cost of numbers. Could they keep it if it came to war?
Wilhelm chuckled to himself while watching the Gauls flail against the Sicilians. “Doesn’t look so easy now, does it? You fat barbarian fuck!” he shouted to no-one in particular.
Lawtiliwadlin stared at the ceiling from his bed. “Let’s get this over with.” The ghost of Tsouharissen appeared above him again as he had for the past year. “Why the hell are you even haunting me? I didn’t have anything to do with your death!” The ghost just sat silently condemning him, condemning the millions dead by his hands, his rampant theft of sacred lands.
Meanwhile, Karimov signed off on a huge defense expenditure to guard the arctic as a Marajoaran sub watched from behind a shelf of ice.
With the emplacement of an additional citadel, Cholan Tayma had a direct land route to Nigerian Mogadishu, and the region’s borders only got messier.
Ptolemey’s book gives a long list of places you can visit in these leader’s borders, but it fails to address the underlying issue of why you’d ever want to actually visit any of these murderers personally.
Vercingetorix walked away reasonably happy from the peace tables. He had kept Alesia, had taken back that which was his. Still, his mind drifted to future problems. His British holdings were just surrounded by the Imperial Navy on all sides. If and when a war began between the two, it would be messy, especially if other belligerents were involved. Who knows what that freak Wilhelm would do.
Meanwhile, Wilhelm declared war upon Tuskaloosa for no particular reason other than because he could.
Thanadelthur signed the peace treaty before throwing her pen against the wall. These bloody refugees had crippled the war effort for too long to justify continuing the offensive. Privately, she began a project, a resolution to be presented to the WC, or to whoever comes after, to limit the number of soldiers it is physically possible for a nation state to build.
While it wouldn’t directly prevent a refugee disaster like this, it would prevent the kind of buildup that leads to previously Paraguayan peacekeepers presiding over random chunks of the arctic. She didn’t seriously think anyone would run with it, but it would at least give a funnel for her fury.
Mansur Shah suddenly awoke with a start. “Hey, that Hawaiian leader decided to go with Freedom! That’s not allowed!” The invasion of Hawaii began.
All lay peaceful on the Cholan-Punjabi border. Ranjit was confident enough to let his guard down, leave most of his core unguarded, and invite in a Mississippi refugee to hang out by Qasar. Raja Raja, meanwhile, sat in his throne room, dreading the next war against the orange giant.
The letter read, “Makassar? More like Massacre!” Lili'uokalani narrowed her eyes. Is the destruction of her people just a game? Something to throw trash talk about? She braced for the inevitable.
Marajoaran peacekeepers were filling in gaps left by Gallic soldiers that died invading Alesia, alongside a few Uzbek power armored peacekeepers. Still, unlike some states, the Gauls at least had an actual army alongside those forces.
As Lili'uokalani departed for the submarine alongside the stranger, she left her people with a somber recording of Aloha ‘Oe, and hopes that Mansur would at least show some mercy to her people. It had been a rough run for them, trapped on half their home islands by the chaos of Taihitian settlement, forced to carve a new home so far away, protected only by the engulfing embrace of the that which would kill them in the end. Though they would at least take down the VOC before going down, there was nowhere to go from there, so the minute they declared ‘let Freedom ring!’ the clock started ticking.
Soviet leadership was only half as concerned of a potential White invasion as you might think when looking at that pile of tanks and robots. Beyond the natural protection of the Urals, which had saved Perm of all civs several times in the past, there was also the fact that in recent history, the Whites had performed incompetently in both of their biggest wars, losing ground to both a civ with no science division and a random Punjab enclave. Frankly, they had bigger fish to fry than the man who openly wanted to murder them and all their children for ideological reasons.
“IF THE BOMBING COULD STOP, THAT’D BE REAL NICE!” Tamar screamed to the sky.
As this moment in the second saga of the Cylinder comes close to a close, we see the city state Zaire has turned Kurdistan into. Notably, Mobotu took both Dihok and Elih in the treaty, two cities that would have been difficult to conquer with their geography and peacekeepers.
A Japanese rifleman was throwing barbs at an Icelandic lineman in a Reykjavik bar. “You still have wood boats and breech loading guns!” The lineman replied, “Yeah, and we also still have cities.”
The Cholan-Punjabi border is a realm of two worlds; on the Punjabi side, scarcely more than a handful of troops patrol the wide swathe of India, while on the Cholan side robots en masse stand guard.
A Kurd stood at the end of Chukchi Asia. He asked himself, “How did I get here?”
Kolchak prepares a large robotic horde. There will be no second loss to the Punjabi enclave.
A pair of Paraguayan PJs stood toe-to-toe against a Marajoaran hybrid drone. They may die, but they’ll die on their feet.
Jumbi, emboldened by the Gallic failure to take his home, decided to pick back up the torch of freedom that Stephen once held, that Lili'uokalani took up in turn. As far as he was concerned, this could not kill him, for he died long ago when the Vandals broke his capital. He had been dead for centuries. Now, in this moment, he lived again.
Vercingetorix checked back in with the carrier group. On hearing their status, he delicately set the phone down, walked out to the balcony, and screamed like hell. One carrier still floated. The most expensive pieces of military hardware in the world, now at the bottom of the Gulf of Rio.
Agents of the Submarine world ran the numbers, seeing whose armies were truly the biggest. To the surprise of most, the Marajoarans ranked first by numbers- although those paying attention to the large numbers of soldiers garbed in their clay-tone among the lands of other leaders understood what was happening. They closed their reports for the day, and went to plan, to prepare for the next stage in this cycle of bloodshed.
Thank you for reading through to the end. This episode has been divided into two halves, with the next half planned to drop next week. I hope to see you all again then. To summarize what happened this time, Spain, Hawaii, Sweden, and Burkina Faso all died. The USSR and Uzbekistan Forgied. Kurds runted and Mississippi survived. This has been Bloody Altima, signing off.