Today was a very long, and very busy day. I had a long session in the morning, and then another session later in the evening.
The cause of all this activity was due in part to Sysop[1], who launched a surprise attack which completely destroyed all my exploration fleet in the East, and sank replacements headed for the northeast and southeast. Now I am facing Black Co.[9] to the north, and northeast, Sysop[1] to the east, and Norco[11] to the southeast. My entire eastern border is in a state of war.
First, we have Black Co. assaulting my island with his Mines Sweeper #34. Black Co. seems to be using minesweepers for exploration. The cost less than Destroyers or Submarines, and have better range than PTs.
His assault on Scott's Bluff is alarming. I just unloaded civilians there yesterday and spread, but I don't have enough time yet to make industries efficient, and I have not yet drafted. Furthermore, drafting now will slow my industrialization because I have just enough civilians in each sector to grow to 100 when I update 99. I don't want to draft.
Black Co's capitol has only 1 military, and my 15 civilians he captured. I can't let him accumulate time on this island. I've got to flick his capitol. I have extra civilians in my capitol, I need to enlist some there to use in the attack.
With his capitol gone, I make a mental note to deal with the Mine Sweeper off the coast of Scott's Bluff later, but first I need to assess the situation with my new enemy, Sysop. We share island #47 together - I'll start there. He has spread out, but not started moving his forces directly at mine yet.
I quickly occupy the land bridge between us. I would rather not have his forces too close to my industrial core. An artillery piece and a bunch of shells could turn my factories to rubble.
Next, I need to take a RADAR to see what ships are in the area. Look at this, he has launched a huge fleet of helpless liners, traveling in all directions from his home island #42. They are sitting ducks, and I intend to send them all to the bottom. It was terrible planning on Sysop's part to start a war, and then launch a huge fleet of helpless liners.
Checking my northeast fleet, I still have one of the subs I launched the other day - because it is submerged. You can tell it is submerged because there is an asterisk "*" after the sub's position in the ship report.
Amazingly, my liner is still afloat. Black Co has chosen to not sink it, and it must be just out of Sysop's bomber range. I set course for what was an undiscovered island yesterday, but is now a Kryann island. I might be able to establish a ranger station there before Black Co gets around to sinking my ship.
Island #3 (just south of Scott's Bluff) still does not have enough time to industrialize. So I can't bomb Black Co's mine sweeper from here. Hello - there is another nation on this island.
A quick check shows it is Kryann, and they have been here for while. I send off a standard friendly park greeting. Maybe he will not bomb my liner headed for his island if his land on island #3 looks secure.
OK - Back to the North Cascades. I want to bomb Sysop into oblivion.
I shift the bombers to an airport which is a letter further west. Notice the FLY bug. If you get stuck, just exit the command and start again. Fly is pretty picky.
The RADAR from Island #47 is so bug, I use a different font to display it.
My Park Mission calls for me to inform nations of their status.
I gather some bombs.
I now do a RADAR with the NATIONS, NOISLAND, and NOMAP options. This gives me a list of just the Sysop ships.
I start bombing, and after a time, I check again and there are 4 ships left. I sink them as well.
The Navies Report shows that Sysop has 8 ships left, and what's this? Norco has a bunch of ships too. I use RADAR from island #198 and can't see any Norco Ships.
From Mount Rainier I can see most of them. Again, a huge herd of helpless liners. When at war, must not let your opponent calmly expand their empire through exploration and colonization. I must sink all these ships.
I saw a destroyer in the previous radar, so I rake another RADAR restricting it to only Norco Destroyers. You can supply any one ship style as an argument to the RADAR command.
First, I nail the destroyer. If I started with the liners, the the destroyer would fire flack at my bombers every time I tried bombing a liner that was within 5 of the destroyer. It's always best to remove the resistance first.
Now for the main course - liners!
I sink ever liner I can see, yet the Navies Report shows he still has 4 ships.
I update San Juan island (so I have an efficient airport), and fly my bombers to it.
I can see two more Norco ships, but I only have 10 bombs, and I've used all my movement time. I'll have to return later to finish the job.
Same situation in the North Cascades. More liners to sink, no movement time to get bombs to the airport. I do have 10 bombs, not enough to sink a ship - but enough to damage it. I bomb the ship which is furthest away.
I would like to have some fighters on the island, to defend again air attacks. Sysop's home island is right next door. i don't want him to think he can bomb with impunity. My plane factories are not ready to build any, so I need to locate fighters elsewhere in my realm. The MATERIEL command is similar to the EMPIRE command, but it shows where your "stuff" is. The largest collection of fighters is on island #231.
Great job of joys, the liner from my northern fleet actually reached island #119, where both Black Co and I have capitols. I'm so glad he did not sink this ship before it got here, and I'm going to make him regret his mistake.
I unload nearly 3000 civilians.
I quickly draft 30%. I don't have a lot of time yet on this island, and I don't want some sub to sneak up and capture my civilians. That would be disastrous.
When I'm done I have two sectors with lots of civilians. The main risk here is that he will bomb these two sectors, killing most of the people. I should spread soon, but when I spread - I want to march north and sack Black Co's capitol. I need a little more time to crawl through so many mountains. Maybe my liner can just sail up there and pick off his capitol. I'll wait a little.
My world map looks a little lop-sided. The east is a blank, you can see fingers of islands in the northwest where the submarine has discovered the island, but the liner has not yet arrived to update, and take radars. Similar situations exist in the south and west. You can also see a small cluster of islands in the far southwest corner. this is where Tyrian lives, and for some reason released all his islands.
Since I need more time in the war zones, I will spend some time on the rest of the empire. In the southwest, a radar from Yellowstone shows that Armageddon is very active exploring and colonizing. He is actively landing in the national parks, so I need to pay attention to make sure I get my share.
He has landed on Yosemite, so I need to spread in a manor which will not block him.
He has also landed on island #142, but it's a detached island. I take care to fill in all the land as I spread from west to east.
He's also landed on Liberty. I'll fill west to east.
I land my northwest liner for a second time on Glacier. The first landing was a detached island.
It was a little nasty to crawl through the mountains, but now I'm in the open.
I have enough time on this island to get an efficient airport. And it's close enough to island #119 to see what's going on. I don't like what I see. Black Co has a mine sweeper off the coast of island #119. He could race down the coast and with air support, completely wipe me off the island. There is not enough land time for his military to march all the way down the island, but attack from sea is a real concern. The mine sweeper has to go.
Speaking of mine sweepers, I still have that one hanging of the coast of Scott's Bluff.
I don't have enough time to build an efficient air field, but I can grow my population some.
I notice the diagnostic message "Radio signals being jammed". All this means is that there is brief contention to lock the radio file, so the message can be ignored. But what it also says is that there are other players active, because that's what causes the file contention. I use the USERS command to see who else is on. Hmmmm, Sysop. He's read his mail and is thinking about his next move.
Back to the task at hand, dealing with that Black Co mine sweeper off the coast of Scott's Bluff. I don't have an efficient airport, so I can't bomb it. I don't have any shells or artillery, so I can't BLAST it from the coast. But... it's docked, so I can BOARD it. I enlist 90 military for the task, and move them to the dock.
I verify that a mine sweeper can only hold 40 military, so 90 should be just fine. There is some defensive advantage given to military on the ship over attackers from the land.
I use the nearby liner to identify the mine sweeper ship number.
I BOARD the mine sweeper - but the attack fails!! I need more military.
I return to the capitol, enlist more, move them and BOARD successfully. I'm the proud owner of a new mine sweeper.
I drive the mine sweeper around the corner, and set out for island #53. If Black Co does not sink it, it will be the front ship for liner #50 in the Northeast fleet. Notice I even set the fleet number to 91.
We are out of time, but we'll need to return later today to complete some unfinished business. First, let's read the news.
Here is a report on yesterdays successful capture on island #90 from Norco. Interesting in this series of news items is the time of the attacks. Notice Black Co. attacked at 544.36, then Tur-Cai at 544.58, and then Krynn at 544.58. Not absolute proof, but suspicious that maybe all these nations are being operated by one player. No big deal, but it's worth keeping track of.
The Tyrian war continues - Boring.
Here is the Black Co original bombing.
A closing naval report.
An Empire report.
That's all for the morning session.
It's now 10 hours later, so I should have some time to finish off attacks I started earlier. Also, I generally play in the morning, and by showing up once in a while in the evening, I become less "predictable" to my enemies.
No big surprise, Black Co sank the mine sweeper I stole from him. But fortunately, he still has not sunk my liners.
First things first, Submarine #53 discovers a new park in the northwest.
With nothing else on the horizon, Sub #53 sails off further to the northwest.
I have more time on Glacier, so it's time to sink Black Co's mine sweeper.
North Cascades also has more time, and there are still Sysop liners on the RADAR scope.
Not any more.
Sysop still has two ships, but I can't see them.
Another news report has come out. It shows the original Sysop attack on my shipping.
There is a lot of bombing going on.
Here are the news items pertaining to my response.
Oh yeah, I have a few Norco ships left to deal with.
The destroyer proves to be a tough nut, I lose 2 bombers on the destroyer, and then my last one on the mine sweeper.
I fly in more bombers from island #198.
Gather up some more bombs.
And finish the job.
Norco still has two ships I can't see.
It's time to get Black Co off of island #119.
I spread my way over to his capitol and flick it.
I spread a little more on North Bend, being careful to not block Armageddon.
I have enough time on island #135 (which is close to Black Co in the northeast) to spread and build a functional airport.
After I spread, I designate and update. I'm going to have some nice docks to hit Black Co with in the future.
The first RADAR from island #135 shows a Black Co. Liner #1 just off the coast of island #149. If the ship has not unloaded civilians, we must sink it now or risk having an industrialized island very close to Scott's Bluff. Hostilities aside, let's get to it.
I update enough to build a few bombs, and send Liner #1 to the bottom.
I get disconnected (thank's AT&T), but I really was done anyway.
