DAY THIRTY-SEVEN
I've been mindlessly attacking AIs for days and, basically, nothing has happened. Persia's player returned, un-declared war on me and decided to make friends with me, a wise decision (I have right of way, and until they accept my map-sharing they got nothing but a ceasefire in return; Germany is at war with them, so if they do accept a shared map I will take a Xinjiang Audit). Meanwhile random troops from Argentina have been cropping up in the oceans and I've been getting steadily more alarmed and now, when I had more money than I knew what to do with I splashed out on a huge sabotage spy network and managed to reveal all of Argentina's armies and SHITSHITSHIT IT IS SO OBVIOUS THEY'RE PLANNING AN INVASION IT ISN'T EVEN FUNNY. There's a bunch of nuclear bombers parked in Taiwan, a huge trail of convoys headed for the Sea of Japan, masses of units in Australia's territory, and there is no way my three-day-old navy, where only the battleships and submarines are above level one, are going to be able to cope with this. My existing coastal defenses are laughable and it will take me twelve hours to move everything east.
Fig. 124 Oh, great.
The obvious solution? The best defense is a good offense, so I'm going to dispatch those very dangerous nuclear weapons before they use them on me. I have no long-range bombers available apart from my own nukes, and my nuclear rockets are still under construction, so nuclear bombers it is. Unfortunately their being parked on Australian soil means I'm going to be declaring war on both of them at once, so it's just as well I've been spending all this time preparing to invade Australia anyway.
I am very much out of my depth here; this is where the Axis coalition loses, big time, but if I win it's going to be awesome. Germany had better be ready to take on Brazil, because if not we're swamped.
The Japanese theatre, where I'm assembling a navy, isn't looking much better. At most I'll be able to slow him down. Although being able to see the destination of all those convoys is useful; I've seeded submarines all along the path they're taking.
I invested heavily in military sabotage - sank 40,000 dollars in total into making it as difficult as possible for them to add to what they already have (and being Axis they're already at disadvantage there). Meanwhile I shall draft my explanatory newspaper article. (Both nukes I have are earmarked for an opening offensive; they have three in Indochina as well as five in Taiwan, and I'm thankful that they were silly enough to stack them rather than force me to pick only two out of eight to destroy. As it is I'm worried there's a third stack lurking around that I haven't noticed and can do nothing about).
...50 minutes until it hits. In 20 minutes my other one will have relocated and then I'm sending it off. I want them to arrive at around the same time, because otherwise if Argentina is active that gives them a window to retaliate with the other stack before I have time to kill it, too.
The apologatory news article:
QING EMPIRE ATTACKS ARGENTINIAN FORCES IN TAIWAN AND INDOCHINA
Recently two nuclear bombers were dropped on Australian soil in Taipei, Taiwan, and Pnom Pehn, Indochina. The bombs destroyed eight nuclear bombers stationed in these cities belonging to Argentina, as well as a number of other armies. Until these strikes, the Qing Empire was at peace with both countries and had friendly relations with Australia; the attack has now triggered a war with the APTO coalition.
In a statement today the minister for defense said that "clearly Argentina has long been preparing for an attack on our glorious empire" and was prepared to go to drastic measures to protect the state by making a pre-emptive strike. "Convoys, carriers and battleships have been repeatedly sighted off our coast, particularly in the Sea of Japan. Generals near the Indochina border have noted an increase of Argentinian troops within Australian territory. It was clear to me that an invasion was planned. When we received communications suggesting that Taipei and Pnom Pehn now were armed with nuclear weapons, it was clear to us that if we didn't begin the attack, they would. It is to be hoped that our Australian comrades harboured these forces in good faith and had no designs against the empire itself."
Emperor Aragosta has issued a formal apology to Australia's Prime Minister User35771202 for this unprovoked attack. "We are deeply regretful that your nation had to become embroiled in this conflict. We had no quarrel with you, and still do not." Offers for restorations and returning of land have been given, but on the condition that Argentina is made to withdraw all troops from Australian territories in Asia.
No communication has taken place between Emperor Aragosta and Prime Minister IWin123.
I'm actually serious about the reparations and land restorations; if Australia agrees to the conditions I'm happy to stay at peace with them. (Yes, I know, earlier I was talking about backstabbing them. That was before the Argentinian Menace.) Not that I seriously expect they will, of course, as they has no reason to be loyal to me above their coalition members - especially if I've just nuked them, probably destroying some of their own units in the process, and have captured two of their cities.
Notice how I didn't say how I got the information about the nuclear bombers; I was deliberately vague. It's all first-hand spy network info that I haven't even passed on to Germany, but they don't need to know that; they can worry that Germany's spying on them, or I'm secretly allied with someone who can see their map or has spies of their own planted, or something. Argentina will have their work cut out eliminating my entire spy network, so even if they come to the obvious conclusion there's not a lot they can do about it (and the fact that I mentioned being informed ought, if they're the sort to pay attention, to make them second-guess that conclusion).
They have ten minutes' reaction time window; the Taipei bombers (the ones I'm worried about, being within reach of both of my nuclear labs and Beijing) will die in 29 minutes, and the Pnom Pehn ones (within reach of Kweiyang, but I highly doubt they'll think to bomb there and anyway losing one lab is better than both) in 39. I hope this does it.
I've also found a third bomber of mine floating around that I'd forgotten I had. I have yet to decide what to kill with it. I think I'll hoard it.
Meanwhile in Jiuquan and Hainan, I'm developing third and fourth existing nuclear labs and hoping dearly that this will be enough, as I simply don't have the manpower to build more than four of any nuclear weapon in tandem. Not that I intend to bother with bombers anymore now I have rockets, anyway; rockets are superior in that they can't be shot down, they do more damage, they have similar range, and they only take an extra hour to produce assuming one is using Level 5 labs.
Fig. 125 Critical hit!
There. One strike and I'm at war with two countries at once.
Fig. 126 There's going to be hell to pay for this, particularly if Australia denies my offer of peace. And frankly, I won't blame them if they do.
By the looks of it, Argentina isn't currently online, as he's missed the window for retaliation with the three remaining bombers.
Fig. 127 Or not.
I switched back to colouring the map by relations, because I nearly attacked Persia after they gave me right of way because I didn't notice until almost the last minute, and don't care for a repeat of that, especially with Australia's delicate situation at present.
OK, this is where my memory of the game mechanics come in. When my bomber strikes - and I'm sure it will, interceptors or no interceptors - will the airborne ones still die? I bloody hope so, because one's on the way to Taiwan right now. I'm going to move my capital. Beijing is too vulnerable and I have just the city to be really damn hard to bomb from any territory anyone but Germany holds:
Fig. 128 Pragmatism.
This is going to do terrible things to my expansion penalty system, but at least it's going to be a pain to attack.
Crisis averted:
Fig. 129 All of them are dead. ALL OF THEM! *Maniacal laughter like the worst kind of evil Brit*
I don't trust them not to build more, though, or to not have nuclear rockets researched, so that capital move is going ahead, and at least I now know I have the twelve-hour wait period safe and not in danger of nuclear damage.
Bombing attacks (regular bombs) have begun on my cities; Argentina clearly had air superiority. I'm already focused on trying to achieve naval equality if not superiority, so air superiority is right out; instead, I will spam anti-air and park one in every vulnerable city I possess. (Their planes are operating off carriers, and most of Australia's land-based airstrips are in range of either coastal bombardment or my artillery, so naval superiority will take care of both problems at once.)
There you have it: the most stressful few hours of CoW I have ever experienced. Are you not entertained? And now to deal with the fallout of this 'good offence'-style defense; tune in tomorrow for updates on that, while British India, Tibet, Nepal, Xinjiang and Russia fade quietly out of focus and are eventually defeated offstage.
...
I'm aware that somewhere in this situation I probably stuffed up horribly and made an amateur mistake; if there exist superior methods of dealing with obvious invasions by someone stronger than you, I'd quite like the hear them for next time I join as a weak nation.
