Epic moments in Civilization/Empire games

[Lilani]

So I guess this is partially me bragging about my own experience, but I think there are plenty of you have had moments like these, as well. Epic moments in empire-building games. I was playing Civilization V just now as Maria Theresa--the queen of Austria. Maria Theresa has a unique ability in the game--it's called Diplomatic Marriage. Basically, for any other civ the only way to take over a city-state is to take it over by force. But Maria can take city-states over with positive diplomacy. If you are an ally with a city-state for a certain amount of time, you can spend gold to make that city-state a part of your civilization by marrying off a prince.

I was prepping the nearby city-state Monaco to do just this. I'd pledged to protect them after nearby America started to make war with them, and I donated a few of my military units so they could defend themselves better. I became their ally by completing a road between Monaco and my closest city, and by that point America had backed off.

Just a couple of turns later, Germany just to the north of them sets their eyes on Monaco as well. They declared war and soon their military units were descending upon Monaco in force. Germany was quite a bit bigger than America, so I knew my declaration of protection was going to mean nothing to them. I began to send a few units their way, and denounced Germany, effectively ending our friendship and making the political conditions right for war. When my units arrived in Monaco, I declared war on Germany, but their units were very strong so it wasn't looking good.

But then, the time came. The five turns of alliance were completed, and I could initiate the diplomatic marriage. In the middle of a war, when Monaco's lands were a battlefield of uncertainty, love bloomed in the city's palace and Monaco and Austria were united. I allowed Monaco to continue to decide what they built, which kept the people happier than if I had completely annexed the city. Our armies also became one, and the very next turn my great general arrived to rally the troops and show Germany what for. Now the tides have turned, and we set our eyes on Germany's nearest city, which is also a city state that was once free until Germany set out to capture it.

If this were a real historical event, it would be like the most epic thing ever. The city is under siege, but the marriage of a young prince of Austria and a princess of Monaco unite the people and the lands to fight the oncoming threat. There should be an achievement for that, called "Happily Ever After, bitches" or something like that. That battle and marriage would become a fucking legend. The Civilization games aren't known for their narratives, but man if you think about it, some pretty epic shit goes down in those games.

So, has anyone else experienced this? Having an epic moment or story pop up in these games that aren't really renowned for their narratives? While these games can be cold and calculating, turning taking over people's homes into strategies, they can also give way to some pretty epic tales.

 

[Weaver]

I have a story that... well it's not really as cool as that one. It's basically a boat I call the "hero boat". This was in vanilla civ 5, not sure if it still works the same way. Basically, if a unit embarked into the water (that wasn't a boat) it was basically just moving around the water and it was defenseless. If you moved a real boat onto an embarked unit in vanilla civ V, if I'm remembering correctly, it just killed the embarked unit immediately.

I was playing on the earth map. I had conquered all of America (north and south), and I was trying to gain a foothold in the old world having take over the island where the UK is in real life (forget who owned it).

From that point on, the continents were just FLOODING troops at me. I had a pretty bad navy, but I had the hero boat that would just patrol the very narrow gap between the UK and France picking off every embarked unit they sent at me.

This boat basically did that for like 50 turns, while the rest of my Navy was busy stopping all attempts at assassination.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I remember having a scout tail a barbarian warrior who walked halfway across a huge Pangaea, bypassing several AI civilizations, just to pillage my improvement and die.

It was like "Homeward Bound", only instead of reuniting with his family he fucks up my Marble and dies to a hail of arrows.

 

[Lennie Briscoe]

Back when I played the first Civilization on DOS, I took out a tank unit with a settler. Still lost the game, but who cares.

At one point I also had a phalanx unit successfully defend a coastal city from a battleship. Felt like a right badass that day.

And that's about the extent of my Civilization knowledge and experience.

 

[Tartarga]

In one of the first games of Civ 5 I ever played I had an intense battle with Atilla the Hun. I had been playing as Rome and was just minding my own business when he sends a huge army right up to tiles next my cities closet to him. We had been allies for several turns and even had an open border agreement, I learned then this was a mistake. Sure enough he declares war and my much smaller military does it's best to fend him off while I try to train reinforcements. Things were looking grim until my new units began to show up, repelled his invasion and preceded to steam roll right up to his capital.

The fool asked for peace, all he got was more casualties.

 

[Saladfork]

Well, playing crusader kings 2: old gods, I started as the the king of aragon (...I think) in the year 863. I managed to unite christian spain, drive the muslims out of Ibera, then pressed further and further south until I conquered all of Mali and Songhai... all before 1100.

Granted, my first few victories against the muslim sultanate occupying most of Iberia (The Ummayads) were largely due to marrying into the Karling family which obligated West Francia to help me, but still, I ended up with the most powerful empire in the game.

 

[Nickolai77]

I was playing as the Saxons on Barbarian Invasion, quite happily conquering northern France and generally minding my own business when the Hun hoards turned up.

If you havn't played Barbarian Invasion (A DLC of Rome Total War) there are a number of factions which turn into a barbarian hoard- and they get something like thirty units of largely very low quality infantry and cavalry but also a few elite units.

The Hunnic hoard surrounds Samarobriva (Basically Paris) and besiege my modest garrison of about four spearmen and two hearth swordsmen. Over the course of three turns the entire Hunnic hoard attacks Samarobriva, and each time they were repulsed by my garrison. I lost about 75% of my soldiers, but the Huns lost all their infantry and so they couldn't take fortified towns anymore. The kill ratio's were something like 20-1, and my men only got more resilient and harder to kill the more experience they acquired.

I didn't have the military strength to take the fight to them in the field, but the Huns headed southwards and left me alone for a couple of turns. I don't know what happened to them but several turns later i spy the Hun faction leader alone with only a couple of horsemen left for company hiding in Brittany. I dispatched two units of cavalry and carefully encircled the Hun King on the battlefield and killed him. Probably one of smallest yet most satisfying battles i've ever played.

 

[RJ 17]

Mine comes from Dynasty Warriors 6: Empires. Liu Bei was my ally and Cao Cao was invading Liu's capital. As it was, Liu Bie already been attacked that turn by some random warlord who ended up retreating, but the damage had been done: Liu was in his castle with 2 random/worthless generals and none of them had any soldiers. A messenger arrived at my capital, crying out that his lord was in grave danger and pleaded with me to send assistance in this most desperate hour. I've always thought fondly of the humble Liu Bei and respected his ideals for a land of peace. This wouldn't stop me from conquering him later in the game, but he had bailed me out with reinforcements a couple times in the past and so I would stand with him in this darkest of hours.

Hoping I could win the battle quickly, I dispatched my top assassin: Raithious. An understudy of the wise Zhou Yu, he too was trained to mastery in the use of the bow-staff. His rapid attacks carried surprising strength as his staff was enchanted to freeze enemies in chilling shards of ice. His orders were to seek out the enemy commander and claim his head before the battle could get too ugly, but when he arrived things were far worse than had been expected.

Due to the MASSIVE gap in numbers, the battlefield was already all but overrun. Liu Bei was cornered in his castle as enemy soldiers flooded across the battlefield in waves. It was far too risky to abandon Liu, and as such Raithious was forced into the role of bodyguard. For three days of nearly endless combat, Raithious decimated any and all enemy forces that dared to approach Liu Bei. It was a hard-fought battle, but eventually Cao Cao's massive army decided to cut it's losses and retreat (that is, playing as defense the clock is on your side so f you run out the timer, you win :3).

It was a humiliating defeat to the massive army of Cao Cao, to be absolutely crushed by the might of a single general. As spring turned into summer, I received a letter from Cao Cao requesting that I join him in an alliance. I chuckled to myself, knowing that this was just a ploy to ensure that I wouldn't interfere the next time he tried to attack Liu Bei. I scoffed at the idea, and vowed to protect the kingdom of Shu until such time that it became too big of a threat and had to be put down, or until such time as it got in the way of my own ambition!

 

[generals3]

While my story will probably not benefit from the same great story-telling. In a Civ III lan game with my brother we both annexed AI civilizations one after an other. We were both unstoppable powers. However due to the number of AI claimable territory diminishing the tensions between both of us started to rise. Both wanting to expand our territory seeking for new resources our armies were being put on a state of war readiness with navies being deployed and nukes being stockpiled. It became a matter of time to see who would be the one to initiate the war first. Than my brother decided to invade my territory and sieged one of my cities on an island. Due to its location and the tensions the defenses were high up but all in vein as the city fell. Noticing the army opposing me was larger than mine and that the war would probably not end the way I would have liked it to, I decided to do the unthinkable. Hoping that I would be able to level the playing field by using my superior (at least I hoped it would be) nuclear arsenal, ICBM's started flying to all his cities (quite litterally). Noticing I escalated the war to a nuclear one, ICBM's were simultaneously being thrown at my empire with city after city being devastated... until the game froze due to an obvious ICBM overload. And because we both knew where this war was going end (total nuclear annihilation) we never tried to load it back up and finish the game.

So yeah we broke the game by testing what would happen if a cold war would become "hot".

 

[Ryotknife]

I was playing Civilization V just now as Maria Theresa--the queen of Austria. Maria Theresa has a unique ability in the game--it's called Diplomatic Marriage. Basically, for any other civ the only way to take over a city-state is to take it over by force. But Maria can take city-states over with positive diplomacy. If you are an ally with a city-state for a certain amount of time, you can spend gold to make that city-state a part of your civilization by marrying off a prince.

My main man Enrico Dandolo of Venice has something to say about that.

Spoiler

Well, my Civ 5 story wont be as flowery or poetic as yours. I just completed a game a day ago as Moracco, Scion of the Desert. I was in the lead with the worlds most powerful army. Polynesia and few others came to me for help in their quest against Venice. I told them I would assist in their war. The moment I declared war against Venice, Polynesia and the countries who came to me for help declared war against me. Dozen or so turns later and all but one country declared war against me. My civ was located in the middle of a continent, so I had many neighbors.

I may have had the most powerful army, but I was fighting a war on 6 different fronts. Japan was coming from the southeast, America from the south and east, Venice was holed up in his capital city to my east trying to survive my naval onslaught, Carthage was desperate to claim some land to my southwest, Polynesia harassed my coastline to the east and north, Aztecs...actually they just declared war and then forgot about me.

Most surprising of all though was Sweden to my West. They were by far my most dangerous threat. I was surprised at how big of an army they fielded against my capital especially since they tend to be a pacifist. The war lasted for about 150 turns and seriously damaged my infrastructure. I held onto my cities by the barest of threads.

Moral of the story: diplomacy sucks in Civ 5.

I could list off a few strange stories from Europa 3 (like where the country of Gotland took over England and Scandinavia), but that would take too long

 

[TKretts3]

The found of Rome occurred on Earth, not on the Italian peninsula, but just east of India. From it's creation, Rome was a prosperous city, with many fertile fields for farming, and many rich hills for mining. The city grew like wild fire. It's education institutions helped it's citizens make ground breaking new discoveries. It's cultural monuments inspired them to spread, and work more lands. It's military might fended off hordes of barbarians. It would eventually come to expand into much of the Mesopotamian region; from the fertile crescent, to the Suez canal, to the eastern shore of the Aegean, and most of the Arabian peninsula.

Since it's inception, the empire was ruled by Augustus Caeser, the one to bring glory to Rome, and it's holdings. Both a shrewd diplomat, and a fearless military commander, Augustus would prove a match for the many minds of the other empires of Earth. There were the Chinese and Austrians to the North, Ottomans to the South-West, and the Ethiopians to the West. On the other continent were the Dutch, in the south, and the Arabians, to the North. However, the biggest threat to the stability of the world would come directly east of Rome - the Mongol Horde.

Much was not known of the other Civilizations of Earth, despite the mass of knowledge in The Great Library of Rome. However, they were met, one by one. Their scouts had come into contact with us, and their cities had grown in lands we had discovered. Some would simply choose to expand their current lands, while others would settle in brave, new lands. The Empire of Rome had always done the latter, and quite peacefully. Over time, through the settling of key lands and holdings, the Romans would build up a massive trading empire, drawing merchants from the entire continent. However, this dominance was challenged by Maria Theresa of Austria, who had sent her own settlers into the regions of Oman and Yemen int he Arabian peninsula.

The Romans were not the only ones whom the Austrians had displeased with their expansion patterns - the Chinese and Mongolian expansion ambitions were also impaired by the Austrians. Secretly, behind closed doors, the great empires of Afro-Eurasia, The Ethiopians, Chinese, Mongolians, and Romans, had conspired to stop this Austrian menace. These discussion, however, would prove unfruitful due to the religious differences of the Orthodox Ethiopians, and the Alcovian Romans. The solution was found in a different option - war.

The alliance of China, Mongolia, and Rome had committed a blitzkrieg against the cities of Austria. The Chinese focused on their Northern holdings, the Mongolians on their Eastern ones, and the Romans focused on their desert lands. Almost as quickly as it had begun, the Austrians were wiped from this Earth. However, the threat was not over - as some empires fall, others grow. As well, war can often hide things, such as the Ottoman acquisition of prime Ethiopian Mediterranean lands. The powder was in place, all that needed to happen was for someone to light the fuse.

Mongolia declares war on Rome. China declares war on Ethiopia. The Ottomans declare was on Rome. China declares war on Mongolia. Rome declares war on Ethiopia. For years on end, swords were swung, cannons were fired, and cities were taken. While many would tell the story that China was the clear winner of the war, gaining an unparalleled dominance in the North, North East, and North West, history would tell another story, the story of Rome getting into the perfect position.

When it happened, few remember, but none would forget the day that the Roman armies marched into Addis Ababa. None would forget the day that Rome captured the the whole of the Mediterranean. None would forget the day that Rome captured the it's 8th Chinese city in one war. But most of all, the Mongolians would not forget the day that the Roman soldiers tore through Old Sarai, burning and pillaging all they seemed to touch. None would forget the day that the Roman banner spread through the world like wildfire. None, that is, except for the Dutch, who were watching the goings on of the continent very closely.

For many years after, through trade and diplomacy, the Augustus of Rome and William of the Netherlands fostered a close alliance. At first it was mere trade, but then it was friendship, scientific cooperation, and, finally, a pact of defense. As the two leaders grew closer, so did their respective lands, with the Dutch settling the Indies, and the Romans settling the Indian triangle - Prosperity flourished.

This prosperity would be short lives - a shadow was growing in the east. As the Romans enjoyed their luxuries, Genghis Kahn was building something much mightier than had ever been seen before - the Mongol Horde. Even with the Dutch interception of the Mongols plans, it was too late to stop fate. As the Romans fought to defend Old Sarai, and it's numerous eastern holdings, a seemingly endless flood of Mongol soldiers was pillaging it's farms, mines, and laying seige to it's walls. The Mongol navy, in turn, was constantly bombarding both the Dutch ships, and cities.

The Dutch had lost their Oceanic and Asian holdings, and it's ships would now rest forever in the depths. The Romans had witnessed a blaze of flame and destruction in the East, and the Mongols kept riding, up to the very walls of Rome.

All hope was lost.

 

[B5Alpha]

When it comes to Civ 5, I could tell the story of how my small nation liberated several city states from my expansive friend in multiplayer, but since I also conquered several city states to get into a position to attack him, it might come off this biased. But it was a pretty tense cold war before that.

There's also the time I conquered Persia as the Moroccans, but that's because the Persians placed a city right next to the ruins of another Persian city I had razed earlier. Worst part, no artifacts generated from those two wars.

It's hard to get good stories when the AI are so crappy. The harder difficulties only give them artificial advantages. But it's still a pretty fun game in multiplayer, and I can get pulled into singleplayer sometimes.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

I call this the Provence Shuffle.

I was playing Crusader Kings 2, I'm playing as the Duke of Provence, a fairly small Duchy in a key location. Being the one duchy of the Holy Roman Empire with access to ports on the Mediterranean that isn't also rebelling all the time makes you fairly valuable. So the current Duchess of Tuscany is unmarried. What a lovely coincidence. So I quick fabricate a claim that puts me 3rd in line for the Duchy of Tuscany. Fortunately, the second in line was the Marshal of the HRE and he died in a conflict. Now, I sense an opportunity. The old Duchess is in her 30's and as of yet unmarried. I intend to keep it that way. Every single marriage she could make that might make sense, I foil. I'd send gifts followed by marriage proposals for any courtier I could find who wasn't married. I spent more money introducing new noblewomen to the court so I could suck up any potential suitors. 10 years I did this and it freaking worked. Once she was over 45, I stopped my assault. She had matrilinearly married some fop who would have no claim to the duchy. She dies 4 years before my character, I become one of the largest landholders in the HRE... ALL of the other Dukes hate my guts, so I just vassal off a couple counties and maintain my command as the ruler of most of Northern Italy. Perhaps I'll challenge the Emperor himself one day.

 

[Jandau]

My current game in Europa Universalis 4:

The year was 1444 and the king of Portugal was not a happy man. Stuck behind the massive Castille, almost all access to continental expansion was denied to him. His only other neighbors were the Muslims of Morocco, which were more trouble than they were worth. He wanted to leave a legacy, to set his kingdom on a path to greatness, but what was he to do? Then one day, some odd fellows showed up. They called themselves Explorers and talked about the vast untapped riches to be found across the Atlantic; endless swathes of land inhabited only by disorganized savages. And they promised they could lead his fleets there. They could guide them into Terra Incognita, the unknown lands and open up this brand New World to him.

And so the king of Portugal came to a decision - from that point onwards, all the resources of his kingdom, all the gold, all the skill of its administrators and diplomats would be bent on seizing these lands, for if Portugal could find no glory in Europe, it would create a new continent for itself. He would retreat from the political stage of Europe, maintaining relations only with Castille and use them as a shield. Those who stood in the way of Portugal's glory will ironically be the ones to protect it as it searches for its destiny to the west.

The rest of Europe paid little heed to the small, isolated and withdrawn country on the western edge of the Iberian peninsula. They all had their wars and squabbles to deal with, until one day, almost a century after Portugal's withdrawal, diplomats of that lonely kingdom showed up at the doorstep of several European courts, offering tracts of land on the Iberian peninsula for sale, at almost no price. Puzzled, the monarchs of Europe jumped at this opportunity for easy land, thinking the king of Portugal a fool.

But when they inspected their new lands they found them empty of wealth and prestige. Even the old royal palace in Lisboa was empty. The Portugese were gone.

For you see, the king of Portugal didn't care what the narrow-minded idiots of Europe thought of him, he was having too much fun ruling from his new Caribbean palace, as his new empire spread throughout South America, as his armies crushed the Aztec heretics and took their lands and as his Colonists found new lands for the glory of Portugal every year. He was free of the Holy Roman Empire, of the Papal Authority, of the squabbling of Spain, France and England. The world was his oyster and he was in the mood for some seafood tonight...

TLR - Pick Portugal for the early explorers, rush Exploration ideas, followed by Expansion to get all three Colonists. Avoid all wars and use Castille to buffer yourself from the rest of Europe. Once you get a good chunk of the New World, move your Capital there (you'll have to sell off your provinces to do it) and give a big middle finger to European politics as you go smite pagans...

 

[SqueakyNancy]

The best Civilization game I've ever played pitted noble Brazil in a Cold War with Persia on a tiny island. The true Battle of the Rockin' Beards. I like to think of myself as the bad guy in this game because (and I can't be the first to point this out) Pedro does look very very similar to another chap I know.

Spoiler

But no girls and debts in this game, no sir! Each of us spent most of the game trying not to declare war on the other, but putting subtle strained digs at the other while trying to win over the smaller City States in a tactic very similar to Soviet Blocs and American funding.

The small area, the tightness of resources and the Persian's insistence on plonking new cities on resources right next to my own made bombing his braided beard clean off his mush very appealing.

I really enjoy smaller maps because the closeness and claustrophobia between Civs ramps up the tensions that makes the politics so fun and thus it was Darius that attacked me, in a tactic best summed up as "Infantry conga-line bumrush". I counter by swallowing up that damn city he built directly next to mine. Ha! Nice planning there genius!

Now the game is on Mrs Hudson! Beardy balls has an army three times the size of mine and my city state allies are right on the front lines. I had to keep my allied city states alive for thirty turns. If I could do it, the Vote for World Leader would be upon us and I'd sweep the win right from under him. Just as Marrakech was clinging to its last slither of health with my army too far away to intervene, the city state attacked his last infantry unit leaving him unable to take it.

World Leader declared to be me, Persia gets to suck it, the better beard triumphs this day. All hail Columbia!

Most intense game of my life. It'll have to be a damn good game to beat it.

 

[Vern5]

Have you ever had one of those moments that makes you smile and think "Hey, I forgot this game could do that". That's how I feel every time I play Master of Magic. I completely forget that it has random events that sometimes turn the entire game on its head.

Anyway, here I am, God-Mage of my little army of gnolls. I've taken my misbegotten kingdom of dog-men and turned them into a conquering machine, killing and enslaving an entire continent and killing a few of my fellow wizards in the process. However, my early success on my island came at a price. My last remaining rival has had time to expand upon his own little island, completely unopposed. He's been watching me and building up a massive invasion force to strike at my coastal cities whereas I have been running myself ragged tearing my island down just so I can build it back up under my control.

So here I am, trying to rush production of my coastal cities so I can make an invasion fleet of my own. This means a lot of turns wasted building sawmills and shipyards. Suddenly, a message pops up on my screen. Some about a political marriage and one of my subjects inheriting something. A black mass of fog-of-war suddenly light up in my color. It seems I've inherited an entire island nation of Lizardmen. Lizardmen can move across water as if it were land.

What would originally have been a long, drawn out conflict over the seas had just been turned into a quick sweep waiting to happen. I mobilized my new amphibious units and struck at my enemy's weaker cities, creating a backdoor for my summonable units. A few turns later, most of the coastal cities of my nation had fallen to the enemy wizard, but I still managed to banish the wizard by attacking him from behind with hordes of hellhounds and firegiants.

 

[spartandude]

It was like "Homeward Bound", only instead of reuniting with his family he fucks up my Marble and dies to a hail of arrows.

There are some things you never thought you would read, this is one of them.

Edit

My story isnt really heroic or epic, but i thought it was funny.
So me and a friend are playing Civ 5 together with about 6 AIs and we were on different continents. Now i got really REALLY lucky with my spawn as i had alot of luxury resources, and also alot of strategic, this meant i could have half my cities on science focus, a huge army and still be the richest nation (i was really lucky) i also conquered my continent before we discovered eachothers lands (at which point he hadnt advanced much) but we had no idea how well or badly the other was doing. As such my friend was bragging about how strong he was and advanced his military was. when i got to his continent i first found an AI (the greeks, and they were pretty beefy) and i formed an alliance with them.
So when my friend declared was on them i joined on the greek side and fought against my friends "advanced" army. He was bluffing, he had just gotten muskets while i had Great War infantry, tanks and bombers. needless to say i kicked his ass big time, and when i say kicked his ass, i mean i steam rolled him.

 

[Hieronymusgoa]

Being close to "The Voice of the Planet" in Alpha Centauri and being slowly but steadily overrun by the Spartans (or Believers, can't remember, crazy fighting guys of some sort) with my peaceful but technologically advanced "University". When I had one or two cities left, I just barely finished the game with a victory.
On difficulty "Transcendence".
I felt pretty awesome and was never able to remanage that feat.

 

[Clowndoe]

OMG I've always wanted to tell this story.

A friend of mine once organised an 8-man marathon LAN game of Civ 5, on Pangaea. A bitter three-way rivalry involving me ended up in an on-and-off slugfest lasting many epochs. Not one settling, not one treaty with the outside world, not one casual verbal insult was ignored. Alexander (me) to the South-West, Washington to the North-West and Sun-Tzu was East were at each other's throats. Sometimes allying themselves to beatdown the upstart third, and then disolving the alliance and resuming the standoff. No gain could be made while we kept smashing our armies together like fistfuls of sand.

Of course, in all this time, we completely ignored the fact that there were 5 other players in the game, or rather, 1 other player and 4 player-controlled city-states, because Empress Catherine wasn't above crushing the balls out of everyone stupid enough to leave their groins within arms-reach of her, leaving mere traces of the civilisations she bowled over because it would suck that the other guys couldn't play. Somehow, none of us three had noticed that Russia had twice or even thrice the score of anyone else. Which is why it was quite the shock, despite having only been at peace for a few turns (send a heathen missionary at me will ya), when American troops starting pulling away from the frontline with me. With clock-like precision and cadence I heard the guy going "Oh geez, oh fuck, oh no."

A private message shows up on screen: "Yeah, we should probably do something about Russia."
- "Yep."

And with those magnaminous words, a mighty alliance was formed. Even then, the United States couldn't be more boned. Only Washington and one other city was protected by a range of mountains. The rest of the country was out in an open plain, without any real chokes. Highly experienced Cossack cavalry (the other guys didn't do a really good job defending themselves) could easily pick-off still-weak American rifle regiments. By contrast, the lands between and all around us were completely roadless and mountain ranges had long ensured that war would be a matter of attrition between us. It was a tragically comical scene having the armies of three whole nations trying to shove their respective armies in what could only be compared to watching Bangkok's volume of traffic trying to move through an old country dirt road.

After less than ten turns, nearly all of transalpine-America was occupied. The armies we shoved through the mountain passes as fast as possible were already being camped on the other side by multiple artillery pieces. This was the most ridiculous imbalance I had ever seen in all my years playing Civilisation. As soon as Catherine was done with that, she just wheeled around and took the long way to attack me. Thus began a struggle that would engulf the entirety of the rest of the match. Three goddam players barely holding on against one. I guess this was taking longer than that player thought, so he just killed off the other player-owned "city-states." Easing the pressure on us like that gave us an opportunity to annex a few cities of our own (I had the chance to grab a few original Aztec cities, although they had long been made Russian).

But the BS wasn't done there. We were just about entering the nuclear-age and signed a temporary truce with Russia when we suffered the ultimate treason. Washington, who had for a while taken a distant-third place role in the alliance on account of the tragedy he suffered earlier decided he could improve his situation. Maybe he was peeved because we didn't bother to gift him more than one or two any of the cities we had liberated, nor had we allowed him to settle new lands by taking all the primo real-estate ourselves ("It's for the war-effort!"). Knowing the guy though, he probably would have done it just so he can say he got 2nd place in the end. At any rate, you can imagine the expletives that were let out when all in one turn I was attacked simultaneously by American paratroopers and bombers and Russian tanks and artillery Red Dawn-style. Being the stand-up gal that she is, Catherine let me keep a sizeable portion of my empire and told Washington to do the same (he wasn't about to argue). Then they repeated the exercise on China.

The game ended with Russia launching a rocket carrying settlers to Alpha Centauri. Many butts were hurt as we debriefed over oreos and juice boxes. The four guys who got steamrolled by the Middle Ages affirmed their non-factoredness, the guy playing Washington confirmed himself to be the biggest douche I know, Empress Catherine gloated, and me and Sun-Tzu plotted our revenge. I was furious as hell, I spent the next week randomly flipping tables like I had tourettes, and it was the greatest gaming experience of my life.