Since I am not fighting the Allies, there aren't nukes flying, and the Ruskies don't have Mech Inf - I have only lost 11 howies, 20 alpines and iirc 5 Mechs. Sounds like they have been more inept for me - I'll take that! Are you using MGE or 2.42??

I have been building airfields (two engineers) next to the city I am attacking, preferably on a river, to protect the stack - might be just a little unrealistic... but that coupled with not worrying about blocking partisans squares that aren't accessable by rail has kept my exposed stacks to a minimum.

Onward Comrade!

I'm also playing 2.42 and we're about even in years... A year is, what, 6 turns?

Anyway, this late in the game it shouldn't matter too much... Most of my cities crank out howies every other turn... Sheer numbers should be enough now, no matter what they defend with, right?

Ah, Billy Bragg! I remember his first single (I think), "I wanna be a kosmonaut!" or something like that...

Finished off mother Russia at the beginning of Oct '56 with the bribe of Sevestapol and Krasnovodsk - should have been able to do it last turn but I neglected to finish rush building a transport in Astrakhan.

I am positioning transports in the Atlantic for the chain to America, but I can't remember if they are returned when an alliance is broken. I could launch the one-turn sweep of the Allies in December unless my boats get sent home. (except for the Middle East) There are three allied cities in Norway, conveniently connected to my Oslo with 6 howies and a dip.

Turkey I am planning to bribe if the rails aren't in, the cities look small. Preliminary scout flights don't look promissing for a howie-fest. The rest of the Med and Persia might require some road building, and getting through the hilly Caucases will take a few turns unless I can figure out a quicker naval way from Italy.

I think I can be done now by the end of '58.

June & August '56 highlights - Sverdlovsk, Magnitorgorsk, Kalinin, Omsk, Yaroslav, Novosibirsk, Orsk, Rostov, Odessa, Krasnoyursk, Tangiers and 10 smaller cities with Roman/European names.

Tangiers opens the North African campaign and reduces the Axis to two cities. Four small French cities, and two Axis before I can get to Alexandria. I hope the allies have been cooperative with the Rails. Now the question is much more logistics than firepower. I am just building a couple of howies, most cities are building engineers, transports, and small ones have switched to capitalization, taxmen and a big food deficit.

June 1957

Should have been earlier. I had to sit in February waiting for my ship chain to get into place and at the end of April I had a ton of units left but no way to get to the last city - Scapa Flow. Pretty fun challenge, though I don't think I'll do it again anytime soon.

October '56 - Batum & Istambul. Mostly "road" building and resting wounded howies. Almost all roads I built were actually airfields - two engineers can finish in one turn and you avoid stack death.

Dececmber '56 - Rest of Turkey, French North Africa and French Levant.

February '57 - Tripoli and Tobruk finishing off the Axis (still sailing toward America...)

April '57 - Founded cities in America and England - moved units into cities, dissolved alliance & Howied the lot. Except Scapa Flow in northern UK. No roads and two hills to pass through. Should have scouted it first.

Staying allied with the Allies was the key to an early date. I am sure that would have been most difficult in the MGE version. Attacking the Allies first, before Russia would be difficult because of their four different locations - requiring a lot of units, and either careful partisan blocking or enough defense to let them run around.

Yes, this one definitely has to rest for a while before another try! (Did I post above that I'd have another go right after this one? No way! )

Will finish soon I hope, had to let it go last week.

Clever, clever (regarding airfields instead of railroad)! Your Swedish heritage does not deny itself!

re: air-roading

in commie or fundy - when you have a decent amount of space to cover and you are not concerned with counter-attacks the best road is actually ICS with airfields between. No ZOC issues, three free support for every way-station, only takes one engineer to build a city, add a barracks and you have a howie hospital. I used that approach in N Africa and Eastern Russia.

How do the barracks work in this scenario anyway? Do they consider one year a turn or is it (as it should be) for example a change from february to april?

Mao,

It's common sense to build airbases on HILLS! Try it and you shall find this challange no more difficult than a walk in the park...

arii - give my best to StL

did you keep an early alliance?

did you develope Spain, or just leave those cities small?

when did you build the trade routes?

did you go fundy?

My Civ was never threatened. I was at peace or allied with pretty much everyone until I could sell off improvements, build coastal fortresses and a military. Once I got Fundy and Robotics the way was clear. An early alliance with the Allies continued (with many gifts of techs)until I broke it (1955) and took about 15 of their cities in the same turn. I was at war with the Russians almost the whole game but their efforts went on the germans and allies. The Allies have twice nuked just-captured cities but thats merely an annoyance(I have SDI in all major centres).

Next move is to construct a rail line into the heart of the Russian rail network (sacrificing some engineers). Right now theres an open space were anything from either side gets killed. With a 1 turn sudden rail link its howie blitz time. I have 40 howies with about 20 more next turn. I also have some tanks swinging up out of the mideast to find any isolated cities.

The bastards fixed this bug in MGE and you can no longer revolt if you get the tech in a trade. Not sure about researching it... haven't played the MGE version far enough to get my first choice, which is Fundy.

After that (or right now), I'll pick up Arii's gauntlet...

First to conquer all the capitols playing as...?

I cant find it in the Apolyton database...

TShadow1@hotmail.com