Despite a brutal beat-down of my dream of multiplayer Civ:Rev on Saturday night, a pressing need to figure out what I’m going to do with myself in the next few weeks, and an electrical storm that zapped my router dead Sunday afternoon, I pushed onward with my quest to turn Christina into a Civ:Rev widow.

I tend toward the Civilizations that I find the most interesting from a military history perspective – Mongols, Japanese, French, Greeks, and Romans.  The one notable exception is the Chinese: I find their Three Kingdoms period to be one of the most intriguing of all but, for whatever reason I don’t care, for them in Civilization.  Having already dominated the world as Genghis and as Napoleon, I decided to try my hand as Tokugawa of the Japanese.

After founding my capital on the Northwest corner of the continent, I quickly sent out Warrior patrols.  I quickly encountered the Indians to my south though I found a single chokepoint in the center of the continent separating our territories.  My southern patrol quickly became the southern guard unit and fortified the chokepoint.  The Indians immediately recognized the situation and fortified their own units adjacent to my own units.  This early but peaceful stalemate between our countries lasted for many years with both of us fearing to attack, wary of reducing our defenses to the point where we could be overrun by a counter-attack.

To the east, I explored further to discover the island was in the shape of a tilted cross as I encountered the French to the Northeast and Chinese to the Southeast.  Though I did not realize it, the Arabians (who were to play almost no role in the world affairs) were to the Southeast beyond the Chinese.  The intersection of the continent cross was to play a great role in the wars of the future.  For this reason, I set up another set of fortifications across the slightly broader East-West border, separating Greater Japan from the French and Chinese excursions.  With firmly held frontier borders, I only had to be concerned about naval colonization missions that sailed around my fortifications — fortunately, this did not occur.  I rapidly started to colonize my new lands while continuing to build up the border fortifications on the expectation of aggressive hostilities from my “bounded” neighbors.  The Chinese grew hostile at first though the French cities of Tours and Dijon prevented them from assaulting me directly.  Unfortunately, border peace was ended completely when both the Indians and French decided that I had overreached with my manifest destiny and declared war.

With my narrow border with India, I made a critical strategic mistake and focused my army to the East, relying on my southern fortifications to hold off any Indian invasion.  To the East, I redeployed my fortifications in a forest near the city of Tours.  A large plain to the south separated Tours from my border city, leaving me maneuvering room to assault any French force that marched forth with my main army, 1st Samurai Knights, stationed in the city.

My earlier fears about naval incursions were realized as Indian transports, under the cover of night, unloaded Legion armies in the hills around Tokyo, my 2nd city.  The single contingent of archers were quickly overwhelmed and the city fell into Gandhi’s not-so-pacifistic hands.  Having not realized the severity of the crisis, the fall of Tokyo spurred a rapid shift in thinking for the Japanese people and an even more rapid escalation of military build-up.  As the only forces competent enough to push back the Indians from Tokyo, the 1st Samurai Knights were recalled from the French theater and quickly drove out the Indian invaders.  Meanwhile, the 3rd Pikemens Army performed valiantly against repeated French assaults on the border city of Nagasaki.  Their success was so complete and the French threat reduced to occasional assaults, the top Japanese advisers recommended a shift in strategy to focus on the Indians.

Thus ended the millennium-long stalemate between the Asian civilizations of Japan and India.  Though the Japanese people had long focused on developing their culture, the Indians discovered that they were just as capable of fielding armies that could topple a Civilization.  The newly formed 2nd Samurai Knight Army and 1st Cannon Army joined forces with the 1st Samurai Knight Army and began wearing away at the Indian fortifications on the chokepoint border.  After several years of conflict, the Indian border guards were scattered and the Japanese forces flowed into the Indian heartland.  The capital city of Delhi lay just beyond and the Japanese began a protracted siege.  Numerous attempts to lift the siege by Knight and Catapult reinforcements only emboldened the Japanese soldiers in their attacks.  After many years, Delhi fell and was quickly absorbed into Japanese society.  Their greatest and most culturally developed city having fallen, the Japanese culture proved too enticing and the nearby city of Bombay quickly sent envoys to join the Japanese as well.  The great city of Bombay with its immense natural resources and impressive manufacturing capacity was to play a significant role in the eventual Japanese victory.

Though the last Indian city on the continent would eventually be persuaded by Homer of Nagasaki to join the Japanese, the Japanese military had completed its objective of pacifying the Indian threat and redeployed to the Northeast to begin an assault on Tours.  The formidable city of Tours had defined the very border of Japan and France and numerous fortifications on the outskirts of town had failed to deter the French from sending waves of armies after Nagasaki.  The fortifications of Tours proved quite inhospitable to Japanese troops, even the weathered veterans of the Indian campaigns.  The 2nd Samurai Knight army in particular was annihilated during an abortive attempt to assault the city following the destruction of the walls by a Japanese Spy.  Cruisers off-shore provided constant naval support but the French city repulsed every endeavor.  Having grown complacent in the success of the Indian campaign, the Japanese people responded to the destruction of the 2nd Army and quickly developed two additional Samurai Knight armies.  Even these forces were not quite enough to breach the walls and it was not until a French logistical error occurred did the Knights take the city.  Napoleon bet that an assault on Nagasaki would force a retreat of my siege forces but a miraculous victory by Riflemen in Nagasaki saved the day for the Japanese.  The city of Tours was left with only a small detachment of defenses that were overrun by the Knights.

At this time, the first of two great accomplishments by the city of Bombay was completed.  Within the city limits, Leonardo DaVinci devised a workshop that upgraded all of the Samurai Knights with the newly discovered Tank equipment.  Reeling from the unexpected arrival of three Tank armies, the French continued their retreat and fortified in Dijon, on the Chinese-French border.  Not wanting to fight a two-front war again, the Japanese rolled past Dijon and besieged Poitiers.  With Battleship support, the Tank Armies slowly ground down the defenses.  Poitiers fell and finally, the French sued for peace.

By this point, the best and the brightest were flocking to the Japanese cities.  Except for two periods of military escalation and the Indian invasion of Tokyo, the heartland of Japan had developed into a flourishing, prosperous land.  Work began on the United Nations in the former Indian city of Bombay. Frightened of change, the French re-opened hostilities.  Coupled with Chinese Zero Fighters and Arabian naval power, the Sino-Franco-Arabian Entente proved a formidable opponent though the people of their respective nations were growing weary of war and envious of Japanese culture.  With the construction of the United Nations, their people demanded peace and each of the nations of the world signed a pact.  The Transcendence of Japan was complete.