Times of War and Diplomacy

[johncmcleod]

What, you think I died or something? I will always return. Just cause I’m lazy doesn’t mean it has ended. This is quite a short installment-it kind of leads to Part 3.

Chapter 6
Victory Commeth

Soon, the rest of John’s plan began to unfold. The oddest thing though, was that all of the citizens were 100% English descendants. It turned out that Alexander deemed everyone on the continent of Britain ‘in superior’. No Greeks were allowed to go there. It was complete segregation between the two lands.

Though the Greeks had a history of never sending many men to the front line in fear of the cities without garrisons in them might get out of control, this time they did. A large amphibious assault landed at Dover, at the northern tip of the continent, on the other side of where the start of the invasion had taken place. The city was undefended. Soon British units streamed into there and they began to swiftly take the lightly defended towns. Paratroopers began to land at the silk fields near Hastings. They were the finest silk fields in the world, and silks from them were being shipped to Greece daily. But when Greek ships came without silk to the ports, Greece was lit on fire.

The only thing that kept the huge Greek population from overthrowing the wretched government was the silks. And when they didn’t come, riots broke out in almost every large town or city. The Greeks couldn’t quell the angry Greeks because all of their forces were abroad trying not to lose Britain. On one of the first Greek national telecasts ever, the governor of Argos was beheaded by angry Greeks. News cameras caught the footage and the whole world watched Greece begin to fall apart. British planes flew overhead and dropped weapons and other supplies to the resistors.

Alexander was furious. He called John on his ‘portable phone‘. It was gigantic and gray with a huge antenna going out of the top. It weighed a total of 9 pounds, 2 ounces, which was more than what John weighed at birth.

“JOHN!” He screamed. “That was a low blow! I demand you to give me back my silks!”

“A low blow? Why would that matter? It’s not like there’d be something to hit there.” With that he hung up.

Alexander was forced to re-deploy his troops back to his homeland. The few loyalists lived in total fear. Normally in a situation like this, he would increase the funding to a branch of government that entertained the people. It was amazing how the taking off of ones clothes was so entertaining. The Greek resistors would forget about the problems and stop rebelling. But Alexander couldn’t do that in a situation like this. Wars were expensive, and he was losing money and fast. He couldn’t spare a penny to the entertaining force.

The Greek forces in Britain completely collapsed. Amphibious invasions landed on the east British coast near Leicester and at the west coast near Ipswich. The Greeks fought all of their battles on the run, retreating. All of the battles were small, and they all ended in either the Greeks dying or the Greeks continuing to run away.

The Greeks almost succeeded in halting the British juggernaut…for a couple of days. British and Greek armour dueled near Oxford. The battle began in mid afternoon when advancing British tanks ran out of fuel as they were ahead of the supply line, and then went into the night. Tanks on each side kept on fighting. But both sides ran out of ammunition. The battle went into hand to hand combat. The Greek tank operators were not well trained in this field, and the British had training. The Brits took heavy losses but killed all of the Greeks.

All of the battles remained minor. They were small battles as the Greeks were falling back to London. Soon all that was left under Greek control was the former capitol of Britain. Though the Greek soldiers were very disorganized as all of their forces were just remnants of former brigades, there was a large amount of them. They intended to fight for every inch of ground.

The Battle of London began on June 24 at 5:45 in the morning. The British attacked from the east, where it was least expected. The London river ran across the east, and was a deep and fast moving current. In it and on the other side of the shore, the Greeks had laid traps and mines everywhere. They only had a light garrison on the other side, thinking crossing the river would be virtually impossible.

The British combat engineers, under fire from the Greeks, built a bridge over the river and cleared its traps. They then advanced to the other side and took out the Greeks and their traps. The British advanced on through London and its town center, for the Greek troops were all on the southern, western, and northern outskirts. The Greeks were completely trapped and the British troops outside the town advanced on at the same time the ones inside the town did. The broke the Greek defenders back and wiped out every last Greek.

All of Britain rejoiced. The soldiers were showered with gifts and hugs from their cousins. The Greeks signed a peace treaty with the British, for the Greek army was in shambles. From that point on, Britain and New Britain prospered as a huge economic boom occurred. Peace and prosperity was the theme of the next couple generations. The British peoples were united, united at last. Relations grew even better between Britain, Zululand, and the Iroquois. The three formed what they called the Tri-Alliance. Each civilization had mutual protection pacts going with each other, and they were always renewed. Greece was just an evil neighbor peering over a fence…for now.



Will you people please critique this? Just say something about it! What you liked, what you didn’t liked, when you laughed, when you cried, etc.

[steamthunk]

Okay, you asked for it. I read all 6 chapters over 2 sessions. See my response on http://apolyton.net/forums/showthrea...threadid=63731 for an explanation of the ratings and categories.

Characters: 6.5
There were lots of them so it was a bit difficult to keep them straight. Most seem to be around only for a small bit. Fine for story of this scope, but it did feel like I read a whole bunch of short stories that just happenned to be together in the same post. My perception of the characters were affected by the dialogue (see below).

Dialogue: 4
I wasn't a big fan of the serious prose with the comical dialogue (at times). Someone else mentioned this too. Made it hard to decide what kind of story this was.

Comprehension: 7
Big time fighting fall down go boom type action on a global scale. Tough to do unless you're Tom Clancy. I think it would have been harder to follow if I didn't know it was based on a civ game. As is, I was fine.

Originality: 6
Lots of battles described well, but it's not new - especially for civ. One point higher for looking at multiple fronts.

Spelling/Grammar: 3
Sorry, I found lot of spelling mistakes including some that made the grammar wonky.

Civness: 8.5
Definitely recognizable as a civ game.

Overall: 6.5
Hit and miss from chapter-to-chapter. Editing for spelling would have really helped. I felt the ending was wrapped up too generically with little mention of the main character(?) John. It felt like you tried to do a lot and then gave up on some parts because you got tired or bored.


Well, those are my brutally honest meandering thoughts at 3am. I'm a pretty tough ranker (in all number rank things) who reserves the high end for really special stuff so in my book this was "okay". Remember, I'm just a random guy on the Internet so take this with a grain of salt.

[ChrisiusMaximus]

Well Ive read it all now and overall it was enjoyable.Some minor points,firstly as mentioned by others I found the short drifts into humour irritating as I felt they broke the story for me when I was comfortably immersed in the plot ,and it did jump quickly at times.
I would not of minded reading more build up to certain events as I feel this is a baby epic that should of developed further.
I applaud you on your battle descriptions they were rivetting especially the dogfight scene,if I was asked to mark this out of ten I would give it 8,it was enjoyable and well written and thanks for writing it.

[johncmcleod]

I think you all very much, and steamthunk, that was good. There's no such thing as too brutal. What you said has helped me more than anything. For the next part, it will mainly be about one character, who I will flesh out well, I promise. I will definitely do NO more funny dialogue. You know how it is when it's late and you're thinking of a hilarious part in Airplane and you just can't help but right something comical. I think I unsuccessfully tried to take after Hawaii-Five-O's approach where the story was kind of a serious epic but comical at many parts. You really nailed it when you said I was bored with it at some parts and excited to write at others. At first I was really into it and I was writing a lot and was excited about it. But then sometimes I'd be really excited to get into another part and bored with the part I was on right now and I'd kind of speed through it. That's been a problem with me for a while. Thank you SO much for all your imput.

P.S. I didn't know it was so grammatically and spellingly (I know that's not a word) bad. Sometimes I don't really care and I don't check thru it, but I will do it with my next installment.