This is my story of when the cruel Aztec empire(and the Russians!) tried to shatter the French. I was playing as France and in 1981 a huge war broke out between me and the Aztecs. They had roughly 25 cities and a gigantic army. I had a technological advantage over them, about 18 cities, a small army but a large navy and air force. At first they got very sneaky and started minor wars against me and their neighbours the Russians. After at least 8 of these tiny conflicts, I decided to teach them a lesson in good manners. Changing Government to Communism, I started taking some of their coastal cities.

About 3 turns later, they had them back. Gathering up a lot of my navy, I bombarded their coastal cities until they were left undefended and ruined. Then I got loads of marines to swarm over their Empire. This tactic was quite effective and after taking 5 cities with minor casualties I stopped. Now I was near the heart of their Empire which flourished with large and powerful cities. I took advantage of their only corrupt city, and took it with ease. Now the Aztecs started coming out of hiding and, with a huge force, started heavy fighting to defend their remaining 9 cities. We both won and lost a lot of ground, units and technology over the course of about 10 turns.

Then I built my first nuclear missile. I did not launch it, but instead put it into a coastal city I had taken from the Aztecs. Then the Aztecs finally drove me into the coastal cities and finally I shoved all the units I could cram into the ships and made a runner for my Empire. Sadly I was ambushed by the Aztec navy and suffered huge casualties to transports, units in them, submarines, destroyers and battleships. The only unit to make it out was a veteran aircraft carrier carrying my nuke and a cruise missile.

I now tried to form an alliance with the Russians, but in the process waged total war with them. I relized I had to put my famous air force into action. Splitting it in two, with one half in Tours and the other in Brest I started my campaign nicknamed Opertation Over The Top. My plan was to move in half of my airforce, go straight to the centre of the Russian empire and weaken their defenses. I did this to a heavily defended city, Minsk. Losing several of my planes I decided to abandon the idea.

I realized that when my powerful navy had been detroyed, the Aztecs started building up theirs! Then the Aztecs formed an alliance with the Russians! As a last resort I built up my army. Soon loads of Russian and Aztec soldiers, armours, planes and paratroopers started swarming into my Empire. I changed Government to Repuplic. Can't think why I just did it! I know nukes can get you into a lot of hot water, but I built Loads! The Russians were shattering the east part of my Empire, while the Aztecs bombarded the west.

Soon Russian nuclear missiles started turning up outside my Empire! They nuked me, I nuked them! Soon my Empire was in an economic crisis, falling well behind in power and bang in the middle of a nuclear war! I kept nuking the Russians, but finally they agreed to a cease fire. The Aztecs were keeping their nose out of things (surprising!) and did not attack me for quite a while. I managed to get a couple of trade routes to some Russian cities and even build an airbase in Russian territory.

Then I started repairing my Empire, cleaning up pollution and getting more and more trade routes.When I had an army worth fighting for I decided to pay the Aztecs a visit. I loaded a large part of my army onto some transports and set out for the Aztec Empire. On my way I met the Aztec navy going to destroy my Empire, but they destroyed my innocent transports instead.

Now I started stockpiling nuclear weapons and rebuilding my navy. In an attempt to take Moscow (in one of the Aztec-Russian wars it fell into Aztec hands) I sent 16 groups of alphine troops to their doom. Again and again I bombarded Aztec cities. Then I sent partisans to destroy enemy units in defensive positions. This worked very well and soon I was ready to launch my huge offensive, Operation Shut Down. The plan of this attack was go in at once and shut down the enemy. I put transports full of units around the Aztec coast accompanied by destroyers, submarines and battleships. Then I landed all my units around the coast and set out for the centre of the Empire while the ships destroyed the defenses of their coastal cities. Then I disbanded my transports. For my attacking units there would be no turning back.

It is very hard to describe what happened over the next few turns, but it was not very happy for me. First of all the cities couldn't support my units(darn those Republicans!). Half my escorting ships could not be supported, so the Aztec navy could go to my Empire easy-peasy. They did this very quickly and with half my army getting disbanded and the other half getting their butts blown off by the Aztecs, I had hardly anything to defend with. Then the Russians cancelled the cease-fire and we were now at war. Both the Russians and the Aztecs were killing me now, and if I hadn't found this old-fashioned army(elephants, catapults etc.) in an old, sparesly populated city I would of died at once. But as luck would have it, the elephants and catapults held out against the invaders. Well not for long. Soon the enemy forces had taken all of my empire. About 10 cities were now Aztec and the rest were Russian. Oh well, you can't win `em all!

I hope you enjoyed my story. Thank you very much for reading it.

***     By Calum calum_f@hotmail.com         ***