January 1st, 560 AD. 90 years before the Greek ultimatum comes around from words into actions.
It seems that everyone but the Mayans know of nationalistic warfare measures. This tickles General Hardy more and more. Since he got appointed as commander in chief, General Hardy has had much influence, pointing out how ineffective our partnership with the Funky one got and how late on schedule they made us be. He did have a very valid point, considering we've been waiting for an exchange of industrialism for over 10 turns now. Military tradition is still a monopoly tech for the Ampersand, so all is well and we
yet have no treachery to worry about.
A quick snapshot of the current world position shows the Ampersand still in its legendary gold and shield lead, especially during golden age. It is estimated we outproduce the funky one by a factor of two to three.
Not showing are HG (AI-Merika), SoZ (Mithanga the english) and GLH (Ottoman Blaze Native).
At the annual meeting, it is discussed labor force arrangements and how good was our theory about the origins of life. The first conclusion is that Spain was an anomaly of history, the second being that Germany managed itself out of the same situation by strokes of inventiveness and the third that every race alike makes for good labor force. The scientists are dispatched back to their universities to get some sort of worthwhile conclusion out of it, with an ultimatum due 60 years later.
Actions decided upon were to bribe America into selling us Nationalism. Their diplomat did not like the maneuver however and it was also decided we could take action against it. We thought we deserved that nationalistic pride ourselves and stood our ground.
In an outburst of fury, General Hardy ordered his snipers to shoot down the upset diplomat. What he was really thinking of, though, was not about a war with Amerika.
Regarding our ultimatum with the Funky, General Hardy pointed out we needed to stock up a couple more infantry units and a lot more of artilleries. His ancestor, Commander Jaguar Paw, made heavy use of primitive artillery when he once defeated the lesser Spanish tribes. He argues that old 70mm cannons can be mounted on tripods with capacity to withstand larger caliber 155mm shells. He also points out that our research funds could be diverted into training pikemen to use the same 7.62 rifles the cavalry units wield, but Science Minister Copernicus adds that foot troops have already started using heavier trench rifles using larger 7.92mm rounds, more difficult to weild but easier to reload and more accurate in tactical situations. It is decided that over half of the pikemen would be updated, the rest would go to protect our resource colonies by rapidly reporting suspicious activity to more mobile troops.
General Hardy unveils the attack plans on the funky nation, bragging that with 2 handfuls of workers, he predicts an overnight invasion deep into Funky territory. With enough entrenched troops to cover workforce and artillery units, there would be no reason for our cavalries to be stopped. We would strike at the highly populated sites first, preventing them from conscripting too many men after D-Day makes them understand they need a large re-haul of troops.
In detail, he laid out the sites where we would need to go through to make the most out of our mounties (red), the railwork to be laid down (gray) and the artillery caches we would need to install (purple).
His enthusiasm is met with skepticism in the room but the plan is approved, with a cautionary warning. There also are plans to cut off their supplies of different goods, such as Saltpeter. We expect little resistance from the colonies.
Meeting is adjourned, next session will be called when more infrastructure is done and we start focusing on war efforts. To be discussed are the repatriation of Spanish citizens to different locations where demographic imbalance calls for the need of surplus women, and the conclusions of the origins of species.