Let's Play: SuperPower
 

www.superpower2.com

Okay, never done one of these in my life, so I might need a little assistance to start with. But, I think this game can pretty easily fit into the realm of LP. Combine that with how long I've been playing the game for, understanding its mechanics and micromanagement, and how many different jobs I could possibly create for one save game, I think we could have a good time.

In the SuperPower forums they had things called AARs (After Action Reports) which functioned almost exactly like an LP, only difference being there were no other players than the OP. I had a pretty popular thread posted there for a while, where over the course of 800 years I took over the world with Burundi.

The game is a geopolitical simulator where you take command of one of the 192 or so countries recognized by the U.N. and get to control its military, economy (including control over the trade of resources and services, taxes, and interest rate), laws, treaties, alliances, you name it. If you can imagine it, you can do it in this game. You also get to control the "secret service" (another name for the CIA) where you can carry out espionage, terrorist attacks, sabotages, coup d'etats, and assassinations if you are so inclined. At one point I even secretly attacked my own coutry and blamed another so I could go to war with them and maintain my support.

The first thing we would need to decide on is a country. Seeing as I've already beaten it with the smallest country on the map, I'd be fine with anything. Next, we need the objective. Of course we can take over the world, but there are so many other things to do. Cause wars between nations, develop nuclear weapons, the sky's the limit.

Jobs I can think of that would need to be filled right now are:

-Chief of Staff for our armed forces (can be multiplied to more than one person if we want each to control a different branch, navy, army, air force, strategic forces) Dracorian, Flarecobra, anyone else who wants in

-Secretary of the Treasury (to deal with the tax and interest rates, and to consult with for any and all purchases dealing with money from the treasury, also deals with the allocation of budget) Sifright

-Trade Commission head (to regulate prices of our resources, decide which to tariff, make illegal, increase production, also has say in which countries we will create new trade agreements with) Tev

-Director of the CIA (to deal with all secret service actions, involving terrorizing, spying, sabotaging, or in any way altering of another country's infrastructure through subversive means) Hawk

-Secretary of State (to introduce new legislation and modify existing laws to keep our people happy (or unhappy) and regulate the population through opening or closing our borders. Also deals with changes in type of government and location of our capitol.) Gregness

-Defense Research Supervisor (in charge of prioritizing and allocating funds to different branches of military research as it applies to naval, air, ground, or strategic forces. Also may submit requests for arms deals with other countries) This one can also be combined with the Chief of Staff if need be. Mac

Special Advisor to the President (aka "guy with the shades") Geminex

I think that's it for now, these can always be changed. The next post I'll list screenshots from the game so you can have a better grasp of what we're dealing with.

Can we colonize the Moon? If not, I propose we surface Atlantis. And if that's not possible, then we raze the earth of the impure and we start our own civilization of Übermenschen.

A vote for the Netherlands is a vote for awesome!
Do the awesome thing, people.

Netherlands yes... they are ahead of the rest of the world, It's only a matter of time until they decide the rest of the world is too dumb. They are also in the desperate need to get out of that deathtrap they'll drown in if they don't do anything... like conquering the world or something. They'll start with those that are the most unfriendly to the environment and then the rest just for fun.

Australia.

If Superpowers is anything like Risk (which I'm sure it's not), Australia always wins.

Netherlands it is!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...cenary/sp1.jpg

Our budget is looking good as of right now, though the large amount in health care might prove to increase our population by more than we can support. Even right now we are importing 5% of our resources, which isn't terrible, it would just be awesome if we could get it closer to 1%. Maybe through some environmental funding to increase our output.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...cenary/sp2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...cenary/sp3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...cenary/sp4.jpg

Our laws as of January 1, 2001. I have toyed around with legalizing child labor, it increases income, but approval ratings suffer. Abortion, contraception, and same sex marriage all have their different, rather extreme effects on population.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...cenary/sp5.jpg

A complete list of our resources and services. The red numbers mean we're taking a hit and having to import to support everyone. Sorry about the choppy copy/pasting. The red circle next to drugs means they are currently illegal and the building symbols next to some of them means they are government controlled sectors. Yeah, you can play around with privatization if you'd like.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...cenary/sp6.jpg

And our military. I did some research and found that, as it compares to the rest of the world, we are 42nd in military strength, while the U.S. has around 20x our forces. We are also 16th in GDP.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...cenary/sp7.jpg

Now I guess we need to assign positionshire henchmen.

I`ll be what ever you need Bob. Even to get rid of those unsavoury characters.

I've been watching a lot of Alias again recently, so if possible I'd like to be in charge of all Black Ops cells and protocols. I shall run it like The Alliance; with twelve cells codenamed SD-1 to SD-12 accordingly, with a mandate of aquiring weapons, funds, intelligence and technology for the good of the nation, with the secondary mandate of using those aquired weapons, funds, intelligence and technology to eliminate threats to that nation, with a complete lack of accountabilty on behalf of the government to achieve those ends.


And if that sales pitch doesn't win me the job, then I shall offer my services to your neighbours, the Germans, and see how you fare then.

o_O

Hawk is our CIA point man.

Mac, I'm not sure what you would enjoy doing, so I might just wait until all the other positions have been filled.

I will also promptly rename the covert cells to the names requested by Hawk.

I'd like to throw my hat in with Chief of Staff. Although I'd prefer not being the only one.

After strengthening ourselves, I suggest we start off by conquering France.

Bah, at least try being a little more ballsy. You want to show the world you mean business? Conquer Afghanistan for real. That place has been the doom of empires since Rome. Settle things there and you can take on anyone.

Already on it!! I want satellites tasked to spy on their military installations, and send agents in to perform recon on the most important testing facilities and make contacts in the criminal underworld.

France is going to burn.

EDIT; Tev, thinking big is nice and all, but the steady and absolute increase in power is prefferable for long term goals. France is close, easily infiltrated, and ripe for the taking. We will start there.

K, Dracorian is our warhawk...or one of them. As soon as we get everyone onboard who wants to be in, we'll start. The beginning date ingame is 01/01/2001, though in the relations window, the U.S. already hates both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Though, getting into France and taking it might be a difficult task, seeing as we're both members of NATO and half the world would flip a shit if we just went in there. Perhaps there is a way to first garner some hatred towards them.

Well, I was going to say Germany, but I was afraid no one would take me seriously.

EDIT: Question: If we have our own spiffy little CIA we can use to screw with other nations, does that mean the other guys have their CIAs they can use to screw with us?

I'm just saying, everyone and their grandfather has had their ball-sacks in France. The place is starting to smell funny.

Oh, and if you want to criminally put the hurt on France, I'd suggest getting in good with the Albanians. Those people know how to run a well functioning criminal underground.

Defense Research Supervisor. Cause hell, somehow we need to get giant Mech`s.

True enough, which is why Phase 2 of my plan involves turning everyone and their grandmothers against the french. It's the Sun Tzu way. For now though, recon and espionage will suffice. Getting good intel is critical to any conflict.

It's france, it always smelt funny. But the only way to grow an empire is to conquer those nearest to you. I'll take your tip on the Albanians though. Bob, send an agent.

Look guys, if you wanna get at les francois you must work there insecurities. They are a proud, romantic people. You`ve gotta utilize that.

One thing the French are proud of is their resistance movement during WW2, they were cunning saboteurs, inflicting pain to the Nazi's, allowing an Allied Foothold on western europe. Use their history against them.

Anyway, I'll be glad to take on the role of Trade Commission Head since it's still open. After reviewing the numbers it seems that if you want to lower our imports by 4% that we'll have to do something about or food and energy policies as they are the largest fixable import contributors. I'd start by suggesting an aggressive trade campaign with Belgium. Since we plan on putting the hurt to France in the future a slight tariff on French goods is in order to help mitigate the costs of building report with Belgium. One we have secured foods and materials flowing towards us and away from France, we can begin work on our industrial complex and look into shoring up that hit that we are taking on Fabrics and Finished Goods. Also, we're the Netherlands. Amsterdam is our capitol. Why are we losing money on drugs? I may look into that later because if we can put our best foot forward on a legalized drug trade, then we will have leverage when dealing with poorer countries that rely on illegal drug money to fund their armies.

Please hold in mind that Germany only has defensive forces which suck. Mandatory service is around 12 and 18 months and might be cut short to six months soon. We have no combat experience and three or so of our dudes are in Afghanistan. That's about half of our entire forces. Furthermore we're pussies.
Crush our conservative video game banning government and replace it with the futuristic Netherlands awesome.

Yeah, our military size is a concern. Unfortunately it's not my department. If it were I'd still keep service mandatory but increase the length to at least four years. We should probably also work on our training and experience level. Maybe participate more often in U.N. peace keeping missions and such.

While I also can't work on the whole video game thing as that's more a Secretary of State matter, I can promise you that the moment they become legal, we will make sure there is a Wii in every living room and an XBOX 360 in every den with enough games to entertain our masses and help them acclimate to the advanced technologies of the day.

You need to garner to the needs of the Sony quotient do not forget.

Instead of military training, why not combine the University and Military institutions as 1. Free education for those that want it, plus they pay it back by serving in the military. I mean, more money goes to the military so if by combining the two institutions, you allow for greater funds to the Military colleges

***EYES ONLY***

January 1, 2001
From: Office of the President
To: Hawk, CIA Director
Re: Deployment of Cell SD-1

I've been thinking over your recommendation for an operation into France, but I am at this time unsure of our covert forces readiness status for such an endeavour. I have in my time seen plenty of foolhardy suicide runs, if only the opposing side had had its back to us. The time does not seem right, I fear our brave men of the shadow will be met with the same fate. But, maybe if you took a year to train them. I promise your efforts would be reflected in your salary.

Why not use video games to train all Germans as killers after you've conquered us in five minutes.

No, I thought that was the reason bad Killergames were banned over here, seriously.

If Drac wants someone to help, I'll do what I can.

Like if you're going after France, first off, one would need to get an idea as to their military strength, who their allies are, stuff like that.

And yeah, try to get some allies first if you can. They could help save your bacon in a pinch.

PS3's are military gaming stations. According to my brother in the Air Force they have a room set up on most bases just for PS3 play. If you want and XBOX or a Wii you're on your own. We'll think about adding PS3's to those "military university" things.

I've gone ahead and legalized rad-killing unicorn motorcycles.

As for France, it seems to me that it would make a lot more sense taking over Belgium and maybe Luxembourg first, or maybe setting sail for some small island nations and slowly building resource production that way, before taking on the relative behemoth which is France. And if we did it that way we could probably build trade relations with the rest of NATO before our diplomatic relations completely break down after the eventual assault on France.

Of course Belgium is our military equal and we would have to spend at least a year training more troops.

That is why I would suggest that you would instate immediate Military Universities, making you soldiers smarter and better.

What is more dangerous, 10 idiots with a rifle, or a genius with a rifle?

Personally I'm all for taking over Belgium first. The only reason I wanted to tie their economy to ours was so that it would be easier to assimilate them during the French campaign. I doubt France would put up that big of a fuss about us taking Belgium since Belgium practically opened the door for Germany to invade France in WWII.

Also, Belgium has lots of land that we can play with. Having 35% of our country being mostly unusable is a sad thing.

If I may interject, you got to look at the possible fallout (and I use that term deliberately) of going after Belgium. You gotta look at who they are allied with, who their enemies are, how much it would hurt you in the long run vs how much you gain in the short run.

Gunning for Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany in order to secure a victory against France, you would take a hit economically in order to assimilate them into your culture. I would suggest looking to the north with Finland, Sweden and Denmark.

Do not go after the Swiss as they are neutral, wait until a good portion of Western Europe is under control before gunning for them.

I would be more than willing to apply my self as the Secretary of the treasurey. If I were to be in charge I would raise taxes on the wealthy and use the extra resources in funding experinmental weapons tech alternatively the extra funding could be used to improve existing infastructure.

Okay then, if we're going to pursue that route we need to make the world hate Belgium. We could try terrorist attacks on small defenseless nations and frame Belgium, but this might be a lengthy campaign if we don't make it believeable. What I suggest is we build an alliance with a small country, hit it with terrorism, then strike Belgium claiming we are just upholding our alliance.

Sifright, you can have the position, but when raising taxes they raise uniformly. Our popularity might take a hit and I need to remind everyone, we do have to face elections every four years.

All I ask is that you all let me know who you plan on attacking so that I can work on trade partners that won't flood us with sanctions.

Why not enlist in the aid of Belguim itself in that. In every country, there are always a group of dissidents ready to overthrow the government. If you fund them and give them orders on what to do, you have your Belgium terrorists, and the only thing tying them to you are weapons, which you purchase from America or Russia.

Might I suggest a legalisation of drugs we appear to importing a vast amount of drugs regardless so we might as well make money off the taxation of it (assuming it works that way)

We can also begin wars between other countries if we get them pissed off enough. I'm going to have dinner then come back and we can make some sort of decision on how to proceed.

There are lots of countries out there, with lots of possibilities.

And Sifright, rad-killing unicorn motorcycles were already legalized.

We already got it legalized. Taxation is next on the list.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...cenary/sp8.jpg

Here's our defense spending budget distribution, because I forgot to post it. I have no problem keeping it how it is. The green areas are the actual budget sliders and the blue squares are a measure of how advanced each seperate sector is. At this rate, each sector is scheduled to improve in a little over a year. I'm saying early February.

As far as what we're going to do. I like the idea of grabbing some trade agreements with Belgium, France, and some others in the area to begin with. And maybe raising taxes slightly, maybe enough to not drop us below 65% approval. Interest rates might also need to be dropped to compensate for the drop in inflation.

It's up to you guys and our Chief of StaffMinister of Death to decide who's going down first, where it would be better strategically to take a foothold, and who to make alliances with.

I'd advice getting some Stealth set up, along with the Precisions. Don't matter how much damage and range you have if you can't hit squat, no?

Plus, with Stealth, it'd be easior to get air recon done, right?

Stealth tank is a bit of an oxymoron isn't it?

No, what you have described is actually 100% awesome. Now if only we had silencer technology for tanks....

I'll up the precision a little, but stealth is really only for the air force, I think it has to do with how hard they are to hit once in battle. Recon is really only done by the secret service.

Battles are very much a hands-off thing, like a real life leader. You say "go kill those people" and they do as you say.

Good news though...

August 11, 2001

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...cenary/sp9.jpg

I managed to ramp the tax rate all the way from 24.5% to 37% while still holding our approval at around 70%...and rising! Our unemployment rate has dropped substantially, so has the corruption surprisingly. The only thing is the inflation rate, which is now in the process of going out of control. I'm afraid to raise interest rates too high to shoulder the blow, but there's really no other way out of it, our economy will have to take the hit.

I would suggest lowering some of the budget sliders from the second post I made, maybe drop health care back a bit, or something. We can't afford to lose much of anything else.

[Update]
Allocated more funds to stealth and precision of our air and naval forces, estimated time until everything levels up: 117-217 days.

Don't get me wrong, a stealth tank would be awesome, but you would need to figure out a way to keep it silenced, otherwise the stealth wouldn't work

See if we can't open a market with China. I hear that they like buying western goods now that they are starting to have money and such. Also it will make it easier for our agents to get contacts incase we need to move weapons to help destabilize regions.

Negotiations with China were tense, but I managed to hammer out an economic partnership with them, giving us both bonuses to our resource development. I then tried to push a little further for a common market that would let us fill each other's resource needs before resuming normal everyday trade, but that was unsuccessful.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp11.jpg

Here are all of the other possible treaties, just to have them on record.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp12.jpg

And our friends the Belgians just got waffled...harhar...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp13.jpg

The earthquake could work in your favour (can I please join :() by sending aid then suddenlt cutting the off.

Eh, I'll take that for now. At least we got our foot in the door.

EDIT: Next on the list is seeing if we can get a Cultural Exchange Program with China and an Economic partnership with America. If we can become the middle man between China and America's trade then we'll steadily become all kinds of important.

Sounds good to me.

Good lord, I have to get me this game. Seems rather awesome. Aaaanyway...

On the military sector, have you considered an alliance with Finland and Sweden and then a strike against poland? It wouldn't be too capable to resistance, and it should be quite easy to foster dislike against it. It'd place you in a position where you could easily expand south and then strike either against the middle east or central europe. (This shall be known as operation Typewriter).

As for financing this shizz...

I'd expand my intelligence and research sectors, while implementing long-term supply-side policies. That is to say, invest much of the government's budget into further infrastructure improvements. The downsides of higher taxation will be offset by the multiplier effect (every dollar that the government spends will be spent again by the consumer receiving it, generating wealth continuously)...

As for your inflation? If anything it should be going down, since you're taxing the country, resulting in less income and thus in less demand. If you wanna raise it again, interest rates are good...
Alternatively you could implement some labor reforms, decrease the amount of workers, possibly by just raising unemployment benefits or lowering the minimum age for retirement. That'll raise your approval ratings again, counteracting any increases in taxation.

Back to grand strategy, once your infrastructure is awesome, your economy is stable, your research is advanced, your alliances are secure and poland's image is wrecked, (Should take a while), then you start building up your military and initiate operation typewriter.

...

But that's just my two cents.

Okay, I say we take Belgium by, yeah, sending in aid. And buddy up with Finland and Sweden.

Now, everyone's suggestions regarding training and universities and stuff are good, do that. Also, I want missiles. And a stealth tank. Can I have a stealth tank?

I honestly don't see why you can't have both at the same time.

I mean, honestly....Westwood Games could make it happen.

o_O Gwah! One at a time people, one at a time. xD

And Mac I thought you were already in it, part of the military hivemind or something.

Current Developements as of December 15, 2001:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp14.jpg

I managed to trick France and Belgium into signing an economic partnership under the guise of helping Belgium out of its earthquake situation. While at the same time we encountered bad news of our own. A severe drought has impaired our food production. Much of our population will be going hungry this Christmas. But, we have pulled through worse. That was a pretty big hit we took though. Took almost $15 billion to compensate. And wouldn't you know it, China adds to the hurt with a disaster of their own.

Speaking of population, we are doing awesome. If we hold steady we are looking at a .1% increase per year, which is perfection.

I'll get to work on the various trade deals you guys outlined right away. I also took the opportunity to upgrade our covert cells. We now have 1 level 1 cell, 2 level 2 cells, and 2 level 3 cells. We should be able to execute successful operations in small countries now without worry.

Now, this is just me thinking....but we should also think about doing something with Denmark, no?

I take it my masterpiece of strategic advice was not persuasive enough and we're still going after belgium?

Cause if so, I'd recommend that we research to improve our infantry instead of our tanks (central europe=infantry paradise, tank hell) and get on the USA's good side.

Edit:
Denmark is interesting. Perhaps we could weaken it covertly, and when the time is right strike through it towards Germany? Don't take it yet, but perhaps prepare to for a future 2-pronged assault against Germany's North.

Also: I'm an idiot. When I wrote about taking Poland I was under the assumption and we were Norway, not the Netherlands.

*Facepalm*

Well it is in a very good position militaristically speaking, but trade will have to wait until we finalize our ties with China and America.

Just checked out Denmark. It would be a bloody war, but we would break them if we took them right now...and they weren't part of NATO.

May 24, 2002

Nailed down an economic partnership with the U.S., but China, Finland, and Sweden all refused them, along with cultural exchanges. Perhaps this just isn't the right time. Our generous foreign aid will eventually bring our relations to the point where we can resume talks.

I increased funding for research, infrastructure, and environment to avert any more disasters. Our economy seems to be leveling out, though I would have rather it leveled out higher. Somehow we seem to have eliminated virtually all corruption in the government. Probably through our new, more aggressive administration policies.

For a moment I thought about eliminating foreign aid and tourism altogether, but our savings would only be about $10 billion, a mere drop in the bucket. Instead I'll just hope for aggressive infrastructure spending to bring us back into the black.

[Edit] Oh, and our resource output seems to be in a death spiral, sitting at around 92% now when it was peaking before at 98%. My inner Republican says return some control of the resources to the public sector, but it's up to you guys.

[Edit2] Our covert ops are standing by whenever you guys decide on a victim.

Well if China isn't playing ball right now, see if we can't get a good deal with Japan.

Also, what African countries are on your guys' destabilization list? I'm thinking about maybe seeing if we can get an economic foothold in the area and knowing what you plan on breaking down will help me decide what I want to help build up.

What about Canada? We/they have resources you can plunder.

I'd say we take down Denmark. Nip that threat in the bud.

Suggest covert units first to weaken their production capability, and if possable, some of their military strength.

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but the OP says that secretary of state is still open so I'll take it if no one objects.

Haha, we've completely neglected our legislative branch. Sure.

Also, blehhhhhhhh...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp15.jpg

Seriously, we just built those damn levies!

Kay. In that case, less war, more infrastructure. I'd be for attacking Denmark, if anything. And then perhaps focus on Norway. If we take them, Sweden and Finland, we'd have a huge resource boost. Are they Nato?

And question, what does resource output indicate exactly? Because it could be getting screwed through our higher taxation.

Resource output really encompasses every product and service being produced in the country. If we have more than we need, we export, if we don't have enough, we import. The different sectors represent different industries, like if you look at the picture the government has control over almost every one. Which I would kind of like to get away from. They also make up the majority of our GDP. I think taxation is only a small percentage.

Also, if we attack Denmark right now, I guarantee the rest of NATO flattens us before we step on their soil. Why not either do some covert ops on other countries to make them hated, or focus our military elsewhere in the meantime?

Africa. It's the proving ground for militaries everywhere.

Hmmmm....let me do some checking.

What's the report on Libya? Or Algeria?


But most importantly....what's our navy and army's standing at?

Good idea.

What are our standings with Egypt and other African nations? Maybe we can utilize some Covert Ops there. Destabilize the other countries good will and have us swoop in for the kill.

edit: Scratch Egypt. We don't wanna deal with them as they are tough SOB's. Not until we have most of Western Europe in our control.

Air Force is 53rd ranked, Navy is 24th, Army is 41st, and Infantry is 106th. If anything, I say we throw a little money into enlisting some grunts. I looked over what we have now and as far as officers go, we're good.

Libya and Algeria are too big for us to take now, I suppose if we drained our treasury to create a doomsday force we could mow through. But, I see major promise in maybe creating war between them and aligning ourselves with one side so we can take what's left of the other. Both are equal as far as military goes.

I'm not even going to start with Egypt. They could eat us with their 14th ranked military overall.

[Edit] And while we're talking spending, I'd like to go ahead and take control of all resources that are operating at a loss and release control to the public all resources operating at a gain. It's worked before.

My stance is that we fight covert wars, using a countries populous to turn against the current leadership.

If I may, can we throw some research into new weapons to bolster our forces? Maybe start with some explosive upgrades.

I don't know this game well, and as such I don't think I could do well in any of the positions, but I'd like to voice my opinions anyway. :p

I think we should start low. what I mean is, make the African countries tear each other apart. Throw in some assassinations, Maybe some blackmail, whatever. Africa should be on our sites right now. Then we could send in foreign aid, and establish our own government (to "stabalize" the area), or just invade them anyway, when they're weak. In the end I just think we should use our covert ops more than anything else.

Alternatively, we could try South America. There are plenty of people there looking for a fight, and there's no reason we couldn't do that. We might have to wait until our forces are a little better trained/equipped for any of this though. If that's the case, we should get as much money as we can (though with the trade alliance with China that shouldn't be too hard to get done) and fnd that stuff.

March 17th, 2004

Some major developments...

-Finally landed the coveted cultural exchange treaty with China. We are well on our way to securing the electricity and fossil fuels needed to get us over this hump. The U.S. still won't have any of it.

-Enlisted 1000 rank 1 officers and 2000 grunts to our forces which have pushed us under the 100th ranking worldwide.

-Mixed emotions followed a stunning move, the once 100% government-controlled economy is now almost 90% public owned. This came among heightened tensions brought on by our sudden increase in military spending, but should prove to be beneficial to our future and the future of our....oh...oh my....

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp20.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp21.jpg

Early reports suggest Syria's small contingent of 251 armored will be departing Damascus for a strike on the center of Hezafon, with the rest of their military moving en masse down the coast towards Tel Aviv. What brings this on all of a sudden I don't know. But, what are those yellow lines?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp22.jpg

God, is there anything the yanks aren't sending? This is going to get mucky real fast. Our news agencies will monitor the situation as it developes.

[Edit] This is going to be way too much action for me to handle at 11:30 at night. I'll leave it to our military advisors to decide what the right course of action will be. We'll continue this tomorrow.

Interesting idea. Isn't Venezuela one of the bigger Oil producing countries. If we could get our hands in there, we could solve our energy problem until we find a viable solution for greener fuels.

Reviewing the situation, NATO guarantees that we can attack barely any European targets until we've gathered some power. We either need to establish a power base in a region that's more vulnerable to strikes, or we'll need to work covertly and use diplomacy to destabilize existing alliances. I pretty much agree with Pinkleton in that brute force isn't much of an option. Though Sweden and Finland are both non-Nato, they're not too strong in terms of military and they have quite a lot of resources. Before we target Africa or South America, perhaps initiate an invasion of those two?

Again, just because they are not part of NATO does not mean that they do not have Allies. Before declaring war on them, we have to see if it is economically viable to do so, comparing our army to theirs.

Finland would be an easy take, Sweden not so much.

As far as the war goes...

Those yellow lines actually weren't the U.S., they were Syria's navy moving to engage them pre-emptively. The one battle that actually amounted to anything was one right off the coast of North Carolina:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp24.jpg

Syria was demolished.

Although, the battle of Tel Aviv has been going on for two weeks now with no end in sight. It began like this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp23.jpg

And after the American reinforcements showed up it turned into this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...enary/sp25.jpg

The way I see it, Syria has one battalion left in their capital city, just in case they should lose in Tel Aviv. If they lose, and need to deploy them, that would leave Syria wide open for us to take it. If not, then no because they would still be too powerful. All we would risk is some light worldwide disdain for a while.

Opinions?

It's an interesting idea. It'd give us a power base somewhere where we could actually do something without our forces, as well as a boost in productivity. My only problem with it is that Egypt and a lot of the other countries in that area might not be happy about it, so we'd need to reinforce quickly and build up forces. We'd also need to protect our supply lines, so Navy Ahoy.

Interesting battle, though.

What we don't need is a war like this right now. Too open, and we do not know what was the cause of it. Unless the US is going to pacify both sides, I would say we should keep out of it and watch. It would kill us politically and we would be voted out faster then Sonic the Hedgehog.

This'll be my last post before I finally fall asleep. But, when I increased taxes to 50% and interest rates to 16%, the populace hated me for, like, a week. Because of all of our spending in infrastructure and propaganda, the approval rating heals itself pretty quickly.

If not Syria, Finland would sound like a good starting point. Or maybe the Albania vs. Libya scenario. There's also the option of buying territories off people, or pillaging small island nations for a while.

Just saying.

I vote Finland for proximity; while having a vast, sprawling empire is appealing, contiguous borders are a hell of a lot easier to defend. Once we have a stable power base at home we can think of expanding by sea.

Also, strong votes for having other countries do our dirty work for us :p

I volunteer to be General Advocate of Really Horrific Ideas.
Kinda like this:

What's the situation in Africa? Specifically the nation of Niger.
Niger, historically, has had stability problems and has nice deposits of many nice resources.

I say, that if possible, we send covert agents into Niger to destabilize it. Then we it is nice and ready, send in a 'Peace-keeping' force and seize the nation. And if we get away with this, we start harvesting uranium and set up our own atomic program. And since Niger provides most of the world's uranium, we should be able to create some friends.

If we're going to go all-out on someone, I'd like us to be prepared. We could send in a strike force yes, but who'll defend the homeland? We don't want to be streached out too thin. Let's build up some more, wait for a better target. Preferably one closer to home.

Plus, if one attacks us...perfect excuse to go after them. After all, they attacked us first.