What is war good for.

Orwell · Post by **Orwell** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:44 am

Hours of fun, weeks of amusement, years of psychological health problems, and decades of providing a career.

In other news, the Italian-German-Balkan clusterfuck has been canceled. Even if you have a standing army of 160,000 troops, you're not invincible in a war with 10 different countries, especially when the small countries can muster up a 1/4th of your force, and the larger ones can bring a half all on it's own. Nor does it help when you have colonies that need guarded in France, Iceland, NW Africa, Greece, Syria, and of course a home guard to deal with any rebels there. I'd mention the holdings in northern Italy, but that's part of the battlefield.

Perhaps it's time for a guard force re-evaluation, maybe switch from a standard 3cav/7inf division to a more cavalry orientated force for guards. I wish I had access to artillery for my forces, that'd change the battlefield.

Yok/0 · Post by **Yok/0** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:48 am

absolutely nothing

godix · Post by **godix** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 2:59 am

War is good for thinning out poor disadvantaged young males from a population. So sure, you might not win anything from it but at least you'll lower your crime stats since most potential criminals are killed.

Sukunai · Post by **Sukunai** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:31 am

godix wrote:War is good for thinning out poor disadvantaged young males from a population. So sure, you might not win anything from it but at least you'll lower your crime stats since most potential criminals are killed.

Hmm an interesting viewpoint, and one I like too.

Godix worries me, I am seeing too much of me in him, or is it too much of him in me

Aside from our preference for killing ourselves off being great for forcing technological innovation to move forward, it's also good for keeping population numbers down to managable levels.

Thanks to nukes, humanity is likely going to suffer a long period of over population (and related troubles) until we finally lose control, and bring our numbers back to a more manageable level violently and suddenly.

Fall_Child42 · Post by **Fall_Child42** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:33 am

Jello Biafra wrote: Greetings…This is the Secretary of War at the State Department of the United States…We have a problem. The companies want something done about this sluggish world economic situation…Profits have been running a little thin lately and we need to stimulate some growth…Now we know there's an alarmingly high number of young people roaming around in your country with nothing to do but stir up trouble for the police and damage private property. It doesn't look like they'll ever get a job…It's about time we did something constructive with these people…We've got thousands of 'em here too. They're crawling all over…

The companies think it's time we all sit down, have a serious get-together—And start another war…The President? He loves the idea! All those missiles streaming overhead to and fro…Napalm…People running down the road, skin on fire…The Soviets seem up for it…The Kremlin's been itching for the real thing for years. Hell, Afghanistan's no fun…So whadya say?…We don't even have to win this war. We just want to cut down on some of this excess population…

Now look. Just start up a draft; draft as many of those people as you can. We'll call up every last youngster we can get our hands on, hand 'em some speed, give 'em an hour or two to learn how to use an automatic rifle and send 'em on their way…Libya? El Salvador? How 'bout Northern Ireland? Or a moderately repressive regime in South America?…We'll just cook up a good Soviet threat story in the Middle East—we need that oil…We had Libya all ready to go and Colonel Khadafy's hit squad didn't even show up. I tell ya…That man is unreliable. The Kremlin had their fingers on the button just like we did for that one…

Now just think for a minute—We can make this war so big—so BIG…The more people we kill in this war, the more the economy will prosper…We can get rid of practically everybody on your dole queue if we plan this right. Take every loafer on welfare right off our computer rolls…Now don't worry about demonstrations—just pump up your drug supply. So many people have hooked themselves on heroin and amphetamines since we took over, it's just like Vietnam. We had everybody so busy with LSD they never got too strong. Kept the war functioning just fine…

It's easy. We've got our college kids so interested in beer they don't even care if we start manufacturing germ bombs again. Put a nuclear stockpile in their back yard, they wouldn't even know what it looked like…So how 'bout it? Look—War is money. The arms manufacturers tell me unless we get our bomb factories up to full production the whole economy is going to collapse…The Soviets are in the same boat. We all agree the time has come for the big one, so whadya say?!?…That's excellent. We knew you'd agree…The companies will be very pleased.

godix · Post by **godix** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 11:35 am

Oddly enough I wasn't thinking of the Dead Kennedys when I posted but yeah, that's the idea exactly. Although it's a lot better hearing it with the moaning in the background than just reading it.

Fall_Child42 · Post by **Fall_Child42** » Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:21 pm

and the music and the far away screams ... Ohhh ohhh that's beautiful

Orwell · Post by **Orwell** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 9:01 am

So there I am, being a, well, I guess badboy, the entire world hates me, but there I am, minding my own business, just colonizing the Spanish main, after I had to hunt down a map to figure out that it was NOT in fact Mexico which I already conquered, and suddenly a grand opportunity comes up. I excommunicated Milan, who's a barrier between me and my Switzerland holdings, consequences be damned. Well damn if the Holy Roman Emperor and his fucking ALL CAVALRY ARMY didn't descend up my two divisions. Those outdated things won't hold, so after a solid round of getting my ass whooped by some Balkan bitch, I retreat back to Spain, hide behind France, and modernize my army. Add some artillery, rebalance my forces to a 2art/4cav/6inf mix, fix up my garrison guards so that instead of wasting potential, they've got cavalry only.

By this point my garrison duty consists mostly of Mexico, Central Turkey, a force in Greece to bounce around the Greek and Byzantine nationalists, Switzerland and Northern Italy still, and I still need to keep an eye on Africa, it just doesn't want to calm down. In the scenario that comes later, this may have been a bad idea. With all the restructuring going on, my running balance of troops I can field vs ones in uniform is less than half of 222k. Really pathetic. I mean, still the biggest in the world, but really, with maybe half on garrison duty, I sure as hell don't have much to deploy at home. Those two massacred divisions, and a third I pulled out of Greece. Thank god France doesn't give anyone else military access, otherwise Spain would NOT be a happy place to be. Those fucking Bohemians fight like ragheads, with all that calvary. You'd think they came from Central Asia. Anyhow, I finally got my first new division up and running, and to give it a spin, I thought I'd pull a sneak attack off and annex the little one province bastard that decided to declare war on me. I get in, annex, then run off...

...only to be chased by another one province minor declaring war on me because I've gone from "very very bad" to "The world agrees, this country must fall." FUCK. A quick prayer to the true god, the catholic one, for no more mishaps because I'm hated so much, and then I get a warning from just about every fair sized nation I'm near. Mamluks, Lithuanians - who are fucking huge. Second only to me, by about 10k, very scary - and the one I really care about, Hungary. Their Balkan holdings and access through Bohemia mean they can really multiply the force, leaving me with almost certain fail if I try for anything besides a white peace. No problem though, I'll just occupy, no annexations till I'm a good boy! Well, that didn't work, some one province minor piece of shit in Turkey fucking attacks me, and that sets off all those warnings, and then the situation just goes to bloody fucking hell from there. Thankfully the game crashed, and I'll make a note to start up again BEFORE either I annexed the little bastard, or before the entire war. I probably saved over the latter though.

Artillery has definitely had an impact on the battles however, though they have had a much larger impact on the success of sieges, where before it might take six months, it now may take a single assualt to bring down most strongholds.

8bit_samurai · Post by **8bit_samurai** » Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:48 pm

As I read these, I imagine them being played through the first Civilization, since it was the strategy game I recently played, though it ain't the most recent RTS game I played.

Orwell · Post by **Orwell** » Mon Jun 09, 2008 7:53 am

To contradict myself, I bought Red Orchestra for $5 on Steam, deal might still be going. So far I rather like it. My only complaint is that it clearly needs a very large server to maximize the experience.