Just want to try to make a history with South Africa and document it here. Not english, so my english is school-learned so bare with me if I have som flaws in the language.

Either way - decided to try a game with South Africa and try to conquer as much as I can.

I start with small resources and will prioritize to build up industry. My army is not big - 2 tanks, 1 armoured car and some infantry. My strategy is to focus on mech infantry and medium and heavy tanks, while building a navy to take further on long sight.

Day 1:
Just trying to build up industry to level 2 in my core provinces and focus on oil and metal. My population growth is good so I do not need to build facilities just yet to keep manpowe.

Starting with reasrching motorized infantry and medium tanks, though I should also use the next levels to start working out a navy strategy.

My first move is to take the portugese provinces and get some more production sites, but I am not ready to invade before day 2 me think.

I have shared map with UK, and for now that is fine. Dont need him to be active before he goes afk.

Day 2 is just around the corner. I declared war and invaded the portugese provinces and secured the win easy. But my army took a hit as usually, so I feel like an italian army with german attitude. Either way - level 2 factories is underway and researching mech infantry is done, with medium tanks underway. I am now researching lvl 3 infantery (because that is what I can afford right now) and also tact. bombers to help me in the next fase of "Operation Colonize".

Belgium provinces is my next target, and after that, I will turn and planning for the italian provinces in eastern africa to provide me a bridge over to Saudi Arabia. That is yet another operation, but my planning goes that way.

In the political landscape I face three coalitions - Germany, Japan and Italy as the ax powers, England, Australia and USA as the allied and then a brand new coalition named "bucharest Entente" with Turkey, Romania and Yugoslavia as members. All of them presents now immidiate threath, but I will wait out day 3 to see who is active or not.

France is also a target, but their african army is presumely larger than mine, and I do need a navy before challenging some of the big fives either way.

I feel this will be a game of patience - my resources are not good, so I have to have the belgium provinces first for the metal.

Situation picture by the end of day 1:

So, day 3 is almost here. Belgium provinces is soon to be capture, but rebelling is normal so I need time to get them settled. Got an supply drop with a lot of Metal and oil, and that helped me produce my first battleships. In other news, my Mech inf. is level 2 and I have 4 of them produced. A long with anti air and anti tank and regular infantry, I do believe I have a good fundation to defend my homeground in case of invasions.

I have produced up three units of medium tanks and four armoured cars units that will be my foundation of quick attacks on african soil in the future. I do not have a lot so I need to focus on key army groups - tactical bombers - battleship with some support of cruisers and destroyers (subs is too costly at this point) and a mechanized division or two.

I have a plan to try to take out Liberia so I can get some moral support quicker and speed up production sites, but it will take me a day or two to reach the coastal line with my brigade.

In the political landscape, UK, France and Italy seems to go inactive. That gives me a new challenge and a better ground to change my future plans. Germany and the Bucheresti Entente is very active, and in the american theatre, they have som kind of playground I guess.

No allies yet, and my goal is to go through this game as a solo top three nation. I do not play to win this, but to finish top three.

More to come when the action is more real.

on the next one?

Day 4 is an hour away. My units are spread to avoid rebellions, I did a noob mistake and lost a battleship to Liberias one sub, and I have no resources after starting upgrading units and trying to level up my industry. The next day will be a slow one. Sitting still and just producing materials.

It is like the phoney war the african way. So next day will be boring.

No other nations has started something big. The asian campaigns seems harmless and European and Americans seems inactive, besides the Buchuresti Entente.

I realize that picking South Africa isnt about blitz war.

Day 5 in one hour. THe last day has been not that interesting, but a lot of nations went afk, including France, so I decided it was time to engage the french colonies in Africa and liberate them first. My army is now updated and leveled up, but it is not a big army.

Liberia is about to become my Vietnam. My invasion was struck back and I now send a mechanic unit to take up the fight. Afraid of the sub, I also send destroyers to the coast line, but for now, I have failed in my quick invasion plan. Battleship "South Africa" is holding the capitol under siege, so I think my nex wave will end the inferious resistance against the liberation army

Operation Allo Allo is now underway and I expect to win in two or maybe three days. I think I have established a foundation with this strategy. My next goal is to build production lines in cities so in the future I can produce units closer to frontline. Patience is everything...

In the political landscape, The Buchuresti Entente has lost Turkey to AFK, and Soviet has taken the capitol of Romania, so I assume that the alliance is quite dead. I am trying to establish diplomatic relations to Soviet since I dont see them as an enemy. And if he decides to go afk, I will have some leverage before a AI attacks me.

In the asian theater, Xinxang, or whatever the name is, seems to be the only one active. In the American theater, Brazil is left with Peru and Venezuela. How active they are, I guess we soon figure out.

I forgot to say that my main army group with 4 level 2 medium tanks and mech infantry has started their travel to Egypts borders. Since Egypt went inactive, their cities to the mediterrainan, will give me great oppurtunities to build up a navy and gain superiour control over the Suez canal.

Sorry for late update. A bit hectic work day yesterday, but The Liberation Army has, without intentions, liberated UK colonies. A big mistake from me to engage war that early, but when UK went afk, they also went grey on me and I was travelling through their land so it was a surprise attack. So I am now in war with everyone in the african territory.

But because of nice preparations, and my enemies low range troops, it should be a clean up only. Most of the world has gone AFK, but some nations are still playable, like Xinxang, Peru and Venezuela and Yugoslavia.

The next day goes to take control over Egypt and northern Africa, and rebuild and level up my navy and planes. I am stasrting to have more balanced resources, but still a long way to go.

So here we are - four "active" players back on the map - Peru, a defeated Romania, Tibet and Spain. No one is answering me so I assume they will go in the dark. That is a shame, because it makes it to easy for me to stay put.

Either way, I have soon cleared Africa and will take a break before getting into Italy colonies. My navy has taken a blow outside Egypt after a battle with the UK navy, and rebellions is annoying.

Nothing new, I keep leveling up and building industry more north in Africa to make ground to conquere Europe.

The war against Europe continues. I have control now over most of Africa and the future seems bright. It take some time to rebuild, but I have leveled up three levels in most of my units, exept air fleet. I have not had priority of air fleet because it wasnt needed to to take Africa. But I do need to think about how I am gonna Invade european main land.

I need a fleet. I need carriers, and I need a substainable army to follow. The threath of the UK navy is now lower, but my fleet is still to weak to dominate anyone else in the med. sea.

Italy is up next, will wait one day before challenging Italy, because they have a large start up fleet and will be a problem if I not build more ships before entering a war with another European AI.

Situation map by now is like this and I am third with 260 vp:

Nothing much has happened the last 24 hours. I have cleaned up rebellions and trying to fix my navy. I have landed in the middle east, just secure and clean out the french troops, and will take it easy. I have decided to engage Italy as my next Operation. That I will do simultanously on Italys core provinces and the colonies. I am not ready for that kind of fight before navy is up and running. My resources is not as good as i believed it could be, but Africa is big. My army is semi modernized, but will have more focus on infantry this game than else.

In the political landscape, we seem to be three nations alive - Spain, myself and Peru. Peru is doing fine in South America, while I have the African campaign. Spain is a bit arrogant, he does not want to talk to me, but has made a move on South America and Brazil. Should be fun to see how that is going.

I have the VP locked for now - 330 points. When I enter mainland Europe, I presume it will go steady up. Operation Stallion includes a deep attack on Italy, trying to take more cities than I normal do in the beginning of a battle, but that is why I need more battleships. Before that, my object is to invade Korsika to establish airfield so I have air support.

In the same time, I will launch an attack on Greece, just to secure two objects - capitol moral and gain som closer airfields there.

So what do I need?
Well, I need 40 ships - divided into 4 flotillas, both including 5 battleships, 3 cruisers and 2 destroyers. I have not established subs yet, but that is because I cant afford it.

2 flotillas will support the attack on Italy, while 1 flotilla will serve as reserve and defence, and 1 flotilla will handle the Greece campaign.

I have by now 14 ships - 9 battleships, 2 cruisers and 3 destroyers - all leveled up to lvl 2 or 3. So you can understand it will be a day or two of building. If I bother to wait

Ground units is almost ready - I have about 6 divisions - 60 units - ready for engaging. 2 divisions will secure Italy main land, while 1 division will go to Greece. The rest will be in Africa to clean it up.

Air support: I have focused the last two days to build up a good air fleet.

I have 15 lvl 3 tact. bombers ready, with 8 attack bombers. I also have started with naval bombers, combined to go on carriers, who i havent start building just yet. But they are done researching.

Well, thats that. No pic today, because everything is about the same as yesterday.

Screw the plans - Italy declared war, so Operation Dumbass is on going.

When the shit hits the fan

I named this post that because suddenly Italy as allready mentioned, declared war. An hour later, Saudi Arabia decides to do the same, and my hurt army didnt needed that. Well, situation is okay. Italy colonies are soon taken over, so after this day, only Spain will have some interest in Africa, and they are of course next. But, players is active, so I need to presume that he will not like that I just take his provinces.

Now I need to take control over Arabia islands, before doing more. I have started to close in on Italy main land, but without a strong fleet, I need to be much more careful.

But since my past plans of building a decent and unbeatable army is washed out the toilet, I just take it bit by bit. First I need to eliminate naval threaths. Then I need to control Saudi Arabia, and be very much prepared for an attack of Persia and Turkey.

Still the same players are active, but soon I guess it will be only me and Peru. Spain hasnt moved a single bit in to Brazil, so I guess he gave up.

This is the two battlefield scenarios I have to face the next day:

First we have the Operation Winston:



And then Operation Sandstorm:

Today the capitol of Italy was captured of the South African Liberation Army (SALA) and the war is about to end for the italian people. It has been some heavy sea battles, but most of the italian troops was taken out when they embarged to attack Africa. So right now it seems good. Cities has been taken and they are pretty much leveled up to 4 or 5 so it is a nice foundation to build the SALA Europe - group that will continue towards France in a day or two. Spain is gone AFK, so they are also next in line.

In Operation Sandstorm, Saudi Arabia is taken and it is just cleaning up so I control the Suez with easy means. Now I prepare factories to engage Turkey and then Iraq. With a global popularity on 4%, I assume I will be in state of war with everyone. My carriers are ready and are now beeing filled with lvl 3 naval bombers so Greece, Yugoslavia and other states will be dominated.

In shortness - this game is going well. It was patience quite some time, but in the end, now my production capacity is about to be very balanced.

In the political landscape - well, I am leading with 470 vp and will win this round. Peru is the only one active left, and I hope he will stay that way. We share map, so I know when it is over. Hopefully not soon. It has been a fun game and I will reflect when the game is over.

This is the italian situation:



And total overview of territories:

And then the game was over. I hit "retire" since Peru was asking polite. It is a shame that it only lasted 12 days. Sorry to see so many became inactive in this game. It does make my challenge a bit less worth noticing. But it all was over. With only AI left, it is quite easy to win when you have the upper hand on navy and planes.

I learned some good lessons, though - patience with small nations is crucial. It doesnt hurt that you are in a corner of the world with few enemy neighbours.

My strategy was simple - take the AI colonies, level up and research before starting building an army.
I had lvl 3 mech infantry - costly - but worth to have in a panzer division me think, since my strategy is always blietz-krieg.

Motorized infantry at lvl 3 or 4 was also a success, so I will tweak more that way when drifting over big distance like desert or the asian fields.

Navy is as always something you need. My navy was big and my focus was battleships with one or two destroyers in a flotilla. Two flotillas was pure attacking flottilla and had 6 battleships and 4 destroyers - lvl 3 on battleships and lvl 2 on destroyers. In the end I also leveled up cruisers, but in this scenario, cruiser is not needed because it is rare you meet opponents that focus on naval bombers.

I am happy with the way I played, but it is too many that quits and leaves. I think it is a shame and it had been fun if joining a map with at least 10 active players. But oh well.

Solo victory is a solo victory.

Hopefully it was a nice story. The South African Liberation Army won.

It surley was this time for Africa.

To me, the stories around the game is almost as fun to create as the game itself - if this is interesting to read about, please give me a sign. I would enjoy to make more out of it, like I see others are doing.