Game numero uno:
Minutes after prying my eyes open from a relatively decent 5 hours of sleep I fired up Defcon. I find only a handful (10) of servers and nothing open. I start one and begin browsing the internet debating whether I should just go ahead and leave for work. It's 4:00 a.m. (GMT -5) at this point. A few minutes later a player appears, then another and another until the game is full and off we go only a few minutes after starting the server. Work will have to wait.
I'm assigned Asia and the typical alliances form in a 3v3. Having learned from previous games, I put nearly all my navy against Africa and a small contingent in the Pacific. I have been putting everything in the Indian, wiping out everything there and then moving over to the Pacific. The problem with that is I tend to be so focused on erasing every African unit/city that by the time I start heading east, the USA and/or S. America have arrived and I have to play catch-up. Not this time I told myself. A few subs for sonar and a few battleships for defense and on to clearing out Africa.
With 12 carriers and 4 bases, I feel confident. Defcon 4 arrives and Africa has 6 battleships and a number of carriers near the middle east. Perfect! He made the mistake of staying next to my coastline (and thus in Radar) while moving east towards my navy. I pulled everything back (to keep out of his ship radar) and waited for Defcon 3. Defcon 3 arrives with his navy still in my radar and he has no idea the mass strike about to lay waste to his ships. It doesn't take long for him to retreat but too late. Two full African Fleets get erased and Defcon 1 is quickly approaching. I can now nearly unhindered strike his jungle land. I move one carrier back towards the Australia in case fighters are needed to defend against Pacific borne bombers, but none are seen. One sub manages to surface right next to Japan and gets a nuke or two off and hits my island before being taken out.
Had I launched a few moments earlier, I could have taken first. This game was a typical "Oh crap I'm negative and last, better do something" to a end of game top finish, at least at second place. Congrats to sarp for a perfect (0.0m deaths) game.
The second game was a bit different.
It seems that 600 score will have to wait. Perhaps if I make it in the All Star Game?
Any way...
I end up as USSR and plan to have a go at Europe from the start. The Americas join pretty quickly and Asia/Africa do as well. In the confusion of setting up the alliances, Europe joins me and then kicks me. ?? Then joins the Americas. I don't think he was scouting because it happened really fast and I hadn't placed anything but subs. It takes something like four requests to get into the Africa/Asia group and then I wait for Defcon 4.
When it arrives I start placing everything and put all my silos east of Moscow/Leningrad thinking Europe would throw everything at me and hit those cities anyway. To my surprise, Moscow never even had a nuke near it.
Standard procedure for me removes several of Europe's naval fleet via bombers conveniently out of his range/radar pre-Defcon 1. With something like 30 bombers in the air and 8 subs surfacing at Defcon 1, I easily over-run Europe. The rest of his navy succumbed to a couple of re-targted bomber nukes and my now empty subs in active mode thus effectively making it a 3v2 game with an unwilling spectator. Slayer (Europe) did manage to raise 6 subs off the Africa coast I think.
Early in the game, I had placed 4 subs in the Pacific, sent them through the Straight and put them over Alaska in position for a strike at the West coast. My team mates however removed any value from the USA before long so I made a decision to send them back through towards S.America for a very end of the game last minute strike. While moving south, about even with the Canadian/USA border, N. America opened up one silo in Alaska. Not thinking clearly, I surfaced and launched three nukes thinking it was a goner. I said not thinking clearly because one of my nukes was shot down and it didn't occur to me that he would have another close by. Sure enough it wasn't long before the second one did and again I surfaced only to have my subs taken out by a small group of naval units. D'oh! On the good side, I think it caused him to rethink launching the rest just long enough to get caught by the victory timer and thus sealing the victory for me.
S. America (I think it was him) complained a bit about my team not backstabbing me and how unfair it was for a team member to highly outscore those on his own team. Hey, it's not my fault that Europe was wiped clean so early in the game that we were able to overpower the other two! Oh, wait, yes it was...
Anyway, I fully expected to be backstabbed and had dealt with Europe so quickly that I was prepared for it.
