Including VanRopen's vote, it would please this member of the Conclave to have a recount. I would only wish to add a small, closing comment, Lamora. I would speak not as a general, but as a survivor.

A fist shatters when you hit an enemy with it. I'd know this, my right hand is more machine than bone at this point. But I've delicately plucked out an eyestalk with two fingers as a man expired near me. It was never something larger than me that made me live, time and time again. It was hate, and passion, and a desire to live. It was everything that the Promised Lands of old claimed to instill in us.

Your efforts are admirable. I will never claim otherwise. And I, too, acknowledge the need of a man such as yourself, in order to guide humanity after the coming paradigm shift, no matter the victor in this debate.

I only want what's best.

 

I've been told that we need more votes, as such:

Contact

Because the reason enemy is the allens.

 

I vote for Domination. The other people on this planet have shown that they will hinder us if allowed to. To fix this, I say that we must make all humans on this planet be under one banner. All other factions shall only have two options if we go this route. Submit. Or die.

Edit: Seriously though, fuck those other guys.

 

Vote Scum: Lamora

Whoops, how did that get there...

Vote: Domination>Promised Land
(either or, but Domination if they end up tied)

 

Counting Fenraelis as a vote for Unification, Promised Land is winning six votes to five - but I'll let the debate rage on a bit longer.

 

Just to be the deal breaker. Unification seems like the next step in xcom's goal to protect humanity from any who are would harm it. Even if that means from itself.

 

Unification it is. Pending my space-coffee, we'll continue the fight to protect humanity.

---------- Post automerged at 15:07 ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 ----------

The Unification of the human race under X-Com's banner begins now.



Year 182: War has been declared against ARC, but there has been an unexpected setback - the city has been reinforced to the point where unacceptable losses would be incurred on a direct assault. Our Legions are falling back to await naval support.



Year 184: Elodie continues to creep onto our frontier. This has been deemed unacceptable, and Coyote's legion is being redeployed to remove this obstacle.




Year 190: Central's surroundings are burning, their civilian workforce dead, their lands overrun with aliens. Our cordon by land and sea is airtight. They will fall.

As such, I have opened the second front of our war. Elodie's new city is unacceptable, and it, too, shall be destroyed.

Year 191: Aintza has been razed, our new laser-based weaponry purifying the ground upon which they once stood. Our forces shall continue marching upon Elodie's lands.

Year 198: Our relation with the Culper Lodge, started so long ago, has blossomed into full partnership. Though their motives are questionable, nobody can deny their effectiveness.



Year 200: Prosperite has fallen, and a puppet government has been installed - one much more favourable to our interests. This successful demonstration of our battlesuit technology upon a normal city has reinforced what we already suspected - ARC's capital of Central is the most fortified region on this entire planet.

Year 216: The Second Assault of Central begins now.



Three Legions, two cruisers, three aircraft carrier and two squadrons of artillery are closing in on Central. Should this assault fail, our second wave will strike from the sea - though I would much prefer them to stand in reserve for our attack east.

Year 218: Our Legions shook the earth with every unified step they made. Ballistic bomb-pumped lasers rained down upon the city. Needlejets strafed the streets and cruiser-mounted laser batteries toppled skyscrapers.

But in the end, the final blow was not from bleeding-edge laser technology, but a knife in the dark. Chan-Juan, one of Lamora's agents, has spent the last eighty years within Central, worming her way into their government. The panic of the Second Assault gave her the perfect opportunity, as for the low, low price of sanctuary for the Head of Security and his family, a keycard to the CEO's penthouse suite was acquired.

Lamora, never again will you require another estate. I grant you and your heirs in pepetuity what was once known as Central.

Year 221: After quelling any dissent within Chez Lamora, our legions are on the march once more. Lasers are burning all native life that looks like it may even be contemplating resistance to our march.

Year 228: The march to Le Coeur was long and arduous, and we have gained new insight into why ARC did not expand past their first city. Nevertheless, the vanguard of our forces has reached the city, and our cordon forces are moving in to support the attack.

Year 230: After the brutal siege of Central, Le Coeur was practically a vacation for our troops. The only noteworthy casualties was Coyote's Sixth Penal Legion. General Coyote is being reassigned to a Battlesuit Legion being recruited in Blackbird Claw, in the hopes that they will prove less fragile.




In the end, Elodie's only crime (apart from her Frenchness, for which she has demonstrated an utter lack of remorse) was being in our way. Elodie has been allowed to keep her capital as a vassal of the X-Com Empire.

Year 231: The other factions of the world have taken notice of our ascendence. It is likely that when our assault upon the eastern continent begins, we will face a united front. No matter. Humanity shall not be denied unification.




Year 237: A common military problem has been that of beachheads. A thousand different doctrines have been designed and redesigned to tackle the problem of the how to assault a defended beach, when your navy cannot go ashore and your army is all but defenseless at sea. Now, that question has been reduced to a historical footnote.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Conclave, I give you: the LEV Tank.

We have signed legislation that will outlaw the Slavic Federation forever. We begin bombing in ten minutes.




Year 240: We have been pushed back to the sea by wave after wave of heavily-armored moon buggies - but once again the superiority of the Lev-Tank is apparent, as crossing oceans in it is as simple as driving over them. Additionally, our newest research has just been deployed to the front - our laser and armour technology have been adapted for use on our air force. Once we rearm, the days will be numbered for the Slavic Federation.

Year 243: Khrabrost is effectively isolated. Air raids have destroyed any attempts at moving forces, military or civilian, in or out of the city.

Year 245: The second siege has begun. Wave after wave of our redesigned aircraft have all but demolished the city, and our LEV Tanks finished the job. Coyote's Battlesuit Legion is about to storm the defences.

Year 246: Khrabrost has fallen, and General Kozlov has capitulated, turning over control to a second city, Stanimir, in exchange for peace. Our forces will rest before they move on to the Kavithan Protectorate.

Year 253: Kavitha has recognized the movement of our forces and called upon us to shit or get off the pot. In respect to her and the good relations we had in the past, I have declared war on her.



Year 255: The same vehicles that the Slavic Federation were using have assaulted our LEV Tanks - it seems military doctrine on this continent was dominated by them.

Year 258: This is the year war would have been declared, had Kavitha not seen it was coming.

Year 259: Mandira has fallen. I attempted to contact Kavitha to discuss peace but she would not even discuss the possibility. My respect for her continues to grow, especially once I saw that the architecture of her capital was beginning to ape ours even before we arrived.



Year 260: After her remaining troops fell to air strikes, Kavitha has sued for peace. Now our eyes have turned to our final foe: Brasilia.



They appear to have discarded their humanity entirely, in favour of the possibilities of transhumanism that tempted us in our early years. The progress of years has improved the fortification of their capital to the point where it rivals what Central once had.



Our carrier battlegroup is in the wrong ocean to threaten them, though they will be able to attack their holdings in the Central Continent. This final battle will require a final revolution in battlefield technology.

Year 274: The Revolution has come, and it is mighty.

Year 280: The robot bastard can't even call us out in plain words.



Our Devastators roared, and half the city stood in ruins. Our LEV Tanks shot down satellite after satellite, uncaring as to their purpose. Regiment after regiment of cybernetic infantry marched forward in lockstep only to be mowed down. And among them all, General Coyote and his Legion charged forward under the banner of Humanity United.



Year 282: Coyote's Legion shot aircraft after aircraft out of the sky as they attempted to strafe him. Rockets fired from more emplacements than the unaided eye could count. Cyborg engineers with strange, bizarre siege weapons fired until their gun barrels melted under the heat. But General Coyote had finally found a Legion that would not die on him, and all defences melted away before them.



In the end, Commander Bolivar of Brasilia's robotic enhancements could not save him from the purifying fires of General Coyote's laser rifle.



All the forces of humanity have fallen to us, and the resources of this world are laid bare for us to exploit. In the end, X-Com's final duty was to save humanity from itself.

 

Epilogue:

"What do you mean there is no espionage slush fund?"

The hapless aide would be visibly sweating, if the human genome hadn't been purged of that subconscious reflex centuries prior. "Well, your Imperial Majesty, there has not been any successful seizure of enemy assets reported."

"But I let Lamora off the leash centuries ago! He's had the Culper Lodge behind him for decades! I even gave that bastard a city, what could he possibly be embezzling money to pay for?"



"WHO SPENDS THAT MUCH ON LANDSCAPING?"


Final author's note:



The best decision we made, and one I thought was a mistake at the time, was to invest so much so early in our military.

ARC and Franco-Iberia were absolutely crippled by the aliens of our continent. We could easily have been too - the sheer volume of them boiling out of the western forests took me completely by surprise, so it was only the votes in this thread that caused a suitable military to be on hand to combat them.

Purity was definitely a good choice. The hover units it unlocks were a huge advantage in the final war against Brasilia - it would have taken additional decades to build a navy able to secure a beachhead against Brasilia's continent to allow me to land troops, and I would have taken heavy losses. Instead I was able to build forces in the Eastern Islands and go straight across the Kavithan/Slavic continent to assault Brasilia.

I didn't show it in the final update, but the Brasilians were closing on a Transcendence victory - they had already contacted Earth and all they had to do was build a portal and start sending in military units to be on the path to final victory. They also sniped three or four additional wonders during the final update.

If you have any other questions about the events of this game, or the game in general, feel free to ask. Otherwise, thanks for playing this with me, and I hoped you enjoyed it as much as I did.

If you want to play the game for yourself, and maybe take it in another direction, PM me an email address and I'll send you the turn 0 save file.

 

I'd just like to say thanks for the game guys, and that all of my roleplaying was completely in response to how I felt ideology was shifting.

From the beginning, we decided Purity and Supremacy, so I dangled the carrot of both. Since you chose Purity, I went the Overseer being a completely separate entity.

Now, on the other hand, if you'd chosen Supremacy, the Overseer would have done his grand reveal of being the Director all along, having been a part of the Culper Cell scouting XCOM for a new place to plant their flag. If THAT had happened, the end would have been less Mass Effect and more...



...something different.

I honestly don't know what I would have done for Harmony, I really don't. Probably something from Avatar, since that's what the endgame for Harmony is, except even gayer.

 

*Applause*

Was thoroughly entertained guys.

10/10, would read a new game.

 

Wonderful job. Loved reading it and taking part in it.

 

Yeah, that was fun. I'm tempted to give it a bit then start up a Let's Play of my own.

The only problem is that the AI seems kinda passive, even when you up the difficulty levels.

 

This time - Slavic Federation. Because Soviet Union is always in style

 

Yeah, it doesn't take much for them to be so focused on their own troubles that they ignore you completely, even when you start provoking them hard. But then they pull shit like forward settling on your capital and gobbling up some floodplain tubers on your third ring and that's more infuriating than any declaration of war.

I've been toying with the idea, especially since the timescale made storytelling difficult but there wasn't any other way I could think of to explain population growth. But then I stumbled across the idea of each nation bringing a huge amount of people in cryogenics that they can only gradually unfreeze as they build up food surpluses, as the people won't be self-sufficient until the side-effects of long-term freezing wear off. This lets you bump the time-per-turn down to one month per, which is a much better timescale for storytelling and once population growth is explained there's no more plot holes that I can see - I've even got suitable technobabble ready for the storage tech.

Aekiel, let me know if you decide to do one of your own - if not I'll put up a new thread in the next few days for another round.