Memorable moments included: Margaret’s ships attempting in succession to oar rake the Romans, and in succession being grappled and boarded, Cat and RW having most of their ships embedded in one another and fighting a land battle from ship to ship, while other people - especially RH as an evil Roman - ploughed into the stationary vessels with rams, and one of Cat’s triremes heroically boarding a Roman quinquereme which had just lost most of its troops to missile fire, capturing it, and then being rammed and wrecked by their own command ship. (The moral being that letting M go to sleep is dangerous!)
By the end of the first day, Gili Gili bore a broad resemblance to a ploughed field, decorated with bits of aircraft, whilst outnumbered Japanese troops fought marines around the airfield with their transports blown apart on the beach. The Americans had vast quantities of support from Australia, triggered by the assault on Gili Gili, and pounded away at the Japanese land bases with them. The carrier groups hadn’t found one another (not that the Japs were too keen on finding their opponents at this point!) cordons of submarines were lurking, and Jap transports were heading as fast as they could to support their belagured colleagues. The Jap master plan was going to involve flattening Port Moresby at dawn, then taking it in the small hours the next day. It was brave and daring and probably doomed.
Oh, and the arguments. These were manifold, but special mention should be made of Cliff’s epic whinge about some of his bombers being incapable of actually damaging anything on land. Ever. He was right, but it was as a result of the system dealing with massed effects of types of planes and the Japs having many, many different types of bomber - and therefore small numbers of each. (Except Vals, which were so short ranged that they couldn’t get anywhere!). We also argued, less impressively, over why things had taken so long to do so little, and over the viability of the Jap plan.
Memorable moments included: the Japs coming under a massive air attack in the middle of the night at the very start of the game. (Most off putting). Cliff throwing dozens of Zeros at a single Catalina and taking all afternoon to shoot it down. The Japs stranding dozens of planes on the ground at Gili Gili and then desperately trying to get a second strike in before the Yanks (working equally desperately) could fix the runway enough to get them off. The 50 or so Zeros leading said second strike hurtling down the pitted runway and shredding the last half dozen planes on the ground. The absolutely vast bomber attack by the Yanks on the two little transports next to Gili Gili, and their 3 destroyer escort - it just sank the transports, and missed the destroyers, but looked as impressive as all hell on the way in!
History would record something of the following: After a brief period of peace the year 1310 saw the sealing of a marriage alliance between France and Germany. This alarmed Italy, who, failing to get an arrangement with either of those nations made a hurried treaty of it’s own with England. Spain kept a quite counsel of it’s own. In 1315 France moved to occupy Calais, seeing this as a simple appropriation without any risks attached - and captured the English King, Zeb, in the process.
This triggered the following: Italy negotiated a marriage alliance with Germany, revealing that as part of the mutual protection treaty with England she was about to attack France, Germ. said that when that happened she would have to attack Italy in fulfilment of their protection treaty with France - but agreed to occupy Lombardy for a turn and then withdraw, in exchange for possession of Burgundy, (once captured by Italy) and some luxury goods. Thus: Eng. Counterattacked Fr. / Italy seized the Dauphine and drove North, eventually storming Paris and freeing King Zeb / Spain leapt on the bandwagon and took most of the South including 2 resource areas. Fr was smashed as a power, even without the Germ.s attacking them as well, and Eng. & Italy then sealed a mutual pact to destroy Germ. Unbeknownst to them, Germ. & Spain had formed an alliance to destroy Italy. Wholesale slaughter broke out. Italy occupied most of Germ., Eng. signed a secret pact with Germ. to abandon Italy, Spain poured troops across the Pyrenees, and much to the relief of Italy we ran out of time to continue because RW and Cat had to catch trains. Phew.
Memorable moments included: RH’s immortal Blob Orange dynasty, universally possessed of weak minds and bodies. Cat insisting that after France had lost their entire army to plague on turn one we should use event cards instead, and having civil war break out in Italy as a result. Cliff’s entire dynasty being seemingly immortal until almost the last turn of the game - when they all died at once and freed him of almost every treaty he had signed. RWs unfailing good humour as France was snuffed out like a candle. Cat’s machiavellian plans eventually collapsing in ruins, and, tied in to that, Canis memorably betraying the spirit of his alliance with France in exchange for personal gain. Canis & Cat also made use of the popular, ‘let her die in childbirth’, strategy to try and end unwanted alliances.