John had adapted to every last facet of the game within the hour that it took everyone to completely eliminate the non-player areas. What resources were best generated by what province improvement, which way of governing his society led to what bonuses and how to stack several lasting and temporary bonuses for some truly absurd effects. He was producing a vast quantity of food, which allowed him to feed more people, which raised his manpower pool beyond reasonable. At the same time, mines all across the valley supplied him with vast amounts of metal and stone, allowing him to build fortifications and arm those men. The little village he had started with now spread through the entirety of the valley.

Admittedly, he was somewhat short on the economic side of things. He could sustain his vast armies, but his society wasn’t exceedingly rich. It was incredibly happy with his rule, however, as the laws were just and infrastructure adequately distributed. A side effect from building roads everywhere to move his military around. What those roads connected were, for the most part, military outposts, however.

Having been sent wealth continuously throughout the game, John had little to no reason to chase after economic or scientific goals. He had the largest country on the map, no doubt about it. When it came to military power, he could see nobody who would be his equal. If he didn’t start diverting his attention soon, he would fall behind in other ways, however. His knights would face cannons and then he’d have quite a few problems.

To avoid this, he would either have to concentrate on internal affairs for a little bit or conquer some more lands that could provide those resources instead. Nothing was more efficient than taking what someone else had developed over a long period of time. John turned his gaze over to Suel.

The island city he had picked was even more impressive than it had been at the start of the game. It was also even more decisively divided. Outside of marble white walls and overseen by spires with cobalt tiled roofs, the small huts of the peasantry stood. Like anthills next to the New York skyline, they gave way to a steady stream of bodies that tilled fields and brought fish to feed the technocratic upper class of Suel’s corrupt and successful society.

Robbing the Lord of Pontis of his sole and prized possession would bring John all of the scientific breakthroughs he needed to remain in the dominant position for the rest of the game. Although bringing equality under the law to a place where the unleashed minds of geniuses could wreck the lives of anyone they wanted in the name of research would reduce the amount of discoveries made, John would still come out able to equip his armies with some impressive improvements. The same scientific discoveries would go a long way to accelerating his economic growth.

All he needed to that end was a navy. Luckily, he had been building one of those up for a while now. Backstabbing his donor had been a plan since the very first payment. John would not be made dependent on another person’s benevolence, not even in a game. Knocking out Suel would have the triple benefit of freeing John from that thorn in his mind, the threat of Suel backstabbing him and denying the Lord of Pontis the possibility to further accompany them on Lydia’s birthday journey.

“Oh my, President Newman,” Suel suddenly spoke up. “I see you have mustered quite the fleet over there. I would be thankful if you could keep it in the east. I wouldn’t want you to threaten my friend Maximillian with it.”

John raised an eyebrow and looked over to the gravity mage, who smiled back and shrugged while saying, “I would indeed be thankful if you kept your military away from my borders. I wouldn’t want to spend all of Suel’s money on fighting you.”

“I suppose I can understand that.” The Gamer smiled back, pushing down the annoyance he actually felt. ‘Should have known better than to assume Suel wouldn’t take precautions against me. He’s using me as a shield to the east and Max as his shield against me. Taking out both of them combined is going to be a pain. Max’ navy is much larger than mine.’

“I work with the winners,” Suel mused, as if he had read John’s thoughts. With a small bow, he added, “It will be my pleasure to further subsidize you, should you, like Maximillian, need some help.”

“I doubt it, but I regard that offer highly,” John responded, keeping up the friendly façade. He was quite certain he could win even a war against both of them, annoying as it would be, if nothing else was thrown his way. That Suel had been willing to so blatantly show this card meant that he had other back-up schemes. Even if he somehow had nothing, John doubted that the other players would just let an opportunity pass to gang up on the number one threat.

Turning his attention around, John immediately decided to declare war on the player to his east. It was the second largest nation in the running right about now, headed by no one else than Africanus. The Mediterranean ruler raised an eyebrow. “You think you can take me, Mister Newman?”

“Call me President, people who insult my Lydia get crushed,” the Gamer stated and smiled. “I could take you and your entire alliance. By all means, bring them on.” He made a challenging gesture towards the other two electors and Elisa, all of which were on the same peninsula as himself and Africanus. It was more or less an equivalent of India and unifying all of it under him would give him a considerable power boost.

His attention was momentarily pulled away by an event. The choices all had to do with a minor famine and the following civilian issues. Paying a sizable amount of money, he managed to avoid a penalty to his manpower regeneration. Nothing that would help or harm his efforts in this war. Sol moved onwards and distributed events to the three people John had just made his enemies. Africanus smiled, having likely gotten something good.

“To crush you, then, I have nowhere else to go anyway,” the power holder declared and moved his armies to meet John’s.

The Gamer moved his armies with great certainty, then played hesitation when he started to lose. Every engagement he was in, his troops were narrowly defeated. With great losses, his opponent overcame every contingent he sent their way, on every front, until it stopped being a push by John’s army and he had to retreat into his very own lands. Diminished but victorious, the three enemies confidently pushed into John’s domain.

They continued to win. The Gamer seemed to overestimate his armies at every turn. While he could do more with less numbers, he failed to actually send enough at once to defeat his enemies. Greedily they stomped onwards, lured by straggling armies that had been meant to reinforce John’s struggling forces. They hadn’t arrived before the defeat and now had to run along with their retreating comrades. Most of them fled successfully, higher discipline and better gear allowing them to outmarch their opponents.

All three enemy armies unified at a strategic choke point created by the very same mountain range that isolated John’s heartlands from all of this warfare. They were halted by the largest fortress in John’s lands. They began their siege.

Then John gathered up his entire army and moved in for the counter attack. Everyone seemed confident they would win again and for a little bit it seemed they would be right. In the number of regiments, they were superior. All of the losses they had taken on their way, however, made their frontline look like swiss cheese. Outside of their own lands, reorganizing had a natural malus, as did reinforcements. John’s army was still well-maintained and fully operational. The initial battle phases looked good for his enemies, but their armies soon broke, moral, stamina and men depleted.

Because this game didn’t have a safe retreat mechanic, whereas armies could run back to a secure position without being attacked, John could fully abuse his new victory. As a popular ruler, he had the ability to spawn peasant reinforcements. Extremely weak regiments that were more of a last ditch effort and, while raised, made the places they came from experience heavy penalties. They were awful to actually wage war with.

They were wonderful to block the retreat of enemy armies.

Africanus and the two electors had been completely outplayed. If they tried to fight those peasant battalions, they would be caught by John’s highly functional army. If they just continued to flee, they would be chipped away at by those peasants in the strategy game equivalent of guerrilla warfare. Both tactics were chosen and both led to the almost complete annihilation of all three armies.

John dismissed the peasants, putting his economy back on track before the loss became too high, and then invaded the three of them. Separating his armies as much as he had to, he carpet-sieged the entirety of their countries as swiftly as possible. This way, he denied them the ability to recruit armies large enough to oppose him. The war was essentially over and now it was just a matter of fortifications getting cracked open.

This strategy had cost John more money, food and resources than invading directly likely would have. In terms of manpower, it had been much cheaper. Most importantly, however, it had been safer. If he had won every engagement from the get-go, other players may have decided to meddle in an attempt to keep him down. By making it seem like he was losing at the start, he made the rest of the world ignore them until it was too late. Reinforcing a losing side was a reasonable strategy, helping one that had already lost all armies was not.

The Gamer annexed every bit of territory and was now by far the largest power on the map. Lydia had used the same time to unify much of her neck of the woods, and in the north, Eduardo, Amalia and the Czech elector all crystalized as large powers in their own right, with the Governor of Great Viz staying as a minor influence. They were now down to eight players. Three more had to be eliminated to end the game. Those who had already met their demise left the illusionary map and went to lick their wounds by ordering some more alcohol from the servants.

Letting several minutes go by in order to settle the unrest and devastation his newly acquired lands experienced, John just watched everyone else squabble for a little bit and assigned his priorities. As the leading power in the game and with a largely secure position, he had the luxury of deciding who he wanted to eliminate next. The whole world had to get together to reliably eliminate him at this point. Invading his lands was just too costly, due to the professional army, the forts and the loyal peasantry.

“Suel, could you lend me some money to take care of the issues of my newly acquired subjects?” John asked.

“Of course, of course,” the vampire-esque man responded with a smile. Money was transferred and John put it to use to buy off disloyal elements in his empire. Then he turned to Suel again. “I will repay you in lead,” he promised and moved his fleet west.

He had hoped that Suel’s grin would drop, but it only grew wider. “How interesting that you would do that! I like your flaws, John.”

“President Newman, for you,” the Gamer insisted.

“How about Emperor Newman?” Suel teased, while Maximillian’s fleet started to flow around his island.

Ignoring the Lord of Pontis, John looked over to his buddy. “You know you could take him out yourself?”

“He could not,” Lydia announced, looking from beyond Maximillian while her own fleet crossed the ocean to reinforce the happenings. “I will not let the balance of power be disrupted in such a fashion.”

“So many world powers fighting around my little city,” Suel laughed. “Just a few strings and you prideful young people start attacking each other. Two who will not ally out of fairness make for great bargaining chips.”

“Cease your chatter, Suel, and continue sending your funds,” the queen of Rex Germaniae demanded, but wasn’t heeded.

Suel continued to comment on every naval engagement they had around his waters. There weren’t a lot of them. John pulled back the moment the two fleets had joined. Maximillian’s fleet had already been larger than his and, put together, the two German rulers had a navy three times the size of his. They confined his ships to their ports by blockading his entire coast.

John’s economy may have been mediocre, but at least it was self-sustaining. He was unable to break out of his confinement. At the same time, Lydia and Maximillian couldn’t put together an invasion force large enough that it wouldn’t get annihilated on landing. They were at a stalemate after just a few minutes of combat.

While those two kept him pinned down, a couple of highly modernized ships made their way north from Suel’s island and to what remained of Rada’s nation. Few but extremely powerful troops knocked the Governor of Great Viz out of the game.

“What do you say, Amalia, would you like my assistance in ending the game?” Suel then shouted across the room. With Lydia and John occupied with one another, the top two powers were unable to intervene in any other conflicts, and Maximillian, albeit not a world power, was in no position to stop anything from happening either.

Any of them, however, could have made a mistake at any given point and that would lead to Suel’s defeat. It didn’t really matter who won out, just that, with the end of one of the three, the power balance that protected the Lord of Pontis would be shattered. While the stalemate didn’t allow any of them to expand further, it did give them time to focus on modernizing as well. By the time they had resolved the conflict, they would be in a great position to take on Suel.

John also wondered how much longer Suel’s society could last. For all of the ruthless progress he must have made, the growing underclass should have been quite revolt happy. With how unrest functioned in this ruleset, a chain of events would eventually be set in motion that set his island in flames. Just took him to run out of resources or for either of the celestial goddesses circling the map to hand him a particularly negative event.

Under those circumstances, it was no wonder he now moved to end the game.

“Sure thing,” Amalia agreed happily. She had essentially been chosen to fill the last winner’s slot. Suel wouldn’t come out of this as the person with the most impressive or even lasting empire, but he was the kingmaker. The only way to stop this from happening now was if John and Lydia banded together – something that would have gone against their initial promise.

Staying true to their word, they could only watch as the combined forces of Amalia and Suel cleaned up the northern hemisphere.