Civ Hybrid Game Mk. VIII Part Thirteen: The Blitz of Geatland

Hullo, and welcome to Civ Hybrid Games Mark 8! I'm your host, /u/EndlessVoid0, best known for leading the Geats to incompetence, and here we see...

Oh.

Oh dear.

Yes, that's right, it's turn 1 of the grand war against the bigly Lith, and the world looks considerably more maroon. Kiel's immediately on death's door (finally settling the Lith/SH argument once and for all).

Luckily for SH, this is realistically as far as Lithuania will be able to go. Poland's in the middle, and barring a complete annihilation of the Geats, there's no way Lithuania can continue to apply pressure short of plots.

More S-H cities, but these ones have fallen. With Halmstad, Ahrensburg, and Kristiansand (god these city names are hard to read with Lith colors) all fallen, there's plenty of reason for team Bandybot to celebrate after this part already.

Ah. So it appears we are going for complete annihilation of the Geats. Herfnesholt and the 1337357 of the Hrefnesholt variants are down immediately, and the tech difference is simply terrifying. We have tegn! Tegn! Against infantry!

And that is simply depressing. Despite explicitly plotting to take Oslo to 0 health and move units nearby, the turn order shot first and all the Geat units are dead. RIP.

Gamerunners Note: I have never seen five units annihilated so fast

Finland is just as fucked as their Geatish co-conspirators. Helsinki will at least take time to mow down, but there's still a large tech gap between Gatling Guns and Artillery, and Finland's not feeling so good.

First casualty of the grand war: Kiel's status as one of the grandest cities in the world. Lithuanian savages pillage and burn the grand capital of the most stable coalition in all the Baltic Sea, and many tears are shed for people's wives, children, siblings lost in the grand conquest. Thoughts and prayers with SH right now.

But nobody's willing to pray for the Geats, as Shotl and Sohlt fall immediately after the defection of their variants. The original Hrefnesholt, thank goodness, lives on - and, proving the AI is self-aware of what's going on, is made the capital city.

Helsinki's holding out well, with little ground lost, but that's more a function of Lithuania's unorthodox wedge formation to the east than it is of anything else. Doubtless somebody got fired over that.

New turn, and oh hey all the Finnish units magically vanished. Helsinki's fall is a matter of when, not if, and Tampere looks soon to follow. Trebuchets will not protect Lucky.

Aaaaand it's dead. That makes four of capitals seized by big bad Lith now. All they need now is Warsaw and Oslo to complete the set, and if this part is any indication, nobody will be able to stop them from doing that.

Tampere's coat of paint loses a chip, but of bigger concern is the mass of Lithuanian units swarming the city. Still, an ingenious settlement decision should allow them to hold out for a little while.

...Nevermind then. Tampere's dead, rip, press F to pay respects, and that is a terrifying horde of units about to seize control of the Finnish core. A few stray Infantry units, emboldened by their victories, attack Oulu alone and with little reinforcements. This won't end well for anyone.

Hrefnseholt is on death's door, and it appears Lithuania has taken my advice and is clearing a path to the SH front. Much to every fine, moral, and upstanding citizen's glee, Hrefnesholt has survived these long and bloody turns to pass so far.

Um. Welp.

The Lithuanian army, impeded by Tampere's brilliant positioning, has now set its sights on Jamsa… also positioned ridiculously well strategically. Say what you will about early Finland, but they knew how to settle.

I doubt I even need to make a list of Geatish cities fallen to Lithuania at this point - there's only holdouts. Lithuania's kicked the Geats aside as little more than an afterthought, and the army's now just mopping things up there before heading to defend their originally-SH-owned clay.

Oulu's in the red, as the absolute madman infantry troops get some much-needed reinforcements, and Lithuania manages to take Jamsa to yellow despite not having a single unit attacking the city directly from a land tile. Strategic positioning can only do so much against a massive tech gap.

Kiel is saved! SH finally takes back their capital, and their reward is less than a quarter of their original population returned to them. Proving that their AI can prioritize, a settler has been built in Odense.

So much for the Geatish Island Territories. One Ironclad later and they're all gone. I expected a fast death, but damn, this is ridiculously quick. We're not even ten turns into the accidental war yet.

The three mainland Geat cities aren't doing too well either, as is Hrefnesholt. But there is good news for Geat fans - Hrefnessholt has somehow been flipped back to the grey and greyish-green. It won't stay that way for very long.

This may as well be the Geatish empire now. This? This isn't a conquest. This isn't a war. This isn't an invasion. Hell, it isn't even a curbstomp.

This?

This is a mercy kill.

Both Jamsa and Oulu are gone now, and Finland's down to five cities. Jyvaskyla, Kuopio, and Kouvola are at the dawn of the final day, but the Finnish Norwegian cities may hold out just a tad longer before joining the rest of their sorry empire.

Two Lithuanian Infantry left in SH, two Lithuanian Infantry, take one down, pass it around...

Jyvaskyla falls, and Kuopio and Kouvola, two cities nigh-indistinguishable from each other the entire game, are set to fall in simultaneous sieges. Holy fuck, Finland's fucking gone. Just like that. One Thanos snop of Lithuania's fingers, and the entire empire is in ruins.

Meanwhile in Lithuania, Supe constructs a gate out of bones and corpses. His next mission? Create an island out of bones and corpses. It will float in the middle of the Baltic sea, a symbol of Lithuania's success. He'll call it... Japan.

Poland continues their little, boring, sleepily real war against Geats that'd be big news were it not for the fact that in the time it's taken them to get Hrefnesholt down to yellow, Lithuania's cut the Geats down to four cities. One of which is also at yellow.

That's it, folks! Finland's been kicked off their own peninsula, and all the Novgorodians in Russa can do is shake their heads as Lucky beats a hasty retreat to the cities left in the clusterfuck that is Norway. But hey, at least Lithuania doesn't get AP for this.

You may be wondering "Hey, why's Lego showing us a picture of a random Geat meme city in SH?"

You wanna know why?

Cause this is the glorious Geat empire now. This one city is the entire Geat empire. All those memes, Hrefnesholt variants, dead units from the Norwegian war, plots, characters, dragons? They're all dead. This is it, folks. It's closing time. Pack up your bags, and head home.

And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, some madman gave Tef a nuke.

Not even the city-state with a name conveniently similar to that of the formal Geat name is spared in Lithuania's quest to purge all-Geat related things from this earth.

Gamerunners Note: Yeaahhh so I saved all of the CS the first DoW turn, but when the wars were re-declared, the CS all died in one turn

For a civ that makes the Geats look like the bleeding edge of technology, Novgorod's been doing remarkably well.

Meanwhile, Finland builds the Sistine Chapel, having developed a genuine fear of God after seeing Lithuania mow through their empire like a giant, rogue lawnmower.

And elsewhere, Norway does their own thing - and Sandines, a random Geat holdout, remains. Huh.

And here we see the Gea-I mean, Lithuania. You can't even see many scars of war on the countryside - Lithuanian troops outclassed the Geats so much, they didn't really need to pillage to get the job done.

Even S-H looks mighty outdated compared to Lithuania. At least they have the definite troop advantage on this front, however - until, that is, the inevitable plots to move troops here occur.

And in the corner there, you can see the Geats. Built up like a boulder slowly gathering moss, then sent tumbling down in one part like a house of cards. That's the Geats for you.

More S-Hers. These troops probably won't see movement for a while - Poland's acting as a nice, neutral buffer at the moment.

Poland is ridiculously outdated here, but it could be a fair bit worse. Still won't stop them from dying in an instant when war inevitably comes, however - once Kiel and Oslo bite it, they'll be the last capital left standing in a game that's Domination-only.

Lithuanian core looks sparse, but that's because it's effectively relocated to Finland. It'll be back in a part or so.

It is said that one can walk the entirety of the Daugava's great length without ever having to touch the water.

Credit where credit's due - Lithuania's dominated the entire mark, and has predicted nearly every move and made every event happen to their design. Only time they got thrown a real curveball, I reckon, was when SHP popped up. And we all know how that went.

And here's the actual Baltics, I guess.

Old Novgorod: Like Lithuania's core, but with slightly less people in it.

Hell, there aren't even many troops left in Lithuanian Finland now. They've all gone off to finish the job.

Fun fact: The only three civs still alive as something other than rump states... are the only three red civs. The Baltic sea is dyed with blood.

To many, yes, these two civs could not be any more different - but to Lithuanian soldiers, they're indistinguishable in strength. And on that bombshell, that's been our show, thank you so much for watching, and feast on the Info Addict slides confirming what you always knew.