V9: Chapter 7
…
Here’s the thing with AI-led coalitions against you.
They don’t last.
Sure, if you disable their faction victories and enable alliance victories, there’s a slim chance that they do it. However, nine times out of ten, their alliance falls apart, and they go ahead and start killing each other.
Reports from the Iterants in their lands are already reporting that’s the case.
With Celia taking the Guardians off the table, since she was working on unfucking their government and switching over to Undead mass-production, the Forgers were eyeing up the Merchants and their lands. The Merchants were trying to build up defenses and a standing army, but their Civil War killed their few military units off, and most mercenary companies were still recovering from fighting against the Death Lord. Meanwhile, the Wardens knew I was coming for them, so they were on their borders ready for an invasion and they were trying to stall for time while keeping their coalition together.
In short, their coalition was going to blow up in twelve more turns.
Usually, coalitions last between fifteen turns or sixteen turns. The game reasoning was that the devs don’t want to knock the fun out of capturing lots of Citadels fast. They want you to slow down, not just spam attack moves and churn out units. Basically, the whole coalition thing was a measure to make the players play the rest of the game by managing the tech tree and cities and resources. If every game is just about rushing and aggression, and if it’s so effective you’re basically just LARPing if you don’t go for early game cheese and rush, then you may as well boot up an RTS game instead of playing a 4X game.
Coalitions are basically big stop-signs that tell you that you’ve won as far as you currently can and that you should do something else for a bit, so that you can enjoy the rest of the game.
As for my current reality, the coalitions don’t fail by fiat.
They fail because of their mentality.
They don’t see one another as permanent allies, just ones of convenience. Eventually, they all planned to fuck each other over, because they didn’t trust each other not to fuck each other over. Thus, they all planned and plotted to fuck each other over, while their spies looked at one another, and validated their thoughts.
In short, it’s just like the game.
They’re prioritizing their special victory conditions above all else, and the current coalition was just a ‘reasonable’ move for the time being.
Meaning that it was the perfect time to have them kill each other.
…
Morgan and Khanrow were understandably interested in my plans to subvert the other factions, and I was happy to explain.
“So, currently, we have the operations against the Wardens going on. Justiciar Replacement.” The name was on the simple side, but it wasn’t. It involved empowering radical factions of the Guardians, bringing Khalai’s reputation down, and stirring up political unrest throughout their nation. “You’re both already aware of this. We’ll be making our moves in two years, contact’s been made, and we’re observing the situation closely to determine what we can do to undermine Khalai’s support… or just kill him outright and let the power vacuum do the work.”
“The last check I made, I found that we had assets inserted into their populace prior to the Conquerors joining us. We have made significant progress already, correct?” Morgan requested a full briefing on the subject. Thankfully, she didn’t suspect that I didn’t brief her on purpose. Around the time she arrived, I wasn’t sure whether to use her or have her killed quietly. When the request came, probably because Khanrow decided she should know, I just told her she hadn’t had clearance when we started the project. “Since then, Iterants have replaced them and have risen in their ranks.”
“Correct, just as what the Scholars are hoping to do here. Just ahead of the curve with better, less detectable assets.” After the Scholars wasted enough money, I’ll release this information on how to find them. Everyone will spend time making metal detectors and scanning people. Iterants don’t show up on them. Whatever hyper-tough alloy they were made of, it wasn’t metal. Probably some sort of ceramic, like the Citadels. How ceramic material shapeshifted, I didn’t know. Magic, probably. “They will either foment rebellions, inciting criminal elements and the like, or they will conduct an assassination strike with all their numbers. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.”
We had a thousand Iterants in the Warden’s capital now, spread across various districts, and biding their time. More were streaming in slowly but surely. A long time ago, we worked with the Smiling Tyrant to get entertainers spread across the whole continent. An espionage increases in all countries that were affected by our culture, basically.
I cribbed a lot of copyrighted materials and made them make sense in the setting, so that theatre troupes could flood the continent. The constant number of shows and plays they hosted made them big troupes, and people were none the wiser as more and more of the troupes became Iterants. The money they brought in went back to their funding, which enabled more shows and more troupes, so I had a lot of shapeshifting killer robots acting out seasons of shows that I watched back home.
The fake actors will feign falling out with their troupe, and look for jobs in towns and cities, and generally immigrate with little suspicion.
When the time came, they’ll activate, and wreak havoc, until they get put down by Citadel Guardians.
At the very least, if my plans fail, I can effectively cripple all my opponents and blitz through them while they’re recovering from the sudden surge of hyper-lethal robots in their midst.
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But that would waste Iterants that I would otherwise like to become the bureaucracy of my conquered territories.
“Why now have them attack now? We can do truly massive amounts of damage with them already. The longer we wait, the greater the chances of them discovering Iterants exist.” Morgan pointed out. It was scary how close she was to my game knowledge with just intellect and cunning alone. Sure, her plans looked shortsighted from my perspective, but I pretty much had hindsight on my side. If she knew what I knew, she’d have this whole continent under her control already. “We can have the Wardens under our thumb within the year.”
“If we unveil the Iterants, I want it to be wholesale. A complete, continent-wide assault across the entire enemy coalition, followed by full-scale military operations to swiftly take all Citadels.” Morgan blinked owlishly at my words, while Khanrow nodded. Khanrow was the more experienced warlord and espionage specialist. He preferred long-term plans and patience when possible. His nodding was basically implicit approval of my plan. Why wouldn’t he approve of it? We practically thought it up together. “That will be possible within a year. I have confidence in their ability to remain unnoticed for that long. However, I would rather have them be unnoticed and continue to act in our stead. They’ll be very useful as bureaucrats or people to rule in our stead when the conquest is complete.”
Morgan sat straight up at that statement, my words probably connecting the Demon Lord’s neurons together and making them spark.
Of course, having killer shapeshifting robots rule over the conquered states will make her understand.
She’s literally developing mind-control magic, of course she’d like that idea.
“I see. I retract my suggestion. They would be far better unveiled, as you say, your majesty.” Morgan had a big smile on her face and seemed content. I could only assume that I placated the Demon Lord, as she stared at me with interest rather than any malice. Chalking that shit up as a win, chat. “So, the Wardens will fall within two years?”
“If all goes well, yes.” I gave a decisive nod, before leaning back onto my chair, and giving a small sigh. As good as my plans were, Morgan’s initial suggestion was good as well. I threw her a bone, just in case she was feigning being pleased by my answer. Please, don’t kill me. “Of course, we’ll go with the assault if the operation falls apart. We are working on a strict time limit, after all.”
“Of course.” Morgan bowed her head in gratitude, while Khanrow gave his own nod once more.
Good. The two real rulers have assented.
Time to present the rest of the projects.
They were already aware of us working to have everyone else waste their money having Scholars do espionage against us, so I moved ahead.
“For the Guardians, we’re stalling placing more people in their ranks. They’re going to have a civil war soon, with how Celia is upturning their whole society. When it ends, we’ll return to a population desperately looking for succor.” They were updated on the goings on with the Guardians, so my update on that received nods quickly. It was just sound, logical planning, so no one had much to say. “For the Merchants, reports are coming in, and I’m honestly hoping to leverage a buyout. Unveil our hand, tell them we’ll destroy them, and offer them lucrative trade rights as a client state. After they abolish slavery, naturally. And, of course, if the Forgers don’t attack them first.”
The Merchants were poorly positioned after their ordeal with the Death Lord event. They lost a lot of money, the mercenary forces across the continent were depleted, and their leader had to fight tooth and nail to retain her position.
Who knew using threaten, intimidate, and demand would cause such ripple effects?
I hadn’t, but I had hoped.
Anyway, the Forgers were the problem.
“As you know, though, the Forgers are reclusive. They refuse entry to anyone besides their own to their main Citadel and hidden, underground city. Towns and cities above ground are resource extraction points for them… and the best we can do is cripple raw material production by activating our Iterants there… but I do have a potential solution.” In-game, plagues and epidemic events happened in Dwarven society often. They needed to have specific research topics done to keep those events from happening, as well as resources to spare. If they didn’t have that research, or the resources, then they’ll lose swathes of their population due to lack of genetic diversity in their society. In-game, you can overcome that in a few turns with population growth and food bonuses. Not here. “Against them, we’ll develop a weapon similar to what we used against the Beast Tribes that allied with the Death Lord, but far, far more potent in order to force them above ground. I only had the Alchemists begin, but results are promising so far.”
I gave the latest dossier on the bioweapon project “Red Pox” over to Morgan and Khanrow.
Low lethality, high communicability, but most importantly: high visibility.
I’ll terrorize the Forgers by giving them very itchy, red skin that’ll leave scars and send them into a panic into finding above ground settlement.
There, they’ll find that other mortals don’t get the plague and can treat it.
While they’re up there, we’ll infiltrate them, and follow them back inside as new servants.
Judging by the shared looks between Morgan and Khanrow, and their nods after reading through the plan, they approved.
Still, though, it’s important for dialogue to exist and for vocal agreements.
“Red Pox is a simple rash, but geared specifically to avoid damaging eyes, nose, and lungs. Efforts are being undertaken to make it airborne, to react to skin specifically.” There were a lot of caveats to this bioweapon. It was designed to be a highly visible irritant. Not even close to poison ivy in terms of pain. It was closer to chicken pox, and gimped so that it didn’t hit the stage of small pox. “Tests on rats have so far showcased far too lethal consequences, as well as transmission to mortals outside of the Forgers.”
“How can we make it resistant to magic? Most poxes are easily overcome by magic and supplemental vitamins. We know this from our own studies.” Khanrow spoke this time, while Morgan absorbed the information. I was sure her next question would be why we were making it less lethal. The answer to that, of course, was that we needed Forgers. They were too skilled as craftsmen and technicians to let die off. We needed Scholars, too, but they bred like rabbits and their population was skyrocketing already. They’re going to be our best pilots. Small bodies, fantastic reflexes, and late WW2 wooden-framed jet aircraft in seven years. Fingers crossed. Just going to go ahead and skip pistons. “…It’s not a pox, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s a small, living organism adapted to the task. The smallest soldier that we can produce. Mushroom spores that spread swiftly in the underground, which are resistant to magic.” Living creatures can be made resistant to magic. That’s how familiars work, and how monsters work, too. Athlete’s foot came to mind. Fungal infections are alive and require specific treatments. For a moment, I honestly considered a fungal parasite, but I didn’t like the words magic and parasite in the same sentence. Gave me a serious gut feeling to not fuck around with, unless at the end of my ropes. “They’ll spread and grow in the dark recesses of their underground cities, spread, and make the Forgers fear for their lives… and going above ground without armor will kill it off swiftly.”
We were still working out the kinks, making what we had unlikely to clog up the lungs and fill them with mushrooms, but it looked good so far.
I pre-empted Morgan’s question before she came up with it, though.
“Naturally, the lethal version will be developed and produced in large quantities. After we conquer the Forgers, we’ll use the bioweapon against the rest of the planet, after protecting our own populations.”
Given our territory and population disparity compared to the rest of our enemies, chemical and biological weapons were really our best advantages.
Nuclear?
Yeah, just in case, I’m not going to scream out to the rest of the galaxy that we’re here and alive, thanks.