Sir! Another Martian cylinder has just entered the Earth's atmosphere.

[Jman4117]

 

It's 1898. Clouds of luminous green gas are seen coming from the planet Mars. Earth astronomers are baffled by them as they draw closer over a 10 day period. Then one night the first reaches Earth. A large cylinder impacts in the English countryside outside of Woking and a crowd surrounds it, curious as to what might be inside. Suddenly the end begins slowly unscrewing. After several minutes, the end drops to the ground with a thud and a slimy quivering mass exits. The repulsive creature surveys the crowd then retreats back inside. A moment later something more sinister exits the cylinder and a heat ray is fired into the spectators that have gathered around the crash site. The crowd flees in terror as the Martians have shown their intentions. Later that day, a unit of British artillery arrives and surrounds the cylinder. Little do they know that the Martians were hard at work inside assembling their war machines when a tall tripod crawls from the cylinder and rises up tall above them. The artillery fires! Most of their shots bounce on the armor of these engines of death that are emerging. By that night the troops deployed to deal with the cylinder are decimated and 4 tripods are destroyed. The following day, another cylinder lands in Scotland, presumably in response to their initial defeat. It appears they will fortify here then push down on London after they get their feet under them and amass a larger force. Our forces in England and Wales are being mobilized to deal with this new threat. If our great empire is defeated, the rest of the world will surely follow.

[chiasaur11]

Oh, 19th century Brits.

 

So confident in your foremost place in world alien combat.

 

So wrong.

 

Across the globe, there are certain individuals employed in military or civilian pursuits that would be, in the event of England's fall, be capable of a spirited defense.

 

The American military has 100% of the turn of the century world's supply of Teddy Roosevelts, and Nicola Tesla is ten years away from his conflict with the Shadow from Beyond Time, but a genius still.

 

Good times.

[Space Voyager]

At last we shall have REVENGE! Retake Earth, send them running across wastes of space!

[Thorondor]

How appalling! Look what these savages did to our petunias!

 

::

 

A lesson, it appears, needs teaching. But lets finish us our scones first...

[Jman4117]

 

The initial waves of Martians land in Scotland. We recall our sole unit of lorries back to England but it is cut off by a cylinder dropping into Northumberland. The 5 vehicles may a bee line for the south but only one makes it out of the fight to retreat to our main base we are establishing in the Pennines. This base will be used to keep the Martian hordes from sacking Liverpool and points south.

 

(Not much happens for the rest of this if you want to skip from here. It's literally all research and building)

 

Our sappers build all the gun posts that they can while our researchers go after the most important technology in the game: The Armored Track-layer. The Armored Lorry is just too weak to put up any real fight against the Martian invaders. While the track-layer is being researched, we build more construction vehicles at the only factory that can build them at present so that we can build factories and mines all over England.

 

After the track-layer is researched we start building them at every factory except for the one that can build construction vehicles. Our researchers then focus on vehicle improvements and bigger better gun posts. The sappers build guns in all three border sectors and as research allows, they build the newer guns as well. Heaven forbid if they try to come into the Pennines now!

 

Eventually we get enough construction vehicles in action that we build command centres in all practical sectors. Top priority for these is Wales and Southwest England. Bristol and Cornwall are chock full of oil and Wales as loads of coal. The interior of England is a mixed bag of steel and coal production. We're going to exploit it all, no point in building factories everywhere if you can't feed them.

 

And there we go, 6 months of game play without a single fight from the Martians. We did however get our industry really primed though, which will allow us to have legions of units pouring out of England and Wales to face the Martian Menace!

[silencer_pl]

A lesson, it appears, needs teaching.

 

Wait what?

 

 

@Jman4117

 

Thank you man, you are the best.

 

Also - The spirit of a man is the best music in this game ;p

[Sgt. Strike]

Where could I possibly purchase a copy of this game? I apologize for this post here, but it looks like fun.

[Jman4117]

I'm guessing you'd have to find it on ebay or something like that. I happened to find it in a bargain bin at a Big Lots about 10 years ago, so it doesn't appear to have been a very popular game.

[Pete]

They do pop up on eBay still, though this one's a tad overpriced (and not in the right country for you): https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=320715440083

[Jman4117]

Ok, so internet was out here for the bulk of 2 days, I think I got about 20min in here and there. And well, that kinda meant I had nothing to do, so I got in about 2.5 hours of play time. Expect incoming awesome over the next 2-3 days with Mk II ground vehicles and neat special equipment.

[silencer_pl]

They do pop up on eBay still, though this one's a tad overpriced (and not in the right country for you): https://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...em=320715440083

 

Haha I have the same box And yeah 30 pounds is certainly over the top for this game.

 

By the way on what system do you play it ?

 

Is it XP ? Because I tried it on XP few years back and I coulnd't play it.

 

Don't know if XP mode will pass it because it is emulation.

[Jman4117]

I've been playing it in Wine on a Linux box. I could get it to work in XP under VMware, but the CD tracks wouldn't play for this particular game for some reason when others work fine. And what is this game without its music?

[Sgt. Strike]

If my memory serves me, some game's music doesn't play under Wine due to a number of factors. One of which is the files themselves could be in a different format. They could be compressed on the cd, then decompressed on the hard drive, or Wine might detect the files, but because of either size or something like that, they don't get into the game under Wine.

[silencer_pl]

Fortunately the music in this game is CDA so there is no problem as you can see.

[Jman4117]

About 30min more of pure R&D and building. We get the Mortar Bike which is a nice scout that can outrun pretty much anything the Martians have. We also get ready to build Self-propelled Guns in Wales and the southwest. These will be vital to our land forces as they can see and shoot further than Track-layers. We also get a command centre in every sector and continue to suck every last drop of resources out of Britain with our hordes of construction engineers.

 

Our fleet arrives off the coast of Whitby to exact revenge on the Martians for our lost of the sector earlier in the war. They are no match for our sustained long range bombardment and superior hull plating. The scout machines guarding the base barely scratch our paint and the Martian command centre is destroyed after several minutes of sustained firing. With the sector taken, our land forces move up to hopefully hold the sector against a likely counterattack.

 

Another naval attack, this time on the opposite coast as we move to liberate the Lake District. Our fleet destroys everything within firing range, but as the command center is further inland, we can't occupy the sector without a ground assault. Our fleet moves out to the Isle of Man and we stage an attack with our land forces from Liverpool. The Martians are throughly routed and we destroy the command centre.

 

More building, and another push on our part. This time from our main base up north. Things however don't go as planned. Martian aircraft attack our advancing forces as well as Martian artillery firing a form of poison gas at our units. Our troops suffocate as clouds of black dust enter their vehicles. Our forces are completely destroyed in battle with only 20 Martians killed.

 

Not wanting to give the Martians a chance to reinforce their base we rush in immediately with another attack force that we had in reserve. The new attack fairs even worse, only killing 10 Martian vehicles. A lone gun carriage flees back to base, the rest of the assault force is destroyed. Since we just finished designing the Mk II Track-layer, we had better improve our filtration if we are ever to win in a land battle. In order to reinforce our main base on the front, we have to move our land force out of Whitby, and just as they arrive, a Martian attack comes. I swear we have a spy in our ranks letting them know our troop movements.. Anyhoo the Martians rush in with scout machines and flyers. They overrun our position just long enough for one of our ships to be destroyed. We, however, possess enough firepower to kill the rest of the Martians before another ship is lost. A few days later another less organised attack hits our remaining naval assets in Whitby. We defeat them, but two of our vessels are nearly destroyed. After the battle, we limp back to port until we can undergo repairs.

[Jman4117]

(part 2 continued)

Our fleet on the east coast retreats into sectors that we control. Our construction vehicles move into the same sectors and begin constructing repair facilities. This will allow us to get out fleet back into the fight faster than if we had to rebuild the ships.

 

We return to Whitby with a large ground force backed by one ship. The initial wave of Martians is clobbered, but a group of fighting machines manages to get by our group units and chases the ship out of sector. Our tanks hold a position near the lighthouse as the fighting machines decide to stop chasing the ship and turn to come back to fight them. After they are dead, our force starts to move north, but a unit of our new Mk II Track-layers is stuck on some rocks at sea...with some new enemy units inbound. They look like the enemy construction unit, but when they get in range, powerful heat rays billow from their chassis. Our stranded units are nearly wiped out in the seconds it takes for our cannon shells to reach the targets. The new enemies quickly die as our forces all come back into range of them and then we move north on the base, taking out its guard of fighting machines and the construction unit that's building it. We have retaken Whitby, yet again. After that? More building! We also develop the Mk II Self-propelled Gun, and begin research on an improved shipyard.

 

We continue to build up in the rear. All our ships on the east coast are finally under repair. We begin to build some MK II Self-propelled Guns and start to put our construction vehicles into idle as we run out of things to do. On the front, the Lake District comes under a massive attack by Martian units. Our navy and Self-propelled Guns are largely useless against the huge number of air units. Our ground forces are completely wiped out and our ships barely get out of the fight. We are going to have to build a new force to counter all these air units.

 

We take our research out of the improved shipyard temporarily so that we can research into antiaircraft guns to deal with all this air power that we're sure to be facing. Upon looking at the build time for one antiaircraft turret, we're going to build 5 of the vehicle in less time and move them where we need defending. Fixed emplacements take forever to build!

 

A fleet of 4 ships and a large land army with Mk II Track-layers is inbound for the Lake District. Though not the best at antiaircraft work, they are much better than the cannons of the ships and self-propelled guns. Our ships stay out at sea to slow down the advance of the Martian ground units that are trying to approach them. Our track-layers and guns move up from the south and cut off the Martians that are going out to sea. Between the fire coming from the navy and our forces on land, the tripods quickly fall. The enemy air units quickly react and begin to fire on the track-layers. Big mistake. They are ripped to shreds as they are brought down with minimal loses on our part. Our land units start to move on the command centre with some stragglers that weren't in the big wave of air units attacking them. They die horribly and our cannons begin firing on the trio of guards that are covering the base that's under construction. The fighting machines are killed off and a hot cannon shell pierces the armor of the construction unit destroying everything that remains in the sector. We have won the day with only 8 vehicles lost. The Martians were not so lucky with 34 lost!

[Space Voyager]

Damn, their units are far superior to ours. In the last vid of the part 1 their defence seemed poorly organized but we took a serious beating!

 

Are ships a life-saviour at the moment?

[Jman4117]

Yes, they can shoot a very long distance and hide in the ocean. Only problem is that AI controlled Martians can walk all the way out to you, just very slowly. And as for the huge deaths, that was a thing from their artillery called the "Black Dust" that can kill a lot of Human units very quickly. It's mostly during the first few fights you run into it though as you can research filters for your vehicles that block its effects. I got unlucky that I didn't get exposed to it that one fight when I was running from Glasgow. It would have been excellent to research that during the 6+ months that there wasn't any fighting at all

[silencer_pl]

Use Zeppelins to increase view range for Ironclads although AI tends to focus on them and they are weak and slow. Well Mark 3 are fast enough.

 

Also you should try to micro the ships to use all 4 guns

[silencer_pl]

Finally I have watched all the parts.

 

If air units gave you trouble I can't wait to see Tempests

 

Also you should micro more ships. Try using all 4 guns instead of 2

[Jman4117]

Microing ships? How does that work?

[Jman4117]

Our damaged ironclad retreats from the Lake District for repairs, hopefully our remaining force will be enough to hold the sector. After a few days our Mk II Antiaircraft unit is researched and we move back to focusing on improving our navy. We have enough of our construction vehicles freed up to build about 5 of the new shipyards that will spit out Warrior Class ironclads every 200 or so days due to resource shortages.

 

We continue to build our shipyards in the south, new command centres in the north allow us to grab more resources as we push up to the Scottish border. Though they are only functioning at about 15-20% efficiency, our crews will eventually add more resources to our war effort. Our Warrior Class ironclad is researched and awaits the improved shipyards to build them. Further research is done on vehicle improvements to help counter the Martian weaponry. Our outpost on the Isle of Man is also garrisoned with naval units in case of an aerial attack from Galloway.

 

A major assault is set into motion on the Martian base in Northumberland. We are bringing all Mk II Tracklayers and backing them up with a large force of self-propelled guns. We encounter some initial aerial waves as the Martians scout for our units. Our tracklayers and overwelming cannon barrage completely wipe out the Martian aircraft. Once they are destroyed their ground units approach our position. 12 tripods and some fast unit that appears to be a scout vehicle. The tripods quickly fall to our heavy cannon fire, but the small vehicle closes with us as well. Apparently it is not a scout but rather a suicide unit that explodes in proximity of our forces. At least 5 of our latest design of tracklayer where lost to this roving bomb! We press forward to the location of the base, our troops hoping that they too will not meet the same fate as other strike forces that have attempted to cross that bloody bridge into range of the Martian command centre. As we approach the river, we begin taking fire from the Martian walking artillery on the opposite side. As we close with them. they come into view and our guns begin to shell them. As the first shells land on target, another mobile bomb appears and it becomes our top priority to destroy it. The poor Martian is incinerated in a massive explosion before he can cross to our side of the river. Our attention then returns to the Martian artillery, which we quickly overwhelm with our fire. The base then comes under heavy fire from our guns and quickly falls, but there appear to be more Martians out there hiding in the mountains that we have to wait out. A lone burning "crab" approaches us from the east. It appears to be of the same design we encountered at Whitby that nearly wiped out a unit of stranded tracklayers there. This one, doesn't fair as well, however, and is wiped out by our guns before it can get anywhere near our forces. But.. the battle continues and we continue to wait. Suddenly, a Martian walker of new design comes in from the west! It is more massive that the larger combat tripod and appears to carry two heat rays! The black four legged bulk closes with us and we score the first hits, as it fords the river, it's heat rays leap from tank to tank as it destroys three of them in rapid succession. These guns are more powerful than those of the standard war machines and their are two of them on this thing. Further damage is incurred as the monstrosity fires canisters of the Black Dust on our front line units, but none of them die to it. They just take heavy damage that will take weeks to repair. The new Martian appears to take about twice the gunfire to kill as a normal machine. Hopefully the Martians will not deploy these bastards in the same numbers as their less advanced units. After this new Martian is killed, 3 more of the crabs show up and we wipe them out before they can close into firing range. The battle is over, we have only lost 21 tanks. The Martians however have lost 31, most of them prime front line fighting units. And since their units are much more powerful, this is a total thrashing for the Martians. After the battle, we move fresh forces to the front and rotate our damaged units to the rear for repairs. Our forces on the Isle of Man begin to move toward Galloway to probe the Martian base and our first new shipyard comes online in Dover. It is ordered to produce the new Warrior Class ironclad, and the obsolete shipyards are ordered to stop after their next vessel is produced.

[silencer_pl]

Microing ships? How does that work?

 

Facing them sideways to the martians so all 4 guns can fire.

[Jman4117]

Never really had much luck getting them to stay in position for a broadside when I tried. They always want to come head on at the enemy for some reason.

 

Our naval force arrives in Galloway and begins to search for the Martian base. Unfortunately, it appears to be far inland out of the range of our ships. More unfortunately, Martian air units attack. The lead ironclad is quickly taken out by their fire before it can turn to flee back to the Isle of Man. The other two fight off the aircraft and manage to escape relatively unharmed. Meanwhile, a combined naval and ground attack is launched from the Lake District to seek and destroy the Martian base in Galloway. In a few days it arrives and our land force proceeds in a northwesterly direction. A ground of 6 tripods and 6 mobile artillery pieces advance on our forces, but the combined firepower of the Navy and our ground units overwhelm them. Proceeding onward, the Martian base is located far to the north. The defending tripods are quickly killed and the base is destroyed. The first small bit of Scotland has been liberated! Our only losses were an ironclad that was run aground by her incompetent captain and about a dozen tanks. The surviving land units took quite a beating and will be rotated to the rear for some well deserved R&R. After the liberation of Galloway, our forces on the east coast launch a brutal offensive on the Martians occupying Newcastle. Four ironclads and a full complement of land forces enter the sector and almost immediately locate the Martian base. The command centre comes under fire from our guns and quickly falls before the Martians even have time to react. Nine of their smaller tripods are hunted down as our forces mop up any remaining resistance.

 

We begin to move our construction vehicles into the three front line sectors to build command centres and our forces in Galloway are rotated with fresh troops from the rear. We also research an improved construction vehicle that has better defenses, a facility that we can launch blimps from and another facility can be used to build outrageous contraptions such of underwater boats and tunneling tanks. And just when we thought we were relatively secure, the Martians invade Northumberland!

 

It appears most of our troops have gotten drunk and have disobeyed orders to stay just north of the base. We are split between a small force that is where it was ordered to be and another force along the river. The Martians come in in huge numbers. Their aircraft have our main force trapped, and our reserve is too far away to be able to reach them in time. Our forces are quickly overwhelmed and our construction vehicle abandons the half finished base. Had our units all been where ordered, far from the Martians' entry point into the sector, we might've had a chance as the huge mass of aircraft spread out along the way. But nearly all of the Martian force entered the battle adjacent to our forces and their superior military might won the day though it cost them dearly with 29 machines lost. We return however a fortnight later to deliver a bone crushing defeat to the occupying forces. We have gathered everything into one mass and force it at the Martians. Their aerial scouts are no match for our forces now that we are a long distance away from their base and can pick them off in small groups. We roll northward toward the base then begin to face fierce resistance from the enemy. They fire on us with their artillery as we approach the bridge. Our cannons in the rear are taking a lot of damage from them and our tanks up front are fighting with their tripods. They die, then we fire on their machine that is building the base. Everything explodes as the machine is destroyed. Further north, 3 of their scout tripods and 6 of the crabs wait for us. We open fire, but the crabs' powerful attacks destroy a handful of our tanks and damage many more. We win the battle by a good margin, but most of the survivors are badly battered and nearly dead. There is no conceivable way that our initial garrison would have held against this if this was the remnant of their strike force. Even in small groups, these Martian forces would have throughly beaten us.

 

In the weeks following the retaking of Northumberland, fresh forces are rotated in. Nearly all of our modern reserves go into refortifying the sector. On the research front, we come up with the construction labs that will allow research into all manner of harebrained contraptions such as submersible ironclads, which we research next, and tunneling tanks which we research after that. On a more practical note, we begin research that will allow for an even better vehicle factory. Only down side is that it will take in the neighborhood of 5 months to research. After nearly a month without a fight, we send a naval expedition up the coast of Scotland to Argyll. Hopefully we can force the Martians from there with our Navy alone, leaving our ground forces free to assault inland regions.

[Space Voyager]

Considering the forces you're moving around, the game seems to be going in the right direction! Is there any realistic chance of Martians getting back on their feet? Are you preparing for a final push through the North?