Civilization V: The Swedish Saga, part 4 (1868 A.D. to 1951 A.D.)

Preparing for the war to end all wars

1930 A.D.: Agents of the NDU's newly-reorganized NSS (Norse Secret Service) in Berlin steal blueprints for military aircraft from the Greeks. The designs are immediately sent back to Stockholm to be improved upon and put into production.

The bad news is that Greece researched Flight before me. The good news is I just got it from them for free. Thanks, guys! Apparently becoming socialist has given my spies backbones.

1931 A.D.: Swedish arms manufacturers produce the SV-1, the NDU's first repeating infantry rifle. They rush to start refitting all front line troops with the new weapons, to counter the Greek troops who have been using repeating rifles for some time.

I can now spend my teetering stacks of gold to upgrade my Caroleans to Great War Infantry, retaining their bonuses for starting as Caroleans. Unfortunately, any future infantry I build will not get these bonuses.

A Great General arrives in Graz late in the year, atop a crate of shiny, new SV-1s, to help hold the city against a potential Greek assault from Vienna.

1932 A.D.: Despite inflicting heavy losses on the NDU, Danish forces at Tunsberg are overrun. What remains of the Danish government holes up in their only remaining city, Salzburg. An expeditionary unit is sent to take the city, but the majority of the NDU forces are redeployed to the newly-shared Greek border South of Tunsberg. The Norse Ministry of Defense begins drafting two comprehensive strategies: Operation Justicar, to hold the border at Graz, and the ambitious Operation Firestorm, a blitzkrieg expedition into Greece to relieve border pressure before the Greeks can mount a full invasion.

My current plan is this: I do not want, not could I sustain the unhappiness of occupying, large swathes of Greece. Graz is an incredibly defensible city, and I should have no trouble holding it. My new Danish holdings, however, are wide open. My aim is going to be to slowly attack and burn the smaller cities of Northern Greece, salting the earth and creating a sort of "demilitarized zone" between our two nations. I'll keep knocking over cities and setting them on fire until I'm sure that their production and science output is too low to compete with me any longer.