There was one rule that no one could break. No nukes! Except for those provided. It was put in place to ensure that the simulation would not just become a nuclear holocaust type situation. Where was the fun in that? Everyone participating received five such destructive devices and could not build more. They could steal it from their competitors, but that would be all they could do.

Tick-tock, tick-tock. The countdown for one of the greatest shows of military expertise started the moment the 12 entered into the simulation. Once the timer ran out, a frenzy of activity could be seen from the participants. On September 1st, 1939, 7 of the 12 competitors made advances into NPC controlled lands.

Of those not placing their pawns onto other lands, 4 of them were focused on defense and bulking up their state before launching any attacks. These 4 were India and China which were still trying to fast-track industrialization. Greece, who was trying to remain on the defensive, and Poland who was testing out their advanced robotic fighting forces. The last one was France that stacked its defenses along their border with Italy and sold many of their manufactured weaponry to its allies, Germany and the UK.

The United States, led by Suleiman, being the most aggressive and launching a massive fleet and ground troops setting course for the tip of South Africa from their numerous bases all around the Atlantic. They also had managed to strike a deal with Mexico that favored them heavily in terms of financial, economic, and gain of resources.

Their allies to the north, Suvorov of Canada, not being far behind. The Canadians led their forces to conquer the South American countries, as they had previously agreed to do. Venezuela was their first target as it was one of the most oil-rich countries in the region. Taking over a country with Suvorov’s prowess was not difficult, but setting up the infrastructure to pump out the oil without having the locals interfering was certainly a task.

Germany and the UK decided that it would be better to eliminate Maksim of Poland before it had a chance to conquer neighboring lands and become a bigger threat. Which was perfect for Maksim since he wanted to test out how well his advanced technology could match up in real battles. Poland's allies in Greece and Italy offered to send some reinforcements, but they were turned down. Maksim truly needed this test to be as unbiased as possible.

Ramesses ordered half of his German troops to march their way to Poland through their shared border. Meanwhile, the UK’s navy was stationed close to Poland’s borders. Unbeknownst to any other participant, Maksim already had eyes on every major movement in the world. That was the beauty of satellite imagery.

The stuff he had sent to space took a long time to complete, but the results were so worth it. He wasn’t sure if any of the others had access to such technology, but he had to assume at least one other did. With the information that he had before the fighting even began, he had already set up defenses along the most defensible terrain he could. That went for both land and sea invasions.

His soldiers would not be of blood and bones, more wires and metal. That’s right, he was putting his robot army to work. There was one thing that made it a lot less impressive. They all had to be remote-controlled by actual people. Once enough data was compiled, collected, and studied, an algorithm could be made to eliminate the human aspect. Such an unconventional weapon would attract many eyes.

Sun Wu, in control of Italy, bordered an enemy state; France. Seeing that his enemy was amassing forces near their connected borders, he had to do the same. However, his intelligence reports indicated that France had no intention of invading just yet. With this in mind, he sent a sizable part of his navy and army to take over Egypt as well as his other neighboring countries. It would be a war where timing was everything. If he could not secure resource-rich lands, then he would be severely disadvantaged.

One thing that was to his advantage, however, was the fact that he also had a few satellites of his own up in space. The original one designed by Jaxon, and a few of its derivations. After having made the original blueprint open source for anyone to tinker within the Chinese community. It was certainly not to the level of what Maksim of Poland had, but it granted many benefits.

In the beginning stages of the war, he struck a deal with the NPC leaders of Spain and Portugal. It was to have their forces near their border with France. It would put some pressure upon France to split up their forces. If France attacked either of them, the other would ride to invade France immediately. At first, they were not so keen on doing so, but after seeing such militant actions from many major nations, they obliged.

The Soviet Union and Japan may have been in an alliance together, but they both wished to have complete control of their actions. So long as the other did not get in their way. That was why Muqali of the Soviet Union decided immediately to conquer his way to India and China. Japan decided to go another route and decided on the Philippines first. Both were lightning quick in their advance. Their opponents were NPC’s after all. Hardly a challenge.

What greeted Muqali in both of the seemingly two locked down countries were that their defensive lines were all much tougher than expected. Not only that, but the people fighting against him seemed so much gutsier than the regular soldier should be. That said, this was no reason to give up and go home. So, he resolved to take on just one country for now. He decided on India first.

On the other hand, Hideki Tojo of Japan made short work of the Philippines, then moved on to Indonesia, New Guinea, New Zealand, and finally Australia. This operation took a little over a year to accomplish, but the conquered lands were filled with resources. One problem that persisted was Japan’s lack of soldiers for the grand plan that they had envisioned. So they turned to the only people that would listen, the populations that they conquered.

Hideki Tojo was not a stranger to brutal tactics to get what he wanted, something he shared with many of his compatriots in the actual Second World War. His time here had only made his ambitions and his hatred for anything non-Japanese related to multiply a hundredfold. During all this time, he found ways of psychologically breaking someone to the point of near-perfect subservience. He used it on those who he conquered to fight for the Imperial Japanese forces. Crimes against humanity did not even begin to describe the atrocities that took place.

Five years passed since the start of the war in the blink of an eye. Not one of the 12 participants had yet to be defeated. However, that would change very soon. During this time, both North and South America came to fall within the dominance of the Canadian US alliance. As did much of present-day South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique. It wasn’t much of a fight since they ran rampant, and no NPC could ever hope to match up against them.

Sun Wu of Italy was the only other state vying for control of Africa. He instead went through the route of present-day Egypt, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, and the Central African Republic. He knew that he would meet his American rivals soon enough, and with the way things were going, it looked as if the Dominican Republic of the Congo would be their battleground. Another thing to keep in mind was that Canada was now joining in on the fight for Africa. It would be a bloody battle.

Manstein of Greece bided his time until he had bulked up his army and navy, and the years it took was worthwhile. Once he started to conquer, it was like a domino effect. First, Bulgaria fell, then Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Yemen. With all these countries now under his command, he began to set up manufacturing plants all over.

Maksim of Poland, and his robot army, had found much success fending off the invading German and UK forces. So much so that they started sending parts of their army to their East. In the path of the Soviet Union who was still occupied with India. Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine fell to him with lightning-fast actions. After all, his robot soldiers did not eat nor need to sleep, so they could keep on fighting. Maksim had decided to forego destabilizing the other governments in favor of continuing to use his robot army.

Seeing Poland’s actions, Muqali of the SU (Soviet Union), had to lift his siege of India and focus his forces on stopping the invasion into his homeland. Up until that point, India was not the only target. He had also conquered much of the Stan countries; Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, etc, as well as Mongolia. He left some defenses in these countries as a buffer, but not enough to properly defend.

The UK and German forces were not able to make much headway into Polish lands, so they could either continue to force their way in or pull out and attack somewhere else. They chose the latter decision and went forth to drive a wedge between Poland and their allies in Italy and Greece. By the five year mark, they had taken control of present-day Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, and many of the other Balkan states. Thus successfully separating the three allies on land.

France, on the other hand, still had not lifted so much as a finger to fight. They had spent all this time on commerce and had become extremely wealthy from it. Now, they would begin their fight with their banks as full as can be. Immediately they sent half of their forces to invade Sun Wu in Italy and another quarter to take over Spain and Portugal. Resistance was fierce on both fronts. Thus was the result of letting their enemies prepare for years.

Turenne of India had successfully industrialized India to a point where he was confident he could take on the other major powers. So, in year three, he started to make India’s presence known. Sri Lanka was the first to go down, followed by Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Iran. Thankfully, the SU’s presence was not there since they were back in the motherland fending off the Polish robotic forces.

As for Herbert of China, he began his conquest even later in year 4. His one year of invasions had been slow but steady. In just one year, he managed to take Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The latter of which gave him quite a bit of trouble.

Through all of this, he did not copy what the other competitors had done. He spent the time to actively better the regions he conquered, not just use them for free labor and resources. In time, this would pay dividends, but for now, it cost him a pretty penny.