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Campaign-RugesGC playing as Cuba
Medium Volitility ,Very hard military, rest are default.
Capital victory, no end date
Personal Rules- No tech trades. Try to buy unit designs only from Russia or its former republics and South American designs.

Goal- To repel the incoming American invasion and to take Gitmo, Puerto Rico and establish a beachead in Florda.

So I set this up to test how well I could do against a superpower that I know will invade. My Plan....

Diplomatically- Want to get all dictatorships as allies as well as a few others along the lines of the "Axis of Evil". Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela. Also Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Libya, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Congo Dem Rep., Mauritania, Mali, Belarus.

Economically- Build up infrastructure as well as producing products for exports. Plan on needing coal as I phase out the petro plants and hopefully an ally(Russia) will be a major producer. Plan on becoming a major ore producer and produce enough petroleum for export as well.

Domestically- Raise taxes but also raise social spending to attract more immigration and reduce emigration.

Militarily- Defend against the known US invasion. Increase all garrisons to max. Place Arty and AA to defend capital. Prepare for the attack on Gitmo.

Week 1 of the game
I managed to get all the allies I intended to get except for Laos,Mali, and Mauritania. I also bribed Mexico into an alliance on the hopes that if the USA declared war on Cuba , they would declare war on USA. China was left off the list on porpose( previous tries has led me to believe that being allied to russia and china will cause a CTD, Already a known issue I believe). I also prepped for the attacked on Gitmo and ordered part of the navy to blockade it. I also set up some frigates with what few anti-ship missiles I possessed in hopes of sinking a few US warships north of Havanna. Ruges has increased the personnel required for garrisons. I had to quickly rethink my plans to fully garrison everything and went to garrison 4 or 5 garrsions on east side of the island. 3 on the west and pretty much maxed on the capital and close to it. The middle of cuba has the least with maybe 3 in each hex. Will try to max em all but it will be alot slower than originnaly planned.

Sent my 3 spies on espionage missions, 1 in US and 2 in Germany.

I am going to need Industrial Goods so I started building a couple of IG factories.
A few wars started. SK vs NK (my ally) , Brazil vs. Venezuela( my ally)

Week 2 and 3
Nothing much happened until US delcared war on Cuba around the 18th of month. Gitmo fell in a day but cost me a couple of patrol boats as thier navy came out of port. A few days later came some air strikes. The AI bombers were targetting my Arty and AA. My AA was innefective at detering them. I was also able to gain a few more allies at this time, made easier by the US DoW'ing me. Saudi Arabia, Syria, Afghanistan all backed me in a formal alliance. Also Argentina, as well as most of Central American and Grenada. Having Belize and Grenada worked out well in the long run and will elaborate later.

February , March , April of 2020
The U.S continued its bombing runs into Cuba and even added in missile strikes by its navy. The AI continued to target my Arty and AA and eventually I had to start getting them repaired. I got lucky with some missiles and Arty and destroyed a few of thier ships early on but they started to attack my ships as well and had to put them into port. They shot off all thier missiles anyways and were easily outgunned so they werent too helpful anyways. The AI strikes with missiles were relentless. (Ruges mod increased the missile fabs, instead of 25 missile fabs, the US had 250.) Most of my Arty and AA was either destroyed or in for repairs. Then the US hit me with thier naval invasion. They hit me at my weakest point in Cuba. I launched all my attack aircraft but 1/2 were shot down before they even reached thier attack area. The US Raptors and Super Hornets then continued to pound anything in the area. My airforce was practically gone, I sent the rest for repairs. The central part of Cuba had the least amount of garrisons per hex and they Quickly cut Cuba in half. The few garrisons I had in those areas did not put up much of a fight. (Score 1 for Ruges mod, It seemed to be more realistic)

I deployed most of my Infantry and Tanks, I had to lower garrisons in some areas and even shut down some piers and barracks to get personnel as quickly as possible. I managed to beat them back from the southcentral and pushed them back to thier invasion point My counter attack worked out ok but they had a few infantry units still on the island and backed up by some Arty and thier ships. My units were being torn up by the arty so bad that most had to get repairs. Missiles were also coming in constantly that didnt help my cause. It took me forever it seemed to finally push those units back into the ocean.

In other news: Argentina was DoW'd by Brazil, Iran was at war with Turkey and Israel, India at war with Pakistan and China. NK looked to holding its own against SK. Venezuela advanced somewhat into the Brazilian jungle.

Summer and Fall of 2020
Even though I pushed them back into the sea , thier ships continued to launch missiles at anything moving. Any unit that came out of repairs was almost instantly targetted and pounded by missiles. The US would send a stack of ships in a nice loop. They would come up from the southwest side of the island and pop garrsisons and anything in barracks and launch missiles at them as they continued up to Havanna where they would dissapear from sight only to be seen again a few days later coming up the southwestern coast again. The did this repeatedly. They also had ships on the south side of the island as well as the north central part. These ships had a good look at anything from central and Western Cuba. Any unit moving around or coming out of repairs was getting hammered by missiles.

At this point ( since all my units were on that end of the island) I was about to concede the game to the AI. I was pinned down, no navy, no airforce (destroyed in those hit and run tactics on the west side of the island or shot down when I tried to rebase them to the east end). Land fabs under thier guantlet of missiles. I had all 46 of my units in reserve. 22 of those were AA. Garrisons getting popped and being heavily damaged (Started to reserve them as well but.....). With them getting popped and lit up by missiles and offshore bombardments it was also damaging my facilities in those areas. My repairs bills went thru the roof as the importing of goods became more and more costly.


In other news :SK knocking on NK's capital. If they would bother to attack it like thier attacking in the North, it would fall easily but I guess SK doesnt want all those units to defect over to them(SK) when that happens. Russia went to war with Poland and the rest of the wars were already looking like stalemates.

Late Fall
Instead of Quitting I decided to gamble and I wanted to watch how those other wars were going to play out with Ruges mod, I took out all my garrisons except for a few in Havanna. Sold those badly beaten reserves to NK to maybe help them somehow
No more garrison pops led to no more missiles flying my way. I started building more infrastructure and started 2 aircraft, 2 land fabs and 6 missile fabs ( which will be 60 when they are finished).

Remember Grenada and Belize ? Well all along I had been supplying them with some petro and consumer goods. Just a little bit at a time and only when I got the emails saying they needed them. NK was also in need of these items. I gave a little to each country , wasnt much to be honest but it ended up paying off. The UN liked me alot better as the game progressed and not only gave me slot of IG's and Coal but I landed some techs(3)as well. I also managed to steal 1 tech from Germany.

More Later

Yea I knew those Missle fabs would really help the AI. The US being able to produce 250 missles at a time must be a pretty good challange. Now if we can just get the rest of the military AI solved, Cuba should have fallen by now. Becouse lets face it, if the US declares war on Cuba, Cuba falls. Once Mexico goes to war with the US, you might acualy be able to start taking control of your area of the world. Or the US might lauch a secound amphibious assualt and whipe you off the map. Will be interesting to see how this turns out. Stil geting ready for the next mini patch then will probly start my next AAR.

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Early 2021

I had been expecting a follow-up naval landing by the US for some time now, it still hasnt happened. If it had happened during this time , I would have been beat. Things are getting built and more building is started. Power plants, Consumer Goods, A few Ore mines ETC....By the way , all my new buildings are on the eastern end of Cuba a few in the central. I maxed out garrisons in Havanna only , the rest are empty and all the US ships seem to be still as I have not seen the coastline supply border move as much. Russia has sent a frigate to Gitmo, its seems to like the warm weather and hasnt moved.

In other news: All the wars are still continuing with only SK being on a roll. They continue thier small arty bombardment of NK's capital while decimating the units up in the north. Kill ratio is nearly 10 to 1 for SK. Argentina has moved into lower Brazil but its a back and forth. Isreal has lost some units, I think its fighter/bombers as I caught sight of a small bombing run on Iranian units that were being attacked by Turkish armor units. That war is taking place around that big lake and goes back and forth.

Spring 2021
With everything in Reserve and only 7 garrisons, my inactive reserve is pumped up to 80k+. I finally finshed research into Air Defense Sites and started building 10 on the western and central side of Cuba. I also started 9 supply depots, 3 each(East,West,Central). Land fabs are operational and building Arty.

In other news: Same as before, nothing new.

Late Spring/Early Summer 2021
Aircraft are being built from designs bought from Russia. Air Defence almost operational and started building more on the eastern side of Cuba. Ive made myself self sufficient in almost all industries except coal and uranium. Missile fabs about to be operational. THIS IS WHERE I CHEATED ARRRRRRRHHHHHGGGGGGG!!!!!!
I bought a arty unit design with MLRS tech and some missile designs with anti ship missiles tech. Didnt even think to look for the ! symbol. I knew what I wanted and clicked them into the deal which had coal and some aircraft units as well. The price didnt clue me in either as I was paying in commodities and cash. It wasnt till I checked my research que that I realized what I had done. How can I live myself......Oh well, now I can make missiles when fabs come online.

In other news: same as before but NK finally fell to the SK forces. I recieved a big hit from the UN for letting my ally fall.

Aug 2021
Some missiles built, all Air Defences up and running. Air Defences have spotted the US ships all around Cuba. 2 aircraft loaded up for attacks on ships south of Cuba. Managed to sink that ship. Drew in alot of US aircraft based from somewhere other than Florida and they were denied an easy flight over cuba. Still they shot down one of my MiG's. I then pulled out some of my Arty that was in reserve near Havanna. The air defense was able to shoot down almost all incoming missile strikes from the ships. I also deployed some short range AA with my arty to help. With Arty along the shore I managed to beat back a few ships that were in range. This went on for a few days if not a week but I managed to either damage or destroy all those ships they had parked around Cuba. Those that survived limped back towards Florida, no doubt going for repairs.

In other news: nothing to write about.

Its now Aug 15th, 2021
I repelled one invasion attempt and took Gitmo. Going to be awhile before I attain those others and thats if the US doesnt invade again. I shall continue and post my thoughts if and when I attain those goals.

Sorry for the generalization in all the dates. I didnt start this campaign to make an AAR but after I got to this point I did want to share the experience with others. Really I just wanted to play around with these new garrisons and the new techs and buildings that Ruges planted into the mod. I still havent got to play with the helo pads, fish farms (by the way , dont you think thats a high tech level and cost for something they been doing since ancient times?), Or the more advanced missiles and stuff but it became such a nice challenge it was really fun to play. I think thats the 1st game I have played that I went up against a superpower that early in the game.

Thanks BG for the fun game
Thanks Ruges for the mod

That would depend on the type of fish farm. The ones based on ancient design(many still used today, even in the US) are land/shore based and are for smaller fish. The more modern ones are ocean based and are huge operations requiring some serious tech to be able to show a profit.

Jan 2022

Still havent seen a follow-up invasion by the US. I have built up my industries a little more but cut back on production to keep from building more power plants until badly needed techs are researched. Tech level is still 92 but investing 0 dollars in tech level till Im done researching what I have access to already. 5 research centers working hard on the problem.

I got some long range Arty bombarding Key West. 20k civilians killed but the US hasnt reported that in thier news. They are also about 285 billion in the red. Mexico still hasnt not help me out by declaring war on US.

Making lots of money by sending MG's to Iran. Enough to keep up research and buy coal and pay for my new units.

In other news:
Russian units are close to Warsaw but they seem to be more concerned with keeping supply lanes open. A quick look in thier rear areas and I see tons of units not being used in the war. China is thier ally but I guess they dont trust them or expecting a massively large air assualt deep into thier rear areas. They are getting stubborn about selling thier coal to me as well.

China Dow'd Mongolia last year sometime and they have capital surrounded. No way for me to tell whats going on inside China.
India/Pakistan/China seems to be a stalemate. Not ally with any of the 3 so hard for me to tell whats happening there.

I can confirm that Israeli war planes are indeed hammering Iranian units engaged in fighting Turkish units. After launching missiles they then head south to engage Iranian aircraft. The Turks are having a hard time with those pesky Iranian engineers. They seem to tear up those Turkey tanks.

The South American war has seen a turn of good fortune for Brazil. They have retaken all thier lost lands and getting fairly close to the Buenos Aires. They still havent learned how to cross rivers though. Venezuela seems to be stuck in the jungle.

No other wars have started and it looks like a wave of peace has started as new alliances are being announced on a global scale.

To be continued.......

April 1st 2022 thru April 30th 2022
Up till April the world hadnt changed to much. I finally finished building 3 naval fabs to prepare for the invasion of Puerto Rico. Key West was still being shelled by my long range Arty. I still hadnt put up any garrisons other than those around the capital.

Noticed one ship south of Cuba. Destroyed it. Then more cruisers and destroyers parking on the northeastern side of Cuba. I had plenty of missile trucks deployed already and started to fire upon them. It was the start of the 2nd US naval invasion. Was about time !

I wasnt prepared as much as I should have been. Everything was pretty much in reserve on the other side of the island. However , it could have been worse. I did manage to sink about 1/2 of thier transports before they landed. Still it took a solid month for me to destroy what they did manage to land and they wreaked havoc in all my industrial hexes before I managed to stop them. My tanks are weak, my infantry was not any better. I did have massive arty though. My little air force of 5 did manage to do lots of damage to both the ships and thier arty but eventually it was destroyed.

I'm back down to 66 units total. 10 conscripts, 1 partisan, 2 elite infantry , the rest are Arty and AA. Thats one way to get rid of old obsolete units.

Totals for the war 250 units killed vs 221 lost to enemy action. I wished I would have thought to write down the totals before that but I do know I was way behind. I guesstimate that I had around 100 units before this last invasion and not a single garrison was in that battle.

Mexico still hasnt declared war but they have sent me some $$$, Im still about a billion in the hole but this last invasion put the US @ 500billion+ into the red. Might be awhile before they launch invasion #3. I hope it does , I really couldnt stop them if they landed again soon.

To be continued....

May thru December

Got my economy back in order and completly out of debt, made a few more allies. Mongolia was one just so I could see how a region with less than 27k strong military could hold out against China ,which is 5.3 million strong. With everything built back I added 5 more land fabs to produce a small invasion force. They should be completed around the end of the year. I added a few (2) garrisons to some hexes on the east side of Cuba. My navy is getting built although the only warship I can produce at the moment is the Espora and its I'll probally only use this to increase my spotting past what it is currently. Still bombarding Key West. Its an abanoned town now, I killed the whole population. Shame on me, but if that airfield would ever get completely destroyed I might stop the shelling. I have a couple of MiG's conducting air patrol along the west side of the Bahamas and the southeast side of the Bahamas to look for any hint of an invasion fleet heading my way.

In other news:
No new wars have started and its not likely any more will. The wave of peace has swept across the globe as olive branches are given away freely to all. The amount of formal alliances being made is making me sick to my stomach.

Russia continues to battle Poland. They use a few engineers and maybe 2 tanks to retake land that Poland takes with an engineer or two. The do have a mighty air force nearby. Due to the overcrowding at that airfield a few missile barrages have taken place. Russia looks to content to prolong the war. They have nearly 70 stacks of various units with at least 3 units in a stack(most are a full 7 units) near Pavlova. Despite this , they still use those 4 or 5 units in Polond to conduct thier war.

China is stymied by Mongolia's 27k military. They send a tank to the capital every few weeks to see if thier there. The badly beaten tank goes back to where it came from and says "yep"

Iran has pushed a little further into Turkey but with only 2 or 3 engineers. Havent seen too many more Israeli airstrikes though.

Brazil and Argentina continue to duel over the same parts of land and Venezuela is still stuck in the jungle.



Early January-------US NAVAL INVASION III

Yep, they tried again. My aircraft patrol spotted ships coming from both the east and west side of the Bahamas.
Properly prepared this time. All ships of that naval invasion were sunk before they got to shore. I lost 3 MiG's from unseen AA around Miami and/or to thier Raptors. I shouldnt have tried to see where they were coming from.
A few Arty and AA suffered minor damage from missile strikes launched from thier warships.
Kill count now is US-346 Cuba-224
The US is 8 trillion in debt and 1.2 trillion in the red. They are losing 3 million a year to emigration. Thier DAR is 20% and dropping and MAR is 60%

By the end of the year I should be able to invade Puerto Rico but I may try to invade Key West first. If I can sneak some helo's over with some AT infantry and elite forces and get that bridge destroyed , I might be able to hold it and get some arty there to pound the stacks of tanks along that Highway towards Turkey Point.

To be continued......

February thru July 2023

Built 5 new land fabs during this time and added a few more power plants to cover the electrical needs for them. I have researched fish farms and debating on if they are worth building. @Ruges, est. output is not on the building description.

On feb 17th the city of Key West was announced as completely destroyed the airfield was at 3% and at that time I decided that I would put off my invasion of Puerto Rico and prepare to capture Key West.

My plan was to draw out the American air assets away from the Key West area with my 1 lone high level bomber and 5 MiG's. I also planned to use the 5 Espora's north of Key West to provide a AA shield for the Helo's and ship transports conducting the assault. Once landed , I will destroy the bridge east of Key West to stop any armor coming down from Turkey Point.

For the assualt on Key West I loaded up a few tanks , BTR's, some heavy mobile arty, a few armored AT units, about a dozen conscripts, a couple engineers as well as some AA on the ships and used helo's to move in some light towed arty, leg AT units , air engineers and some elite forces as well as more conscripts for cannon fodder. The engineers were going to be used to destroy the bridge and to build a base to operate from.

The Key West invasion started June 16th 2023
First the bomber went north past Turkey Point and launched a missile strike on the tanks sitting on the roads. This was followed by the MiG's and they arrived just in time to help the bomber escape the US aircraft that attempted to shoot it down. The bomber squadron made it back to Cuba but had suffered heavy losses. The Espora provided adequate Air Defense and helped the MiG's.
The landing ships unload thier units on June 17th and took Key West. More US aircraft arrived , ALOT MORE..... I was surprised the Helo's made it thru to thier landing zones but they all did. The US planes sunk my warships but the transports made it back to Cuba undamaged. The MiG's unloaded thier missiles on the convoy of Tanks heading to Key West and then jetted back to Cuba. All but one was heavily damaged and out of the fight. The engineers were on the bridge and protected by conscripts. The bridge was destroyed but lost several conscripts to the advancing tanks but they were stopped dead in thier tracks after the bridge went down. A string of cruisers coming from the North also blasted a few arty units with missiles before I able to see them. Using land based anti-ship missiles from missile trucks Cuba , those ships were destroyed. Even with the losses the Invasion Force was cramped up so much I had trouble postitioning the units where the needed to be.
It settled down enough that I started the helo's airlifting the wounded units back to Cuba for repairs and loaded up the now empty supply trucks with the leg AT units to make some manuever room. I finally got my AA up to north where they could do some good. Eventually the US air Force went and hid out somewhere and that the lone MiG was able to conduct missile strikes on remaining tanks sitting on the road. It also allowed me to see incoming ships (even though the missiles didnt make it past the AA) and I could use the truck arty in Cuba to destroy those.

On June 17th I announced to my people that Key West was securely in Cuban hands and that facilities were being built there to ensure that it remained a part of Cuba.

Kill totals since the start of war are now US 255 Cuba 390 I have a total of 126 units in my inventory not counting the missiles.

In other news: Not much has happened elsewhere, Iran has gained on Turkey but everyone else is still about the same.

Some thoughts
My plan worked out better than planned, I didnt expect for everything to survive the landing and ended up with way too many units in a very small space. More units were lost to missiles coming in from ships that wandered down the Florida coast due to my AA being in the wrong area and they couldnt move until I made enough room. (they would move, they just would get pushed out with the 7 per hex rule). I lost all my warships but that was expected , they worked better than I hoped. Surprised all my aircraft survived, I really thought they would have perished as well.

I have 6 missile fabs which in Ruges Mod is turned into 60. The ability to make alot missiles has helped me in this game. I suspect under normal missile fabs I wouldnt have had the firepower to destroy the 3rd US naval invasion , nor have the firepower to destroy all those tanks. With 60 missile fabs, I was able to do both in a short amount of time. The game is at june 26th now and I have 250 missiles deployed with 6772 in reserve.

To be continued........

@Ruges, est. output is not on the building description. Yea I kinda doubt they are acualy producing anything. I need chris's help geting them to work.


Under normal missile fabs the US would not have done as much damage to you either. Also consider one of the reasons your missles are doing so well is you bought the tech off somone else. I really wish we could get the AI to start taking out structures. The AI should really see your missle fabs and military fabs as a primary target, and start taking them out. After all if it was for real, that is probly one of the first things the US would have destroyed.

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ahhh come on , Dont remind me that I cheated. I already convinced myself that those techs were stolen fairly.


I agree, the AI should go after military targets like you suggest. Take out the enemy's ability to conduct a war and you win.

It is now November 5th 2023 and I pushed up thru Florida to take Ft. Meyers in the west and Boca Raton in the East. I should have waited a little longer. I made 2 big mistakes by being in a hurry for action tonight.

1st mistake, one bridge was not completely built and this caused problems when sending units back for repairs.
2nd mistake, I had completely run out of missiles and was force to use freefall bombs and I admit, I hadnt learned the proper way to make those effective. I have plenty of anti-ship missiles but no ships came down the coast.

Still I managed to advance despite those mistakes and a few other minor ones. The US has a mighty force but even with its 20 year tech advantage Im gaining ground and capturing cities.

Kill totals USA 292 Cuba 503
I have 126 total units

Score another one for Ruges Mod, Even the US has toned down its use of garrisons. At 1st I thought after 3 years of gametime, they would manage to field alot of garrisons but all the cities I have captured ,most only had 3 , 1 had 4 and Miami had 5. They werent easy to beat but were beatable if plenty of firepower(arty) with supply trucks were used. They did some dmg , especially against my infantry or a lone tank but for the most part the garrisons were IMO more in tune with what I would expect them to be against an invading force. The real battles were against the Tanks and Bradleys where the US has me outclassed and outgunned. Thank goodness I invested in artillery.

The US is still in the red 1.8 trillion. DAR@18% MAR@49% They are expected to 3million+ to Emigration and gain 178K to Immigration

Built my 1st fish farm , its output is 0t......Ruges I want a refund for the tech and the cost of the farm.

in other news: no new wars
Iran has pushed deeper into Turkey and have some transports loaded up in the Persian Gulf
The rest are still stalemated pretty much. Russia is having problems with Partisans and those are whats killing the Russian tanks...Polands version of "Wolverines"
Argentina did an Amphibious Assualt on the southern part of Brazil near Uraquay. Still in their possession. Venezuela has a few transports loaded.
India is still holding back both the Chinese and Pakistani's
Mongolia is still kicking China's tank every 2 to 3 weeks or so.

Not sure if this will be continued. New update expected Saturday.

Keep going please!

any more or new updates ?

No , lost alot of saved games when my harddrive went belly up.

heh, I cringe about loosing my HD. I used to fry my HD allot. and since then I keep an external HD that I put a copy of all my important stuff on. And then for stuff that would just kill me if I lost it (IE my mod files for SR2020) I email it to myself and keep it saved in one of my email accounts.

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