The Conquests
- Thread starter choxorn
- Start date
Chapter 48: The African Invasion
Although the loss of the Carrack HNMS Holland would slow the Dutch troop movements a bit and delay their invasion of Portuguese Africa for a year or two, it was only going to delay the inevitable.
And the inevitable continued to get worse for Portugal, as the Aztecs got the Mayans in an alliance against them, meaning they were now at war with everyone but their Spanish neighbors. Things weren't going too well for Spain either, who the Mayans also declared war on, at the request of France. Although Spain was at peace with a few more civilizations than Portugal was, they were hardly in an enviable position, what with having 5 cities and all.
The Damaged Spanish Caravel that had sunk Holland ran away from Cape Verde to heal in 1575, as soon as it could. A bit after that, the Portuguese Frigates NRP Centurion, NRP Prowler, and NRP Santiago appeared off the coast of the Cape Verde Islands, escorting a Carrack. They would have to be sunk before the Caravel could be chased after.
The Dutch Frigates in the area got right to dealing with the Portuguese ones in 1576. Although there were 5 of them- Antwerp, Dominator, Devastator, William, and Endeavor- they hoped to only need 4 for the battle, so that a 5th could go sink the fleeing Spanish Caravel. Luckily, 4 was enough. Antwerp, Endeavor, and Dominator bombarded the Portuguese Frigates from afar, weakening all of them slightly, but slightly was just enough to keep them busy while the HNMS William went after the Carrack. The Portuguese Frigates managed to damage the William slightly with defensive shots, but not enough to keep the Dutch Frigate from sinking the Portuguese Carrack easily. With that taken care of, Devastator sailed North, catching up with the Spanish Caravel well before it could reach the safety of the Canary Islands, and sent the Caravel to the bottom of the ocean.
The Portuguese Frigates weren't about to escape, either. After the Dutch fleet had done its work, the extremely fast Elizabethan Sea Dogs appeared. The Sea Dogs were so fast that they could attack multiple times in the same year, and the first one to arrive, the HMS Grim Reaper, took full advantage of this, attacking all of the Frigates, and managing to sink both the Centurion and the Prowler before finally being brought down by the NRP Santiago. The Santiago was a slightly better ship than the other two, and managed to hold off another Sea Dog attack from the HMS Resistance before finally being sunk by the third Elizabethan Sea Dog, the HMS Fortune. Although some would say the Fortune lived up to its name, most would point out that it only won because the Santiago was almost destroyed already from fighting the other two Sea Dogs.
At the beginning of 1577, William began to get news that the people of some of his cities were starting to grow tired of fighting the Portuguese, even if the Portuguese were evil. William started saying some weird, nonsensical things in response, like "I thought Catholic Monarchies didn't have War Weariness! It doesn't say any of this in the Civilopedia!" and "This scenario sucks," which prompted many requests from his advisors to stop forgetting to take his medication.
Luckily, no more Portuguese ships had shown up, which freed up the Dutch fleet at Cape Verde to head East to the small African Coastal city of Rio de Janeiro, and shell the crap out of it. After the garrison of Pikemen defending the city had been reduced to nearly nothing (and not having any crap, either), some Medieval Infantry in Cape Verde got on a boat and killed the few of them that were left to take Rio de Janeiro.
This opened up a path for 3 units of newly-arrived Knights to attack Saint Helena by land, but they noticed 4 groups of Portuguese Workers hanging around in 3 different locations near Rio, and decided that, lacking Frigate bombardment, they'd be better off just grabbing all of the workers. Two of the Knight units and a unit of Medieval Infantry went to those 3 locations to do that, and then the 4th, having nothing else to do, said "screw it" and attacked Saint Helena anyway, did little damage to the Pikemen in the city, and then said "screw it" again and ran away as fast as possible.
Luckily, the Portuguese as usual weren't able to mount anything for a counter-attack, so it was easy for the Knights that hadn't attacked Saint Helena in 1577 to attack in 1578. Two units of them were all that was needed to kill the 2 units of Pikemen in Saint Helena and take the city.
Better yet, the Carrack in the city's harbor had been destroyed, but the harbor itself hadn't, which immediately allowed the export of the Ivory near Saint Helena throughout the Dutch empire, making the Dutch citizens temporarily not war-weary.
And, although the Frigates had forgotten to bombard the city, this turned out to be not so bad, as it meant they could head to Sao Vicente and bombard it instead. Only 2 could reach it, but the minor amount of damage those two did to Sao Vicente's Pikemen was more than enough for a Carrack-full of Medieval Infantry (4 units). They experienced some early difficulties, and one of the Infantry units was completely destroyed by the Pikemen of Sao Vicente, but two more Medieval Infantry units had no problems killing the two weakened units of Pikemen defending the city. After that, only one unit of Longbowmen remained, and it was pretty easy for the 4th unit of Medieval Infantry to kill them and take Sao Vicente.
Due to the bad roads in the area, the recently captured workers were sent to build a road that would connect Sao Vicente to Rio and Saint Helena, and to Sao Paulo, which the Knights really wanted to get to faster.
The English built a city on the ruins of Yaxchilan that autumn, prompting many Dutch people to shake their fists in vain, and prompting some guy named Luther to post 95 Theses about Protestantism on a rock in the English city of Plymouth, making everyone on the same continent as Plymouth happier. Of course, said "continent" was a very small island.
In better news, most of the Infantry who had fought in the battle of Sao Vicente weren't injured much, making them available to continue attacking African coastal cities in 1579. The closest was Sao Jorge, defended by two units of Pikemen. The formula that had worked for the Dutch so far was repeated, successfully: The Pikemen were bombarded by Frigates, and then two units of Medieval Infantry came in to finish the job and kill the two Pikemen.
Near the Canary Islands, the HNMS Devastator had an encounter with the Portuguese Frigate NRP Lagos that ended with the Lagos being totally devastated by the Devastator.
Speaking of the islands, the Dutch planned to take them, as there would be some benefit from doing so. There wasn't really anything making them stay at war with Spain, as all their alliances against Spain had run out that year, but there was no reason not to take the Canary Islands first. Two units of Knights, a unit of Medieval Infantry, and a unit of Swiss Mercenaries had just landed on the beaches of the Canary Islands to achieve that.
They were ready to attack in 1580. The Frigates weren't able to bombard the Canary Islands' two Pikemen units effectively, as a Carrack in the harbor of the city took most of the shots. That made a huge difference- a big enough difference that the Pikemen in the city were able to kill both of the units of Dutch Knights when they charged. Luckily, the Medieval Infantry avoided meeting that fate and killed one of the two Spanish Pikemen units, but they took some injuries and the remaining Pikemen had gained experience from killing the Knights- meaning that the Canary Islands weren't going to fall until the Dutch could get some reinforcements.
They didn't have any more luck in Africa. Two units of Knights attacked the Pikemen defending Sao Paulo, and ended up having to retreat, barely damaging the Pikemen at all.
Luckily, Medieval Infantry once again seemed more capable of fighting than the Knights, albeit not at Sao Paulo. They were attacking Minas Gerais, the last Portuguese coastal city in Africa. It was, once again, bombarded by Frigates, not very successfully. Luckily, the Infantry picked up the slack, easily killing the unit of Swiss Pikemen and the unit of non-Swiss Pikemen that was defending Minas Gerais, and captured the city.
The news was only going to get better from there. At the beginning of 1581, some Dutch scientists entered William's Palace to announce that they had figured out how to build bigger, tougher, stronger, more powerful ships for use in fighting enemy ships, called Man-O-War's, and bigger ships for transport, called Galleons.
The Dutch sent whatever Carracks and Frigates they could back to cities with Harbors in them for immediate upgrade to Men-O-War and Galleons.
They also sent diplomats to London and Paris to see what the English and French had to trade for it. They both had the technology of Fortification, which would let the Dutch build large fortifications. They had some interest in it, but wanted some gold, which the French didn't have- but the English had an incredibly large amount of. The amount they were willing to pay for learning how to build bigger ships was considered more than fair by the Dutch.
With that done, they figured they might as well trade it to the French too, to learn about Fortification.
Everyone was happy; The English and French learned how to build bigger ships, and the Dutch learned how to build bigger forts, and were much, much richer.
With that taken care of, one of the Medieval Infantry from Minas Gerais that had wandered outside the city to take care of a Barbarian camp of people known as the Kongo reached the camp, killed the Archers within, and took 25 gold from the camp when they sacked it, and 3 units of Knights headed to Sao Paulo with the aim of capturing it. In doing so, they covered the retreat of the 2 units of Knights that had been injured in 1580.
Unfortunately, the Portuguese finally figured out how to mount a counter-attack that fall, and a unit of Longbowmen came out of Sao Paulo to attack the Knights, killing one of the healthy units, although they almost died doing so. Another unit of Longbowmen approached Sao Jorge, causing mild alarm in the Medieval Infantry stationed there.
In other news, the Aztecs decided to stop being so thick and asked for peace with the Dutch. They were even willing, when prodded by the Dutch to give up some gold. The Dutch were perfectly fine with this.
In 1582, the first order of business was to deal with the Portuguese Longbowmen. The one near Sao Jorge was easy, as there were several cannons sitting around in Sao Jorge more than happy to use those Longbowmen as target practice, and several Medieval Infantry more than happy to kill the few Longbowmen that still had all of their limbs attached to them after that bombardment. The ones near Sao Paulo were tougher. The fully-healed Knights could attack, and surely win... but then they couldn't attack Sao Paulo. Or they could take a risk and attack with the almost dead ones who were retreating. The Dutch, after some discussion, opted for the latter, and the gamble paid off- one of the units of the almost dead Knights successfully dealt with the Longbowmen, freeing up the two units of full-strength Knights to attack and utterly destroy the two units of Pikemen defending Sao Paulo. The city fell, and some workers fell with it.
The workers opted to build a road to the Ivory outside the city, which they would later extend to the cities Portugal had far inland, so that the Dutch Army and cannons could more easily get there.
In 1583, the reinforcements had finally arrived at the Canary Islands. In addition to the lightly injured Medieval Infantry that had been there a while, there was also 2 more units of Medieval Infantry, one of Knights, and a cannon in a boat. Some Frigates bombarded the islands, and then, sure of victory, all three of the Medieval Infantry units charged at the lone unit of Pikemen in the city. And every single one of them ended the battle with several large holes in their bodies were there shouldn't be holes in a human's body. And the Dutch had similar luck in Africa, where a unit of Pikemen defending some Colonists held off an attack from Medieval Infantry that wanted the Colonists. They even made the Infantry drop a Treasure they had been carrying for a while, although the Pikemen couldn't pick it up before another Infantry unit rushed into the area.
Later in the year, the Aztecs decided to cut their losses and exit their war with the Iroquois while they still could, and the Mayans and Spanish decided that their war was completely pointless.
Unfortunately, a bit after that, the Dutch decided that the amount of gold they got from the Ship Building Trade with England meant they didn't have to go look for any anymore, and the "Golden Age" ended.
But there was good news: The Pikemen in the Canary Islands hadn't fully healed from the Medieval Infantry attacks in 1584, meaning there wasn't any Barracks in the Canary Islands for them to heal in. So the Frigates bombarded the Canary Islands again, taking the Pikemen down to the level of almost-deadness referred to in Dutch military circles as being "Redlined." The Dutch still had a unit of Knights and a unit of Swiss Mercenaries available to attack, and attack both of them did...
And they both died at the hands of the Pikemen, prompting rumors that this particular unit of Spanish Pikemen was invincible.
At least the Dutch had better luck elsewhere. The Pikemen near Sao Jorge were killed by Medieval Infantry, securing both the Treasure and the colonists.
Farther Southwest, Medieval Infantry attacked the tiny Portuguese island of Alagoas, which was surprisingly better defended than any of their cities elsewhere. One unit of the city's garrison was equipped with Muskets that made them as strong as the Dutch Swiss Mercenaries, and the other two units in the city- one of Swiss and one of regular Pikemen- made the city's defenders a force to be reckoned with. Luckily, the Medieval Infantry were fully capable of reckoning, as they were of wrecking the city's defense. Two of them killed the Musketmen and the non-Swiss Pikemen, although the third Medieval Infantry unit was brought down by the Pikemen that were from Switzerland. Alagoas would stay in Portuguese hands for a little bit longer.
But only one more year. In 1585, one of the Medieval Infantry units marched into the city and finished off the Swiss Pikemen to put Alagoas to the torch.
The Frigates by the Canary Islands couldn't do much to take the city, but they could bombard the Pikemen every year to keep them from healing much. They would soon get a lot of help in doing that when upgraded Men-O-War arrived with Galleons full of Knights.
An event in the beginning of 1586 caused William to start paying attention to the technology rates of the New World civilizations: The Inca had built a Temple that gave them a massive technology boost.
They were already the most advanced of all the civilizations in the New World, but this wonder placed them just out of reach of the Age of Exploration that the Europeans had begun a Century ago. The Iroquois, Aztecs, and Mayans weren't that far away either, but about half-way through the Middle Ages, or about 3-ish techs behind the Inca.
On June 5, 1586, the Dutch had their first naval battle involving their new Men-O-War, when the upgraded HNMS Devastator, on its way to the Canary Islands, sank a Portuguese Galleon.
At the end of the year, Spain finally managed to get France to stop hating them, and bought themselves a way out of being killed when they signed peace.
This practically ensured, despite their bad situation, that the Spanish would at least survive. Only the Dutch and Inca were still at war with them. The Inca weren't even capable of sending ships across the Ocean, and while the Dutch could be a threat, they had no particular interest in fighting Spain after they took the Canary Islands.
And that that was going to happen was pretty much inevitable. At the beginning of 1587, they had a ton of Men-O-War in the area more than capable of bombarding the Pikemen in the Canary Islands down to almost nothing, and 3 units of Knights on the island more than capable of killing them. Luckily, only one was actually needed, but it couldn't hurt to be safe.
The Men-O-War, lacking anything else to do, decided to head towards Madeira and the Azores. The 9 Men-O-War (Named Flying Dutchman II, William, Devastator, Discovery, Endeavor, Antwerp, Dominator, Victory, and, farther to the North near Lisbon, Invincible) in the area were more than enough to surround either city and crush its defenses, but the Dutch lacked any Medieval Infantry in the area to attack them with.
Anyway, William decided that, with the Canary Islands taken, he really didn't have any more reason to fight Spain anymore, so he came to Madrid and told the Spanish he'd take peace for some gold, which the Spanish were happy to accept.
Portugal also seemed to be getting tired of war, as all they could manage to do that year was have a Cannon in Lisbon shoot at the HNMS Invincible just outside the city. The Cannon missed.
And, for that matter, William felt like he wanted peace, too. And the Portuguese were willing to give up quite a lot- either 4 of their remaining tiny cities or the technology of Counter-Reformation, both nice.
But William decided to stay a little longer, for those colonies were within easy reach of the Dutch military, as were the Azores and Madeira.
Assuming they can ever get their Medieval Infantry in the right place...
Still, the Dutch want the war to end as soon as possible, so that they can more easily bring the large number of treasures they have sitting around in the Caribbean home, if nothing else.
Although the loss of the Carrack HNMS Holland would slow the Dutch troop movements a bit and delay their invasion of Portuguese Africa for a year or two, it was only going to delay the inevitable.
And the inevitable continued to get worse for Portugal, as the Aztecs got the Mayans in an alliance against them, meaning they were now at war with everyone but their Spanish neighbors. Things weren't going too well for Spain either, who the Mayans also declared war on, at the request of France. Although Spain was at peace with a few more civilizations than Portugal was, they were hardly in an enviable position, what with having 5 cities and all.
The Damaged Spanish Caravel that had sunk Holland ran away from Cape Verde to heal in 1575, as soon as it could. A bit after that, the Portuguese Frigates NRP Centurion, NRP Prowler, and NRP Santiago appeared off the coast of the Cape Verde Islands, escorting a Carrack. They would have to be sunk before the Caravel could be chased after.
The Dutch Frigates in the area got right to dealing with the Portuguese ones in 1576. Although there were 5 of them- Antwerp, Dominator, Devastator, William, and Endeavor- they hoped to only need 4 for the battle, so that a 5th could go sink the fleeing Spanish Caravel. Luckily, 4 was enough. Antwerp, Endeavor, and Dominator bombarded the Portuguese Frigates from afar, weakening all of them slightly, but slightly was just enough to keep them busy while the HNMS William went after the Carrack. The Portuguese Frigates managed to damage the William slightly with defensive shots, but not enough to keep the Dutch Frigate from sinking the Portuguese Carrack easily. With that taken care of, Devastator sailed North, catching up with the Spanish Caravel well before it could reach the safety of the Canary Islands, and sent the Caravel to the bottom of the ocean.
The Portuguese Frigates weren't about to escape, either. After the Dutch fleet had done its work, the extremely fast Elizabethan Sea Dogs appeared. The Sea Dogs were so fast that they could attack multiple times in the same year, and the first one to arrive, the HMS Grim Reaper, took full advantage of this, attacking all of the Frigates, and managing to sink both the Centurion and the Prowler before finally being brought down by the NRP Santiago. The Santiago was a slightly better ship than the other two, and managed to hold off another Sea Dog attack from the HMS Resistance before finally being sunk by the third Elizabethan Sea Dog, the HMS Fortune. Although some would say the Fortune lived up to its name, most would point out that it only won because the Santiago was almost destroyed already from fighting the other two Sea Dogs.
At the beginning of 1577, William began to get news that the people of some of his cities were starting to grow tired of fighting the Portuguese, even if the Portuguese were evil. William started saying some weird, nonsensical things in response, like "I thought Catholic Monarchies didn't have War Weariness! It doesn't say any of this in the Civilopedia!" and "This scenario sucks," which prompted many requests from his advisors to stop forgetting to take his medication.
Luckily, no more Portuguese ships had shown up, which freed up the Dutch fleet at Cape Verde to head East to the small African Coastal city of Rio de Janeiro, and shell the crap out of it. After the garrison of Pikemen defending the city had been reduced to nearly nothing (and not having any crap, either), some Medieval Infantry in Cape Verde got on a boat and killed the few of them that were left to take Rio de Janeiro.
This opened up a path for 3 units of newly-arrived Knights to attack Saint Helena by land, but they noticed 4 groups of Portuguese Workers hanging around in 3 different locations near Rio, and decided that, lacking Frigate bombardment, they'd be better off just grabbing all of the workers. Two of the Knight units and a unit of Medieval Infantry went to those 3 locations to do that, and then the 4th, having nothing else to do, said "screw it" and attacked Saint Helena anyway, did little damage to the Pikemen in the city, and then said "screw it" again and ran away as fast as possible.
Luckily, the Portuguese as usual weren't able to mount anything for a counter-attack, so it was easy for the Knights that hadn't attacked Saint Helena in 1577 to attack in 1578. Two units of them were all that was needed to kill the 2 units of Pikemen in Saint Helena and take the city.
Better yet, the Carrack in the city's harbor had been destroyed, but the harbor itself hadn't, which immediately allowed the export of the Ivory near Saint Helena throughout the Dutch empire, making the Dutch citizens temporarily not war-weary.
And, although the Frigates had forgotten to bombard the city, this turned out to be not so bad, as it meant they could head to Sao Vicente and bombard it instead. Only 2 could reach it, but the minor amount of damage those two did to Sao Vicente's Pikemen was more than enough for a Carrack-full of Medieval Infantry (4 units). They experienced some early difficulties, and one of the Infantry units was completely destroyed by the Pikemen of Sao Vicente, but two more Medieval Infantry units had no problems killing the two weakened units of Pikemen defending the city. After that, only one unit of Longbowmen remained, and it was pretty easy for the 4th unit of Medieval Infantry to kill them and take Sao Vicente.
Due to the bad roads in the area, the recently captured workers were sent to build a road that would connect Sao Vicente to Rio and Saint Helena, and to Sao Paulo, which the Knights really wanted to get to faster.
The English built a city on the ruins of Yaxchilan that autumn, prompting many Dutch people to shake their fists in vain, and prompting some guy named Luther to post 95 Theses about Protestantism on a rock in the English city of Plymouth, making everyone on the same continent as Plymouth happier. Of course, said "continent" was a very small island.
In better news, most of the Infantry who had fought in the battle of Sao Vicente weren't injured much, making them available to continue attacking African coastal cities in 1579. The closest was Sao Jorge, defended by two units of Pikemen. The formula that had worked for the Dutch so far was repeated, successfully: The Pikemen were bombarded by Frigates, and then two units of Medieval Infantry came in to finish the job and kill the two Pikemen.
Near the Canary Islands, the HNMS Devastator had an encounter with the Portuguese Frigate NRP Lagos that ended with the Lagos being totally devastated by the Devastator.
Speaking of the islands, the Dutch planned to take them, as there would be some benefit from doing so. There wasn't really anything making them stay at war with Spain, as all their alliances against Spain had run out that year, but there was no reason not to take the Canary Islands first. Two units of Knights, a unit of Medieval Infantry, and a unit of Swiss Mercenaries had just landed on the beaches of the Canary Islands to achieve that.
They were ready to attack in 1580. The Frigates weren't able to bombard the Canary Islands' two Pikemen units effectively, as a Carrack in the harbor of the city took most of the shots. That made a huge difference- a big enough difference that the Pikemen in the city were able to kill both of the units of Dutch Knights when they charged. Luckily, the Medieval Infantry avoided meeting that fate and killed one of the two Spanish Pikemen units, but they took some injuries and the remaining Pikemen had gained experience from killing the Knights- meaning that the Canary Islands weren't going to fall until the Dutch could get some reinforcements.
They didn't have any more luck in Africa. Two units of Knights attacked the Pikemen defending Sao Paulo, and ended up having to retreat, barely damaging the Pikemen at all.
Luckily, Medieval Infantry once again seemed more capable of fighting than the Knights, albeit not at Sao Paulo. They were attacking Minas Gerais, the last Portuguese coastal city in Africa. It was, once again, bombarded by Frigates, not very successfully. Luckily, the Infantry picked up the slack, easily killing the unit of Swiss Pikemen and the unit of non-Swiss Pikemen that was defending Minas Gerais, and captured the city.
The news was only going to get better from there. At the beginning of 1581, some Dutch scientists entered William's Palace to announce that they had figured out how to build bigger, tougher, stronger, more powerful ships for use in fighting enemy ships, called Man-O-War's, and bigger ships for transport, called Galleons.
The Dutch sent whatever Carracks and Frigates they could back to cities with Harbors in them for immediate upgrade to Men-O-War and Galleons.
They also sent diplomats to London and Paris to see what the English and French had to trade for it. They both had the technology of Fortification, which would let the Dutch build large fortifications. They had some interest in it, but wanted some gold, which the French didn't have- but the English had an incredibly large amount of. The amount they were willing to pay for learning how to build bigger ships was considered more than fair by the Dutch.
With that done, they figured they might as well trade it to the French too, to learn about Fortification.
Everyone was happy; The English and French learned how to build bigger ships, and the Dutch learned how to build bigger forts, and were much, much richer.
With that taken care of, one of the Medieval Infantry from Minas Gerais that had wandered outside the city to take care of a Barbarian camp of people known as the Kongo reached the camp, killed the Archers within, and took 25 gold from the camp when they sacked it, and 3 units of Knights headed to Sao Paulo with the aim of capturing it. In doing so, they covered the retreat of the 2 units of Knights that had been injured in 1580.
Unfortunately, the Portuguese finally figured out how to mount a counter-attack that fall, and a unit of Longbowmen came out of Sao Paulo to attack the Knights, killing one of the healthy units, although they almost died doing so. Another unit of Longbowmen approached Sao Jorge, causing mild alarm in the Medieval Infantry stationed there.
In other news, the Aztecs decided to stop being so thick and asked for peace with the Dutch. They were even willing, when prodded by the Dutch to give up some gold. The Dutch were perfectly fine with this.
In 1582, the first order of business was to deal with the Portuguese Longbowmen. The one near Sao Jorge was easy, as there were several cannons sitting around in Sao Jorge more than happy to use those Longbowmen as target practice, and several Medieval Infantry more than happy to kill the few Longbowmen that still had all of their limbs attached to them after that bombardment. The ones near Sao Paulo were tougher. The fully-healed Knights could attack, and surely win... but then they couldn't attack Sao Paulo. Or they could take a risk and attack with the almost dead ones who were retreating. The Dutch, after some discussion, opted for the latter, and the gamble paid off- one of the units of the almost dead Knights successfully dealt with the Longbowmen, freeing up the two units of full-strength Knights to attack and utterly destroy the two units of Pikemen defending Sao Paulo. The city fell, and some workers fell with it.
The workers opted to build a road to the Ivory outside the city, which they would later extend to the cities Portugal had far inland, so that the Dutch Army and cannons could more easily get there.
In 1583, the reinforcements had finally arrived at the Canary Islands. In addition to the lightly injured Medieval Infantry that had been there a while, there was also 2 more units of Medieval Infantry, one of Knights, and a cannon in a boat. Some Frigates bombarded the islands, and then, sure of victory, all three of the Medieval Infantry units charged at the lone unit of Pikemen in the city. And every single one of them ended the battle with several large holes in their bodies were there shouldn't be holes in a human's body. And the Dutch had similar luck in Africa, where a unit of Pikemen defending some Colonists held off an attack from Medieval Infantry that wanted the Colonists. They even made the Infantry drop a Treasure they had been carrying for a while, although the Pikemen couldn't pick it up before another Infantry unit rushed into the area.
Later in the year, the Aztecs decided to cut their losses and exit their war with the Iroquois while they still could, and the Mayans and Spanish decided that their war was completely pointless.
Unfortunately, a bit after that, the Dutch decided that the amount of gold they got from the Ship Building Trade with England meant they didn't have to go look for any anymore, and the "Golden Age" ended.
But there was good news: The Pikemen in the Canary Islands hadn't fully healed from the Medieval Infantry attacks in 1584, meaning there wasn't any Barracks in the Canary Islands for them to heal in. So the Frigates bombarded the Canary Islands again, taking the Pikemen down to the level of almost-deadness referred to in Dutch military circles as being "Redlined." The Dutch still had a unit of Knights and a unit of Swiss Mercenaries available to attack, and attack both of them did...
And they both died at the hands of the Pikemen, prompting rumors that this particular unit of Spanish Pikemen was invincible.
At least the Dutch had better luck elsewhere. The Pikemen near Sao Jorge were killed by Medieval Infantry, securing both the Treasure and the colonists.
Farther Southwest, Medieval Infantry attacked the tiny Portuguese island of Alagoas, which was surprisingly better defended than any of their cities elsewhere. One unit of the city's garrison was equipped with Muskets that made them as strong as the Dutch Swiss Mercenaries, and the other two units in the city- one of Swiss and one of regular Pikemen- made the city's defenders a force to be reckoned with. Luckily, the Medieval Infantry were fully capable of reckoning, as they were of wrecking the city's defense. Two of them killed the Musketmen and the non-Swiss Pikemen, although the third Medieval Infantry unit was brought down by the Pikemen that were from Switzerland. Alagoas would stay in Portuguese hands for a little bit longer.
But only one more year. In 1585, one of the Medieval Infantry units marched into the city and finished off the Swiss Pikemen to put Alagoas to the torch.
The Frigates by the Canary Islands couldn't do much to take the city, but they could bombard the Pikemen every year to keep them from healing much. They would soon get a lot of help in doing that when upgraded Men-O-War arrived with Galleons full of Knights.
An event in the beginning of 1586 caused William to start paying attention to the technology rates of the New World civilizations: The Inca had built a Temple that gave them a massive technology boost.
They were already the most advanced of all the civilizations in the New World, but this wonder placed them just out of reach of the Age of Exploration that the Europeans had begun a Century ago. The Iroquois, Aztecs, and Mayans weren't that far away either, but about half-way through the Middle Ages, or about 3-ish techs behind the Inca.
On June 5, 1586, the Dutch had their first naval battle involving their new Men-O-War, when the upgraded HNMS Devastator, on its way to the Canary Islands, sank a Portuguese Galleon.
At the end of the year, Spain finally managed to get France to stop hating them, and bought themselves a way out of being killed when they signed peace.
This practically ensured, despite their bad situation, that the Spanish would at least survive. Only the Dutch and Inca were still at war with them. The Inca weren't even capable of sending ships across the Ocean, and while the Dutch could be a threat, they had no particular interest in fighting Spain after they took the Canary Islands.
And that that was going to happen was pretty much inevitable. At the beginning of 1587, they had a ton of Men-O-War in the area more than capable of bombarding the Pikemen in the Canary Islands down to almost nothing, and 3 units of Knights on the island more than capable of killing them. Luckily, only one was actually needed, but it couldn't hurt to be safe.
The Men-O-War, lacking anything else to do, decided to head towards Madeira and the Azores. The 9 Men-O-War (Named Flying Dutchman II, William, Devastator, Discovery, Endeavor, Antwerp, Dominator, Victory, and, farther to the North near Lisbon, Invincible) in the area were more than enough to surround either city and crush its defenses, but the Dutch lacked any Medieval Infantry in the area to attack them with.
Anyway, William decided that, with the Canary Islands taken, he really didn't have any more reason to fight Spain anymore, so he came to Madrid and told the Spanish he'd take peace for some gold, which the Spanish were happy to accept.
Portugal also seemed to be getting tired of war, as all they could manage to do that year was have a Cannon in Lisbon shoot at the HNMS Invincible just outside the city. The Cannon missed.
And, for that matter, William felt like he wanted peace, too. And the Portuguese were willing to give up quite a lot- either 4 of their remaining tiny cities or the technology of Counter-Reformation, both nice.
But William decided to stay a little longer, for those colonies were within easy reach of the Dutch military, as were the Azores and Madeira.
Assuming they can ever get their Medieval Infantry in the right place...
Still, the Dutch want the war to end as soon as possible, so that they can more easily bring the large number of treasures they have sitting around in the Caribbean home, if nothing else.
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mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
That was a great attack on Portuguese Africa this turn, chox! That'll definitely have hit a dent in the culture race, since it seemed like some of those cities had a moderate amount of culture. All the better for the Dutch empire!
CivRulesAll
The Void Beyond
- Joined
- May 1, 2007
- Messages
- 590
Any chance of an update soon?
Pieman
Prince
Anyone still close to the Netherlands in score?
Well, in score, I'm technically still behind Portugal, but in Victory Points, the important things in this scenario, I'm way ahead of everyone else.
Sorry for lack of updates. I'm writing one now, expect it up at some point.
Sorry for lack of updates. I'm writing one now, expect it up at some point.
Chapter 49: The Siege of Lisbon
As the Dutch waited for their forces to reach wherever they were going, they debated exactly how much they should crush Portugal in the war and the peace treaty they would sign. Everyone agreed that the complete destruction of their colonial South America/Africa Empire was a good idea, almost everyone agreed on taking the Azores and Madeira, as the Dutch were already on their way to doing just that. But there was much more contention over whether it was worth it to attack the heavily defended inner core, consisting of Lisbon, Oporto, and Ceuta. In 1588, The Dutch decided to just attack and see how much they could get.
It seemed that was what everyone else was doing, to: Moving their forces around in the general direction of whoever they were fighting wars against. The English and French also sent colonists to the few unsettled parts of Africa and South America. The Dutch, as usual, didn't care, although they took note when the Aztecs built the Temple of the Sun, one of those weird wonders the Mesoamericans liked building, which granted them great war benefits. (Battlefield Medicine + Universal Suffrage)
The 8 Men-O-War blockading the island of Madeira- HNMS Devastator, HNMS William, HNMS Flying Dutchman II, HNMS Victory, HNMS Dominator, HNMS Antwerp, HNMS Endeavor, and HNMS Discovery, were a bit bored of blockading the island, as they had nothing to really do while they waited for Medieval Infantry to show up so the city could be attacked. They decided to alleviate their boredom by inventing a game called "Test the crappy city's defenses," which consisted of firing cannonballs at Madeira in an attempt to do exactly that. They found that it was pretty weakly defended- only 2 units of Swiss Pikemen defended the city, but they still couldn't exactly attack land units.
The Caribbean Colonies complained that they had too many treasures that they needed to send back to Amsterdam, as they had been complaining for a while. Unfortunately, there weren't any military units that could be spared to go do that, but luckily, a few had recently been created in the Caribbean that could get to bringing a few treasures back home.
Meanwhile, in Africa, a somewhat disjointed force of Medieval Infantry, Knights, and Cannons advanced on the city of Sao Tome, when the Knights encountered a unit of Portuguese Longbowmen. They followed their usual protocol for dealing with Portuguese Longbowmen, and destroyed this unit.
The Knights reached Sao Tome in 1590, well ahead of the Infantry and Cannons. Noticing only weak Pikemen defending it, they decided to attack to soften up the city's defenses a bit. It seemed like a good idea before they did it, but a bad idea after they did it. Of course, none of them actually thought it was a bad idea even after the battle, because none of them had brains intact enough to form that thought. Everyone else in the vicinity thought the attack was a bad idea, though.
That same year, a Galleon arrived at Madeira with some Medieval Infantry, meaning the Men-O-War could finally be relieved of their boredom. After they re-bombarded the city's defenses as weak as they could, the 2 units of Medieval Infantry walked out of their boats and finished off what remained of the Swiss Pikemen in the city, taking it for the Netherlands with little effort.
The Navy sailed to the Azores after the battle, surrounding it as they had Madeira, and those ships that still could bombarded it for fun, though they only hit the Galleon in the city.
On the subject of bombardment, the Man-O-War HNMS Invincible, a ship hanging around near mainland Portugal, bombarded an area where Portugal was farming Wheat, out of not having anything else to do. They also noticed that Oporto's borders had somehow overpowered Madrid's, giving Portugal the Horses and Saltpeter sources formerly owned by Spain. Well, actually, they were disconnected, so it didn't help them, but it was kind of sad that Spain had let their culture be dominated to that extent by Portugal.
In the Caribbean, the Privateer PS Inebriated, a ship under subject of much debate over whether or not the name was ironic or representative of the crew's state of drunkenness or merely an amusing name, was completely unconcerned with that debate, as it was busy looking for ships to sink. It finally found one near Cuba, if an Iroquois Curragh is big enough to count as a "ship" and not a "floating piece of wood." The crew ultimately decided "close enough" and sank it.
A nearby Elizabethan Sea Dog, the Scourge, thought about the same thing about the Inebriated, and also ultimately decided to attack. Unfortunately for the Scourge, the Inebriated was much stronger than a Curragh, and ultimately the Dutch Privateer defeated the crew of the Sea Dog and captured it. The Dutch Privateer fleet now contains 2 ships.
In 1591, the remaining Medieval Infantry and Cannons decided to continue their advance towards Sao Tome, Knights be damned, but found themselves blocked by Portuguese Longbowmen. Well, that was no problem: After all, they had cannons, which are very good at shooting Longbowmen, and Medieval Infantry, which are very good at killing the Longbowmen that manage to stay in one neat, Longbowman piece after being shot at by cannons.
The Workers in South America that had long been working to clear a jungle in empty space to allow the region to be settled finally finished their job that year, and the city of Stellenbosch was immediately constructed in the newly-vacated space.
The Medieval Infantry that had taken Madeira were also ready to attack the Azores that year, but found that it would be tougher because, despite the defenders being Pikemen rather than Swiss Pikemen (which made little difference, as they were equally skilled on defense), the Men-O-War couldn't hit as many things with the Galleon in the Azores' Harbor taking some of the shots. Because of this, when the 2 units of Medieval Infantry attacked the 2 units of Pikemen, the results were less satisfactory: One unit of dead Portuguese Pikemen, but also one unit of dead Dutch Infantry. They would have to try again in 1592.
In the rest of 1591, they watched while the rest of the world fought Portugal. The HNMS Invincible, still hanging around near Portugal, saw a bunch of English and French ships attempt to bombard Oporto back into the Stone Age, and also saw Portugal's weak counter-attack of sending Longbowmen to deal with a unit of French Longbowmen crossing through the Pyrenees- which failed, which was surprising, considering how much better Longbowmen are at attacking than defending.
The Dutch also noticed that the Inca had captured the South American city of Olinda. You couldn't really say they watched it, as there weren't any Dutchmen anywhere near Portugal's remaining South American colonies.
The Dutch tried to get the Azores again in 1592. This time, although the Men-O-War missed a few times, the fact that there was only one unit of Pikemen defending the city made it easy to weaken it enough for the Medieval Infantry to kill them and take the city, although the Pikemen still tried to put up a bit of a fight.
With the Azores and Madeira now firmly in Dutch hands, they decided to humor the Portuguese and see what they'd be willing to offer in return for not killing them. The offer the Portuguese gave was rather substantial: It seemed that after such a long period of losing, they were desperate not to lose more. They'd give 3 of their remaining colonies and the technology of Counter-Reformation. The Dutch considered this reasonably fair, but thought they could get more, and also wanted to be sure that the Portuguese colonies would be completely gone, rather than just hoping the Inca would do the rest of the work for them.
So they remained at war, and decided to wait, heal their units a bit, and then head for the Portuguese mainland. A few Knights and Infantry were already there, hanging around on the coast and waiting for an opportunity to attack Oporto. The sizable Dutch gold reserves would also be used to accelerate the training of additional units in Africa so that they could more easily reach the remaining Portuguese cities in the inland parts of Central Africa.
That October, the Elizabethan Sea Dogs Hangman and Albatross encountered a Portuguese Galleon near the Canary Islands and thought they had some easy prey- but the Galleon was tougher than they thought, and though the English ultimately won, the Galleon took the Hangman down with it. The Albatross then noticed the Dutch Privateer Scourge nearby, and, perhaps angry over either losing the Hangman or over the fact that the Scourge was formerly a Sea Dog, attacked. Somewhat amusingly, it was defeated by a Sea Dog turned Privateer, and the Albatross also became a Sea Dog turned Privateer.
Luckily, the English had more luck on land. A bit after this, they bombarded Lisbon with their ships, which didn't help much, considering how strongly Lisbon was defended, but the English Knights on the shore didn't care much and killed one of the city's garrisons of Swiss Pikemen anyway.
Portugal's only reaction to all this was to shake their fists in vain defiance, and shoot a cannon at the Dutch ships near Lisbon, which, despite hitting, wasn't going to be very effective unless they actually had their own ships to fight with.
The Dutch continued their offensive in the spring of 1593. The first things that came to their attention were fairly minor- the forces near Sao Tome once again had to focus on killing a unit of Longbowmen rather than be able to attack the city, not that they were really strong enough to take it at this point anyway. They were also briefly distracted by Pirate ships, with mixed results. The newly-captured PS Albatross proved a nice addition when it sank another Portuguese Galleon off the African coast, while the PS Inebriated, encouraged by the earlier results against Elizabethan Sea Dogs, decided to attack one, the PS Lightning, with much worse results than the ones that had happened the previous few years: The Inebriated sank, though at least it wasn't captured.
But then the Dutch focused all of their attention on one thing: taking Oporto. They had at their disposal 10 Men-O-War, who happily bombarded the defenses of the city as much as they could. They also had some Knights on the coast ready to attack, and some Medieval Infantry in boats also ready to attack. The Knights attacked first, killing the two units of Swiss Pikemen in Oporto with no significant casualties. Only one unit of non-Swiss Pikemen remained, an easy battle for the Medieval Infantry. And yet, the Pikemen still managed to kill the first unit of Infantry that attacked them, and even made them drop the Treasure they were carrying into the Ocean. Perhaps attacking in such a situation was foolish, but regardless, the other unit of Medieval Infantry would, and did, make them pay when they killed the Pikemen, and the city fell to the Dutch.
The Dutch considered keeping it, but ultimately decided that its position made it both indefensible, strategically unhelpful, and gave it a very high chance of revolt to either Spain or Portugal.
So they decided it was easier to just not have to deal with any of that, and they burned Oporto to the ground. At least they got slaves, and perhaps the Spanish were happy that they got their resources back.
It was then that the Dutch realized how much easier this was than they expected, and that yes, they could totally take Lisbon, and after brief debate, decided to do exactly that.
With Oporto taken, the French and English ships in the area redirected their efforts just at Lisbon, which seemed to be a pretty easy take for the Dutch at this point. And, if they could get it, it would be highly valuable, for the wonders in the city: Their ships would get faster, their Cathedrals more efficient at keeping the people happy, and they'd get free colonists.
The Dutch only hoped they could keep the people happy in the meantime, as they were growing increasingly weary of the long war against Portugal.
Over in Mesoamerica, the Mayans finished work on the Temple of Kukulcan, the last remaining unbuilt Mesoamerican wonder that all the Mesoamericans had been working on for a while.
In 1594, the Dutch had sizable forces outside of both Sao Tome and Lisbon. They decided to do Sao Tome first. The Cannons hit Sao Tome, weakening it enough for the unit of Knights outside the city to kill one of the city's 2 defending Pikemen units. The other Dutch military unit near Sao Tome, one of Medieval Infantry also could have attacked, but knew there was still a unit of Longbowmen in the city, and realized that attacking and losing would have left the cannons very vulnerable. So they decided to fortify and hope the Longbowmen couldn't kill them.
They had much more outside of Lisbon, but the preliminary bombardment by 10 Men-O-War revealed it was much stronger than they could handle now. They decided to wait for reinforcements to arrive next year, when they would have 4 units of Knights, 6 units of Medieval Infantry, and a Cannon, in addition to the Men-O-War they already had.
Sadly, the Medieval Infantry near Sao Tome were right about the Longbowmen being strong enough to kill them, as the Longbowmen did exactly that as soon as they got the chance. Luckily, the heavily injured Knights were still just enough to keep the cannons safe. They would have to retreat next year and wait for their forces to regain strength before they could attack Sao Tome again.
The every-once-in-a-while-whenever-the-scientists-discover-something technological discovery meeting happened in January 1595, the same month the every-once-in-a-while-whenever-the-scientists-discover-something technological discovery meeting always happened. This year, they announced that they had developed some interesting economic ideas about colonies and trade called "Mercantilism," which prompted many to wonder why the scientists always took decades to come up with ideas like this. What were they spending all of that research money on, anyway?
At first, William wondered about any potential applications for new economic ideas when trading with the residents of the Americas, and during discussions with his Foreign Advisor, came to the realization that was completely silly. He did, however, notice that all of said American civilizations had decided to convert to both Catholicism and Monarchic governments, abandoning their old strange Blood Cults. Good for them! He also noticed that France was, strangely, going backwards, and had decided to go into Despotism, for no particular reason.
The bad news of 1595 was that the Sao Tome forces had to retreat, but at least they got away. The good news was: The Dutch were now fully ready to attack Lisbon. The city, being the Portuguese capital and by far their most valuable city, was very well defended, but they had lots of artillery, and probably had a numbers advantage. They were sure it would be enough.
It turned out the Ships and the Cannon still couldn't hit the broadside of a large city, though, and didn't do enough damage to the defending Swiss and non-Swiss Pikemen to help the Dutch much. Still, it was a little bit, and the Knights decided now would be a good time to charge. They charged... and one by one, fell at the hands of the strong Swiss Pikemen. Two units of the Knights died, and one barely escaped with their lives. The 4th unit decided it would be a good idea to let the Medieval Infantry handle this, but the results were no better- 3 units of Medieval Infantry were killed at the hands of the non-Swiss Pikemen, and only one managed to kill one of the Normal Pikemen units in the city. The remainder of the invasion force decided it would be easier to just hold off on attacking, heal in Spain, and wait for reinforcements to arrive- but pillage the hell out of the surrounding farmland and attempt to starve Lisbon for a while.
To the north, near the Bay of Biscay, the Galleon HNMS Amsterdam was sailing home, having dropped off several of the now-mostly-dead invasion force in Portugal, when it encountered some trouble with a Privateer that attacked it. Luckily, they were victorious, albeit a bit annoyed at the obviously French pirates.
The English managed to do slightly better with an attack on Lisbon of their own later in the year, with a unit of English Knights killing one of the units of Swiss Pikemen defending Lisbon. But the Knights were the entirety of England's attack force, so they didn't really do much good.
A few weeks later, the Portuguese counter-attacked with Longbowmen, forcing the Knights to retreat.
The Dutch decided to thank the English for helping out by killing these Longbowmen with one of their Medieval Infantry units at the start of 1596.
They also decided to start having their Men-O-War bombard the countryside to aid in the starvation of Lisbon, starting with one of the few Irrigated areas. This didn't work out nearly as well as intended, as it turned out the Men-O-War, quite literally, couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. 9 of them failed to destroy anything meaningful before the HNMS William finally managed to actually hit the broadside of a barn and destroy the irrigated area. William has decided that the ship named after him is awesome, and also informed the Navy Commanders that a 1/10 success rate was well into the zone of "FAIL."
The African forces were also starting to get some more reinforcements from the rushing in the cities they had there, but it was still only enough to send some Knights to kill one of the extremely numerous Longbowmen units the Portuguese kept sending at them. They would have to wait another year or two to get enough forces to Sao Tome to take it.
Portugal was still incapable of doing anything significant, so they settled for insignificant, by having their cannon shoot at one of the units of Medieval Infantry, and signing peace with the Mayans, a civilization they had no hope of ever actually fighting.
Despite Portugal's insignificance, the Dutch still weren't capable of posing much of a threat to Lisbon in 1597- all of their units were too damaged or not numerous enough to attack the city. They could, however, continue sieging the city and pillaging the surrounding countryside. The only bit that eluded them was the hill that contained the Iron mines, and they could deal with that the following year.
They also couldn't attack Sao Tome- but unlike Lisbon, they actually had a sizable force of Cannons, Knights, and Medieval Infantry outside of the city ready to attack in 1598.
And, despite their setbacks, everything went according to plan in 1598. The Iron mine near Lisbon was destroyed, but more importantly, the Battle of Sao Tome was a resounding success. The Cannons greatly weakened the defenders, and only a few of the Knights and Infantry were needed to kill the city's two Pikemen units and capture it.
With the entire area surrounding Lisbon totally pillaged, the Siege of Lisbon was as complete as it could ever be. The Dutch Army occupied a few of the areas around it, and the Men-O-War blockaded most of the surrounding coast, only leaving a few bits so that the English could sail through and continue hitting the city themselves. They hoped the city's excess food would run out soon so it would begin starving; they were getting tired of this. They also were getting dismayed that their occasional bombardments showed that there were still a lot of Swiss Pikemen left defending the city.
Luckily, the city did finally start decreasing in size at the end of 1598, which meant that as long as they could continue the siege, the city would continue to slowly shrink in size each year. The smaller they could get it, the better.
Also good: The Inca captured another Portuguese city, Santos, that year, leaving Portugal with just 5 cities- Lisbon, Ceuta, two in Africa, and one more in South America. Portugal was now willing to give the Dutch everything they had but Lisbon and Ceuta for peace, but the Dutch were not going to accept that. They hadn't tried this hard to get Lisbon to be turned back now. They did, however, decide to not bother attacking the rest of Portuguese Africa in 1599, if they could just get that in a peace treaty anyway. The forces they had in Africa would be better put to work either bringing treasures to Amsterdam or attacking Lisbon.
However, it looked like Portugal really wanted peace treaties, and if they couldn't get the Dutch off their backs, they would sign peace with a country more willing to sign peace: Specifically, the French, who didn't even want any of Portugal's stinking colonies.
William's response to this was along the lines of, "Fine. sign peace. We don't even need you cheese-eating surrender monkeys anyway! Your mother is a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
On the bright side, the Dutch managed to get some more units to Lisbon in 1600- including some more cannons, meaning it would be slightly easier to whittle away at Lisbon's defenses, if nothing else. At the very least, they didn't have to worry about ships- it seemed that they lacked the resources to build anything but Galleons, and only built a few of those. Another one of them was sunk by the Privateer PS Scourge near the Canary Islands in 1600.
And on the brighter side, a much larger Dutch force arrived at Lisbon in 1601- and the forces already there had finished healing, giving them 11 Men-O-War, 3 units of Knights, 5 units of Medieval Infantry, and 4 Cannons outside the city, that would be capable of hitting it the following year.
The English decided they didn't want to get left out of the fun, so they sent their own force to Lisbon: consisting of one unit of Longbowman.
In other news of things that won't probably do anything useful, Portugal convinced Spain to declare war on the Aztecs.
The Dutch prepared to attack Lisbon in 1602, but briefly found themselves more concerned with economic issues than military ones: Someone had stopped giving them a bunch of money for something, which left their economy well in the red. They would need to get some more money. Luckily, both England and France had tons of money, as well as some technology for trading. Sensing a great opportunity, the Dutch decided to trade their economic Mercantilism ideas for the French technology of Counter-Reformation, so that they could more easily acquire the new English methods for discovering science.
It was then that they discovered, to their annoyance, that England was too Protestant or something to want Counter-Reformation. Literally, they couldn't trade it to England at all. The Dutch found this weird; though their government was Catholic, they had plenty of Protestants, and none of them had much of a problem with Counter-Reformation. Oh well, if they couldn't get Scientific Method, they could at least get a bunch of money from England to replace their lost income.
With that taken care of, they began their bombardment of Lisbon. Now having lots of stuff that could do that, they actually managed to do a substantial amount of damage to the city's defenses- more than enough that they considered attacking now to be a good idea. A couple of units of Knights attacked first, with a bit more success than they'd had last time- one had to retreat, but one killed one of the units of normal Pikemen in the city. A 3 Medieval Infantry unit then went up against 3 units of Swiss Pikemen, with the result of a dead unit of Medieval Infantry, but 2 dead units of Swiss Pikemen. Encouraged, the third and final unit of Knights attacked... but had to retreat. The Dutch still had two units of Medieval Infantry capable of attacking, but realized that despite the fact that they had greatly weakened Lisbon's defenses and killed 3 of its units, they still weren't enough to take it- not yet. They'd let the English Longbowmen have a try at it.
The English bombarded the city in October, 1602, and thanks to the fact that the city was already weak from the Dutch attacks, the English Longbowmen were easily able to kill another unit of Swiss Pikemen- and better yet, they killed the lone "Elite" unit, which had previously been annoying by healing stronger and being defended by the weaker Veteran units after it was weakened during bombardment. No matter; Lisbon was now lacking one unit of Pikemen and 3 of Swiss Pikemen. Only a few more to go.
In other news, the Inca finally took Portugal's last South American city.
The Dutch opted not to attack again in 1603, as waiting another year would let them attack with some additional full-strength Knights that had come out of Africa, and starve the city down from "City" to "Town," making it much less easy to defend. They only had one full-strength unit that year, anyway. They did, however, keep bombarding the city so that the English could attempt to weaken the defenses a bit more- the key word here being "attempt," because, despite the combined Dutch and English bombardment greatly weakening all of Lisbon's defensive units, it still wasn't enough to prevent them from killing the English Longbowmen unit when they attacked. It looked like the Dutch were on their own.
Spain, despite the great amount of weakening they'd suffered in war a few decades ago, was evidently not so poor that they couldn't convince the Mayans to join them in their war against the Inca. What effect this would have, if any, remains to be seen.
Certainly, the Inca would get a great benefit in the war from their technology advantage over the Mayans, however slight. In 1604, they had finally reached the end of the technology level the Europeans had called the Middle Ages- where they were once well behind the Europeans, they were now only about 110 years behind them. The Aztecs and Iroquois lingered a bit behind the Inca in tech, and the Mayans a bit behind them.
The Dutch were certainly pleased that they were correct in their assessment of Lisbon's size: It had finally starved down to size "6," weakening the city's defenses... or at least, it would have weakened the city's defenses, if the shrinking of the city hadn't put it entirely behind the old walls. No matter- it was a trivial task for the Cannons to destroy those walls, costing the city a big defensive bonus that had made the Dutch military's lives hell for a decade. The rest of the Cannons and Men-O-War added on some more bombardment to weaken the remaining defenders- 3 units of normal Pikemen, and 3 units of Swiss Pikemen. The situation wasn't perfect, but they couldn't hope for a better one. The 4 fresh units of African Knights charged. One of them suffered heavy losses and had to retreat, but other than that, it was a bunch of huge victories- 2 units of Pikemen and 1 of Swiss Pikemen fell at the hands of the Dutch Knights. The 2 full-strength units of Medieval Infantry near Lisbon attacked next, and continued the successful run, killing the final unit of Pikemen and one of the remaining Swiss Pikemen units. Only a lone unit of Swiss Pikemen remained, the only thing that stood between the Dutch army and controlling Lisbon- and it was only at half-strength from the bombardment. Problem: The Dutch were out of full-strength units to attack with. They did, however, have a few units that were injured from the earlier battles that could attack. They could wait, and give the Portuguese time to build up their defenses more- or attack, and risk more casualties.
They decided to attack, and it paid off hugely; despite being at half-strength, the Knights were more than enough to finish off the lone remaining defenders. Lisbon was captured, and with it, some Colonists, a cannon, and most importantly: The two great wonders, Dias' Voyage and the Sistine Chapel.
Prince Henry and the Portuguese government were caught on their way out of the city. But luckily for them, the Dutch had no real reason to continue fighting them, and no real reason to destroy them, either- so they gave them a deal: Surrender, and be left with Ceuta, but give everything else they owned to the Dutch. Or they could be destroyed.
Obviously, the Portuguese preferred surrender to destruction, so they begrudgingly accepted these terms.
With the war done, the Dutch began to celebrate. No longer would they have to die to fight this war, and the wonders they had taken had given them great benefits. The military, no longer having to fight, immediately departed for the Caribbean to bring some of the treasures that had long been lingering there home to Amsterdam. It would bring great wealth and glory to the Netherlands, and to William.
For the first time in a while, it seemed as though things were going completely fine for them.
As the Dutch waited for their forces to reach wherever they were going, they debated exactly how much they should crush Portugal in the war and the peace treaty they would sign. Everyone agreed that the complete destruction of their colonial South America/Africa Empire was a good idea, almost everyone agreed on taking the Azores and Madeira, as the Dutch were already on their way to doing just that. But there was much more contention over whether it was worth it to attack the heavily defended inner core, consisting of Lisbon, Oporto, and Ceuta. In 1588, The Dutch decided to just attack and see how much they could get.
It seemed that was what everyone else was doing, to: Moving their forces around in the general direction of whoever they were fighting wars against. The English and French also sent colonists to the few unsettled parts of Africa and South America. The Dutch, as usual, didn't care, although they took note when the Aztecs built the Temple of the Sun, one of those weird wonders the Mesoamericans liked building, which granted them great war benefits. (Battlefield Medicine + Universal Suffrage)
The 8 Men-O-War blockading the island of Madeira- HNMS Devastator, HNMS William, HNMS Flying Dutchman II, HNMS Victory, HNMS Dominator, HNMS Antwerp, HNMS Endeavor, and HNMS Discovery, were a bit bored of blockading the island, as they had nothing to really do while they waited for Medieval Infantry to show up so the city could be attacked. They decided to alleviate their boredom by inventing a game called "Test the crappy city's defenses," which consisted of firing cannonballs at Madeira in an attempt to do exactly that. They found that it was pretty weakly defended- only 2 units of Swiss Pikemen defended the city, but they still couldn't exactly attack land units.
The Caribbean Colonies complained that they had too many treasures that they needed to send back to Amsterdam, as they had been complaining for a while. Unfortunately, there weren't any military units that could be spared to go do that, but luckily, a few had recently been created in the Caribbean that could get to bringing a few treasures back home.
Meanwhile, in Africa, a somewhat disjointed force of Medieval Infantry, Knights, and Cannons advanced on the city of Sao Tome, when the Knights encountered a unit of Portuguese Longbowmen. They followed their usual protocol for dealing with Portuguese Longbowmen, and destroyed this unit.
The Knights reached Sao Tome in 1590, well ahead of the Infantry and Cannons. Noticing only weak Pikemen defending it, they decided to attack to soften up the city's defenses a bit. It seemed like a good idea before they did it, but a bad idea after they did it. Of course, none of them actually thought it was a bad idea even after the battle, because none of them had brains intact enough to form that thought. Everyone else in the vicinity thought the attack was a bad idea, though.
That same year, a Galleon arrived at Madeira with some Medieval Infantry, meaning the Men-O-War could finally be relieved of their boredom. After they re-bombarded the city's defenses as weak as they could, the 2 units of Medieval Infantry walked out of their boats and finished off what remained of the Swiss Pikemen in the city, taking it for the Netherlands with little effort.
The Navy sailed to the Azores after the battle, surrounding it as they had Madeira, and those ships that still could bombarded it for fun, though they only hit the Galleon in the city.
On the subject of bombardment, the Man-O-War HNMS Invincible, a ship hanging around near mainland Portugal, bombarded an area where Portugal was farming Wheat, out of not having anything else to do. They also noticed that Oporto's borders had somehow overpowered Madrid's, giving Portugal the Horses and Saltpeter sources formerly owned by Spain. Well, actually, they were disconnected, so it didn't help them, but it was kind of sad that Spain had let their culture be dominated to that extent by Portugal.
In the Caribbean, the Privateer PS Inebriated, a ship under subject of much debate over whether or not the name was ironic or representative of the crew's state of drunkenness or merely an amusing name, was completely unconcerned with that debate, as it was busy looking for ships to sink. It finally found one near Cuba, if an Iroquois Curragh is big enough to count as a "ship" and not a "floating piece of wood." The crew ultimately decided "close enough" and sank it.
A nearby Elizabethan Sea Dog, the Scourge, thought about the same thing about the Inebriated, and also ultimately decided to attack. Unfortunately for the Scourge, the Inebriated was much stronger than a Curragh, and ultimately the Dutch Privateer defeated the crew of the Sea Dog and captured it. The Dutch Privateer fleet now contains 2 ships.
In 1591, the remaining Medieval Infantry and Cannons decided to continue their advance towards Sao Tome, Knights be damned, but found themselves blocked by Portuguese Longbowmen. Well, that was no problem: After all, they had cannons, which are very good at shooting Longbowmen, and Medieval Infantry, which are very good at killing the Longbowmen that manage to stay in one neat, Longbowman piece after being shot at by cannons.
The Workers in South America that had long been working to clear a jungle in empty space to allow the region to be settled finally finished their job that year, and the city of Stellenbosch was immediately constructed in the newly-vacated space.
The Medieval Infantry that had taken Madeira were also ready to attack the Azores that year, but found that it would be tougher because, despite the defenders being Pikemen rather than Swiss Pikemen (which made little difference, as they were equally skilled on defense), the Men-O-War couldn't hit as many things with the Galleon in the Azores' Harbor taking some of the shots. Because of this, when the 2 units of Medieval Infantry attacked the 2 units of Pikemen, the results were less satisfactory: One unit of dead Portuguese Pikemen, but also one unit of dead Dutch Infantry. They would have to try again in 1592.
In the rest of 1591, they watched while the rest of the world fought Portugal. The HNMS Invincible, still hanging around near Portugal, saw a bunch of English and French ships attempt to bombard Oporto back into the Stone Age, and also saw Portugal's weak counter-attack of sending Longbowmen to deal with a unit of French Longbowmen crossing through the Pyrenees- which failed, which was surprising, considering how much better Longbowmen are at attacking than defending.
The Dutch also noticed that the Inca had captured the South American city of Olinda. You couldn't really say they watched it, as there weren't any Dutchmen anywhere near Portugal's remaining South American colonies.
The Dutch tried to get the Azores again in 1592. This time, although the Men-O-War missed a few times, the fact that there was only one unit of Pikemen defending the city made it easy to weaken it enough for the Medieval Infantry to kill them and take the city, although the Pikemen still tried to put up a bit of a fight.
With the Azores and Madeira now firmly in Dutch hands, they decided to humor the Portuguese and see what they'd be willing to offer in return for not killing them. The offer the Portuguese gave was rather substantial: It seemed that after such a long period of losing, they were desperate not to lose more. They'd give 3 of their remaining colonies and the technology of Counter-Reformation. The Dutch considered this reasonably fair, but thought they could get more, and also wanted to be sure that the Portuguese colonies would be completely gone, rather than just hoping the Inca would do the rest of the work for them.
So they remained at war, and decided to wait, heal their units a bit, and then head for the Portuguese mainland. A few Knights and Infantry were already there, hanging around on the coast and waiting for an opportunity to attack Oporto. The sizable Dutch gold reserves would also be used to accelerate the training of additional units in Africa so that they could more easily reach the remaining Portuguese cities in the inland parts of Central Africa.
That October, the Elizabethan Sea Dogs Hangman and Albatross encountered a Portuguese Galleon near the Canary Islands and thought they had some easy prey- but the Galleon was tougher than they thought, and though the English ultimately won, the Galleon took the Hangman down with it. The Albatross then noticed the Dutch Privateer Scourge nearby, and, perhaps angry over either losing the Hangman or over the fact that the Scourge was formerly a Sea Dog, attacked. Somewhat amusingly, it was defeated by a Sea Dog turned Privateer, and the Albatross also became a Sea Dog turned Privateer.
Luckily, the English had more luck on land. A bit after this, they bombarded Lisbon with their ships, which didn't help much, considering how strongly Lisbon was defended, but the English Knights on the shore didn't care much and killed one of the city's garrisons of Swiss Pikemen anyway.
Portugal's only reaction to all this was to shake their fists in vain defiance, and shoot a cannon at the Dutch ships near Lisbon, which, despite hitting, wasn't going to be very effective unless they actually had their own ships to fight with.
The Dutch continued their offensive in the spring of 1593. The first things that came to their attention were fairly minor- the forces near Sao Tome once again had to focus on killing a unit of Longbowmen rather than be able to attack the city, not that they were really strong enough to take it at this point anyway. They were also briefly distracted by Pirate ships, with mixed results. The newly-captured PS Albatross proved a nice addition when it sank another Portuguese Galleon off the African coast, while the PS Inebriated, encouraged by the earlier results against Elizabethan Sea Dogs, decided to attack one, the PS Lightning, with much worse results than the ones that had happened the previous few years: The Inebriated sank, though at least it wasn't captured.
But then the Dutch focused all of their attention on one thing: taking Oporto. They had at their disposal 10 Men-O-War, who happily bombarded the defenses of the city as much as they could. They also had some Knights on the coast ready to attack, and some Medieval Infantry in boats also ready to attack. The Knights attacked first, killing the two units of Swiss Pikemen in Oporto with no significant casualties. Only one unit of non-Swiss Pikemen remained, an easy battle for the Medieval Infantry. And yet, the Pikemen still managed to kill the first unit of Infantry that attacked them, and even made them drop the Treasure they were carrying into the Ocean. Perhaps attacking in such a situation was foolish, but regardless, the other unit of Medieval Infantry would, and did, make them pay when they killed the Pikemen, and the city fell to the Dutch.
The Dutch considered keeping it, but ultimately decided that its position made it both indefensible, strategically unhelpful, and gave it a very high chance of revolt to either Spain or Portugal.
So they decided it was easier to just not have to deal with any of that, and they burned Oporto to the ground. At least they got slaves, and perhaps the Spanish were happy that they got their resources back.
It was then that the Dutch realized how much easier this was than they expected, and that yes, they could totally take Lisbon, and after brief debate, decided to do exactly that.
With Oporto taken, the French and English ships in the area redirected their efforts just at Lisbon, which seemed to be a pretty easy take for the Dutch at this point. And, if they could get it, it would be highly valuable, for the wonders in the city: Their ships would get faster, their Cathedrals more efficient at keeping the people happy, and they'd get free colonists.
The Dutch only hoped they could keep the people happy in the meantime, as they were growing increasingly weary of the long war against Portugal.
Over in Mesoamerica, the Mayans finished work on the Temple of Kukulcan, the last remaining unbuilt Mesoamerican wonder that all the Mesoamericans had been working on for a while.
In 1594, the Dutch had sizable forces outside of both Sao Tome and Lisbon. They decided to do Sao Tome first. The Cannons hit Sao Tome, weakening it enough for the unit of Knights outside the city to kill one of the city's 2 defending Pikemen units. The other Dutch military unit near Sao Tome, one of Medieval Infantry also could have attacked, but knew there was still a unit of Longbowmen in the city, and realized that attacking and losing would have left the cannons very vulnerable. So they decided to fortify and hope the Longbowmen couldn't kill them.
They had much more outside of Lisbon, but the preliminary bombardment by 10 Men-O-War revealed it was much stronger than they could handle now. They decided to wait for reinforcements to arrive next year, when they would have 4 units of Knights, 6 units of Medieval Infantry, and a Cannon, in addition to the Men-O-War they already had.
Sadly, the Medieval Infantry near Sao Tome were right about the Longbowmen being strong enough to kill them, as the Longbowmen did exactly that as soon as they got the chance. Luckily, the heavily injured Knights were still just enough to keep the cannons safe. They would have to retreat next year and wait for their forces to regain strength before they could attack Sao Tome again.
The every-once-in-a-while-whenever-the-scientists-discover-something technological discovery meeting happened in January 1595, the same month the every-once-in-a-while-whenever-the-scientists-discover-something technological discovery meeting always happened. This year, they announced that they had developed some interesting economic ideas about colonies and trade called "Mercantilism," which prompted many to wonder why the scientists always took decades to come up with ideas like this. What were they spending all of that research money on, anyway?
At first, William wondered about any potential applications for new economic ideas when trading with the residents of the Americas, and during discussions with his Foreign Advisor, came to the realization that was completely silly. He did, however, notice that all of said American civilizations had decided to convert to both Catholicism and Monarchic governments, abandoning their old strange Blood Cults. Good for them! He also noticed that France was, strangely, going backwards, and had decided to go into Despotism, for no particular reason.
The bad news of 1595 was that the Sao Tome forces had to retreat, but at least they got away. The good news was: The Dutch were now fully ready to attack Lisbon. The city, being the Portuguese capital and by far their most valuable city, was very well defended, but they had lots of artillery, and probably had a numbers advantage. They were sure it would be enough.
It turned out the Ships and the Cannon still couldn't hit the broadside of a large city, though, and didn't do enough damage to the defending Swiss and non-Swiss Pikemen to help the Dutch much. Still, it was a little bit, and the Knights decided now would be a good time to charge. They charged... and one by one, fell at the hands of the strong Swiss Pikemen. Two units of the Knights died, and one barely escaped with their lives. The 4th unit decided it would be a good idea to let the Medieval Infantry handle this, but the results were no better- 3 units of Medieval Infantry were killed at the hands of the non-Swiss Pikemen, and only one managed to kill one of the Normal Pikemen units in the city. The remainder of the invasion force decided it would be easier to just hold off on attacking, heal in Spain, and wait for reinforcements to arrive- but pillage the hell out of the surrounding farmland and attempt to starve Lisbon for a while.
To the north, near the Bay of Biscay, the Galleon HNMS Amsterdam was sailing home, having dropped off several of the now-mostly-dead invasion force in Portugal, when it encountered some trouble with a Privateer that attacked it. Luckily, they were victorious, albeit a bit annoyed at the obviously French pirates.
The English managed to do slightly better with an attack on Lisbon of their own later in the year, with a unit of English Knights killing one of the units of Swiss Pikemen defending Lisbon. But the Knights were the entirety of England's attack force, so they didn't really do much good.
A few weeks later, the Portuguese counter-attacked with Longbowmen, forcing the Knights to retreat.
The Dutch decided to thank the English for helping out by killing these Longbowmen with one of their Medieval Infantry units at the start of 1596.
They also decided to start having their Men-O-War bombard the countryside to aid in the starvation of Lisbon, starting with one of the few Irrigated areas. This didn't work out nearly as well as intended, as it turned out the Men-O-War, quite literally, couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. 9 of them failed to destroy anything meaningful before the HNMS William finally managed to actually hit the broadside of a barn and destroy the irrigated area. William has decided that the ship named after him is awesome, and also informed the Navy Commanders that a 1/10 success rate was well into the zone of "FAIL."
The African forces were also starting to get some more reinforcements from the rushing in the cities they had there, but it was still only enough to send some Knights to kill one of the extremely numerous Longbowmen units the Portuguese kept sending at them. They would have to wait another year or two to get enough forces to Sao Tome to take it.
Portugal was still incapable of doing anything significant, so they settled for insignificant, by having their cannon shoot at one of the units of Medieval Infantry, and signing peace with the Mayans, a civilization they had no hope of ever actually fighting.
Despite Portugal's insignificance, the Dutch still weren't capable of posing much of a threat to Lisbon in 1597- all of their units were too damaged or not numerous enough to attack the city. They could, however, continue sieging the city and pillaging the surrounding countryside. The only bit that eluded them was the hill that contained the Iron mines, and they could deal with that the following year.
They also couldn't attack Sao Tome- but unlike Lisbon, they actually had a sizable force of Cannons, Knights, and Medieval Infantry outside of the city ready to attack in 1598.
And, despite their setbacks, everything went according to plan in 1598. The Iron mine near Lisbon was destroyed, but more importantly, the Battle of Sao Tome was a resounding success. The Cannons greatly weakened the defenders, and only a few of the Knights and Infantry were needed to kill the city's two Pikemen units and capture it.
With the entire area surrounding Lisbon totally pillaged, the Siege of Lisbon was as complete as it could ever be. The Dutch Army occupied a few of the areas around it, and the Men-O-War blockaded most of the surrounding coast, only leaving a few bits so that the English could sail through and continue hitting the city themselves. They hoped the city's excess food would run out soon so it would begin starving; they were getting tired of this. They also were getting dismayed that their occasional bombardments showed that there were still a lot of Swiss Pikemen left defending the city.
Luckily, the city did finally start decreasing in size at the end of 1598, which meant that as long as they could continue the siege, the city would continue to slowly shrink in size each year. The smaller they could get it, the better.
Also good: The Inca captured another Portuguese city, Santos, that year, leaving Portugal with just 5 cities- Lisbon, Ceuta, two in Africa, and one more in South America. Portugal was now willing to give the Dutch everything they had but Lisbon and Ceuta for peace, but the Dutch were not going to accept that. They hadn't tried this hard to get Lisbon to be turned back now. They did, however, decide to not bother attacking the rest of Portuguese Africa in 1599, if they could just get that in a peace treaty anyway. The forces they had in Africa would be better put to work either bringing treasures to Amsterdam or attacking Lisbon.
However, it looked like Portugal really wanted peace treaties, and if they couldn't get the Dutch off their backs, they would sign peace with a country more willing to sign peace: Specifically, the French, who didn't even want any of Portugal's stinking colonies.
William's response to this was along the lines of, "Fine. sign peace. We don't even need you cheese-eating surrender monkeys anyway! Your mother is a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"
On the bright side, the Dutch managed to get some more units to Lisbon in 1600- including some more cannons, meaning it would be slightly easier to whittle away at Lisbon's defenses, if nothing else. At the very least, they didn't have to worry about ships- it seemed that they lacked the resources to build anything but Galleons, and only built a few of those. Another one of them was sunk by the Privateer PS Scourge near the Canary Islands in 1600.
And on the brighter side, a much larger Dutch force arrived at Lisbon in 1601- and the forces already there had finished healing, giving them 11 Men-O-War, 3 units of Knights, 5 units of Medieval Infantry, and 4 Cannons outside the city, that would be capable of hitting it the following year.
The English decided they didn't want to get left out of the fun, so they sent their own force to Lisbon: consisting of one unit of Longbowman.
In other news of things that won't probably do anything useful, Portugal convinced Spain to declare war on the Aztecs.
The Dutch prepared to attack Lisbon in 1602, but briefly found themselves more concerned with economic issues than military ones: Someone had stopped giving them a bunch of money for something, which left their economy well in the red. They would need to get some more money. Luckily, both England and France had tons of money, as well as some technology for trading. Sensing a great opportunity, the Dutch decided to trade their economic Mercantilism ideas for the French technology of Counter-Reformation, so that they could more easily acquire the new English methods for discovering science.
It was then that they discovered, to their annoyance, that England was too Protestant or something to want Counter-Reformation. Literally, they couldn't trade it to England at all. The Dutch found this weird; though their government was Catholic, they had plenty of Protestants, and none of them had much of a problem with Counter-Reformation. Oh well, if they couldn't get Scientific Method, they could at least get a bunch of money from England to replace their lost income.
With that taken care of, they began their bombardment of Lisbon. Now having lots of stuff that could do that, they actually managed to do a substantial amount of damage to the city's defenses- more than enough that they considered attacking now to be a good idea. A couple of units of Knights attacked first, with a bit more success than they'd had last time- one had to retreat, but one killed one of the units of normal Pikemen in the city. A 3 Medieval Infantry unit then went up against 3 units of Swiss Pikemen, with the result of a dead unit of Medieval Infantry, but 2 dead units of Swiss Pikemen. Encouraged, the third and final unit of Knights attacked... but had to retreat. The Dutch still had two units of Medieval Infantry capable of attacking, but realized that despite the fact that they had greatly weakened Lisbon's defenses and killed 3 of its units, they still weren't enough to take it- not yet. They'd let the English Longbowmen have a try at it.
The English bombarded the city in October, 1602, and thanks to the fact that the city was already weak from the Dutch attacks, the English Longbowmen were easily able to kill another unit of Swiss Pikemen- and better yet, they killed the lone "Elite" unit, which had previously been annoying by healing stronger and being defended by the weaker Veteran units after it was weakened during bombardment. No matter; Lisbon was now lacking one unit of Pikemen and 3 of Swiss Pikemen. Only a few more to go.
In other news, the Inca finally took Portugal's last South American city.
The Dutch opted not to attack again in 1603, as waiting another year would let them attack with some additional full-strength Knights that had come out of Africa, and starve the city down from "City" to "Town," making it much less easy to defend. They only had one full-strength unit that year, anyway. They did, however, keep bombarding the city so that the English could attempt to weaken the defenses a bit more- the key word here being "attempt," because, despite the combined Dutch and English bombardment greatly weakening all of Lisbon's defensive units, it still wasn't enough to prevent them from killing the English Longbowmen unit when they attacked. It looked like the Dutch were on their own.
Spain, despite the great amount of weakening they'd suffered in war a few decades ago, was evidently not so poor that they couldn't convince the Mayans to join them in their war against the Inca. What effect this would have, if any, remains to be seen.
Certainly, the Inca would get a great benefit in the war from their technology advantage over the Mayans, however slight. In 1604, they had finally reached the end of the technology level the Europeans had called the Middle Ages- where they were once well behind the Europeans, they were now only about 110 years behind them. The Aztecs and Iroquois lingered a bit behind the Inca in tech, and the Mayans a bit behind them.
The Dutch were certainly pleased that they were correct in their assessment of Lisbon's size: It had finally starved down to size "6," weakening the city's defenses... or at least, it would have weakened the city's defenses, if the shrinking of the city hadn't put it entirely behind the old walls. No matter- it was a trivial task for the Cannons to destroy those walls, costing the city a big defensive bonus that had made the Dutch military's lives hell for a decade. The rest of the Cannons and Men-O-War added on some more bombardment to weaken the remaining defenders- 3 units of normal Pikemen, and 3 units of Swiss Pikemen. The situation wasn't perfect, but they couldn't hope for a better one. The 4 fresh units of African Knights charged. One of them suffered heavy losses and had to retreat, but other than that, it was a bunch of huge victories- 2 units of Pikemen and 1 of Swiss Pikemen fell at the hands of the Dutch Knights. The 2 full-strength units of Medieval Infantry near Lisbon attacked next, and continued the successful run, killing the final unit of Pikemen and one of the remaining Swiss Pikemen units. Only a lone unit of Swiss Pikemen remained, the only thing that stood between the Dutch army and controlling Lisbon- and it was only at half-strength from the bombardment. Problem: The Dutch were out of full-strength units to attack with. They did, however, have a few units that were injured from the earlier battles that could attack. They could wait, and give the Portuguese time to build up their defenses more- or attack, and risk more casualties.
They decided to attack, and it paid off hugely; despite being at half-strength, the Knights were more than enough to finish off the lone remaining defenders. Lisbon was captured, and with it, some Colonists, a cannon, and most importantly: The two great wonders, Dias' Voyage and the Sistine Chapel.
Prince Henry and the Portuguese government were caught on their way out of the city. But luckily for them, the Dutch had no real reason to continue fighting them, and no real reason to destroy them, either- so they gave them a deal: Surrender, and be left with Ceuta, but give everything else they owned to the Dutch. Or they could be destroyed.
Obviously, the Portuguese preferred surrender to destruction, so they begrudgingly accepted these terms.
With the war done, the Dutch began to celebrate. No longer would they have to die to fight this war, and the wonders they had taken had given them great benefits. The military, no longer having to fight, immediately departed for the Caribbean to bring some of the treasures that had long been lingering there home to Amsterdam. It would bring great wealth and glory to the Netherlands, and to William.
For the first time in a while, it seemed as though things were going completely fine for them.
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So, in all likelyhood, the next update will be my last for Part Six. I have 19000 VP's out of the required 35000, and the treasures are worth 1000 each. I think I have around 20. I should be able to win this in 10 turns or less.
It probably won't be terribly climactic either- the last few chapters dealing with the Portuguese war are much more the climax. This is the boring end thing, like the last bits of Part One and Part Five. On the other hand, it's Chapter 50, for all that's worth.
So, yeah. Hopefully I can get this one done fairly soon.
It probably won't be terribly climactic either- the last few chapters dealing with the Portuguese war are much more the climax. This is the boring end thing, like the last bits of Part One and Part Five. On the other hand, it's Chapter 50, for all that's worth.
So, yeah. Hopefully I can get this one done fairly soon.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
I suggest you play as the Miyoshi in the Sengoku conquest.
Also, nice destruction of the Portuguese!
Also, nice destruction of the Portuguese!
~Corsair#01~
Deity
I'm glad you're continuing this. I read the earlier updates over the summer and was hoping you'd carry on. 
Well, I might pause for a bit after I finish this scenario, cause I'm about to start college and will have even less time for this, but I will finish this. Eventually. 
As to the next scenario, I can't actually remember anything about any of the civilizations, but I think they're all basically the same except for where they start.
As to the next scenario, I can't actually remember anything about any of the civilizations, but I think they're all basically the same except for where they start.
mythmonster2
BEC NOIR! RUN!
Grats on basically winning the Conquest, chox! And good luck with college, too! As I recall, we're in the same year, so we're probably in the same boat in regards to that.
Well, if you're an incoming freshman, than yes, you are.
I'm going to assume that the AI is going to say it was all luck when I beat them. For once, I'll have to agree with them; without the SGL that gave me Magellan's Voyage, this would have been a lot harder.
I'm going to assume that the AI is going to say it was all luck when I beat them. For once, I'll have to agree with them; without the SGL that gave me Magellan's Voyage, this would have been a lot harder.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
Chox, you're right, the civs don't have any differences except for starting location. But I suggest the Miyoshi because they're central (therefore challenging because you'll have enemies on two sides), you'll need to attack a neighbour early to have enough land, there are some awesome bottlenecks you can abuse, and they're close to one of the islands, so a naval invasion is highly probable.
Also because I played as the Miyoshi and I'd love to see how a better player's game differs from mine.
Also because I played as the Miyoshi and I'd love to see how a better player's game differs from mine.
clearmurky
Emperor
Have fun at college. I've still got three years until it happens...
Pieman
Prince
Still reading, just so you know that you have a readership of more than two. And good work of course.
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