The Desert Dutch

As I threated in another thread, I here is a AAR of one of my games. One might enjoy it, and one might learn a thing or two. Or mock my incompetece. Either way, here it goes.

My usual settings are huge map (with default amount of civs and CS), marathon speed and Deity difficulty.
Fot this game, I chose the Dutch as my civs, and Terra Incognita as map. Terra Incognita is a custom mapscript, that is like a Terra map (as the name suggests), that might or might not have new world of unspecified form.
The Dutch have the Sea Beggar as UU, which replaces privateer and is good for raiding cities. The UA gives you culture for importing luxuries, and extra gold for exporting them. They also have the polder, which can be build on tiles with fresh water. It has very good yields, and boosts adjactent villages. A very strong improvement, unfortunately it becomes avalaible at guilds, and is the latest of al UIs.
My intention is to grab a small part of land, relying on a huge capitol, finding the new world and settle the heck out of it (if it exists).
Before this game, I startet 3 others, which I abandoned for different reasons.
The first started very good, I was in a very fertile central position, conquered two CS early, got some wonders and a religion. However, I was surrounded with strong religions, and even after I picked Piety, religios pressure from foreign religions was very strong, and the resulting unhappiness from religious diversions accordingly. Even worse, I was at war with Songhai, who were advanced and had more military. That I could handle, but there were a lot of rivers, and I was constantly outmanouvered. Trebuchets that can move, deploy and shoot in one turn are terrific.
Next game was also very strong, but I ragequit when I lost the race to last religion by one turn.
Third game Shaka rushed me hardcore in the ancient age with a nice carpet of warriors and archers. Good job, man.

So, this here game.

My starting area:



Excellent terrain. A lot of food available, and, which is not certain for floodplain starts, a lot of production too. Also, good land for polders, but that won't be of interest untill much later. My first priority here was to get the desert pantheon, so I buildt a shrine after the initial scout. Speaking of the scout, he found this most conveniantly placed natural wonder:



And a little bit later:



Oh, hellow there! I grabbed the worker, which was conveniently close to home. A warrior gave chase, but naturally couldn't catch them. Ramses was good sports about it and peace was restored soon afterwards. I also stubled across a worker from Marokko, but I had a DOF with them, and one worker wasn't worth the backstab flag, so he got to keep it.
I researched minig first, to be able to work the gem tiles, and then pottery for settlers. While building settlers, I set the capitol to work all high hammer tiles, because food is irrelevant during settler construction.



I picked Tradition this time, partly because the capital can become a monster, and partly because I went Progress the last few games and wanted a change. As you can see in the next screenshot, the faith from court chapel and shrine is already enough to give me my Pantheon, and luckily Spirit of The Desert was still available. My first Expansion also has three desert resources, which is why I went there first (it's a decent spot anyway). You can also see my warrior waiting to swoop in and clear the barb camp after the celtic archer did all the work. Unfortunately, in the fog there was a Morokkan warrior with the same agenda.



Meanwhile, my scount continued exploring, and found that not all civs are on this continent. I would like to meet them sooner rather than later for luxuries exchanges (more on that later), but nothing can be done about that. An btw., Teodora, what are you doing? I have no words.



Meanwhile, Morokko has expanded into my desert. I want to have that spot, and means war in the future. However, our DOF will last for a while. So I use that time to train my military on a nearby city state. I declared war and immedeatly grabbed worker. My warrior just barely survived the retaliation.



The rest of the war was my archer shooting away at the warriors and then on the city itself. I could have taken it, but figured that it was too poor. I could probably build a few polders around the oasis, but until then it's more of dead weight. So I made peace and looked for better opportunities. There were two CS to the east, that looked more promising. Both had one luxury each, and a lot of floodplanes. I conquered both, and by the end of the campaign I had two archers with range and logistics, one with range, and a general. And two cities of course. Since I was far away from courthouses, I puppeted them for now.
Domestically, I buildt Stonehenge in my cap, because it literally had nothing better to build (settling area was already taken, as the map is quite crowded, and my teching was lacking).
As for techs, went for trade to build Petra, because if I have ever seen a Petra city, its this. Once I had it, I noted that I was lacking two policies. I immedeately set a culture specialist to work (should have done that earlier). Once I had the required policies, I invested into the wonder (Petra will return this soon enough), set the cap to full production and crossed my fingers. Fortunately enough, I got it!
Between Stonehenge and Spirit of The Desert I got the first religion. I will go very specialist-heavy, so I picked the founder believe that gives yields for spent specialist and Mastery, which gives +2 to all specialist yields.
Diplomatically, things were also moving ahead. I made this trade:



I am not gonna lie, it's not a good trade, but I took it nevertheless. I have more than one gems, so that won't hurt. Silver I have one, so I will break even on happiness. which means as it is, I gain nothing from this trade. However, here comes the UA into play. I gain culture from the import, and money from the export. As dutch, I will always trade away any luxury (even if I have only one copy) for another, because of this. I would rather trade 1 for 1, but couldn't get a better deal for now.
Also, just as I finnished the campaign against the CS, Bouadica declared war. Bad timing of her part, since my returning elite archers shot her invading army down easily. After losing her invasion army, she offered this:



I was considering moving in on her cap, but I took it. I was not interested in the city, but I remembered that there was at least one CS quest for it, so I took it. I have no way to defend it when hostilities resume (and they will), but until then it weakens her and can contribute.

At this point I stopped the first session. The next update will start with an overview of my empire, and my short and longterm goals.

Thanks Der Zorn! I'm actually playing a Dutch game myself as well, but going about it a little differently. I went Progress and am playing peacefully for now in order to make trading of luxuries as easy as possible. I'm planning to conquer coastal cities of my enemies once Sea Beggers arrive and then hit a Diplomatic victory in the late game.

One note- when building a settler, I *think* city food yields are automatically turned into production (since the game knows you can't grow pop during settler construction) so I don't think you have to switch your tiles to production ones necessarily. Someone correct me if this is not true, though!

Anyway, looking forward to part 2!

Edit: wanted to add that I also had to restart numerous times until I finally got into a game I feel comfortable with. A couple games had me alone on a continent which I don't like, mostly because it's boring. In some other games I neglected my military too much and got invaded beyond recovery. Another few didn't offer any decent coastal city locations for my 2nd or 3rd city so using the Sea Begger UU would have been very difficult. And in still others I found that I couldn't make friends with other civs in order to trade luxes, so wanted to start over and properly utilize the Dutch's traits. I usually don't have to restart so often but it seems more difficult to properly use the Dutch UA and I wanted to get it right.

no map of the latest empire state ?


@ crdvis16 : I think this was true in Civ4 but isn't in Civ5.

Food is converted to hammers when building settlers, but it can be more efficient to have more hammers (or food) instead if it has a larger modifier.

Yes, food is transformed into hammers if you build a settler, but at a rate of 25%. Therefore you should emphazise hammers.

State of The Nation

Now that there is peace, it is a good time to look at my empire in more detail.
Here is the eastern part, my core:


(sorry for the silly mouseover)

The desert is mine, but Rabat is annoying. It is also in a spot I don't like, wasting much space (and resources) between it and Bratislava. My cities are connected, and tile improvements are being created. So far so good.

The western part, the recent conquests:



All cities puppeted, not connected an unimproved. Lots of work to do.

The cities in detail:

Amsterdam:



My powerhouse. Lots of food, production, and I will be able to run a lot of specialist in the future. The marble is still unimproved, but an urgent goal.

Rotterdam:



Food only. Will be a specialis city, and definitely will house guilds. At the moment, it works several desert resources, for a decent faith income.

Utrecht:



Currently very similar Rotterdam, but with the prospect of some decent hammers when the borders expand. Also likely a guild city.

Now the conquests:

Monaco and Vancouver:




Both seriously underdeveloped. They will get worker attention soon, but since they are puppets I can't do much more about them. They will get annexed at a later time, because they will have to become my port cities.

And finally Dubly, my war trophy:



Also very underdevelloped, disconnected and puppeted. But unlike the other two cities, I wont send workers up there. Too dangenrous. Dublin is on it's own.

Demographics:



It's mostly all right, but my science is terrible. I have currently 9 techs, the tech leader on my continent has 15. That like, quite bad. However, as soon as libraries are buildt, I can hire a bunch of scientists and that will take care of that (I hope).

So now my goals are:

Short term:
Get science up, connect and improve eastern cities.

Medium term:
Raze and replace Fez, spread my religion.

Long term:
Spam polders and scientists.
(win the game)

Please could you put the pictures inside spoiler tags?
Otherwise looking forward to more

Nice, looking forward to this!

The Next War

As if he has read my mind, Ahmad declared war on me just a few turns later. On the one side, that's all right, because I want this war anyway, but I would have liked to postpone it a little. Still, this decision was taken from me, and I will have to make the best of it. Here is what he brings:



That overlay though...

Fortunately, the city is garrisoned with a logistics archer with march. This means he can attack twice each turn and still heal. Usually, you have to stop fighting with your garrisons after a few turns to stop them from dying, which would weaken the city greatly.
I immedeately move my other archer over, which is kind of all the military I have. I could rushbuy some units, but I lack the tech to build melee units other than warriors . Some more archers won't help much, so my few elites will have to do all the work. Three men against deity, sure.



A couple of his units have fallen from focus fire, but he brought a catapult. That is bad, because it can do a lot of damage to the city (and the garrison). Killing it is a prioroty. Also note that there is a (damaged) horseman in the city, which is in striking range of my archers. Here's hoping he won't attack for while.



I got rid of the catapult, but the horseman is healing. Also note the archer on the hill northwest of Groningen. Because he is on a hill, he can shoot at the city, but because there is a forest on the tile between, the archer in the city can't fire back. As long as cities don't have indirect fire, such tiles are very valuable for an attacker.



The horseman went after the city and was killed. Here I moved a archer back to get a shot at the obnoxious archer on the hill. The rest of Ahmeds assault has faltered, and I am only 2 turns from a decent melee unit (spearmen, wohoo!).



Having defeated the field army, I immedeately went after the city. Here you can see the siege. Archers don't so much, but it's 6 shots each turn and no retaliation. I also bought a couple of spears.



No deal, Rabat must burn.



A rather ill advised sortie with a catapult. I did not kill it this turn, accepting some damage next turn from it, because I would rather shoot at the unguarded cities to speed the capture up. Attacks against a city without garrison deal much more damage because it has both less combat strength and no unit can soak up damage.



Almost there. All my spearmen are heavily damaged, but I can take the city this turn (and burninate it). Let's celebrate victory!



Oh Boudica, really? I started to move two elite archers back to deal with this crisis, while one stayed in the area to guard against Ahmed (after losing a city and another civ joing the war on his side, he was no longer willing to negotiate). The units you see in the picture are emergency rushbuys.



Looks like the city will hold. A settler is already en route to settle the conquered area.



Ahmad is still fighting, but about to lose a general.



Still a dangerous area for a settler, so I retreated him into the city.



Here I placed an archer with range on a hill, from where he can reach the pictic warrior that has been camping on my silver tile for several turns. Just before I killed it, Boudica offered white peace, which I snap accepted. I have no agenda up there at the moment. I may want to get rid of this border eventually, but I will not walk with plain archers into the celtic forests.



What is that? I mean, I'll take it (literally), but come on...



That is nice offer, but maybe I can get slightly better terms if I negotiate with Ahmed directly?



Your terms are... acceptable. I really wanted Fez from the beginning, and I was hoping to get it from peace terms. Slogging my army through the rugged terrain down there - no I like it better this way. So all in all the war was a complete success, I reached all my goals and didn't even start it.



Here is said Fez. It will be a great port city on the long run. Having multiple resources in it's area will also make it a good trading port.

That's all for today. Fo my next update, I will see if I can find a way to size the pictures down a bit as batch, so they don't break the screen.

Thoroughly enjoying this-

I didn't know the exact conversion of food=production when building a settler- good to know!

I play on standard size/speed at Immortal so it is a bit jarring seeing how different your gold/science/culture/etc are compared to the turn # and the era. Turn 300 and still using Spearmen?! Marathon games really are a marathon!

After peace, I turned my attention to domestic issues.
I got a great prophet, which I used to enhance. For the second follower believe, I wanted a building. Churches, Mandirs and Pagodas were left. Usually I would have picked Churches here, but in this game I plan to replace most of my farms with polders, so they are not as desirable. Mandirs on the other hand - +5% groth will be huge. Mandirs it was. I picked Pacifism as enhancer believe, because happiness is always good.
And nearly at the same time I also got a great engineer. I planted him near Amsterdam, which was a mistake. Not that I planted him, that was the right call. I won't be competing for wonders for quite some time, and it is awkward to have him uselessly idle around for the next eras. But selecting Amsterdam was bad. I was just thinking "All hail the tradition capitol!", but Amsterdam was fine. It has a lot of hammers already. Rotterdam on the other side is really longing for any hammer it can get. Bad decision here. My first great scientis spawned around this time, and I made an academy near Utrecht.

I thought I would enjoy a period of peace, but Ramesses of all the people declared war on me. That's right, the same Ramesses who would have given me a fortune if I make peace just a few turns earlier. He brought a few spears and war chariots, but no big deal. To quote Wellington: "They came in the same old way and we killed them in the same old way".
That was until:



Oh. Swords. Looks like my archers are reaching the end of their shelf life quickly.
I was researching towards Philosophy for Courthouses, so I can start to annex my conquered cities, but upon seeing swordmen, I imedeately changed research to Engeneering. I need composite bows, fast. Fast means 30 turns here, meh.

And of course the crazy forest wich Boudica smells blood in the water and comes again, but even weaker that the times before. Her few units are easily dispatched. I wonder why she always bloodies her nose at Utrecht, rather than taking back the completely undefended Dublin?



Against Ramesses, I hold my own, but there was a delicate situation where I could have lost one of my elite archers. Fortunately, the units that could kill it were heavily wounded and retreated to heal themselfes, so he survived.



I am quite certain I can hold back both Ramesses and Boudica, but here is something that worries me:



If Ahmad wants Fez back, he will probably get it. I will be able to defend Breda, because it can be easily reinforced and is behind a river, but these swordsmen are still troublesome. Ahmad pretends to be friendly, but there a lot of red diplo modifiers, so he truly hates me. With me being already at war with two other civs, he has every reason to attack. It would also cancel the gpt and luxuries he gives me from the peace treaty. All in all, he should attack.

Here I will be building my last city for while. It won't be great, but it will have two resources on desert and a fish, that's good enough for me. And it will stop the AI from settlling there. And with a bit of luck, another resource might appear in the desert later. Also you can see a Ottoman horseman in the picture. The other continet has made contact with us, that's nice.

Spoiler alert: Ahmed did not attack. In fact, he calmed down and now seems to be truly friendly. That's relief, as it allows me to defend in just two directions. Ramesses is serious about it, but still no big deal. I will retreat back to the city, though.



He bleeds dry around Rotterdam, without doing any damage. However, unhappiness is racking up. The annoying event where you have to select which yields the city loses starts to appear. I always pick food here. Happiness is crazy - it would only lead you deeper into trouble. You cannot chose, because the lack of gold will directly translate into unhappiness from poverty too, so it's even worse. That leaves food or production as real choices. Production is required to get the buildings that get you out of unhappiness again, so only food remains.



At this time I sign my first research agreement with Polynesia. And Boudica finally realises that she won't get anywhere at Utrecht and moves to Dublin. At the bottom of the picture you can see that I am launching my own attack against her. Rather than dragging through the woods at Uttrecht, I move my units around and attack across the open. A bit sloppy play here, because I have no general in the area, although I four by now. Dublin is lost, of course.



As catapults are primary targets, I promote them with cover, so they can withstand fire quite a while. The captured worker near Utrecht is recaptured this turn. Of course it was a trap, not a blunder (ahem).



I keep asking Ramesses for peace, but he wants to keep fighting. Oh well. Against the Celts, we exchanged Truro and Dublin, and I set my sights at Edinburgh. Even if it will be too many cities afterwards, I want the Celts finished, so I concentrate my defenses in the west. Meanwhile, Spain has declared on Ramesses. That's good news, giving him an incetive to finally make peace. And finally:



He lost like 20 units, and the only success was a pillaged farm. Way to go, dude.
In the Celstic war, things are progressing nicely. Buadica sent in her last wave of Picts, still damaged from the attack at Dublin, and they were quickly dispatched. This allows me to advance to Edinburgh. Note the composite bowman in the forest with the generalthat has not acted this turn. He was shot at last turn from city and catapult. I let him heal this turn, so he can draw another turn of counterfire from the city defenders, so that the catapults are left alone.



Nice, but no. Celts have to go.



A swordsman was produced and pushed the catapult out of the city. Fine with me.



Edinburgh finally falls. I lost one spear, but that's fine.



The recapture of Dublin is a formality, but gives me a bunch of workers.



And finally:



I removed Nantes from her offer. With two bad cities she is crippled enough. I have achieved what i wanted: A token force will probably be enough in this area for the rest of the game, allowing me to concentrate my forces in the west.
I really hope that I will have a period of peace now, but I am confident. Ahmed is a nice guy, and Ramesses and I even exchange luxuries.
During the wars I have lost 4 units: A warrior againxt the city states, a scout against Buadicas fist attack, and two spears in the last war against Buadica. Kind of strange that the weakest AI has inflicted the most losses, but the terrain was rough and I was attacking rather than defending. I haven't counted my kills, but I guess between 50 and 100.

Miltary wise, I am doing fine. I won every war so far, and am confident I could defend against everyone who comes now.

Economically, things are much worse. Due to my conquests, I am around -20 happiness. And all around me are competing Religions. Morokko has founded, and spreads like crazy. The celts have founded, and preasure from the north. And Spain has founded, and preasures me through Egypt. Had I forseen this, I would have probably picked Pagodas instead of Mandirs, and let them fight over my lands. As is, I will pick Piety and fight over my cities (but will most likely fail to spread to other civs on my continent).

Short term, I will try to care my happiness problem, but it might take a while. A lot of it comes from religious divisions. Temples and Inquisitors will take care of it, but I want to have the -25% discount policy before I start faithbuying stuff. And I want to buy the faithbuilding of the other faith in each city before I erase the foreign faith. All in all, it will take time.

And I want to make contact with the civs on the other continent, for trades.

I am still quite behind on techs 6 behind Polynesia, but Spies are just around the corner.

All in all the situation is not perfect, but the prospects are decent.

Can't believe you held Groningen without walls! Crazy!
Which is the Celts' Holy City?

I think it's Edinburgh, but I'll check next time.

Meanwhile....

The Dark Age

Conquering the celtic cities left my overexpanded with a huge chunk of unhappiness. I was just above -20, which is where real trouble starts. Still, this became a common sight during the next turns:



Each ctiy must have been hit at least once. A lot of blame for my poor agrar minister.
I had not a lot of maneuvering space, because half my cities were puppets. I had nearly no way to decrease unhappiness, and very few ways to increase happiness. The best I could do was build national wonders, for the +2 from Tradition. Also, my cities bordering Morokko were under such heavy Islamic pressure, that they lost Taoism as main religion. But that was actually good, because now they had none, wich means they would not provide religious diversion unhappiness. Only a temporal solution, but a welcome one. In my interior cities I was watching religious diversions. Once it was more that 3, a Inquisitor would be sent over to set some heads straight.
Using these limited tools I slowly and painfully crawled out of the hole, but it was antagonizing.

Since I was weaker than my neighbours (and even if not, going on a conquering spree was out of the question anyway) I entertained myself by playing pranks on Samarkand. It would be nice to have them as allies, mercantile and all, but they hate me for what I have done to others, and the capital cannot affort to build diplo units anyway. So I engage in some kind of gunboat diplomacy:



This will grab iron, furs, deer and a normal mine. The furs can even be worked.



Spies come in, I they go to the science leaders cities. Time to catch up on science. You can see happiness has improved, but still a long way to go.



And now we know everybody. I used the opportunity to make some 1:1 luxury exchages with the guys over there. The suggested resolutions are fine. Peace accords is good, because I am military weak. CS sanctions I couldn't care less, and science founding will help me. Good congress. The next turns are quite uneventfull.
I start making caravans in Amsterdam and send them to Polynesia, the tech leader, to leach science. Brazil surrenders to Persia, which makes me glad, because Brazil, if left unchecked, is always super powerful in my games. Glad Xerxes took care of that.
Other than that, little of interest until next session:



You can see all resolutions of the first congress have passed, to the dismay of some. However, if Treasure Fleet passes this time, I have to get my conquered cities annexed, so I can set them to work on it.
And really: I got the temple happiness policy, so I finally have some happiness cushion to work with. Still negative, but no longer crippling. And it's been only some 100 turns since my initial screenshot.



I start by annexing Edinburgh, and use the drill I have described before. Build Catholic faith building, send inquisitor, build Taoist faith building, invest in courthouse. Maximise production. I start with the northern cities, so that I get rid of Catholic faith pressure and get ahead in the battle of faiths.
With Truro no longer a puppet, I can finally buy the two luxury tiles and get my second monopoly. Now I have gems and spices. Both give +25% golden age length. A bit disappointing, I would have much more preferred direct yields, but what can you do. At least the Celtic faith is extinguished for good (the two ramaining Celtic cities have converted to Orthodxy). And after having sorted out the north, I am winning the clash of faith in my southern cities too.



Here is how I am doing now. Not very good, but it was worse. At least I make some money. But Persia is monster, I am not sure if I still am glad he conquerd Brazil.



Oh no Boudica, you didn't! That's bad. Egypt has much moreadvanced military than me, so if he comes my comp bows won't much good any more. I only hope he is not interested in coming at me, being only bought into the war. Generally, there is much fighting between the AIs, and maybe he is occupied on hie eastern border.



This turn showed why it is better to be lucky than good: Both my spies stole a tech at the same turn. The first got compass, which opend the option for the other one to grab the 43 turn tech Astronomy. And none got cought.



And you can see that I have guilds by now, which means massive civil construction works erupt everywhere in the Netherlands - every free worker starts to build polders.
And here's some more entertainment on the expense of poor Smarkand: I noted that there is an embassy in working disatance from Groningen, so...
Oh, and you can see a cannon in Theben (revealed by my spy). Please don't come, Ramesses.



Actually Ramesses did offer a white peace soon after that, having not even cared to send a single unit close to my boders. Ha, Boudica, a fine war you brokered. Hope it had cost you.
Meanwhile, I prepare my empire for the treasure fleet competition. I am transfroming puppets into annexed cities as quick as I can, and started a golden age to speed up the process (and the fleet construction).



As expexted, it passes, and here is my bet at it. All cities are set to work on it, except Monaco and Dublin, which are still puppets, Rotterdam which will take one more turn to finish Ironworks first and Fez which takes two more turns for Courthouse. After that, the latter two will also contibute.
Persia will probably win if they go all in, but we'll see.

Regardless how this project turns out, where do I go from here?
First, I will research some military techs. With Egypt having cannons and Tercios, I can not rely on a couple of composite bows.
Next I will buy a few ships, and see if I can find some promising lands to settle. I don't like to have less than 20 cities.
And finally I have to make up my mind on how I want to win this.
Culture is out, I guess. I had a culture victory last game, and would have taken Stupas if I wanted to go that route. Also, with science funding passed, it is not very tempting anyway. With +50% golden age length I won't be using any Great Artist for a pieace of work, and it doesn't look like I will be beating the AIs to Archeology by a lot.
So most likely I will play as if aiming for science, and if I stuble across diplo, it's fine too. Though without Statecraft and being unable to reform that's not looking too likely either.
And then there is Conquest. Depending on how violent it get's, I won't rule this option out yet.

Treasure Fleet ended more or less as expected: Darius won it, and I got my bronze and silver cup.



I cashed my great admiral in for perfume (as silly as that sounds), and this is the best deal I got for it:



Buadica again bribed Ramesses into a war against me. He likes fighting, it seems. He has already swallowed Spain (gaining the holy city of Orthodocy) and at least one City state. And he was fighting Morokko recently, the cities are still damaged:



This time Buadica finds the courage to join the war herself. She sent a few units to Edinburgh, but they were easily dispatched. Then I sent most of my units back to the egyptian frontier, where I expect greater danger. One range/logistic crossbow stayed inthe area to attack back. I lack vision of her city, so I move the pike one tile to see the city, shoot twice with the crossbow and countermarch the pike back into safety. If I hadn't the pike, I could have done this with the general, too. Before long, she offered white peace (because she has nothing to offer). I accepted, since I had no interest in her bad Tundra villages.



This time, Ramesses is serious. But this time, I am too. I think I can hold here. I was hoping he would attack Samarkand, so I could liberate it, but apparently he has already mad peace with Morokko. My happiness on this screen looks troubling, but it is just from the resistance in Monaco and will be fine soon.



Then there is a new congress, and for there first time there is a resolution that I really would mind passing. A wrong world religion means trouble. I hope the other AIs will vote it down, but he has a lot of votes, and the embargo might distract the others.



At the frontier, the fighting intensifies, but that citadel is worth gold.



My crossbows are positioned on hilltops with excellent fields of fire to shoot his incoming units down,l while their lines of sight are blocked by hills.



So the lines of battle are drawn. I am at least holding my own their, and am actually eying with Thebes. Might seem ambitios for one of the weakest powers to think of conquering the capitol of the worlds power leader, but power in civ V is deceptive. Only one dozend units can fight at the same time in one theater, and more units are just standing around anyway. And since my units are much better promoted than his, I actually have the stronger army. I won't be advancing soon, but my next research will be for Musketmen, and once I have these I can start to roll.
You can see that I am not even building much military even though I am at war - I don't expect this to become a war of attrition. Also I have the moneys, I can rushbuy units if I need them.
Attacking Egypt also has the strategic value that I can take out of the main contenders for victory (which I consider currently Polynesia, Perisa, Egypt and maybe Sweden). And since Egypt has captured so many cities, he can't have many friends, which means I won't get much trouble for taking his, peace accords or not. And even more, there are a lot of liberation targets. All things considerd, he is the perfect enemy - altough the war will be long, no doubt about that.



And finally, here is my highlight of the session. 90 turns of capital shut down, and additionally the population of the capital as unhappiness? Might as well just write "50% chance to lose the game". Seriously, that option is ridiculous.

That ended in the most exciting fashion.

Very nice AAR, waiting for next episode.

Shortly later, it looks like this:



Less crowded on the other side, I don't expect serious trouble here. But what's that?



A naval invasion at Edinburgh? Apparently Ramesses has no open borders with the Celts, but that is still troubling. I have just one ship up there to prey upon the embarked units. Still, looks as if it could be handled, as long as they come piecemeal.
In the south I have no complete control of the battlefield. The Great Scientist that appeared last turn bulbed Metallurgy, so Muskets are a-coming. Unfortunately, I don't have the funds to start upgrading imedeately, since I rushed walls in Edinburgh.
Speaking of which...



Ouch. I was one turn short of walls, which would have given the city at least one more turn, which might have been enough. I seriously underestimated the scope of the invasion. It also cost me my horses, which means my mounted units can no longer heal. I have only two of them, so it's not backbreaking, but still.
Ok, it gets worse. I started to pull forces from the south and rushbuy more reinforcments up there, delaying to upgrade my crossbows. I also lose Dublin, but no big deal.



Southern front looks nicer, once my elites became muskets, I could start to advance into Egypt proper. Also Morokko seized the opportunity and declares on egypt. That also gives the egyptian troops in the north another target, Essaoira.



With reinforcments, I turned the tide in the north. Edinburgh was recaptured (and somehow became Catholic again in the process), and Dublin quickly too. Unfortunately, Egypt was not able to capture Essaoira, despite coming close. I would have loved to raze that city, it would have even left a manufactory in working distance behind. Too bad, should have been slower up there. Edinburgh is thrown back significantly, but for Dublin at least I got the investment in a courthouse for free (since I annexed instead of puppeting this time around). I wonder if I can somehow lure these two workers out of the water (smart move btw.).



In the south, the siege of Thebes began, now that the Egyptian field army is beaten.



And here I am about to conquer it. the turn before I lost the third unit of the war (the others being the garrisons of Edinburgh and Dublin). I could conquer Thebes that turn with a Tercio, but an Egyptian Tercio could have takeen it back. Tactically sound, as I would exchange my badly wounded unit for his fully healed, and gaining control of the area for even a half turn has merits. But it would also mean that Thebes switches hands two more times, and I would rather have it as a more valuable city. this turn however, I can kill the last melee unit and shoot Thebes down to 1HP.



Around this time, I also got a Great Prophet. Quite annoying, I should have gotten some inquisitors in advance, there will be work in Egypt. Anyway, I get to claim my price:



Nice. There are a lot of enemies still in the vicinity, but as I mentioned all of them are ranged. The capturing unit might die, but I am in no danger of losing the city. Otherwise, I would have removed the respective melee unit first.

Here I decided to stop for today, since there were a few sloppy mistakes this set (not reacting properly to the naval invasion, blundering the opportunity to get rid of Essaoria and getting a Great Prophet, and where the heck is the road towards Thebes!?) so i should better continue when I am more concentrated. Probably no update tomorrow, but more on Tuesday.

A really enjoyable play-through, and very good narrative!

Is Terra Incognita map in CPP by default, or you downloaded it individually?

That map looks a lot like Tamriel from Elder Scrolls

Enjoyable to read indeed, good luck in your war with Egypt.

Btw, that -39 happiness in Thebes is scary. Even with courthouses built in time, you may need to befriend Samarkand soon.