Welcome back, civvers!
Last time, the pseudo World War I heated up again (despite Germany collapsing), the barbarians continue to make their presence known in Africa by capturing Berenice (Benghazi), the Russians capture Berlin from the Dutch (and they're not at war?

), and the Turks, so dominant until now, lost their capital of Istanbul, either to instability

eek

or due to the independents capturing it

lol

. And now onto today's episode!
We start on turn 315, as turn 314 was so boring, nothing happened. I finally research Biology, and move onto medicine (take that, plague!). I also finally make peace with the Mongols (all good things must come to an end, right?) and manage to swipe a world map and over 100 gold from them. I'd have a pic of the negotiations, but I clicked OK before I could remember.
Onto the rest of the world, my world-travelling Galleon, which is currently exploring the waters north of Scandinavia, has just come across some "local lifeforms":
Next up, the Dutch take back Berlin from their "allies", the Russians:

What the heck is going on over here? Why are Russia and the Netherlands trading back and forth a rioting Berlin? I checked the foreign relations screen, and the mystery just grows deeper. The Dutch and Russians are friendly, are not at war, but they are also not allied with each other, as they each have a different enemy (Spain for Russia, Turkey and Arabia for the Dutch). Looking at the situation in central Europe, the only soldiers in the area are Dutch, Russian

confused

, as well as a single unit from France (who is unaligned). I wish I was playing as the Netherlands right now, so I'd have some semblance of an idea what is going on here. European politics is confusing!
Turn 316: Look who's back!

I figured something like this would happen soon, given what has been going on in the Ottoman Empire recently. Welcome back, Pericles!
Meanwhile, the Ottomans, plenty pissed off at losing all of their European territory to upstart Greece (the Ottomans seem to be drawing a lot of parallels to real-life Achaemenid Persia at the moment), they take out their anger on barbarian Berenice:
I was wondering how long it would take for them to do that.
Turn 317 (1778): The Americans finally make peace with the British. Their people promptly spend the entire IBT cheering, something about their "Independence Day" (check the year).
Great, the Turks get
another city

:
Former Parsa (the one with the weird, but awesome name) flipped to the Ottomans, if you couldn't piece it together.
Turn 318: Things remain tense on my border with Mongolia. Even though we are at peace now, it is clear that they haven't given up on my part of China. They have nine units in Beijing alone (I have eight in Qingdao), and they seem to be adding more units there every turn. Who wants to bet that they will declare war again before 1850 (when I win via Historical Victory, assuming I don't lose a city before then)?
And with that, I will call this an update. Next time, we'll see if the returning nation of Greece can remain in this world (especially when they are right next to the most powerful nation on the planet), we will see if the Americans can rebound from their rather lackluster start, and we will see if the uneasy peace between Japan and Mongolia can last. Until next time, stay tuned!