 You can always tell when a bad situation occurred by the number of Citadels that are proximal to one another So basically in the course of this fighting my plan worked out he had Some generals in So he made a fortress next to mine Taking mine, and then I made a fortress or a Citadel behind both of them getting the both back and maintaining my control of this arc Meanwhile, I am on my way to building Trebuchets and Eventually long swordsmen, and I do have a pretty Powerful army again that I've slowly built up in my back lines Actually, this guy's almost healed. I can send him out scouting again My real goal was achieved however because I didn't have the resources to take one of these cities without significant risk So what I'd done instead is tried to hold this strong point, which will allow me to threaten for Basically the indefinite future But I was able to get everyone around to actually get this city here, which is now growing. I expanded my happiness by building all those circuses and such and Now I'm not really going to prosecute an aggressive war so much as harass while I let everything grow out I'm mainly focused on my domestic policies now At least until such a time as I'm going to suddenly either take thebes or Crush up here and cut thebes off from the rest of his empire So right now. I'm just cycling units around here in this relatively safe place Let's see. I would like to repair that Citadel Which will require another turn Can this guy get up there? Let's see So domestically my plan is just to continue to build out all these workshops I'm going to power through Notre Dame because that extra 10 happiness will really set me up and then I can actually build Another city here, which will be a little bit even though I'm going for a culture victory that'll actually slow me down so But I think the benefit will be this is a an excellent spot for a city and it'll give me a second coastal city That is also very easily defended Not as easily as Timoic, which will basically be invincible to a sea attack once I put Some sort of range unit here and here defending the harbor So if I build the city here like I'd planned all along which is a great spot I'll need to put units here and here and Because of this dip in I'll probably want them here and here too if I can but that'll be fine because bristling coastal defenses Here coupled with decent Land armies here since the ships can't attack these cities directly Should make me pretty invulnerable To any invasion for a long long time to come so my main focus now is going to be building out my domestic frontier building out my Manufacturing capabilities and making myself an industrial and scientific powerhouse that no one can beat So I have forced peace up here for the time being and I'm really just trying to focus on my domestic policies now. So I'm going to consolidate I'm going to make this a nice little strong point and I'm going to make it a little strong point here Not going to defend this so this is sort of like if you waste time if when they eventually a war comes again coming into pillage this That'll just buy me time to be able to fight But I'm gonna keep my army back here Because you see where this is I've built roads in a triangle here on these citadels So in the event of a further war if my army is actually back here It means two things it means one if somehow we sneak an army around in the thieves and tries to come in here, which Yeah, that human might have dropped out of the game meaning the AI is even less likely to do this Then this army could slide in here to defend Oh, I can't let Egypt settle down here. Egypt better be settling up this way I'll have to conquer them Or if it doesn't come in this way the army can fight here Let him come in a little bit do some damage Counter-strike and come straight back through here and then up To actually cut this area off once I cut it off I can either absorb and destroy thieves giving it back to Egypt probably or attack one of his real cities So see we'll play it by ear. So I'm gonna send this horseman out now Around the world to start exploring a little bit. I should really crank out a settler Of course you won't I did tell you not to settle by me Let's see where the settler goes Well the road to set up For my settler. I'm probably gonna finish Notre-Dame so my happiness will be fine. There's no new Luxury resource here is the one problem with building that city But I think it'll be fine because I got Notre-Dame. I'm very likely to finish Notre-Dame and the event that I don't also have to build a more happiness buildings and I'll have to decide what I'll do but this is just too good a spot. I definitely wanted I don't want to leave this empty If it were a marginal spot like over here, I probably would leave it empty for the time being but because it actually is a pretty good spot I definitely want to Capitalize on it. I'll build the settler. Oh, yeah, I can't build it out of Persepolis, right? I'll have to build out of one of my other cities Maybe I should build it now It will get that great writer soon. I definitely want to let the great writer happen rather than changing The city and pulling these people out of the guild Yeah, declare around Egypt would suck because I've got a caravan going to him. So it mess up my trade routes. Oh No, I should wait and build it out of my stupid capital because I forgot I did Liberty So I can build settlers twice as fast if I just wait Let's turn these workbooks out. I got the opportunity to do so because this is actually Fort kick ass isn't gonna build them anytime soon as I might as well build up here and get all these fish resources Which will help all these cities grow