We did it!!
You don't believe me? So, see it in pictures:
Here we are being attacked by a technologically more advanced enemy, who took one of our cities very early in the game, starting this millennial conflict. We were able to strike back during a time where Azza's spaniards helped us (sound diplomatic move by our diplo corps) and we took back our captured city spot. But the russians wanted revenge and, this time, they bought the spaniards.
The tides turned when a brilliant tactical move made us able to capture Yuris recently placed Citadel with a Citadel of our own. A brave pikeman and 2 muskets stood under Yuris' Citadel fire to protect our GG on turn he needed to move atop one of Yuris occupied mountains. One of the muskets died, but he'll be remembered. After that, yuris had the chance to steal his Citadel back with a 3rd Citadel, a prospective that gave me shivers. But he didn't do it, so we were able to occupy the tactically-important mountain area between Yaroslav and Novgorod.
We tried cracking Novgorod with units, because Yuris' army was on a all time low. But the defensive fire of a traditionally-garrisoned city was too much for us to handle. We wasted quite a bit of hammers in this attempt, the first time in the war where the hammer trade went in favour of Yuris.
We needed something special to crack Yuris's defenses and something special in Civ 5 is artillery. Cannons would be murdered by Novgorod defenses and the terrain near Novgorod would make a cannon-based attack too clustered. So, our scientists devised a plan where we could quickly reach dynamite, the tech which enables artillery, by going full science mode for some turns and using the Oxford University for Dynamite. I made some very detailed micro (civ 5 level detailed micro, which is like a no-sandbox-only-by-gut-feel civ 4 micro) and was able to take some turns off this. Yuris, on the other hand, went for economics as his tech (I saw that due to the extra gold in some tiles), which isn't really what you need while you are in a hot war.
But what was the point of getting to artillery quickly and then wasting a lot of time producing the artillery? Upgraded cannons were a better idea for sure, but we have been broken ever since the beggining of the game, actually losing science due to gol shortage for a long time. And so I realized! The Mausoleum of Mausolus was still up, and it gives 100 gold every time you use a GP. And I had a GEng coming soon, I could buy a GPRO with faith, I had a GWriter saved, a GArtist to be born soon and I could use the GEng to get Globe Theater and another GWriter. This gave all the gold I needed to upgrade 2 cannons and a trebuchet to Artillery (take note, you can't upgrade a treb -> arti in Civ 5, you need to upgrade treb -> cannon, cannon -> arty, I lost a turn with this...).
I kept losing units due to Yuris' mobility advantage with his roads. His knights stormed me from far away and then retreated back. I made some suboptimal moves too, going aggressive when I didn't need to. Lost almost all of my ranged units, quite a bit of muskets. I realized then that horse units are very useful in this game (and my tech path opened cavalry units, which would be by far the highest strenght units I could produce), but I only had 2 horses in my terrain. So, I bought horses from Azza using a happy resource (which I had doubled due to a city state, that Rowain later stole for me), which is a suboptimal move in most cases, but seemed good here.
This was the beggining of the D-day. I started things up by moving my sentry horseman (what a great unit!) and scouting Yuris, which revealed a lot of knights and muskets, properly placed on roads (didn't take a picture). But I wasn't going to fall back now. I waited too long for this (save got stuck sometimes
).
So, I moved in, with everything I got, looking for the best defensive spots I could get. The plan was to make it possible for one of my units to attack Novgorod next turn, because I was sure 3 artillery would leave it at 0 hitpoints. My biggest fear was that Yuris occupied the red circle. I would probably had to waste artillery shots or the attack of all the units that could reach Novgorod to clear a unit there, which would delay the capture. It was going to be a very decisive turn, because I was confident that Novgorod was Yuris' last bastion of hope. If the city fell, I could capture the rest of his land easily. But, at the same time, my land units were starting to get scarce on the front and reinforcements would take some time to get there.
BUT WE DID IT! Yuris didn't occupy the red circle tile, he only killed a musket and a composite bow of mine, while redlining 2 other units. So, I could freely attack with my artillery and capture the city. The question then was, how could I inflict the most damage on Yuris units, while still capturing the city. It soon became clear that I could leave the city with very little HP with only 2 arti shots, enough for a musket to capture it. So, I would have a third arti to fire at Yuris' units + the road advantage of the captured city.
In the end, I cleared 2 knights, really abusing the road advantage mobility. I also ended with most units in pretty good defensive positions. The only unit left for dead is the heroic pike already mentioned on the report. Hopefully Yuris finds him not worthy of killing this far into the game.
Anyway, Yuris can attack Novogorod with a knight and a musket. I don't think he'll be able to capture it with only that, but even if he does, my artillery will just massacre all units that remain here. Without Novogorod's attack, Yuris can't fight me here. The best he can do is retreat, but even that is hard when I'm in charge of the roads now.
Going forward, I'll go for St. Petersburg (unrevealed city to the west of Novgorod) and the marble that will fire some CS quests. I'll probably keep St. Petersburg too (and Moscow), while razing the other 2 cities, most likely.
As for science, I'm going for Public Schools. Rowain is beating me in all demos, but I'm not too worried. I have the biggest army, so I don't think he'll attack. And I think i'm actually still leading in science (total beakers), because Rowain, IMO, made a poor choice of going for Rationalism policy that gives +17% on Unis and science from trading posts instead of going for the +2 since per specialist one (that policy alone almost doubled my beakers...).
) But love is blind, as they say, and Civ 5 is my girl now.
But seriously, that's simply an amazing way to collect money for the upgrades, well done 
