525 BC · Pelusium, Egypt
Cambyses II of Persia defeated Pharaoh Psamtik III at the eastern gateway of Egypt, beginning Persian rule over the Nile.
Egypt in the 520s BC was wealthy, old and increasingly isolated. Amasis had held Persia off by diplomacy for decades, but he died in 526 BC and left the throne to his son Psamtik III with a Persian invasion already being prepared.
Cambyses II had spent years securing what an invasion of Egypt actually needs: Phoenician ships, and safe passage across the Sinai, negotiated with the Arab tribes who controlled its water.
The armies met at Pelusium, on the eastern edge of the Delta, where the desert road reaches the Nile — the gateway every invader of Egypt has had to force.
Herodotus, our main source, says the fighting was hard and the losses heavy on both sides before the Egyptian line gave way. The survivors fell back on Memphis, which was besieged and taken; Psamtik III was captured and later executed after an attempted revolt. The much-repeated story of Persians driving cats before them comes from Polyaenus, writing some six hundred years later, and is best treated as legend.
Pelusium ended native rule and made Egypt a Persian satrapy. It stayed one, with interruptions, for nearly two centuries — the beginning of a long period in which Egypt was governed from elsewhere.
The scenario is a gateway fight: Egypt is defending the one place that must be held, Persia has to force it and has prepared for the crossing.
The sides, the commanders and the stakes are historical. The card pool, the costs and the turn structure are the game's own, not a reconstruction of the fighting.