[1440x900 Pics in spoiler tags]
This was without a doubt the longest turnset I've ever played. Sorry the progress sort of dragged towards the end, but at least I got us a few more cities, and we're now #1 in score.
Turn 0 - GreyFox has left me an excellent setup, but I still spend about 30 minutes familiarizing myself with the map and adding about 30 signs as I tick off cities to make sure we have no unnecessary defenders. In the end I've chosen to only leave one city with two defenders, every other city gets one unit. I also have shifted around a longbow and pikeman so I can engage Cyrus's incoming jumbo. For the benefit of lurkers here are some screens of the empire and our two fronts. Each "x" is a unit, the city marked "forbidden palace" has one unit, and the stacks are in the x/y/z format where x is offensive units, y is siege, and z is future city defenders.
Western/Cyrus front:
Southern/Huayana front:
Empire:
Don't worry team, I've removed the signs in the save below.
Other than the agreed-upon shrine (either Christian or Islamic depending on gold) and tech path towards Rifling, my goals for this set will be to build siege units, muskets to serve as future defenders, and missionaries.
Turn 1 - Press enter and the golden age ends, and 5 builds complete. I love large empires
Turn 2 - We now have 20 million people in the empire.
Huayana tries to retake Florence with an 11-unit stack. We kill 4 of the units this turn with 1 lost unit.
Turn 3 - Taj is BIDL. Replaceable Parts comes in and Rifling research begins. Huayana's stack is now dead, but with unacceptable casualties: 5 lost units to kill 12 of his. Sorry about that.
Kazan is founded.
Mycenae falls:
Good news, but again the RNG is unkind. I lost 4 siege units as expected, but then lost another 3 units at 80+%
We'll need reinforcements to continue the attack in the west.
Turn 5 - We finally kill Cyrus's marauding war elephant in the unsettled western region.
Epesus falls with the loss of 2 trebs. I don't like the city (no resources) but there isn't any better spot to plant nearby so I keep it.
Turn 6 - Cyrus moves a 22-unit stack (!) towards Mycenae.
This is a big problem not only because he has far more units than us, but also because he can actually hit Ephesus as well, and I have no way of knowing which city he will choose. The only thing I can reinforce with this turn are knights, but I can take several other actions that I think will let us come out ok. So I do the following:
1) Use a treb and a wounded mace to pillage the road to Ephesus, making the city safe.
2) Move all of the 2-movers from Ephesus into Mycenae.
3) Upgrade 3 Keshiks to knights.
4) Use the 2 remaining Keshiks to pillage one of the two roads into Mycenae (I can't touch the other one).
This ensures the only city Cyrus can hit is Mycenae, and he will have to hit over a river. Unfortunately it also cuts the cites off from one another, but I think the alternative is to loose one of the two cities next turn.
Turn 7 - First, good news in the south.
Pisa falls with the loss of only 2 units. Florence is currently being threatened by an 11-unit stack as well, but since I don't have any odds to attack out of the city I'll wait for them to hit me.
In the north Cyrus has chosen to move south to threaten Ephesus. The city has 15 defenders (including 7 that get defensive bonuses) however, so I don't think I'll need to pillage any more roads.
We also get a GG that I send south to make a 3rd medic.
Anyways, I cross my fingers and hope for the best...
Turn 8 - Rifling comes in. I choose Aesthetics as the next tech to get us towards Cavs.
The only battles fought were in south, where I killed Holy Roman units and suffered one loss. In the west/north Cyrus moved his stack north towards Mycenae, but cannot attack next turn. He will want this hill, and it will be costly for him.
Holding off the enemy stacks long enough to get rifles should make things survivable from this point on. I upgrade two units in Florence to rifles and run 0 science for one turn (we still get the tech in 1).
Turn 9 - Aesthetics comes in and Lit is the next tech towards Cavs.
Huayana hits in the south and looses 12 units to kill 5 after I mop up a bit.
In the north I'm able to make four rifles. Cyrus has 31 units that can hit the city (he only lost 3 units taking the hill - I should have just kept the muskets in the open and then moved them into the city.). I have 20 defenders. I anticipate the fight will be brutal, but with only 2 trebs and Mycenae being on a hill I expect to survive. Either way I think I made the situation as favorable as possible. Press enter for the final turn...
Turn 10 - Brutal didn't begin to describe it. Cyrus has 12 units left, so he lost 19 (after I mopped up). We have 9 units left so we lost 11. Fortunately I managed to rebuild my road last turn, so I can place 6 healthy defensive units into the city next turn. Cyrus is welcome to suicide against them if he so desires. The ironic thing here is that we lost this many units WITH rifles, so Cyrus probably could have taken Ephesus outright 3 turns ago if he had simply attacked.
Status - In the south both armies are about ready to move out. The unit's aren't balanced though, so if the next player wants to keep them as two separate armies I suspect they will want to swap some knights for siege units.
In the north obviously the troop levels are greatly reduced, but once units heal up you will have 26 units between Mycenae and Ephesus. I've also built a 16-unit stack next to Kerkouane to attack Cyrus's corn city. Again you will probably want to mix and match units since I haven't balanced siege units well.
One thing I did NOT do was build the shrine. I've moved the GP into position, but I wasn't sure if there was a way to see how many gold a shrine would produce, and if there is we should check to see if the Christian or Islamic shrine makes the most sense.
The roster:
-Imhotep - up!
-Atlas - on deck
-pigswill
-Ozbenno
-berserks01
-GreyFox
-sunrise089 - just played
The save:
spread". Didn't say anything abt missionaries, nor whether is it spread from within or without. Simply "No non-state 
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
. All units have retreated behind the river line again, except two rifles. The stack Willy has is still decent - but I hope he'll move into the city for healing, so our Trebs can have some fun 
