Pre-Turns: Negociations with Persia won't go far. 13 gold will not quench the Keshiks' thirst for man flesh.
Raze their desert/mountain town, takes 3 keshiks (1 retreat). Elite horse retreats to a vet archer

but the 2 other elite attacks lose 1 hp each to LB and archer.[4-0]
Troops closed up on Parsagade and Tyre.
GA triggered. MM, change a LB to a courthouse in an aztec border city. Move a vet pike to lake shore drive.
IT:

Iroquois declared on us, the vet pike loses 1 HP before the MW retreats.
2 LB's attack us from Tyre, both die

[6-0]
T 1.
Idiot Academy keshik - FP.
Tyre is down to 1 LB [8-0]
1 random MW down, 1 spotted; 2 random Persian archers down.[9-0]
Parsagadae Falls[12-0]
Now I won't overstretch it, Persian LB's could kick ass on us. I'll let them march in and pick 'em out.
GA increased production focus on Keshiks, Markets and Temples (where needed, it's not like Libs will do that much good to us anyways)
Our OWNED luxes are a potential 9 happy's, so I'll kick down on spear+warrior MP.
T 2.
Pick off several random units, take 7 slaves, take Tyre. Lose 1 keshik to a settler pair in the woods.[16-1]
A quick look at Civassist tells the flip chances are awful, in our "child" border towns. The ones with good flip probabilities are all on a temple.
IT: The Iroquois offensive looks like it has been preparing for a while: we get archers. Iroquoisny (make that a word) is a far away land. They are motivated
T 3.
Not much, they send more longbows over mountains
T 4.
Still more LB's coming, gonna wait one more turn before going in. Easy going with the ones already in [18-1]
IT: We lose control over the iron mountain, but Zulu declares on Iros.[19-2]
T 5.
SoD moves in, LB's were in the way [21-2]
IT: Banking and Navgation are out in the field.
T 6.
Dariush gives little resistance [23-2]
Everyone that attacks at Persepolis is either elite or becomes so. [27-3]
We now have Sun Tzu's. I will not yet sell the barracks, but we might want to soon after.
Nice trade opportunity:
Gives us THA World Map
Which makes it clear on where to go for babs and japs. You can also clearly see that England is getting totally

'd by the americans. Babs have a few cities from Egypt, too.
Change Sardis to Caravel, who will go straight to meet Hammu and Toku.
T 7.
Embassy Egypt for a faster Bab/Jap contact, hopefully. Get RoP and 1 gold from them.
And this will be most interesting, for the IT's to follow:
IT: They move together, one single attack (Zulu on Iro).
Persian LB's are 1-1-1 this IT (retreat counted as tie) [28-4]
T 8.
Arbela ends up being quite tough to breach, hill town (but with Colossus, for what it's worth) [31-7]
Take down 3 iroquois troops but 2 remain on the mountain to disconnect the iron.
T 9.
After taking down the last iroquois remainder, they sign peace for 14+6gpt (all) [34-7]
Gordium falls, Sidon resists [38-9]
Persia agrees to sign peace for all he has: WM, Music Theory, 11g, all 4 cities. I find this even.
Right after, he is willing to give us his 2 workers remaining for a RoP. This is also acceptable to my standards.
T 10.
Nothing to do with Iron fist, no shields to pop out, so might as well tax it.
Flip chances are minimal, even in Arbela and Tyre where there are 100% resistors still. Arbela is garrissoned to quell, but the keshiks can be moved.
India and Zulu are up Mag and ToG on us, gotta wait for a twofer to buy though.
Not too late to make a few of the builds into libs; the next turnset will also be full GA + FP. Time enough to pump em.
For the record, we have a strong military compared to Russia. Time to use it methinks.
Roster:
Daghdha
M60 - Left me with all the pleasure
BeF - just concluded a kindof one-sided deal for Persia, but hey, they can't all die
Soul - up, Will just have to run north.
romeo - On deck
AK