Played. We're definitely still in trouble but... I'll let you judge for yourselves.
0. Revolt to state property and Beauracracy (three turns). Change a few builds. Research 60% Culture 10%.
1. Moving ships/units. Discover a few more units (2 panzers, 3 cannons and a few infantry) who I didn't notice originally because they were either in ships or sitting on Saladin's border.
2. Stack is almost ready in Osaka. Basra will be the first target. Huayna Capac finishes The Apollo Program.
3. We get out of anarchy. Declare war and march our stack into Saladin's lands. We have ~7 panzers, 10 infantry, 5 cannons, and a cav or two. Basra is defended by 2 infantry, 2 SAM's, and an artillery.
IT: A stack of 8 Arabian cavs and an artillery arrives near our border. A few tanks also come out of hiding.
4. The Battle of Basra I: Huge and Bloody. We capture the city and kill off four of the cavalry stack + 1 tank. Unfourtunately, we also suffer heavy losses. 4 infantry and 2 panzers are killed (the panzers with more than 60% odds
).
IT. The Battle of Basra II: Saladin's counterattack. We only manage to kill one artillery as Saladin kills 3 more infantry and another Panzer and takes the city back.
5. Fortunately, Saladin only guards the city with one SAM, which means we can retake it easily. This time we are able to garrison our whole stak in the city. WW is already making our people unhappy, but we need science so badly that I hesitate to touch the slider.
6. Thankfully, Saladin does not have enough troops for a second counter. We start healing.
IT: An artillery attacks and we kill it.
7. Start Scotland Yard in Munich. We will almost certainly need spies to have any hope of victory.
8. Kill a SAM and pillage Saladin's aluminium. WW finally forces me to adjust to 50sci-20cult
9. Kill a pillaging tank.
10. Kill another pillaging tank and approach Damascus. It is lightly guarded, with only one infantry, two SAM's, and two Cavs.
The state of the battlefield:
I encourage each player to open the save and give advice, as the situation is hard to process without the save and the next turnset could be critical. Every turnset will probably be critical now.
Even if we manage to cripple Saladin, we will probably have to move on to Huayna quickly, as he is now rocketing ahead. Our best might be to take a few more cities of Saladin and pillage his best defended cities and then make a few quick strikes to raze HC's production centers. We might also need to use spies.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads12/JJ03_AD-1836.Civ4SavedGame