Okay, all. I played five turns, but I don't think I should have. I'm soliciting advice.
If this were a single player game, I would have just started over, but I'm a quitter, quitters never win--but they also don't waste hours of their lives trying to survive on a goddam Arab island swarming with mace men and horse archers, either.
Anyhow, this was the power graph when I started.
We were ahead, but this was deceiving. Sally switched to whip mode the moment I declared and he has some big cities. I should have known that Sally was set up well when he attacked our stack outside of Najran right before my second turn. He took out the war elephant I was going to shock promote--before I had promoted him.
Here was the damage before I had even attacked...
Less than confidently, I took Damascus...
and lost it next turn.
I have southern survivors (about four beat up dudes) set up in a forest between Damascus and Mecca, waiting to die. I have another Praet and an Ax one turn away on a galley. (We also lost a loaded galley to a trireme that was parked in one of the cities.)
I have northern survivors, who have never attacked, except to lose two catapults when I tried to thin the city. That was before I counted and realized that defenders minus attackers equaled one. I'm sorry. That was just made of stupid--and not the good kind they have in New Zealand.
Anyhow, here's the save for anyone who wants to laugh at me. I feel like I just threw the game away on this. I could play over from Ozzy's save, but that's sort of cheating around here. (I do it all the time in single player.)
Or we can go out Pholkhero style and just tank the thing away.
After getting my tail handed to me, I really don't care.