I played to an exciting point. I started an assault on Saladin's lands while we were in revolt to merc/nationalism (we can only draft muskets...yuck!). I razed a few cities we once owned so I could press forward the attack.
I decided to go into Cyrus' land since he has Astronomy and Saladin doesn't (yet).
Cyrus fielded a nice attack:
I held out against a 15-rifle, 4-treb, 2-other attack from Cyrus at Birka! Certainly the crowning achievement of the turnset. He launched that assault just as I discovered where Persepolis is. I counterattacked with a few grenadier reinforcements who had been left behind to guard the wounded from the incursion into Saladin's lands. Cyrus' entire stack was wiped out, including even the treb who got lucky and withdrew from its assault.
Right now, we are under assault from Saladin and his rifles and cavalry from the north.:
I think we should play defensively there. He'll probably attack the pigs, but we can rebuild them. If we try to attack his stack with elephants, his rifles will defend, if we attack with grenadiers, his cavalry will defend. Better to defend in the city and give ourselves those advantages. If he goes for Nidaros though, I'd attack.
Saladin is also launching piecemeal attacks at Birka, and I recommend mostly defense there. Though I would pick off units from inside Birka if he leaves them out in the open (like he's done!) Watch out for that approaching cav though.
We are also in position to take Persepolis! (Note the screenshot is one turn old, so these units are ready to attack now, less a couple that Arabian cavalry took out.)
I don't know if we can hold it or not, so we should consider razing it. The only sadness to razing Persepolis is that it holds 5 or 6 nice world wonders (including Great Lighthouse and Great Wall).
But we may need to just get over that and burn it to the ground. I think our existing forces can take it...probably even on the saveturn I've uploaded. There is a question of tactics: ie whether the trebs should just take down the defenses or try to soften up the defenders, but since there are only 3 rifles and 2 longbows defending, I think we've got to go for it before Saladin's cavalry pick off any more of that stack or Cyrus moves more troops in to defend.
I'm not sure what my availability is for playing over the next week. No more long turnsets, but maybe the occasional hour here and there.
Assuming we get some cash from Persepolis, we should be about 6 turns from Steel.
The next player should have a good time with tactics....
The
save.
