Well, the Persians have declared war on us from across the world, because we would not give them incense for free. We need to immediately drag as many civs as possible into this war, both to keep the Persians from ever getting to us, and to keep them from finding any alliances. Here is a list of all the possible alliances (civs that we already have embassies with):
America: 267 gold or education
France: 214 gold or feudalism, education or engineering
England: 108 gold or feudalism, education or engineering
India: 97 gold or education
Russia: 291 gold or education
China: 286 or education
Iroquois: 331 gold
Babylon: 445 gold
I will post a full proposal soon, but it will definately include alliances with England and France for feudalism, since they will get it very soon anyway. Obviously, if we are willing to trade education we could bring most of the world down on the Persians. 2 civs already have it, and will likely sell it to anyone we pay gold for an alliance, so we might as well just use the tech and save our money.
We also need to establish an embassy with Rome, as they are Persia's closest neighbor, and likely have quite a few legions, which are an excellent counter to immortals. The embassy will cost 95 gold, but they would likely sign an alliance for education, like everyone else. We can also give them the incense the Persians wanted so badly
