All right, as promised, here is the rest of my report. Koros...you're in for some fun
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Turn 11:
As we mentioned, I had Pericles capitulate, and we get a nice chunk of gold and HBR as part of the deal. With the free HBR, I start working on gunpowder.
I continue moving troops up to the front line, and I redirect out EPs so we're not focusing on Pericles anymore.
Turn 12:
I broker a couple of trades with Pericles to get some gold per turn and a happiness resource (can't remember which at the time), but hopefully to get a relations boost later.
Also, we get a pretty sweet random event:
A free great artist! Well, not exactly free, but we didn't spend GPP on it at least. Although not exactly planned to be a cultural center, I go ahead and get it.
Turn 13:
Mehmed finishes his horse-whisperer quest. I forget what it does exactly, but it's probably not good for us. And there were a bunch of random event marriages that went on as well: relations between Justinian and Bismarck were worsened, but those between Bismarck and Gilgamesh were strengthened.
Turn 14:
Mehmed's stack of doom appears outside of Thebes:
Turn 15:
At the beginning of the turn, SB capitulates to Bismarck, freeing up Bismarck and Justinian from their wars. Unfortunately, neither one wants to help us - and Bismarck is pretty peeved at us for not helping earlier. Hopefully that won't come back to bite us.
While building up troops, I was a little generous with the whip and tried to finish some forges as well. As a result, we finished our master blacksmith quest:
The first option is obviously not too great, and the second one granted a free shock promotion to all swordsmen...which we won't be using anymore, so I went with the latter.
Mehmed's forces are bypassing Thebes entirely; apparently he's not interested in Pericles and is still gunning for us. I upgraded some of the units in Athens - hopefully I didn't spend too much cash. We've got a mixture of macemen/pikemen/crossbowmen/catapults/trebs/knights waiting in Athens. I realize knights won't be good against his elephants, but the flanking against catapults and trebs helps out a lot.
Here's a look at the clash of the SoD's:
In the right corner, Mehmed the mad Ottoman. In the left corner (and at the bottom of the screen) is De Gaulle le pwning N00b.
And a zoomed out view. The pikemen that are outside of Athens are troops en route:
I've left the movement for the troops in Athens and our workers for the next person to decide what to do with. In hindsight, I probably should have moved a portion of the stack out of Athens to take up a defensive position in the nearby forests. Unfortunately, we can't chop them since they're in Greek territory.
You might be able to move most of the stack one space east and hope that Mehmed will attack you there instead, or that he'll remain out in the open. Unfortunately, Athens is still in revolt and thus has no defensive value.
Also, I've started a settler in Paris, which should be done soon, so we can grab that spot between Uppsala and Athens before Pericles does.
I hope that all makes sense. I'm sure Koros will be able to handle it.
I'm headed off to work again tomorrow - and hopefully for the last time this month before the holidays. I'll be back on Tuesday.
Roster:
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Trynthlas - on deck
endymion
Darth Meanie - skip until december 7th
Rince
Mitchifer - just played
Carneios - (will be inserted whenever he's able to play)
LordKoros - up next
. And as it turns out, the Justinian/Bismarck/SB war has created a hole of neutral territory, so trying to close Mehmed's open borders agreements wouldn't have helped us anyway. 
were the same age and im not even close to marrying yet it always amazes me how far ahead in live people are compared to me. im still playing cocky student that drinks way too much
) so lots of stuff adds up quick, heh 
