Crossgate2003 mentioned in his walkthrough that he tried a few approaches at this point but none of them worked:
http://www.civclub.net/bbs/viewthread.php?tid=89511&page=2#pid1300923
(1) Conquer CS Edinborough and invade Egypt - too many War Chariots!
(2) Conquer CS Vienna and stay defensive - attacked by Alexander, Harun, and Isabella non-stop!
(3) Conquer CS Vienna and CS Hanoi - angering all CSs and attacked by the Civs non-stop!
So Crossgate has to think of eliminating one of the three constant aggressors (for me, add Egypt to the list!), and he picked Spain. Isabella is indeed the weakest of them - having the poorest land and fewest resources. It is probably the only Civ that can be defeated by Persia at this stage of the game (without going Longswordsman).
7ab7. Policy goes to Great Scientist and sit the Academy on the Deer southeast of the capital.
c0f1. Harun sent 6 warriors to attack. Easily defeated. (As the AI invasions are mostly whack-a-mole wars.)
1af0. Conquered Vienna! The Immortals are just great for Ancient-era Rush against City States! And they will be awesome against civilization, too.
2d5a. Made unconditional peace with Harun, sold Sugar at discounted price and... got denounced immediately.
a375. Alexander turned hostile. That's the sign of an incoming invasion! The hostility happens a lot earlier in Crossgate2003's game than mine, probably because he occupied the buffering City States, making him a direct neighbor of Alexander (actually still 20 tiles apart!).
0cd6. Next policy goes to Piety. Since Crossgate2003 is heading towards a Conquest Victory, he will definitely need Theocracy to combat happiness problems later.
bea1. Declared war on Isabella immeidately after bribing her to attack Hanoi. While Crossgate2003 already declared war twice on City States, Hanoi, a hostile CS, still drops 1.5 points of influence every turn, instead of 2 for neutral and freidnly CSs. That turned out to be a universal fact for all hostile CS. They don't care how hostile you are on other CSs! That's probably a deliberate design since hostile CSs frequently gives out mission to wipe out other CSs for them. They shouldn't ever get angry on their hitman.
3c1a. Took a relatively new and small city Cordoba with Immortals! Crossgate2003 put a Medic promotion on one of the Immortals. Double healing plus double healing, is it triple or quadraple?
49cc. Alexander denounced Darius! War will be declared very soon!
beb5. Took Seville and burned it (as it is useless)! In my game, I couldn't make any advance on Isabella at this time with 5 Pikeman and 2 Archers (I saw lots of Archers, plus Horseman, Catapult... a good mixture of everything). But I didn't have a Great General with the army. This is by no means an easy war.
6e3a. Parsagardae established! Now the core of the Persian empire is complete - strong economy concentrated in a small area. This is a much more desired strategic situation than my game (where I chose to go after Egypt). Sparing Egypt also has a very nice "butterfly effect" that manifests much later in the game.
398d. The short term benefit of getting close with Egypt is also good - lots of cash for Research Agreement and trades.
2cfc. Took Barcelona after some very tough fight! Razed!
1f1c. Next policy goes to Piety's Mandate of Heaven. I was quite confused when I saw it the first time - this policy is exclusively used for Cultural Victory and is quite useless on a Conquest game (where Happiness is always low). Later on I realized that Crossgate2003 was heading towards Free Religion for 2 free policies. So this is more of a filler policy when there are nothing more important at the moment.
efa1. Signed a Defensive Pact with Egypt. Ramey will remain friendly with Persia for quite some time.
8344. Madrid falls! What an amazingly successful campaign on Spain. Pure aggression from the start - very effective with a seasoned Immortal/Pikeman army plus the Great General. (See the March promotion - very early!)
0a9a. But there is seldom peace on Level 9! Harun declared war the second time. What is he going to bring to Geneva? Will the Defensive Pact with Egypt distract Harun?
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