125. A brief 10-turn peace for Persia. My plan is to use this 10 turns of peace to give me a much better position to attack Isabella, who has built the Great Wall.
Even with about a dozen of Rifleman, I am only ranked 5th in the world. This feels much more intense than a regular game!
126. Open Border allows me to pick the best spot possible. The desert area south of Spanish capital Madrid seems to be a good location to launch a full assault, with lots of tiles for unit access.
127. While Harun's invasion on Persia failed (and signed a peace deal), he declared war on Elizabeth. I doubt he will field a large enough army to accomplish anything.
128. Occupying the dead center of the map is that every civilization is a potential threat. Here Ottoman has conquered Cape Town, the last obstacle that stands between Suleiman and Darius. Suleiman's military is only slightly smaller than Alexander's.
129. Got enough Happiness accumulated to start my first Golden Age. Since my income will look healthy for a while, I can be a little more generous on City States. I picked Military CS Belgrade, standing between Arabia and Persia. This will give me another layer of protection. For now, I only threw in 250 gold since I know Military CS also gives free units while being Friendly. I will give another 250 gold to make them an ally later.
130. Since my main army is now deep in Spain, I cannot afford to have Alexander's world's largest army marching towards Persia. From experience, I know if I bribe an AI to attack another, their hostility will temporarily shift away.
131. Peace expired - the Third Persian-Spanish War begins! Just before the war begins, I bribed Isabella to declare war on Warsaw, a Cultural City State just north of the Persian Gulf. That will give me another free CS ally soon.
The above picture is my first attempt. I positioned Cannons directly in the range of Madrid. However, there are simply too many Spanish units and I could not protect my Cannons. So I loaded a previous save and started the war with Cannons one tile back to kill the units first.
And someone finished the Brandenburg Gate at Turn 136! That's really fast to get to Military Science!
132. The war starts with Persia 111 : 101 Spain. And I don't have my entire army. So this is not really an easy war. I have the next-generation army, but Spain has the numerical advantage.
133. In order to moniter Alexander's army better, I paid Cultural CS Vienna 500 gold to see the surroundings. Indeed Alexander's Rifleman and Cannon are on their way! Are they going to attack Arabia? Or are they still on their way to attack Persia?
134. The Battle of Madrid continues. Isabella's soldiers keep showing up, and my Rifleman's health goes lower and lower. I need to make this quick!
135. Madrid taken! Three of my five Rifleman were dying. Thanks to Golden Age's +1 movement, my ranged units could move forward, setup, and attack all on the same turn. That proved to be invaluable.
After my melee finish resting, I should be able to storm the rest of Spain's main starting cities.
136. Arabia has declared war to Egypt, and is marching its unit south. While we are on 10 turns of forced peace, the deal will soon expire. That makes me quite uneasy. Too bad we can't ask the AIs "are you here to attack us?"
This time Harun sends in Cannons and perhaps Rifleman. But my armies are all away to the east. Fortunately, Belgrade gave me a free Knight. Not as good as Cannon, but I can take the Knight to demolish some Cannon.
137. I mentioned that most of my armies are in the east - the Immortal-upgraded Rifleman also killed a few Spanish units around Seville. Now Isabella has become a lot more defensive, so I will pull back some of the troops to defend the homeland.
I again tried to lure out Spanish units with undefended Worker. It only worked once. But that's still better than nothing.
138. Suddenly I got the most unwanted news - Alexander declares war on Persia! It seems that bribing Alexander to war Arabia made almost no difference. I could only take 121 gold of cash from Alexander, since he only had this much. One of the main goal of the level 9 MOD is to make the AIs almost exploit proof. The players can no longer get thousands and thousands of gold from the AIs and suddenly pumps out elite armies to turn the tide of the war.
The nemeses, Persia and Greece, finally start their bout!
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