Upon advancing the troops found the capital lightly guarded. The biggest problem was the culture bonus which meant that I lost more troops than expected. They say a picture says more than a thousand words...

If you wonder about the small size of the invading force it is because only Persepolis and, to a lesser extent, Pasargarde, had built any troops. Susa would join them soon, but first it had something more important to do.

I got a problem soon after though. My cities were well protected, but I hadn't noticed any Japanese chariots. I had done some scouting of their northern cities thanks to our close borders but hadn't noticed anything other than warriors and archers. All of a sudden a chariot and it's warrior escort arrived north of Persepolis and started pillaging. With only archers in the city there was little I could do, other than start a Spearman and otherwise let the Japanese have their fun. Thanks to the escort I had to build two before I could  do anything about it. Notice the Great Artist in the city. I got him with music, put him to sleep figuring to use him in a captured city, changed my mind and then forgot all about him for a millenium or so.

The remains of my offensive force had rested by this time and move north to find the city hidden in the fog. In hindsight I should have gone west, but I chose north instead. Can't really remember why though. I found Osaka there. It fell, if barely due to 50% defense bonus, but my forces were now so depleted I just killed the lone archer to the south and then settled in to wait for Toku to start talking.

Pasargarde completed the Hanging Gardens, one of my favorite wonders, in 800AD and then switched to military production to boost my forces back to strenght. No reason in inviting Monte to the party yet.  The same year also saw the city construct the Church of Nativity thanks to the Prophet flooding. Well, at the time I didn't know it would turn out to be a flood, but you get the point ;)

Speaking of inviting to a party... why didn't this surprise me?

He attacked in two directions at once. One aimed at Arbela and one aimed at Pasargarde. The forces were almost all horse archers with a few catapults mixed in. Fortunately I'd been building some spears as archers alone aren't too pleased at having to defend against their mounted brethren.

I had a slight problem near Pasargarde where they threatened the road linking my new cities with the old ones. I had only one spearman in the area and three horse archers closing in. Well, desperate times calls for desperate actions. Moving the spear out he attacked the approaching stack and killed one. The second then impaled itself on the spear before the third killed it. This left it sufficiently wounded though for me to kill it off and remove the threat. This was the last real assault against Pasargarde as my troops from the Japanese war then arrived to secure the flank. They had been moving toward Arbela, but turned back to protect the city as Arbela was rather well protected already. I had been meaning to gather a strike force there, but was forced to change my plans.

Shortly after Susa then finished the Great Lighthouse. It was my only really productive coastal city as Osaka and Kyoto were not ready yet, and it took advantage of it. It would soon start production of galleys and then caravels to find my remaining opponents.

At this time it might be nice with a little overview of the situation on the southern part of my continent.

By the time we signed peace I had only taken Tlaxcala. I had planned to raise it to settle further north due to the gems there. However, the city was already on a hill and rather than risk a new settlement before I could get a settler ready I kept it. Since I could capture a few buildings and it was in a defensive position I didn't feel too bad about it. The fog between Kyoto and Tlaxcala is hiding another Japanese city. When we made peace I knew Montes days were numbered as he was down with at least aphabet, code of laws and metal casting compared with me. Things were looking good.