What to do next - Middle Ages Conquest?

[bigchief]

I'm playing the Middle Ages Conquest for the first time. I am playing as the Swedes. I have built a nice home area. It is turn 117 (1194), and I am 6th in land area, 3rd in population, 3rd in power, and high up in all the other catagories. I have been having a hard time researching. Corruption is horrible. Some cities that are only 8-10 tiles away from the capital have 30%, or so, corruption. I decided early on that research might not be the best path, and that I should try and take advantage of my strengths (boats and berserks). I have just destroyed the English, and captured their relic. I am currently leading in victory points with about 4,300, but I am at a loss, as to what to do next.

Should I try and take out another civ, just go around picking on the coastal cities, or should I try to take Jerusalem, and deliver the relic? I can take 25 berserks to attack Jerusalem. An investigation of Jerusalem revealed that he has 8 spearman and one swordsman. He is building an assassin now. He has horses and iron, but has no Ansar Warriors stationed in Jerusalem. I would imagine that he has plenty of them within striking distance.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Dis]

yep, use their strengths. Being a builder isn't going to help you much.

If you have enough points to win you can take Jeruselim. I usually wait until I have enough relics to win before I take it. Just in case I can't hold it . You are far away from your reinforcements after all. You'd have to rush build.

So if you need more relics, France (whatever they're called) is your next choice. They are fairly close to the coastline. And you can also take on Germany (can't remember their name either). The other guys might have their relic further south. But you may consider conquering them and taking over Italy. This gives you easy access to the Mediterranean sea to build more boats and get things to Jeruselim faster.

you could just prevent the others from getting to jeruselim- which isn't that hard, and just win by points. that is boring.

You may be able to win by a domination victory in this scenario. I'm not sure. That's not my thing. Not much payoff for all that work. Though sometimes you have to in some scenarios- like rise of rome.