War plans for next 5 turns

[Aggie]

My current plans for the next 5 turns are fairly boring but necessary. I intend to gather our forces at Pasargadae and then movve south when all possible knights,swords and catapults have arrived. If there is a 2/3 turn window between the all the rest of units arriving and have 4 knights I might attack either antioch or arbela with a knight force, but I am unsure of this an don't know if I want to split our forces.
Aggie

[Shiber]

We shouldn't split forces. This might be our last assault on a Persian city, and it better be Persepolis!

[Aro]

I agree with Shiber, Persepolis should be our target (and then we’ll squeeze the Persians ).

[UnOrthOdOx]

Simply attacking Perseopolis then suing for peace would be a mistake, IMO. It sits Right smack in the center of Persian Culture with three cities on its border. How should we plan to keep those Pyramids? Especially should the Capital switch to one of the neighboring cities...Tarsis, perhaps? We would be better served spending outrageous amounts to gaining the tech than taking a city that will flip in two turns and be in a culture war to even obtain Inscence. Dye trade with France ends next turn, we could possibly use that to curb some of the cost of Theology.

[Aro]

You are suggesting put Persepolis under siege first, and then take the city, right?
Well, it’s beautiful… will take more time, but is beautiful!

Edit:
We have another problem: Hole in Wall (former Cherbourg) is completely isolated; the Russians had cut off our possibilities of connect our entire territory.

[GhengisFarbâ„¢]

WE MUST TAKE ALL OF THE PERSIAN HOMELAND!
and that Hastings city

It must all be ours!!! Muwha ha ha ha

Royal messenger enters GhengisFarb's antechamber.

What's this? A message from Pharoah OPD?

Opens message.

What you mean I'm being banished to Cherbourg? I'm not a threat to the throne! No!!!!! All my plans and conspiricies have not yet reached fruition! No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[UnOrthOdOx]

No, I am saying we must take the surrounding cities to kill Persian Culture. Tarsis, Arbela, and I forget the other name down there. THEN we will have borders FREE of Persian culture and influence. I think we should even consider RAZING Arbella BEFORE taking Perseopolis due to it's proximity and culture.

[Shiber]

France, who are furious with us, will give us a terrible deal for Theology. It's best to wait for our dyes deal with Greece to be over.

[Aro]

UnOrthO,
Yes, I was talking about this, too. A "cultural siege strategy". Blame my bad English...

[civman2000]

i agree with unortho. We must make sure we will be able to hold onto Persepolis before we take it.

[Aggie]

Thats why I will wait, that way I will have enough troops to take persopolis and the surrounding area quickly. I suspect persop will have pike but the other cities will have at most 1 pike for defense.
Aggie

[Arnelos]

I agree that we should build up our forces of knights, pikes, and swords before moving on Persepolis itself. Especially given our experience with Pasargadae, it would be prudent to bring together a very large stack of forces before laying siege to Persepolis itself.

However, the concerns brought up about culture are definately a problem. There is one way I've used in some Civ3 games to resolve this problem, but it doesn't always work. What you do is have your existing smaller stack (as forces begin to arrive) move to the smaller satellite cities in his empire and take those and fight their resistence while you're waiting for the rest of the siege stack to arrive. Since you have time to burn while you're waiting for the rest of hte stack to get there, you might as well. This also, IF it works, means you have less risk of a culture flip when you move on the capital city itself.