deity- can i win this game?

[Emma]

hi!
i'm playing a standard map, deity, as the babylonians and my neighbours are the Ottomans and Arabia. the Ottomans have dobble my strengh in the history screen, but arabia has about the same as i have. the ottomans are at war with them and i was, too, untill a few rounds ago, and i have captured some of their cities. my problem is, that i don't have any iron. is it still posible to win a game like this, or should i quit?

mecca has no iron, but damascus has.

[DaveMcW]

How much iron do the Ottomans have? You might be able to buy some.

If you really want to take out the Ottomans you can use horsemen or longbowmen with a defensive escort, just use a lot of them and sue for peace when things get bad.

[Aeson]

Take Mecca. You should be able to take Damascus without too much trouble as well once you are ready. Get 10-15 Horsemen (the more the merrier, you only need a few Spears) down South to take the 2 coastal Ottoman cities and then fight a holding war until either you can break through (once they stop sending units into your territory) or get the Iron hooked up and supplement with Swords.

The turn before the war, take your Spearman from the hill W of Ur down onto the road to the W, and pillage it the turn you move your forces to hit Damascus. Split your Horsemen into stacks NW of Ellipi to hit one city, and W of Ankar to hit the other. Depending on how things are stacked up culturally, you may want to raze both the cities.

Then send most of your Spear (send these before the war) and Horsemen forces to that Hill W of Ur and just kill everything that gets up close to you. If you leave Ur completely undefended, that's where the AI is likely to head to, and that hill will give you free shots on their Swords and Horses passing by. If you can't kill them all at first, move your Spears into Ur, and/or move excess Warriors in so they can't take the city very quickly. Losing a couple Warriors a turn won't hurt you as bad as forcing their Swords and Horses to stay out in the open will hurt them.

(Do the Ottoman's even have Iron other than in Damascus?)

[Datajack Franit]

Capture Arabian workers and strenghten your cities with them- then conquer the city, so they'll become happy citizens within a turn

[Emma]

thanks a lot!

yes the Ottomans have another source of iron. it's next to their capital.
they wont trade it at any price, though. but they don't have a huge tech lead, so it's not as if i'd have to fight knights with horsemen ;-)