Hey everyone, I'm back with the long-awaited finale of AI Middle East! After part 6, the public opinion has firmly swung in Oman's favour, with 62% of you convinced that Saif bin Sultan will win. It seems like a pretty safe bet, but let's find out!

The war between Oman and Byzantium is still raging. I don't remember who held which cities at the end of part 6, but just since the previous slide, Byzantium has recaptured Istanbul and Yerevan.



Oman captures Jerusalem! The Holy Land has fallen!



Jerusalem flips back, however, and Justinian conjures a sizeable defensive force to hold the line!



Meanwhile, Nubia attacks Hejaz, which might actually prove successful thanks to Hussein bin Ali's dismal tech level. Those battleships will do some serious damage.



The massive grinding battle in the desert and the mountains continues as Byzantium retakes Palmyra, looking to reverse as many of Oman's conquests as possible.



But Saif bin Sultan knows that all he has to do is keep flipping. Oman takes Acre and Yerevan.



Justinian retakes Acre, Yerevan, and Laodicea, meaning that if peace were to be made now, Oman would have gained only one city.



Jeddah falls to red under bombardment from Nubian planes and battleships. All Piye needs now is a melee unit, but this is notoriously hard for him.



Nevertheless, he manages to pull it off just one turn later, capturing Jeddah with an embarked great war infantry and eliminating Hussein bin Ali of Hejaz in 6th place. Hejaz was a turtle, hiding in its mountain stronghold and periodically sending forays into the Arabian peninsula. Hussein harassed Saudi Arabia and even Oman early on, taking cities from both, but he was never able to hold them, and if not for geography he would have been eliminated much earlier.



Oman, now sporting mechanized infantry, pushes back against Byzantium, retaking Laodicea, Istanbul, and Palmyra. Justinian has upgraded his own infantry units, however.



And so Byzantium retakes Istanbul and Palmyra but loses Acre and Yerevan.



Byantium retakes Acre but not Yerevan, and loses Palmyra and Istanbul again.



And Justinian recaptures Palmyra, Istanbul, and Acre. Once again, Oman is only up two cities since the start of the war.



But Saif bin Sultan does not give up, retaking Yerevan, Palmyra, and Acre.



In a first, Iconium falls. And with every city that flips for the first time, Byzantium grows weaker. (Istanbul has fallen again too.)



Byzantium retakes Istanbul, Yerevan, and Acre but loses Jerusalem. Iconium flips.



Jerusalem and Iconium are retaken, but Oman captures Istanbul. Will this ever end?



Saif bin Sultan makes his most devastating push yet, capturing Jerusalem, Iconium, and Yerevan. Almost all of the cities that have been flipping are now under Omani control.



But Justinian just will not stop, retaking Istanbul, Iconium, and Jerusalem.



Oman flips back Jerusalem and Istanbul.



But then Byzantium takes both cities right back again.

Oman flips another city for the first time, sneaking a mobile SAM into Yervandashat. A special forces unit, the first future worlds unit seen in action, captures Iconium.



Parthia has a large carpet that could actually damage Oman if Mithridates declared war right now. And now that he has the Manhattan project, he could even back it up with nukes.



Byzantium retakes Yervandashat but struggles to get a melee unit into Iconium. Drone UAVs are also now appearing on the battlefield, and Oman's core army is now almost all special forces.



Oman takes Acre...



Byzantium retakes Acre but loses Yervandashat. Oman builds the Enrichment Centre, the first future worlds wonder.



Oman takes Jerusalem. The war seems to be slowing down a bit, with fewer cities flipping each turn.



Byzantium makes a sudden push, retaking Iconium and Palmyra, but special forces are in position to take everything back again.



Indeed, Oman recaptures Palmyra, Iconium, and Jerusalem.



Acre soon follows, and Antioch is taking damage.



Pliny tells us that Oman has the largest army, but Parthia's is almost as big. What the hell is Saif bin Sultan doing!?



Nubia attacks Byzantium! This may be the nail in Justinian's coffin, as he was having enough trouble defending against just Oman.



Indeed, Saif bin Sultan makes an immediate push, taking Ankara.



Byzantium retakes Jerusalem, but Nubia is rapidly damaging Cairo and Aleppo.



Oman retakes Jerusalem and captures Hadrianopolis as Cairo falls to red.



In a surprise twist, Byzantium makes peace with Nubia before Piye can capture Cairo. Perhaps this is a response to Justinian's acquisition of the bomb. But either way, the damage is done, and Byzantium's days appear to be numbered.



Oman takes Antioch and begins damaging even more core cities.

Oman wins the international games by an enormous margin.



Byzantium retakes Hadrianopolis but loses Aleppo, the Suez canal city.





Oman captures Thessalonica and Ancyra, closing in on Constantinople!



Justinian makes one last counterattack, retaking Thessalonica, Antioch, and Aleppo.



But Oman retakes Thessalonica and Aleppo, along with Nicomedia. Constantinople is cut off from what little remains of the Byzantine Empire.



And Constantinople falls! It only took Islam a few centuries longer than in real life!



The final cleanup now begins. Oman takes Cairo and recaptures Antioch.



Nicaea falls...



Dorylaeum is captured; only one tiny island city remains...



And with the fall of Trapezus, Justinian I of Byzantium is eliminated in 5th place. This is much too low a ranking for Byzantium, a civ that excelled in almost every way, taking over the lands that once belonged to Turkey, Palmyra, Jerusalem, and the Ayyubids, along with parts of Armenia. Justinian was a force to be reckoned with, one of the big three, but perhaps too short-sighted to realize that his extended war with Parthia would leave him vulnerable to Oman. Still, faced with a far superior foe, Byzantium fought through 110 desperate turns of war, proving that Justinian really did do the best that he could.



Oman builds Jurassic Park, but I'm not convinced the game will last long enough for us to see trained dinosaurs. (Although I think they weren't implemented yet in v5 anyway.)



Saif bin Sultan builds the Shanghai World Financial Centre in a flat desert coastal city. That's the true Gulf State way.



Nine turns after killing Byzantium, Oman turns once again against Parthia. Mithridates has a large army, but it won't save him against such an advanced and powerful foe.



Parthia starts off on the offensive, surrounding and damaging Tabriz, but paratroopers can only do so much.



A few stray Omani units take out Ganja. (Side note: why is Azerbaijan alive?)



Tabriz weathers the storm, albeit with a serious decline in population. Saif bin Sultan gets revenge for the deaths of so many innocent civilians by killing more innocent civilians in a nuclear attack on the Parthian capital. Parthia responds again by nuking Tehran.



Oman captures Ecbatana, which someone has nuked, and nuked Ctesiphon as well.





Then Parthia makes peace with Oman and gives away Ctesiphon. Seriously? You can't even finish off Parthia in a war that was clearly intended to finish them off?



Mithridates fails to push through a repeal of the embargo against him.



Nine turns after the end of the Parthian war (see a pattern here?), Oman attacks Nubia, the last remaining great power. This should be over relatively fast.



Oman starts of by bombarding Jeddah, Memphis, and Divn, while Nubia bombs Mecca.



Memphis falls to a biotrooper, possibly the most powerful FW v5 melee unit. There's no way to win against a civ that has biotroopers unless you have comparable technology, and Nubia doesn't.

Dvin falls, and Thebes drops into the red.

Dvin is recaptured, and Nubia is pushing on Mecca, but does not yet have a melee unit in position.

Helopolis falls, but a unit is now in position to take Mecca...

Somehow, Mecca holds, and Oman captures Thebes!

Oh wait, spoke too soon. Nubia has captured Mecca, ensuring that Piye can be remembered for holding the holiest city in Islam, even if only for a turn. Nubia also recaptures Thebes.

Oman takes Thebes back again, but does not recapture Mecca.

Finally, Mecca returns to its rightful Arab owner, and Meroe begins to take damage.

Two turns later, Meroe is in the red and Jeddah is in the black.

Jeddah falls, finally uniting the Arabian Peninsula under the Omani flag!

Meroe falls! Only Napata remains!

Napata falls to yellow...

And Oman captures Napata, eliminating Piye of Nubia in 4th place. Nubia did not expand much, but did acquire most of Africa through conquest, at one point holding all of it except for the Mediterranean coast. Nubia's only foray out of Africa, however, was the belated conquest of Jeddah that eliminated Hejaz, but came much too late to help Piye break out onto the rest of the map.

The two remaining civs that aren't Oman go to war! How cute.

And then they make peace. Alright then.

Oman attacks Parthia! Is Saif bin Sultan going to finish this with no intervention?

Nisa quickly falls, eliminating Mithridates I of Parthia in third place. Parthia was a global power, conquering the entire Iranian Plateau and much of the Fertile Crescent at its height. But Mithridates made the same mistake as Byzantium, ignoring the growing threat to the south and exhausting his resources on constant wars. Oman took almost all of Parthia in a single campaign, but took two more to get rid of the last four cities. Parthia languished for a while before finally giving up the ghost at the very end.

Four turns later, Oman remembers that Azerbaijan exists and declares war. Baku immediately falls to black.

And one turn later, Baku falls, eliminating rasulzade of Azerbaijan in second place. A position totally undeserved, considering that Azerbaijan did literally nothing the entire game! The lesson learned here is that basically being Switzerland is good for survival, but not for winning.

And of course our victor is glorious Oman, a long shot civ thrown in because there was another slot, with no expectation that it would do anything other than roll over and die. Oman is notorious for having bad AI, and yet, somehow, they've pulled off a tremendous victory—despite having one of the worst starts in the game, with no good land (besides their capital) anywhere nearby. How Saif bin Sultan did this will most likely always remain a mystery, and AI Middle East will go down in history as the game that broke all the unwritten rules of who fails and who succeeds.