My first game as the Sauro, I took Tanais, then bypassed the Crimea and kept pushing west, focussing on settlements with only 6-8 defenders.

Even then, with an army of four FMs and four HAs, I do my fighting by engaging an enemy, shooting all my arrows at them, running away, and repeating. Doing this, I hardly ever suffer any casualties, which was good as I began pushing into Poland just as my debt disappeared. I kept setting my captured Polish cities to Military Allies, though, so a bunch defected to the Sweboz, and then from then on, my game would always CTD.

So, I started a new game, and saw on the blitz thread they recommend taking Gava-Yugra first and annexing all the provinces around there before pushing East.

So, I started a new game and am trying that, but by the time I took the city, I was almost 20K in debt. Now I'm hoping to roll through most of the Northern Provinces before I start brushing up against the Saka or Pahlava...