The Cold War: Toughest: Soviets: 24) Liberation [North Korea] Actually Insane

Alright. This is it. The original crazy, insane, difficulty of Rise of Nations. Presenting over 50 attempts, and even then, I still can't get any consistency with it, this is Liberation, featuring the North Koreans. This is slightly easier with the Americans, whose barracks units generate resources and whose marines automatically entrench after a period of idleness.
In most attempts on toughest, the AI will wipe the floor with you in under 3 flat. (Have a go and report back to me)
But I live to try to find ways to win, I live for the puzzle and so here I am.
Scenario: It's a 2v1, but your ally spawns next to North Korea who has twice the size of an army you do and always attacks your Ally. And if your Ally loses, you do as well. If you can last 20 minutes, there's a good chance your ally will finally be able to help and then from there you're in a good position to win this infernal scenario.
Tactics: Sheer madness caused me to experiment with tactics to try to save my ally. Let's go through them, there may be more I'm unaware of, but these are the ones I tried.
1) Setting up to entrench: Flat out doesn't work. Forced march straight off the bat won't even get half your army there in time and you've spent the craft needed to entrench away. Would be a solid way to defend your ally or at least buy time.
2) Tributing resources to your ally. Your ally develops faster and may get a second city up, preventing them from being defeated, but their capital will probably get captured as it doesn't address the army the North Koreans have. It also leaves you economically disadvantaged. Do not recommend.
3) Fast advance to airbase: you can grab the second military technology quite quickly, but by the time you build an airbase and get copters out (to wreck the tanks), the game is basically over. Same for any barracks and autoplant, as you generally lack the resources and distance to get units there anyway.
4) Try to use decoys and pick off units: getting the units close to the city, popping decoys and then engaging the army sorta works. You can have the scout target the general and have units pick off the comrade, but the army is still too large. you'll end up taking out a lot more units, but there are still too many attacking your ally to stop them. Don't recommend.
5) Attacking the North Koreans: I abandoned my Ally, went straight to the North Korean capital, picked off a citizen building a city and start attacking the barracks. At this point, the computer should go all in for my Ally, but instead, goes back to defend itself, which is a mistake as putting my ally out would eliminate me as well. You then retreat and head back to your Ally's capital and entrench in front of it, buying you and your ally valuable time. At this point, it's an army wrestle as you juggle economy and military while trying to defend your ally but it worked.
Method:
In the first 15 seconds. Build all the villagers you can. Grab first science and commerce tech. Forced march your army to the North Korean Capital with your scout. Grab as many ruins as you see along the way. Ruin bonuses go towards, farms, market, citizens and research technologies.
Build second city as far towards your ally as possible. Once you get the wood, build an autoplant on your border to build 4-5 tanks as you have a lot of oil and metal. Continue to build your food and wood economy by adding in a granary and lumber camp, then a university/temple/mine.
Your army should have hit the capital. Try to destroy the barracks and pick off citizens and start retreating once the North Koreans back off. Run around the side of the mountain and entrench your troops there. Any reinforcements should join them. Keep the scout close to fight off decoys and to snipe any loose generals. Generals/Comrade must be eliminated to remove the defensive/offensive bonuses they give to units. Hopefully your ally has built another city, and in a decent location. Otherwise, Pray.
If the encounter with the army goes okay and they withdraw, you're in. Get a third city up, pump the economy and start building copters to pick off tanks and build tanks and machine guns to take care of the rest.
At this point, the North Koreans may target you, so destroy supply wagons, target rockets, use temples and any other techniques you can to prolong the battles. Once your ally starts making units, do not stop defending your ally, use this as a chance to work with them or start harassing the North Koreans to give yourself breathing space as the North Koreans are relentless.
Once you get 4-6 cities up and running with half an army, you should start trying to grab North Korean cities. Once you grab one or two, the momentum should finally shift your way and victory won't be too far away.
Celebrate once you win as this is one of the hardest, toughest scenarios in the whole game. Or just sigh in relief as I did.