I finsished my set and things are looking up. I healed our units, upgraded the warrior and, on turn 60, the 3rd sword finished. Rome showed no more units (he finished a Heavy Chariot in Ostia that went in the direction of Rome). Ostia was building walls, but the graph disappeared after a turn, so I think they gave up on that idea.
I didn't move the units. We can put the city in siege in 3 turns, counting this one (american units helping can make this sooner). We have three archers able to shoot the city and a 4th playing around. The archer placement is a bit strange because there's a barb archer on the northern camp, and he can shoot units we place on the hill 2S of the camp, so I decided not to place units there.
3 archers will deal about 30 damage to the city, which will increase with time. So, if nothing that bad happens, we can perhaps take Ostia. By the way, the american units only appeared this turn, coming from Rome's direction (strangely), otherwise I could have tried to use them to put the city in siege in this turn already. No legion was seen, neither any other Roman units. I think they are mostly concentrated around Rome, defending against America.
I suggest we finish the builder and start a Ram after masonry is done. We can also go for a settler, switching to +50% prod card after PP, that arrives in 3.
Finally, Trajan is already willing to sign peace giving gold to us. I don't think we can settle for that low, but it's worth taking into account:
Ichabod
TheArchduke <- UP
Bacchus <- On deck
Emperor K
Quagma Blast
Excellent preparation, Ichabod. I could only have such a good turn thanks to your groundwork.
In any case, war. We immeaditly aided by America begin the siege of Ostia.
Next turn, I switch us to a new government, not wanting to risk anything I go with the subpar Oligarchy for the melee attack bonus. We should change this after the second round of war. Great Prophet points for religion.
Ostia is attacked by everyone apart from the sword as I do not want to risk America taking it.
Ostia is taken next turn and I rush north. War Exhaustion is quite high thanks to a long and costly war. I finish the Holy Site.
Not wanting America to be encumbered, his units keep Rome busy I give him open borders for money.
Forgetting the barb archer, I take a hit on my archer.
We proceed on Antium, kill a catapult and push on the barb camp.
Antium is taken.
And I sign piece which at least brings us at least 270 gold and diamonds if we redeclare war in some turns. Which we should btw. Both new cities repair their monuments.
Rome immeaditly sends out a new settler on turn 68, I heal up and start building a ram.
We are in much better shape. Both our new cities can plan districts, I advise holy sites. I also sandbagged techs, so we should be good for now with district costs. We should probably slap down districts and then get writing.
Save is attached, but I think we could actually get somewhere here. That roman settler will build us our 4th city or be captured and if a legion protects it I would suggest a capture is more then fair.
Mediolanum has to burn but what do we do about Rome?
How is the religious race going? Perhaps we can look to pillage the Roman districts to make them lose the GPro points.
I think we can start thinking of a settler of our own, thugh waiting for Colonization is perhaps in order. A city to the east of Daisho looks good and I think we need a settler to replace Mediolanum, since that spot is great. Unfortunately, all the improvements disappear when a city is razed, so we won't be able to use even the builder charges that Trajan used there.
Capturing the new roman city/settler will also help.
Any thoughts about our religious strategy? I think Jesuit Education would be a nice belief, if we can get it. It won't be abusable, but it can help speed up the Theater Squares. I don't think we need Choral Music, as we'll be swimming in Culture if we go the Theater route, but perhaps there are some advantages of going far into the Civic's tree.
Anyway:
Ichabod
TheArchduke
Bacchus <- UP
Emperor K <- On deck
Quagma Blast
I note that America has a Theatre Square with an Amphitheatre completed. Crazy. We place a Theatre in capital, right? Otherwise looks like for me the play will be mostly consolidation.
I say we keep Rome alive to extort positive diplomatic points from America as far as possible. Also trigger them to keep declaring war on us, which shouldn't be difficult.
Rome has to be kept alive if I am not mistaken. Can we just keep declaring war and pillaging his districts every 10 turns or so, or would that be cheating?
