While dreaming of a life consisting of peaceful expansion and riches, the great Ceasar is confronted with the news that his citizens have all turned into bloodthirsty barbarians and demand War. Not liking the evil glint in the eyes of his assassination prone royal guards, he agrees.
We have 4 Knights and 2 Longswords and 2 Ballistas. There is another Knight in 3 turns. I have not heard of anyone with ships or troops on the water, so we are going to empty the cities and send them off to invasion. Some Pikemen will be queued up just to get the homeland defenses back up in case somebody out there does get frisky. A few defenders and our road system should help keep us safe.
A Caravel heads to the Aztecs and scouts what units it can see especially naval units. The other Caravel explores our west coast keeping an eye out for barbarians trying to harass our embarked troops. All the troops are headed to Almaty for staging and arranging. We are looking for a wall of units backed by Ballistas. Frigates and the defensive Caravel follow the troops across the ocean. Naval units arrange themselves several hexes away from Texcoco to avoid triggering closeness warnings.
When arranged, (or triggered by Aztec reaction), the wall of units comes down from Almaty at the pace of the Ballistas. They are looking for loose troops to eliminate. Meanwhile, our might Navy is making sure the seas are clear and pelting Texcoco with everything they have. Texcoco may damage one ship, (to my observation, the city tends to pick on one unit that is weakened), but a seriously damaged ship can duck into Almaty for repairs. (See diplomacy note below.) The navy is also looking to provide damage or elimination of ranged units as opportunity arises. When Texcoco is at minimum, one unit dashes out and takes the city, or if the whole wall makes it there, the city falls to many units. Retreat of a damaged unit is always a priority if there is any chance to lose it.
You can refine this with a unit hiding in the water out of range of Texcoco that can swoop in, land, live through one possible barrage from the city, and then provide the killing blow. Allowing for this would provide a backup plan in case the wall of units runs into stiff resistance.
When Texccoco falls, we heal and edge ballistas toward Tenochtitlan. We want to take it before he sues for peace. If we deny a peace treaty to go forward and take the Capitol, people will hate us. They are going to hate us sooner or later, but it's worth avoiding if we can. I also want to take Tlatelolco for the 6 iron there. Everything else can be razed as far as I am concerned.
Diplomatically, we will do the trade mission with Stockholm. We can take 500 Gold and make Sockholm our new ally and get their food and 2 iron. We can take 750 gold and make Almaty our new ally and get their 2 iron. This will also get us a random chance per turn to get a unit from Almaty that has the tremendous advantage of being on the right continent as well as a pace for injured units to hide behind the barrage capacity of Almaty itself as war ally. This may impact our ability for upgrading Frigates, but we are about to enter a Golden Age and will have whatever it takes.
These are my plans. Let me know what you think, you bloodthirsty citizens of Rome.
) for discussion, if you haven't started your turnset then yet.
