Theme for this Turn:
Ask not what your Golden Age can do for you;
ask what your Golden Age can do to Hammy. 
Once again Kai was awoken to the sound of the Senate calling his name.
As he ascended to the throne he surveyed the empire before him.
Everything was generally running well, only a couple minor worker tweaks were needed to push a little more gold out of the land.
The empire's resources for both war and infrastructure were vastly improved over the last time he checked, so he asked the Senate to pass a resolution of thanks for Ralph and Frank's excellent work.
With that done, he finished the job of gathering the armies of the South.
As he waited for for the runner to report all legions were in place, Pericles came offering a trade of Fish for Stone. Kai considered helping out his vassal, but decided against it at this exact moment.
(Side Note: I don't normally ever pick up vassals, so do you guys normally help them out with trades of tech or extra resources
)
The next morning the runner finally arrived. He carried both the news that the all legions were in place, as well as the news of a new great scientist that had appeared in Rome.
Kai thought long and hard about how to use this new scientist, and in the end he asked him to spread his knowledge freely among the people, and to help that he decreed that the government shall no longer control the media. The people responded with great rejoicing and many new entertaining forms of the written, spoken and sung word were produced.
With this great rejoicing, and flush with the new cash to support the war, Kai gave the nod to his military advisers, and the quest to unify the homeland under the rightful Roman rule was begun.
The fruits of this effort were quickly realized as our initial push into Hammy's territory netted two workers. These gains were quickly followed up by the capture of Ellasar by the northern army.
The southern army soon met with equal success as Erench was captured and promptly razed.
As Kai perused the battle reports, Elizabeth asked respectfully for Kai's attention. Her honeyed word made Kai listen, but her offer of Divine Right and gold for Liberialism did not match her oratory skills. Kai kindly asked her to leave.
She left only to be replaced by Gandhi. His Indians had been busy researching in this time and he offered Kai Military Science in return for steam power. Again Kai considered but ultimately turned this trade down.
As Kai turned back to his reports Gilgamesh's stormed into Kai's throne room demanding that we cancel our deals with Elizabeth. Kai (never one to take demands lightly) sent him packing.
Finally placed within the stack of military reports for Kai to review was a small note that the Roman Wise Men had discovered the secret to Steel. Also included were plans for a new weapon to replace the Catapults. Kai quickly directed Cumae to produce working copies of these cannons for use in the upcoming battles.
On the battle field Hammy focused his defense on his central front. As such the Western Army ran into heavy resistance as Hammy continually reinforced Borsippa.
As the battle continued to stalemate in the center the northern and southern prongs of the attack healed and then continued to advance.
In the southern army split and struck first capturing Kutha. As the result of this battle a new great general was born in Rome. As the general presented himself before Kai, the roman Wise Men came into the room speaking about how the war experience could be reviewed and learned from with their new discipline called "Military Science". Kai considered this possibility and then directed the Great General to establish a Military Academy to do just that in Cumae.
Soon after they left A report came from the northern front.
Shushan had fallen to the northern army. Losses from all combat on the northern and southern front had so far been minimal.
This was not so on the Central Front. Hammy had managed to reinforce Borsippa so well that most of that armies siege weapons had been destroyed, and even the legions of riflemen had been badly wounded. As the riflemen healed under the watchful eye of our super warlord pikeman medic, Kai directed the emipre's reinforcements to the western front. This set of reinforcements included two units of the new cannons the military was very excited about.
As reinforcements gathered Hammy attempted to counterattack. Kai watched this, and through the use of a couple highly dug in Riflemen units encouraged the assault to happen at Haderum. Hammy took that bait and attacked across the river.
The results were not pretty for him. As all the reinforcements for the western front had gathered in Haderum.
His counter attack force was destroyed without any lasting cost to the Roman empire.
These after a single night of rest these reinforcements then headed to the central front and the battle for Borsippa was joined.
As Kai waited for the news of the battle, The wise men reported again that they had discovered the secrets of something called a Corporation. This resulted in the loss of some trade via the Great lighthouse, but not all that much as The Roman empire now included a number of landlocked cities which got new trade routs. Kai then directed the Wise men to think about a way to increase production. (Assembly Line)
The new cannons made the battle for Borsippabattle much easier, the city soon fell to the central army. As the army settled in to heal, the northern and southern armies arrived at their next targets.
As Kai directed the senate to summon Frank, the messengers with more details from the northern and southern front.
In the north Esnum was captured.
While in the South:
Mari fell to the victorious Southern Army.
So that's were I ended. I took a long turn, but I think that was the plan.
Six cities captured, and one razed. Hammy has six cities left on the main landmass. All three of the armies are bloodied but given a couple turns of healing, they should be fully healed and ready to assault the next batch of cities.
(I believe I took out the brunt of his army, So hopefully Frank the next few cities should be easy to take)
A few items of note:
1) I have not done all that much to get ready for our assault across the sea. Rome now has a drydock, but I have not produced any new ships.
2) Hammy has an outpost up near the Greeks, and a number of Frigates. So we may need to bump up our Navy before we finish him off.
3) I still have not used the great engineer. He just seems too valuable to use on a golden age. I was thinking maybe he might be used either to found a Corp (if we wanted to do that) OR we could use him to produce the Pentagon quickly.
4) One other thing we should be aware of. Pacal II is very close to spreading his religion to all the different nations. Attached below is the vote for the Apostolic Palace.
I think once that happens, he only needs 420 votes to win a diplomatic victory. So as you can see if a few people join him, he may possibly have enough votes to win a diplomatic victory. I'm not all that worried right now, but It's something to think about when we go across the pond and start making enemies.
5) Frank be sure you check all the cities to see where they are working tiles. I haven't done so since the golden age ended, so the tiles may not be working quite as efficiently as they should be. (Bad Kai.... got wrapped up in the war.)
That's it at this point.
Hopefully Frank you have half as much fun on your turns as I did beating up on Hammy.
that % creates).
if all else fails he can go on a GA
