[Spoiler] Desperados: The Black Sword & Agent

[The Black Sword]

OK. I figured the metagame here encouraged that kind of opportunism, as with the limited diplomacy it's harder for grudge-style kingmaking to happen.
Is it better to be nice to HRE, who is going to be riding straight on my borders though? Rome is further off, and doesn't know where I am.

I guess we'll have to see how the borders shape up. It looks to me like we will have a reasonably sized border with Rome to the East but that is something to take into consideration.

I was thinking of settling the northern city 1NW of the wine tile. Or possibly 1N of that and HRE wouldn't be able to hit it with 2-movers.

[GermanJoey]

OK. I figured the metagame here encouraged that kind of opportunism, as with the limited diplomacy it's harder for grudge-style kingmaking to happen.
Is it better to be nice to HRE, who is going to be riding straight on my borders though? Rome is further off, and doesn't know where I am.

Can't comment on your current situation since I'm globally lurking, but you'd be surprised at how much diplomacy actually happens in no-diplo games. It's just a lot more... subtle.

[agent427]

T64 - Impi has linked up with the stolen worker for a safe escort home. New Impi out from Capital, sent NE to scout.
Axeman posted to Bad for Happiness garrison.
Contact with Dreylin made by workboat, we have a trade connection so he must be on that same body of water that Ugly borders.
He's the founder of Buddhism. He has 4 cities.. everyone seems to have about 4 cities actually, this will be the last time I bad-talk IMP again

Capital is pumping out a new worker, that + the stolen one will bring us to 7 total IIRC.
Ugly's borders pop this turn, already chopping per TBS' instructions. Galley before workboat I think, because if Dreylin is also on that body of water we may be in a race to colonize sheep island (henceforth "New Zealand")

[agent427]

Mongolian borders spotted



I'm hoping there's seafood in the fogged area to the south, otherwise this patch of land between us does not look appealing.

[agent427]

Oh, and Rome offered straight-up peace so I took it.

[The Black Sword]

A city for the pigs and Ivory might be nice, we certainly need more info. It looks like HRE is competing for that land too? Looks like they had a power spike recently, so we should be careful of that.

I set us to save gold on Maths when prompted. Some ideas:

-could 2-whip a settler in the capital to go toward the lake fish. We have 2 workers in the area to road toward it.
-Need to send 1 of the workers by Il Mercenario to improve the horse.
-Fistful needs a barracks after it's current build. The culture will be important to give extra notice on any HRE attacks and cultural defences, as well as tiles to work.
-Maybe send the most recent worker built in the capital toward A Few $ More? Could farm the shared grassland(mainly for Fistful, which could do with a slightly better food surplus) and maybe just cottage the other grass E of A Few $ More to give it something to work.

[agent427]

Imgur isn't working so no screenshots at the moment. Here's the empire overview though:

Good:
Can double whip a settler now. However I think I will wait 2 turns, so that it arrives at Ugly in time to board the galley and wastes no time idling around. It will settle New Zealand.

Bad:
Can double-whip here. City is currently working 1 unimproved tile 3 improved tiles. It's got a bit of unhappy backlog already so I thought I'd wait 2 turns until I can complete the settler with a single whip. Is this a good idea or is it always better to double whip? This settler will go to the Lake fish spot, which the workers will have had time to road.
I have a worker here putting in a chop, but may move him to farm land between the $ cities per your instructions.

Ugly:
Its galley will complete in 3 turns. 2 workers are chopping the forest just north. That will overflow from the Galley into Ugly's workboat. The Galley can transport a Settler to New Zealand. Once the forest is cleared, those two workers can put a road tile on there as well.

Fistful of $:
Can whip out the Ikhanda in one turn thanks to Aggressive bonus. I think I might wait until it's about to grow to Size 3, then whip, so the city stays at Size 2 and keeps working its sole 2 improved tiles.

Few $ More:
Will slow-build the Ikhanda shortly.

Mercenario:
Granary finished, overflowing into a workboat for the clams. Next build, Lighthouse? Or Library perhaps?
Worker is here, improving horses.

[The Black Sword]

Where's Bad's settler going? I was thinking Bad's settler goes in the boat and Good's goes to the north east. We definitely want to double-whip instead of single in Bad since the city has such a high food surplus, and already limited happy cap. Single whips are usually only worth it where the happy penalty isn't going to have an effect(it will run out before we reach the happy cap).

If a worker is already moved onto a forest, probably best to let him complete the chop, before other stuff.

Fistful: whipping 3->2 sounds good to me.

Merc: Lighthouse certainly seems like the best build.

[Krill]

Obligatory dropbox FTW

[agent427]

Here's a scout shot of the Northeast... it sorta stinks.


Blue dot is the closest spot with any food.. a single clam tile, 2nd ring. Its only other resource... a calendar resource, located across a canal.
Red zone is OK, I guess? Pigs and ivory? But it's getting right in HRE's face, and it's 5 - 6 tiles from the nearest city.

Empire overview