[Spoiler] Desperados: The Black Sword & Agent

[The Black Sword]

Blue dot looks like a good idea to me actually. There are some good tiles in the area to claim, it's just a slow starter. But it's got a plains hill plant and it's a pretty defensible location to set a fair border vs Mongolia. Hopefully they won't feel the need to settle for first ring incense or clam. We can chop the forest for an immediate ikhanda, probably farm that tile too to grow to size 2 on a granary and it'll be a good city in 10t when the border pops.

Maybe we should send the Impi back to fully check out red zone soon? I doubt we'll have the opportunity to settle the stuff he's currently scouting.

[agent427]

Happy new year Happy 1200 B.C.!

Wyatt Earp the Impi beat a barb Axeman that appeared out of the jungle. What you guys can beat axes now but not warriors??

Interesting developments on the scouting front..



The landmass here is not a solid mass connecting to the next neighbor, it's more like a peninsula with a small 2-tile wide land bridge leading towards Rome.
If one could plant in a way to block off these Purple barriors, that would leave a nice chunk of land for settling..
Yellow dot is what I presume the city spot of HRE. If we settled on the west bank of that fish lake, we'd be culturally competing for the lakewater fish tile.

I know you want to settle the area to the NE but.. I feel like we ought to get a foothold in this zone before HRE pushes further southwest and cuts off one or two good city possibilities. There is no race for the NE site in my opinion, HRE needs to settle the Ivory/Pigs spot first, then scout out to defog the clam tile to show any usefulness for the area, then get a settler down with an anti-Impi guardian.

I have 2 settlers in play at the moment, both slightly visible on this shot. #1 was going to board the galley next turn, #2 was going NE, but will slow down as a garrison unit needs to move ahead of it to guard the potential city plant. I'd like to redirect Settler #2 up here, to settle somewhere in the red zone. There is an Impi in the area to garrison immediately.

Any site in the red zone would block off further HRE settlement southwest of its current location.

Site I grabs the lakewater fish, first ring to win the cultural war, + rice.
Sites IV gives up the fish (well without a canal to move a workboat in there), grabs freshwater clams instead, but is also a complete bottleneck against Rome from that direction.

-- Can't settle on the wines tile due to city placement.
-- Could settle 1S of the wines and hope to win the cultural war for the inland sea fish, but if that battle were lost, the city would have no food!

[The Black Sword]

Completely agree with settling red area over the NE spot. I think the NE is worth settling, but not that it's the number 1 priority.

As mentioned, I like the I spot for 2 really strong first ring resources and claiming the land. I'd like to get an axe up there to help the Impi ASAP and our 2 workers should be immediately chopping the first ring forests.

That East looks like a really good area too to prioritise. Gold, wheat and lots of beautiful river grass. Could then put a city for first ring pig, second ring crabs and finally a filler in the south to lighthouse the lake. Should we be aiming the next settler over here? Need to check for seafood before finalising a location of course.

Happy new year and Mr Earp deserves a promotion!

[The Black Sword]

Here's where HRE's newest settlement went. No ivory for us. Looks like they don't even have 2nd ring pig though. Could settle for crabs/pigs, but man is that city out on a limb.

Anyway, I switched Il Merc from Ikhanda to Lighthouse. There's nothing too important in the 2nd ring so Ikhanda isn't so useful. I'd be thinking of growing the city to size 5 and then double-whipping a settler for the plains hill spot we were talking about. After the horses are pastured you could have 1 worker road over there and pre-chop the forest. The other could go back and put down some shared cottages with the capital for the city to work at size 4+.



Ugly needs a lot of hammers(2 WBs and axe at least) and it's working some not great tiles. I'd like to double-whip it ASAP. One idea is to switch that overflow into a WB then put 1t production into an axe(make sure it's less than 5h, so switch off the copper mine for that turn), double whip the axe for lots of overflow into a 2nd WB. Alternately, continue with the axe and double whip a worker, put the overflow into a WB and complete with the chop.

I also think the worker 1S of the capital should go down and help improve the 3 southern cities. Maybe start with the river grass mines in bad.

[agent427]

I wanted the Axe to garrison the new city N of Ugly so I did not switch the overflow right now, but I believe I can do the same thing with the upcoming workboat right before the city hits Size 5.
The sheep island is very nice, uncovered another seafood resource in the fog.

[agent427]

In world news-- Dreylin (The Network) landed the Oracle.

Domestic news--
Two new cities in rapid succession:
T73 Sergio Carbucci & Frankie Nero return in Django


Of the spots on the island I thought this was best.. Settling the Northeast corner could let it grow on the clams that I'm about to improve, but would mean it can't take the crabs later. And Ugly needs those clams for itself anyway.

T74 Sabata




Sabata is garrisoned with an Axe & an Impi as I predict HRE will not be happy about its placement. I am producing units in the cities that neighbor HRE on the South side as well. First build is an Ikhanda.

The bad news:
#1- due to carelessness on my part, the chop that was being done just south of Sabata went into Ugly at lowered efficacy instead of right into the new city. argh!
#2- Vienna, the neighboring HRE city, has Hinduism in it. I believe that's 1 Culture per turn even without state religion, same as an Ikhanda, so they in effect win the culture war on that fish tile unless we put in a monument or something else.

I had a workboat steer within visibility of Vienna 2T ago, and so I can see it has a Granary but no barracks or monument.


Other city news:
Capital is growing past its happy cap, switched to a settler after putting some hammers into a library.
Few $ More has produced its work boat, culture hasn't popped yet so it will scout the coast for a few turns.
I've tentatively marked Bad to switch to a settler build when it reaches Size 5 to permit a doublewhip.
A worker is roading out from Il Mercenario to the potential city spot in the Northeast.

[agent427]

Now, what to do about the Vienna situation... Peaceful overture? Chariot & Impi attack?

[The Black Sword]

I thought we were settling Sabata 1N, so it had the fish first ring and would win the culture fight?

I'd be tempted to just write the fish off as not worth the investment now. The amount of culture buildings we'll need to win it back is pretty expensive. And then they'll have the advantage due to the religion(and religious buildings) so if they play right we might not even get the fish back. If you do want to try fight for it culturally then you need to decide that right now and get Ikhanda and Library into the city ASAP.

There are 2 other routes I see:
-Wait until we get into Caste, we might have a chance of taking it back via a load of artists. This is much less risky than the other culture path, since if we have Caste and they don't, there wouldn't be much they can do.

-Military. What was the garrison when the WB went by?

Other stuff:
-I switched the capital to a worker when I logged in. We need more workers and better to slowbuild those with food and whip settlers I think.
-Double whipping Bad when it reaches size 5 sounds like a good idea. Where's the settler going?
-I think Django should go Granary first instead of Ikhanda. Something like Chop+1-whip. Probably Sabata should do the same but the Ikhanda has some strategic importance there.
-A Lighthouse in A Few $ More would be pretty good when it gets the chance
-Should we get something, a WB or Galley, out to explore the islands to the East?
-Not 100% sure about the suggested dotmap for the west. I think Rome may have claimed those clams(looks like they're second ring) by the time we get a settler over there.
-Do we want to try for the Great Lighthouse or the Hanging Gardens?

[The Black Sword]

Heh, forgot three more:

-Does the land to the West look like a big island rather than part of the mainland?
-Should we send someone to resume scouting that strip S of Bad?
-Should we switch the EP to the Romans for a while to get their graphs?

[agent427]

I thought we were settling Sabata 1N, so it had the fish first ring and would win the culture fight?

Damn, I really screwed this up... read your post too fast and thought you meant site II.. you clearly meant NE so there's no way I should've made a mistake. Ugh!
I've been playing sloppy as of late and not planning more than a turn or so ahead. I'm going to dump all information I have here so I can review it later when I'm at work and think some stuff ahead. We're not at war so there's no reason I shouldn't know what I'm going to do each turn before I even log in.

Scouting Shots

Cities

Workers