[Spoiler] Desperados: The Black Sword & Agent

[agent427]

Just whipped it anyway cause it was growing too large... can't wait til I hook up that gold!

[agent427]

I hadn't realized peaks had a use before. When I was first looking at locations to settle Sabata, I was a little annoyed by all the peak hills, but now I see a great advantage-- once Adios Sabata's borders pop and it claims the northern peaks, I'll get visibility right into the core of Holy Rome.

When I logged in I had a strange 1 GPT offer from Whosit (Mongolia). I figure it's about this, he's planted a city near where my Impi is scouting and doesn't want me to rush it. Which is fine, I would actually like peace with Mongolia in the long run.


Gold mined at Duck you Sucker, road connection next turn. Finally have enough money to start research again-- Currency in 2 turns.
I have settlers under production in 3 cities, so time to consider settlement. I love dot mapping!
To the northwest:


Prior dotmapping was messed up by Rome's city here, but Yellow Dot manages to grab Clams and Pigs, and lots of lake tiles. It'll be bumping right up against Rome's culture. I could split the garrison between Adios, Sabata and Yellow Dot, but then I'm in real trouble if both Romes declare.
Pink Dot is weak, also Rome has perfect visibility on it from its mountain, I'd rather just raze the Roman city and settle the site that claims Gold later.



Lots of potential to the east, with Settlers in queue I bet I can get a few cities down before Mongolia stakes a claim.
Grabbing 2 fish and a wheat with one city seems the clearest option, I can't see a good way to spin that area off into two cities that isn't also pushing into Mongolia.
Teal dot gets stone. We already have incense up at Cera Una Volta. The fish marker got cut off but it's there, so it had food.. In second ring though. And if HRE settles the coast opposite of Teal Dot then they'd steal it.
Could settle the tile between Stone and Sheep, but apart from those two tiles it would have nothing to work.. just swaths of flatland.
Light blue is a sort of reach spot to make use of the Sheep without putting it into the Stone city, but Mongolia might take offense to it.



White dot is a simple seafood colony, has to slow grow its Ikhanda for border pop with no workable tiles so it'll be awhile before it's of any use.
Orange dots are sort of tentative reach cities to grab the pigs and possibly clams, though the scouting info is out of date and the seafood at least is probably in Roman borders now. Not super hype on this one, HRE could easily cut it off with forces from Aachen, any road connection has to go through a few hills to slow down reinforcements.. I just marked it because otherwise we're running out of free room to settle.

[The Black Sword]

Mmm, Currency.

I think you're right about the North West. Yellow Dot should be a good plant, even if we lose out on the silk. The Pink Area feels too hard to defend with the current Roman presence.

With regard to the East, can we get a better shot of the area around the marble? Would be nice to claim that too.

It seems like Mongolia are going to be able to join up their North and South?

Also, isn't there a city we can put on the spit south of Bad?

White dot doesn't seem worth settling until we can give it an immediate missionary, it doesn't look like it can pop borders on its own.

Orange also seems weak to me, it can be boated by both Romes, and hard to defend from a conventional attack too. It's not like the land is sterling quality either.

Should we do some further scouting out west? It looks like there's still some nice islands to settle over there.

[agent427]

I've loaded a warrior onto a Galley to explore west. Speaking of, The Network (ipecac) offered a Map Trade with us. I wanted to check with you before accepting. We've had no sighting of them so far that I recall. I believe they are across the water to our Southwest, as we do have trade route access and their religion spread to us. I don't see any immediate draw back to the trade..

Here's a shot of the Southeast, around the Marble.


Scouting information is over 10 turns out of date so I'll assume the border of this city has popped. As you see, it blocks off the southern route pretty well. A city south of Bad
that grabs the Cows, Fish, and Oasis is feasible, but it's on flat ground, and a long distance away by road; hard to defend.

I did some math on a scratch pad and White Dot would need at least 22 turns to pop its borders without a missionary, so yeah, let's hold off on that.

Thoughts on tech to do after Currency?
Calendar would unlock 3 happiness resources for us (Dye, Incense, Spices)
Archery seems useless when HRE has Cover promotions on all its units, unless we're following it with horse archery.
Alphabet for open borders would unlock foreign trade routes in our 5 west coast cities that have access to The Network. That comes out to +2 Commerce per city if they fill up with intercontinental routes, correct? Spies for probing the HRE would also be useful.

I'm interested in pursuing a military angle myself... Iron Working for swords. We're pushing against HRE on 3 fronts (Aachen, Vienna, Augsburg), I'd like to be the one who strikes first.
Current military situation is-
On Aachen front, 3 Axes, 2 Impis, 2 Chariots
On Augsburg front, 2 Axes, 1 Impi
On Vienna front, 5 Axes, 2 Impis

Vienna is just such a pain, the way its choking Sabata, and how its visibility reaches so far into our civ. I believe this maps out their visibility correctly (need to double check on that red dot spot)



Of the 3 fronts, Vienna is on flat ground, and poses the greatest threat. Aachen is worth keeping untouched because it's so easy to defend against right now. Augsburg is sort of a mixed situation, though it also borders Mongolia, so I think it's worthwhile that those 2 civs maintain their border tension.

OTOH, Calendar lets us grow vertically. We have a ton of workers and improvements, lots of cottages to work, and the extra happiness could subsidize whipping of military units if we went Calendar -> Iron Working -> War.

What do you think?

[The Black Sword]

We met the Network via a workboat from the West right? It's possible then that they want a map trade to judge the extent of our island expansion and see what to compete for.

Still, I think we should probably go ahead, they probably have a lot of map info we don't, the only islands we've thoroughly defogged are ones that are clearly ours already. Plus, it's a potential ally vs Rome.

Regarding tech, I'd feel Calendar is best choice next, by some distance. We were in a pretty bad happy shape a few turns ago and the gold won't keep that fixed forever, particularly if we're building an army. After that, there doesn't seem any immediately useful econ techs available and I'd be happy to pick up some military stuff. Actually I think I'd want to pick up at least one of HBR/Construction in addition to IW at that stage, even if we wanted to continue on a peaceful route.

In the SE, I like the spot 1NE of the oasis. Should be far enough from Carib that we can defend it, while picking up a lot of the good stuff in the area, can share the clam too.

That marble is in a difficult location, I think we need to make a decision whether it's worth some suboptimal settling for it.I like your original dotmap without the marble, except maybe consider shifting the reach blue dot 1N, which seems a bit nicer to Mongolia. With the marble, I'm thinking the best plan is 1E of the stone, another one on the spices, and I rather doubt we get any reach city. That's fairly crappy though, probably not worth it.

Actually, 1 last thing to consider; move the green dot on top of the stone. 2h plant, probably a better location and we have a chance at winning the marble 3rd ring.

Btw, what was Augsburg's garrison last you saw?

[agent427]

Augsburg garrison, 1 axe, then another axe appeared to pillage the windmill, so let's assume 2 axes.
Aachen garrison, 2 axe, 2 spears.
Vienna unknown.

[agent427]

Another possibility for marble is 1S of the Blue Dot.. grabs Sheep, Cows, and Marble in 2nd ring. The marble is in the 3rd ring of that Mongolian city near by so we're not really stealing it, but it does mean border tension.
We'll see if that's even a possibility by the time we're settled the other 2 spots in that area. If we get no marble, we get no marble. C'est la vie.

[agent427]

Calendar ETA 8 turns (5 turns 0%, 3 turns 100%)
Started working first scientist specialist in The Good. City grows in 6 turns, loses 1 level of whip unhappy in 7 turns, so in 7 turns I'll start the 2nd sci spec.

2 more workers come online next turn. Most of my workers are making minor improvements to the road network (more roads going around hills than over them) before they head off to improve the new settlements.

[The Black Sword]

Sounds good.

The plains hill for the marble is another option, I was thinking it would create too much trouble with Mongolia.

[GermanJoey]

Sounds good.

The plains hill for the marble is another option, I was thinking it would create too much trouble with Mongolia.

Since when does the mighty Genghis Khan fear the Mongols?