[Spoiler] Desperados: The Black Sword & Agent

[The Black Sword]

Sorry, I should have changed the sign in game when I suggested the new plan. In general, we don't want to whip off 6 yield tiles like those cows. Maybe a Barracks is better than a Gran, since we have the whip unhappy?

I wonder should we change the dotmap to grab the pigs? Looks sort of awkward to do though.

Looking good otherwise. Do we know if BGN has copper yet, how annoying can we be? Seems we'll be competing with him both North and South. If we expect a border pop, it might be a good idea to declare war so they don't push us off the gold with that pop.

Regarding the tech; should we consider Sailing next? I'm thinking the fish city will want a lighthouse and we probably want an island city soon too. If the 7th city is on an island, it's a straight 7gpt better than a mainland one thanks to trade routes. That seems like a good goal to aim for next, maybe Ugly can build our galley?

[agent427]

Switched to sailing.
The HRE moved their warrior into the city, another warrior moved in from out of the fog, and I assume the barb suicided itself on the city. The warriors are all upgraded with C1 & Cover promotion (huh????)
Forgot to grab a shot of it. The tile SE of Aachen is in the fog, but I see no road connections on the city tile itself, making me think this city hasn't been connected yet. (since they double moved, the 3rd warrior who appeared may have been 2 tiles away)

Get a load of the land nearby though...



Never been much for early wars, but.. I think it'd be ridiculous to allow HRE to expand this far north uncontested, grabbing 2 Golds and a Copper. They have 4 cities total, even though I don't have much visibility, the lack of road connection makes me think this is an aggressive reach plant away from their core.

Assuming an Axe doesn't appear in that city this turn, do you think I should attack? With 3 defenders I wouldn't be able to raze the city right away, and he may have units able to reinforce from the fog even without roads, but I feel like it's worth taking a gamble on. Take the initiative, put him on the defensive?

Regarding settlement plans:


Settlers currently on the blue dots, headed for red dots. Those are the right locations, right?

[The Black Sword]

I'm not sure about the HRE situation. If you look how big the map is vertically, that's almost certainly their land. I'm not sure I'd call it a reach plant. It is their 3rd city, so it might not be first ring for them, the culture looks weird to me. I don't really see what we gain from attacking to be honest. Are we going to settle down there ourselves and steal some of the land? We can't really afford to do that for the moment and there's plenty of nice land to expand into anyway. But if no axe appears it's awfully tempting since we already have everything in place. I guess I'd be afraid that we'll force him into getting an axe and then we'll be forced to get a chariot or an axe ourselves to defend ourselves. On the other hand, we only seem to have the 1 copper, if that's his just outside his borders ... I guess we might as well attack and see where that gets us.

Re the settlers; those spots look right. It feels pretty wasteful with the pigs but I think it's too late to change now.

In the north, I think we can grow Good to size 3 in 1 turn and then slowbuild the settler in 2 turns with the plains hill forest. Better than 3 turns of slowbuilding. We need to get something to the plains hill to protect it. I'd suggest moving Ugly's warrior toward the capital and using the capitals. Ugly can put some hammers into an Impi while growing, so it always has the ability to whip 1 and protect itself if needed.

-We need to get the other 2 warriors back in our borders to use as military police, Bad in particular will need it.
-after the settler, grow the capital as big as the happy cap allows on those cottages? Need to fix the tech rate.
-Grow Ugly to sz 3 and 1-whip a worker? Cottage this city too?

[The Black Sword]

I was checking civstats there;

Seems we moved first last turn, and I remember our Impis already moved when I logged in. However CH clicked end turn first. I think the correct thing is for us to take the first time slot if we want to attack but we should send them a PM if so because the situation isn't entirely clear.

[agent427]

By the time I logged in today, CH had already taken & ended his turn, so it looks we're in 2nd half of the turn timer.
No new units had appeared, and I haven't seen any CH do any whippings in CivStats as far back as it goes. So I went for it:








(What is the 'Extra Combat -10%' modifier?)

In other empire news:


Started a warrior here, was not sure what else would be useful. It'll be hooked up to the roads in 2 turns at which point the build will upgrade to an Axe.

[The Black Sword]

Well, that sucks. I'm not sure what that 10% was for, everything else seems like it should account for his 3.2 strength. I hadn't realised you moved the other Impi away btw, I think if you're going to make attacks you have to throw everything in at once. Doesn't really matter now though. Should we offer peace? I don't see us making any progress now but we could force him to send an axe at us.

With the two happy sources we have a pretty good cap of 6 now, so I think granaries should be important in new cities. In Fistful, I'd be thinking of hooking the sheep after the road finishes, then chopping one of the forests into a Gran and 2->1 whipping it. 5 hammers into an axe for emergency whipping isn't a bad thing though.

In the pigs city, I'd probably be thinking of hooking pigs -> silver, maybe chopping that roaded forest and 3->2 whipping it in. Alternately, it may make sense to go Barracks first, 2->1 whipping that. Then we can chop a forest once the border expands to 3->2 whip the granary and Ugly can make us a WB for the Fish.

Is the capital building that last settler btw?

[spacetyrantxenu]

Maybe somebody else can confirm but I suggest you rename those new cities without using special characters. During PB7 TwinkleToes became the original nuclear rage quitter by inadvertently causing a game crash with a city named Tro%lling (or similar spelling). I'm not sure if the % symbol in particular was the problem or if it was something in general about a special characters in the city name. Maybe somebody else remembers. But since I'd most likely end up having to process a reload, better safe than sorry.

[agent427]

Is the capital building that last settler btw?

Yeah, I was going to let it grow on an Axe build til it hit 4 before switching back to the Settler build.

[agent427]

Maybe somebody else can confirm but I suggest you rename those new cities without using special characters. During PB7 TwinkleToes became the original nuclear rage quitter by inadvertently causing a game crash with a city named Tro%lling (or similar spelling). I'm not sure if the % symbol in particular was the problem or if it was something in general about a special characters in the city name. Maybe somebody else remembers. But since I'd most likely end up having to process a reload, better safe than sorry.

[agent427]

I whipped an Impi in Ugly, putting the overflow into an Ikhanda that should finish soon. Thought that made more sense than a Granary when it can only work 1 food source atm.