ilios, not saying you're wrong, anything but. slavery + chopping are compelling reasons to beeline BW.
here's the thing. BW+mining are 304 beakers. we can pull in at best 12-13 beakers at the start, 9 from capital, 2 from pasture, and 1 or 2 from a mine or grassland river. 304 beakers at 12-13/turn is about 25 turns we delay pottery by.
let's say you get pottery on turn 0, on turn 4 you start working a cottage, and another on turn 8. maybe you can even get one up in a second city on turn 12, but let's ignore that for now.
working 2 cottages for 22 & 18 turns is 60 additional beakers, or 5 turns of research saved. you save another turn by getting a cottage up in city 2... on the other hand, chopping/whipping means we could conceivably be out to 4 cities, 3 workers, 5 warriors, 1 scout by turn 60... or 3 cities, 4 workers, 6 warriors... you get the idea.
the good thing is we have a bit of time - i'm working through some rough plans + will post as soon as i'm happy with them
here's the thing. BW+mining are 304 beakers. we can pull in at best 12-13 beakers at the start, 9 from capital, 2 from pasture, and 1 or 2 from a mine or grassland river. 304 beakers at 12-13/turn is about 25 turns we delay pottery by.
let's say you get pottery on turn 0, on turn 4 you start working a cottage, and another on turn 8. maybe you can even get one up in a second city on turn 12, but let's ignore that for now.
working 2 cottages for 22 & 18 turns is 60 additional beakers, or 5 turns of research saved. you save another turn by getting a cottage up in city 2... on the other hand, chopping/whipping means we could conceivably be out to 4 cities, 3 workers, 5 warriors, 1 scout by turn 60... or 3 cities, 4 workers, 6 warriors... you get the idea.
the good thing is we have a bit of time - i'm working through some rough plans + will post as soon as i'm happy with them