I don't see how we can make much use of the granary until HR or hooking up multiple happy resources. In your microplan it's listed as early as T40. OK, imagine you make a granary on size 2 or 3 and grow super fast and super efficiently to size 5. You almost 1-turn the growth, but then what? You can never whip multiple times, and if you stay on size 4/5 making settlers/workers the granary is not doing anything either. +8 food (capital) is already enough to grow decently without granaries before you find external happiness. You still outgrow whip unhappiness without the granary. Settling a new city with a good food resource is more productive than a granary with no happiness available.
With so much natural commerce available I would not be very afraid of expanding too much/going broke any time soon. SE corn has flood plains, SW corn has lake, capital has river, sheep has lake, etc.* But I am not against early cottages. I just think the granary sounds like a wrong use of hammers. Instead of a granary we can have 4 warriors to escort settlers/workers.
*IMO lakes are decent early on for newly settled cities because they give decent yield (commerce can be hard to find and is often underrated) and most importantly require 0 worker turns. Frees up workers for other important tasks.
Edit: I find choosing when to get granaries as one of the most difficult and most complicated decisions in the early game so I'm happy to be proven wrong/persuaded. It's always an interesting spot.
I haven't played through the opening personally, but on principle I don't see what the granary does after you reach size 5 (for a long time). And the food you gain growing to size 5 does not equal the granary in cost.
With so much natural commerce available I would not be very afraid of expanding too much/going broke any time soon. SE corn has flood plains, SW corn has lake, capital has river, sheep has lake, etc.* But I am not against early cottages. I just think the granary sounds like a wrong use of hammers. Instead of a granary we can have 4 warriors to escort settlers/workers.
*IMO lakes are decent early on for newly settled cities because they give decent yield (commerce can be hard to find and is often underrated) and most importantly require 0 worker turns. Frees up workers for other important tasks.
Edit: I find choosing when to get granaries as one of the most difficult and most complicated decisions in the early game so I'm happy to be proven wrong/persuaded. It's always an interesting spot.
I haven't played through the opening personally, but on principle I don't see what the granary does after you reach size 5 (for a long time). And the food you gain growing to size 5 does not equal the granary in cost.