[SPOILERS] JR4 and RefSteel have a plan

[RefSteel]

We're working on the Agri -> Pottery plan described above right now. But what if we want to get Pottery first and, without delaying city 3 or its best tile improvements, we want to start working Gower/Antiochus floodplain cottages ASAP? We might try something like this:

T35: Warrior complete at Gower, which is now size 2 and works Fish + Floodplain; it begins a Settler. Antiochus is now size 2, but immediately WHIPS its Workboat (2 -> 1) and continues to work the Pig. The Worker near Gower chops. Hill Road complete.
T36: Workboat complete at Antiochus as its borders pop to 2nd ring; it resumes its Warrior. Gower begins a Warrior (with the Settler on hold). The Worker on the hill moves 1W to the Cow and begins a Pasture. The Workboat moves N-NW to the Fish. Switch tech to Pottery and increase Science slider to 100%!
T37: Gower resumes its Settler (with the Warrior on hold). Workboat nets the Fish, but Antiochus continues to work the Pig! Chop complete.
T38: Gower resumes its Warrior (with the Settler on hold) and works Fish + Pig. Antiochus works the Fish. The Worker near Gower moves 1N to another forest.
T39: Antiochus is now size 2 and works Cow + Fish. Pasture complete. Worker near Gower Chops.
T40: Gower is now size 3 and resumes its Settler (with the Warrior on hold) working Pig + Fish + Floodplain. Cow Worker moves NE-SE to a river plains tile ("wasting" a turn on movement).
T41: Chop complete. As long as the coast is clear, the plains Worker moves SE-S to the Copper.
T42: Warrior complete at Antiochus, which is now size 3; start Worker, working Cow + Fish + Pig. The new Warrior fortifies in place to keep Antiochus happy. Gower WHIPS its Settler (3 -> 2) and works Fish + Floodplain. Copper Worker begins a Road. Worker near Gower moves 1SW to a river grassland tile and begins a Road, but then CANCELS orders! Reduce science slider to 50%.
T43: Pottery complete; Settler complete at Gower, which begins a Worker (with its Warrior still on hold) and select tech (TBD). Set Science slider to 0%. Copper Road complete. Grassland Worker moves 1N to a Floodplain and begins a Cottage, but then CANCELS orders! Settler moves SW-S to the part-roaded river grassland tile just vacated by the Worker.
T44: Antiochus WHIPS its Worker (3 -> 2) and works Fish + Cow. Gower works Fish + Pig. Settler WAITS for the Floodplain Worker to move 1S to the Settler's part-roaded grassland and complete the Road. THEN the Settler moves 2SE-E to the Stone. The Copper Worker moves 1SE to the Pig and begins a Road, but then CANCELS orders!.
T45: Worker complete at Antiochus, which begins a Granary. Settler builds Prince of Tyre on the Stone; the new city starts a Granary, working a grassland forest (2/1/0). The Grassland Worker moves 2SW to the Pig, and both of the Workers there begin a Pasture (first WAITING for the city to be built). The new Worker from Antiochus moves 1SE to a river grassland and begins a Road, but then CANCELS orders!
T46: Pasture complete. Prince of Tyre works the Pig. The Worker near Antiochus moves 1NE to a Floodplain and begins a Cottage.
T47: Worker Complete at Gower, which begins a Granary (with its Warrior still on hold). The new Worker from Gower moves 1W to join the Worker on the Floodplain and contributes to the Cottage. One of the workers on the Pig WAITS while the other completes the Road. THEN the remaining Pig Worker moves 2NE to a roaded river grassland and begins a Cottage, but then CANCELS orders!
T48: The grassland Worker moves 1N to a Floodplain and resumes the part-built Cottage, but then CANCELS orders. The Workers on the other Floodplain complete theit Cottage. The Worker on the Pig moves 1S to a Floodplain and begins a Cottage.
T49: Antiochus grows to size 3 and begins a Settler (with its Granary on hold) working Fish + Cow + Pig. The Workers on the Cottage moves 1S to the other Floodplain and help to complete a Cottage. Gower works Fish + (newest) Cottage. The Worker on the Floodplain near Prince of Tyre put another turn into a Cottage but then CANCELS orders!
T50: Gower is now size 3 and works Fish + Cottage + Cottage. Prince of Tyre is now size 2 as it pops borders to second ring and works Pig + Copper. All four Workers move to the Copper, where they begin and complete a Mine. (At end of turn, Gower's 6h in a Warrior become 6h in a Spear, and the hammer decay counter resets.)

If we find that the lion ate our Warrior, it might be that none of these plans will be much good; we may need more barb defense than in any of the plans I described even without that! But I've been enjoying building these various alternate plans to work around our awkward terrain layout, so I figured I might as well put them up!

[BaII]

Looking back I think Agri->Pottery might be the move here. In your most recent iteration it doesn't seem that we can grow on cottages any faster than before, just we'll have the opportunity to put some turns into them. I'd imagine we want AH next to get horses and access chariots for barb defense which gets a pre req bonus from Agriculture.

[JR4]

TURN 35

BGN built his second city and that leaves only Elkad on a single city if my notes are correct (unless he managed to sneak in a build literally at the same second as the turn rolled a few days ago).

But let`s get down to business. Our Warrior had just over 90 % chance of holding his ground. The Lion attacked and...

   

got two hits in on our Warrior but the most important thing is that our unit survived the onslaught. Hmm, maybe we should play it safe if that Lion visible S of our Warrior decides to be annoying?

We`re still following the first micro plan. Going for Agriculture first sounds good to me. Pottery will finish on t48 if everything goes to plan and I assume that we should be able to finish Agriculture and Pottery within the next 13 turns.

Note that Wetbandit has emphasized production early on. Our own demos look quite decent as both of our cities grew this turn. We`ll get graphs on Gavadeath within two turns so we can figure out what they`re up to. Somehow, we`re up to second in power so it turns out that a single Warrior and a tech does wonders for our military count. No need to worry - as long as our units stay alive that is.

[JR4]

You know, comparing different micro plans is not easy. I went with the one I feel give us a reasonable chance of defending our holdings if things were to turn against us - and at the same time will allow us to work the strongest foodhammer tiles around Gower (not only in the bfc). We`ll get Pottery soon enough and it is still a priority for us.

In the not-so-distant future we need to decide on which tech(s) to pursue. We still want Code of Laws for Sacrificial Altars and Writing for early Libraries. No one seems interested in going for an early religion it seems but we`re still Cre and are not really desperate for culture. Having a religion is nice of course but maybe Confucianism fits the bill? Or we could go for Currency asap which is the ultimate tech to repair a broken economy.

[RefSteel]

You know, comparing different micro plans is not easy.

True - in case I have time to keep adding on to (and/or further optimizing) one, would a different format make them easier to read or compare? (Maniac Marshall preferred a spreadsheet version way back in PB3, and in theory I could also sometimes post screenshots from my sandbox to illustrate if those would help.) I definitely still like the plan you've chosen too! Among other things, the continuation should make it possible to found on Pink Dot Hill T55 if all goes well, one turn sooner than the best the Pottery plan could do - with one Worker per city already out and about, both floodplains cottaged and being worked, and the gold roaded and partly-mined....

[BaII]

I thought a lot of players use Google Excel sheets to compare micro plans, at the very least it makes it MUCH easier to compare them side by side and probably helps with formatting them.

[JR4]

TURN 36 and 37

The turns are rolling along nicely and I played another double turn today. Gavadeath moved up their wounded Warrior but now our own newly built Warrior is in place on the Copper where it will fortify for the next few turns, building fortification bonus. Our Scout went to a forest hill and will be pretty hard to dislodge (but we`ll definitely move if a Bear approaches).

   

Gavadeath has a wounded Scout NW of our own wounded Warrior. The Lion just south of pink dot hill decided to pursue us on t36 but didn`t move further north. We need to heal our Warrior and get it back into position (or rush to the Copper in case of emergency).

On micro plans: I still prefer having them behind spoiler tags as that`s what I`m used to. Comparing different plans that span 20+ turns ahead is just a fun exercise and I didn`t mean to complain or anything. The Settler for our third city will soon enough be finished. The timing on the Workboat is nice, Antiochus us regrowing to size 2 right away.

[JR4]

Graphs and demos:

Someone has a production of 15 (!) as of t37. Well, that`s not bad for this stage of the game. Surely, someone is working a Copper mine and heavily emphasizing production.

We have graphs on Wetbandit and Gavadeath and at least we`re very much competitive in any other metric than mfg (well, I kind of knew that from the demos but still..)

[RefSteel]

I was just looking at score increases ... and it looks like BGN/Cairo didn't build their second city until T35?? As an Imperialistic civ? And Elkad looks like he didn't get his second city until T37 in spite off a whip on T31 ... as Exp ... with (preumably, since he teched Bronze before Agri) perfect starting techs! What on earth is going on out there? Did Elkad decide he needed two Workers and the Workboat before his Settler ... and eschew chops or build them really inefficiently? Did somebody get their Settler Commodored by a Wolf or a Panther or a neighbor's wandering warrior? Did more than one person lose a Settler? I ... have no idea.

On micro plans: I still prefer having them behind spoiler tags as that`s what I`m used to. Comparing different plans that span 20+ turns ahead is just a fun exercise and I didn`t mean to complain or anything.

Don't worry - I didn't take it as a complaint; it just occurred to me that I might be able to provide an alternate format for comparison. Images - from my sandbox or of spreadsheets or both - could always be included in spoiler-tag microplans too. It's true that might take more time though.

BaII: Would you prefer to see the information added to an online spreadsheet? E.g. would it make it easier for you to work with different plans and suggest improvements? If so, and you're willing to create and format the spreadsheet in a way that would be useful to you, I'll at least try to post what I've got and update it when/if I suggest extensions to the plan. (Realistically, a detailed plan going all the way out to the mid '50s is pretty cheeky already: At some point, we'll be running into the type of "contact with the enemy" that no battlemicro plan survives. Still....)

[BaII]

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1...sp=sharing, This is what I was envisioning. I'm currently in the middle of final exam season so I don't have too much time to write out all the plans but this what I had in in mind.

I know you can currently only view it right now, ideally I'd like to let people you all edit it by sharing it over email and leaving the link as view only for lurkers who are interested.