[Spoilers] Gavagai, Bacchus and Elizabeth Form a Romantic Trio

[Gavagai]

...if anyone wonders, why we haven't posted our plan yet, the answer is because we don't have one. Or, to be more precise, we have two plans. Bacchus wants to settle Copper first for more security, I want to settle Corn first for faster growth. If Bacchus would be able to show that his plan doesn't lag behind in growth significantly, we will go with settling Copper city first.

Actually, that's the same thing which Bacchus edited into his earlier post. He only forgot to mention that in my plan we also have two granaries completed.

[Gavagai]

After some more testing I have come to a conclusion that difference between Copper and Corn boils down to earlier copper vs. two granaries at T59.
The problem I see with Bacchus' plan is that an ability to build spears early which it supposedly gives us much earlier, is mostly theoretical. His second city is going to sit at size one for quite a while which means that it won't be able to whip a spear if necessary. And if we whip a spear in the capital, it will need two full turns to reach the copper city.
On the other hand, Bacchus' plan does give us an ability to whip spears about 5 turns earlier. Small difference, but it can possibly be the difference between life and death.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

When are you producing the third settler?

[Gavagai]

When are you producing the third settler?

In my plan it's T52 or T53, depending on different small tweaks. City can be founded next turn. I don't know when it is produced in Bacchus' schedule but in about the same timeframe.

EDIT: In my plan second settler overflows into a granary. In Bacchus' plan it overflows in something stupid, a spearman, I suppose. Or may be he improved that part already.

[Bacchus]

Yeah, third settler is T52-53 in both plans, it's capital built, so there is no difference, there is a difference in techs -- in mine we research Hunting to get spears, and shave 3 turns off AH, in Gav's we research AH off agriculture, which speeds up Pottery for a crucial turn when we need to take overflow from the third settler into something (Hunting + AH = 10 turns, AH = 9 turns). I don't actually think taking overflow into a spear is that stupid -- the capital won't be whipped for 10 turns after the settler either way, and the granary saves only a marginal number of turns on growth because our surplus off three clams is substantial. I also think that saving 3 turns in the tech order will win something down the line.

[Gavagai]

I think we will need to go with the copper city first. The reason is that we will most possibly need not one but two warriors early: one to protect a city and another one - to protect improvements and workers from harassment. Copper city can build another warrior quickly; Corn city can't. It's that simple.
And the possibility of harassment is pretty high, I think: they have two warriors and what else can they do with their second warrior but scouting for us? And when they find us - why wouldn't they want to harass?
So, copper it is.
Bacchus, should I change our next research to The Wheel?

Edit: changed to The Wheel

[Gavagai]

Bacchus, in your plan we can safely research Pottery before Agriculture, I think. It would allow us to overflow a settler into a granary.

Edit: also I suggest to build warrior first in our second city while growing on unimproved cow. We should grow it size 2 ASAP, then build a worker on cow/copper.

[Bacchus]

Pff, I don't know. I was testing last with Agri+Hunting before AH and the Wheel and it seems to work fine. If we see horses in their second city, we can change to the Wheel, no need to rush into it.

EDIT: As for Agri after Pottery — after spending 16 turns on researching religion, I'm really loath to pass up the saving from researching both prereqs. With Pottery it's only two turns, but with AH it's 3, and the total is five, so we really should research Agri.

EDIT2: In response to the above edit — I started simming with warrior first in the copper city, but it just ends up worse, we will improve the copper before we do the cow, and it makes sense to make use of the riverside mine immediately, and the way to do it is by building a worker. Then, we can get 2 workers improving the cow as soon as AH is in, and we can grow.

[Gavagai]

...and changed tech yet again, to Hunting this time. It allows for a faster cow which is actually more important than The Wheel as it would allow us to whip a spear earlier.

[Gavagai]

Pff, I don't know. I was testing last with Agri+Hunting before AH and the Wheel and it seems to work fine. If we see horses in their second city, we can change to the Wheel, no need to rush into it.

God, why do we even need Agri so early? It just slows down AH. And how is lacking a granary instead of having it "fine"?

it makes sense to make use of the riverside mine immediately, and the way to do it is by building a worker. Then, we can get 2 workers improving the cow as soon as AH is in, and we can grow.

Ok, and what we will do after improving the cow? We will then have a choice between working a cow or a copper and will need to forgo copper. A copper mine will remain unworked for some time anyway.

Edit: I suspect that going Agri-Hunting-AH you have a cow improved only by the moment when our third city is founded...