[Spoilers] Fintourist and Old Harry have nothing to see here

[Fintourist]

First of all: I will study the new micro plan carefully and comment on it. My first impression is that it looks very promising!

Then couple of comments regarding the next turns and maybe even this turn(!):

• How have you planned the worker micro during the next couple of turns? In my previous plan I built the road Capital-SW-NW-NW-Lion City and that gets us immediate trade routes. I see that it might be beneficial to road one of the forests next to "Lion City" and thus delay trade routes a bit, but I would like to hear your reasoning If we decide to build a road on one of the forests, what do you think about Capital-SW-NW-SW-Lion City. That will be later more helpful with mobility, but wastes a worker turn when we eventually want to mine the plains hill. However, my bet is that a better road network is going to save us a turn too and makes e.g. reinforcing our 3rd city easier in case barbs become annoying..
  
• Let's start using the scout despite it not being healed! Having two defenders (warrior+scout) on an important tile eliminates the risk of losing a worker or a settler due to an unlucky roll. We also might get a chance to scout the hill depending on lion movements. Depending on what worker movements you have planned for the next turn we might want to move the scout already this turn SW-NW, because there are some scenarios where we could scout the hill already during the next turn.
  

Longer-term comments:

• I would not worry about -9gpt costs. That's still nothing! And a perfect use of our hut gold! We definitely want 5+ functional cities as fast as our settler production, worker support and needs of our first cities allow. Even with our limited commerce production I doubt we can expand too fast in the early phase and more consideration might not be required until cities no. 8-15..
  
• Yeah, we are not really in a library phase of the game yet at ~T55. Our 3rd city is pretty much a rare exception, because it will become a pure commerce city and we need that culture for getting gold in our borders. Otherwise, lets focus on pumping more workers, settlers, granaries and necessary defenders!
  
• Early academy is a great play in some cases, but in this setup I'm not convinced of its use. Due to palace commerce it works normally best in the capital and unfortunately we don't have this time otherwise a great commerce potential in Agincourt. So yes, let's produce Great scientists eventually, but getting a quick academy at the cost of delayed expansion does not really work here!
  
• I agree with Hydra that we probably need to get couple of non-river grassland cottages going even in our capital. City specialization is important, but being non-financial and with high tech costs we probably need to accept the fact that our cities will become hybrid as we try to squeeze in couple of extra commerce here and there..
  
• And of course Harry you're right, let's not build too many cottages for C or too many improvements for any city! However, these couple of riverside grassland spots are a rare resource for us and I would like too see us working them asap!
  

Hopefully Harry you managed until the end! Thanks for your great work!

[Fintourist]

I copied the end results of our first T50 micro try to ease up my comparison:

[Fintourist]

I'm having a really hard time comparing our "T49" and "T50" plans!

Here is a short list of pros and cons from the perspective of the latest plan you posted (I'm comparing EOT50 states of the two plans):

Pros:

• City C is one turn earlier up with appropriate support!! Immediate benefit is 5 food and 2 commerce, but the real beef is of course the fact that the city will be 1-turn ahead of the pace for the entire game assuming we can provide the necessary worker/happiness-support.
  
• City B has +1 pop
  
• Agincourt with roughly +40 hammers
  

Cons:

• Agincourt has -1 pop
  
• City B has roughly -40 hammers
  
• 3rd worker is 1 turn later out
  
• Note that the extra pop point in Agincourt is more valuable than the pop point in City B, because City B does not have a 3rd improved tile to work yet (and because of larger food box).
  

I think the key difference in getting the settler out earlier is that you did not whip the workboat in the capital and thus got more mine turns in at the cost of some food. I need to try this approach myself and quantify the differences more accurately before I can make up my mind

[Old Harry]

Thanks for that - this much feedback is great. (Noob pats other noobs on the back...) I couldn't work out which of our plans I liked better either

How have you planned the worker micro during the next couple of turns? In my previous plan I built the road Capital-SW-NW-NW-Lion City and that gets us immediate trade routes. I see that it might be beneficial to road one of the forests next to "Lion City" and thus delay trade routes a bit, but I would like to hear your reasoning If we decide to build a road on one of the forests, what do you think about Capital-SW-NW-SW-Lion City. That will be later more helpful with mobility, but wastes a worker turn when we eventually want to mine the plains hill. However, my bet is that a better road network is going to save us a turn too and makes e.g. reinforcing our 3rd city easier in case barbs become annoying..

I thought: Next turn the northern worker will move W or SW (not sure which is better) to a forest and road. The other guy will road in place. If we make sure the worker moves before the settler on t39 the road will be complete in time.

So our road could be Cap-SW-W-NW-Lion City or Cap-SW-W-W-Lion City. I think the latter is as flexible as your suggestion and saves a worker turn (although if there is seafood that means we want to plant on the hill and the road won't join, but that doesn't matter as the trade route will go along the coast and all our plans will be up in the air again anyway ) the former is a bit less flexible, but makes getting a view over the sea with our warrior easier. Your original road would save a worker turn now, so the pasture could be completed a turn earlier, but I don't think a coastal path helps us in the long run.

Let's start using the scout despite it not being healed! Having two defenders (warrior+scout) on an important tile eliminates the risk of losing a worker or a settler due to an unlucky roll. We also might get a chance to scout the hill depending on lion movements. Depending on what worker movements you have planned for the next turn we might want to move the scout already this turn SW-NW, because there are some scenarios where we could scout the hill already during the next turn.

In my sandbox the lion runs away when the scout and warrior are both on a tile... I was planning to move the scout on t38 (when I think he'll be healed or at least on 0.9) but I'm happy to move him to share a tile with the warrior next turn - shall we see where the lion is?

Longer-term comments:

• I would not worry about -9gpt costs. That's still nothing! And a perfect use of our hut gold! We definitely want 5+ functional cities as fast as our settler production, worker support and needs of our first cities allow. Even with our limited commerce production I doubt we can expand too fast in the early phase and more consideration might not be required until cities no. 8-15..
  

Oh yeah, we've got loads of money to play with haven't we! Settlers, Workers, Granaries and Warriors it is then. I don't know if a Granary will be useful in the capital before about t70 - it'll give away the seafood and work a lot of mines and it'll have a lot of stacked whip anger before the granary is ready, so I don't see us whipping it. I'm tempted by a barracks in city 4 (possibly before the granary) as it'll be our nearest city to dtay for a while, it only costs us 25 hammers and we'll want to start pumping out axes and spears pretty soon. Otherwise REX it is.

• Yeah, we are not really in a library phase of the game yet at ~T55. Our 3rd city is pretty much a rare exception, because it will become a pure commerce city and we need that culture for getting gold in our borders. Otherwise, lets focus on pumping more workers, settlers, granaries and necessary defenders!
  
• Early academy is a great play in some cases, but in this setup I'm not convinced of its use. Due to palace commerce it works normally best in the capital and unfortunately we don't have this time otherwise a great commerce potential in Agincourt. So yes, let's produce Great scientists eventually, but getting a quick academy at the cost of delayed expansion does not really work here!
  

I like your line of thought, yes let's leave the academy for later. Is library first a bit too noobish though? How do you feel about moving the capital here eventually?

• I agree with Hydra that we probably need to get couple of non-river grassland cottages going even in our capital. City specialization is important, but being non-financial and with high tech costs we probably need to accept the fact that our cities will become hybrid as we try to squeeze in couple of extra commerce here and there..
  
• And of course Harry you're right, let's not build too many cottages for C or too many improvements for any city! However, these couple of riverside grassland spots are a rare resource for us and I would like too see us working them asap!
  

We can share a bunch of cottages between cities two and three, I was thinking mines would be the best things to build at the capital for now, but a cottage or two wouldn't hurt either.

Finally, have you thought about tech path? Maths will get us a lot of extra hammers for cities 4 and 5 so I assume we want it? Then:
1. IW+Sailing+Calender gets us two extra happy and a lot of food and commerce. I doubt we'll get MOM, though we might be one of the earliest to Calendar.
2. I don't think we're likely to get an early religion (unless we go straight for Judaism after pottery, and even then perhaps not) so we could take the cheap path to Monarchy instead and stuff our cities with units.
3. Currency-Code of Laws, for Caste System border pops and Confucianism (which spreads itself really nicely). Although someone going through priesthood could get there first...

[Fintourist]

I thought: Next turn the northern worker will move W or SW (not sure which is better) to a forest and road.

I prefer SW, it gives more flexibility later!

The other guy will road in place. If we make sure the worker moves before the settler on t39 the road will be complete in time.

I'm not a huge fan of straight roads and the tile 1N of plains hill might give some flexibility, especially if there really is a coastal resource in the fog. However, I'm fine with this It will speed up getting one extra mine later for the capital!

So our road could be Cap-SW-W-NW-Lion City or Cap-SW-W-W-Lion City.

So latter it is!

In my sandbox the lion runs away when the scout and warrior are both on a tile... I was planning to move the scout on t38 (when I think he'll be healed or at least on 0.9) but I'm happy to move him to share a tile with the warrior next turn - shall we see where the lion is?

Since we are moving 1 worker out of our borders I would prefer if we would play this conservatively and guard it with warrior+scout if required! Otherwise no need to have warrior+scout in the same tile, but the spot W of the plains hill might still be the place to be..

I don't know if a Granary will be useful in the capital before about t70

Probably not since (as you said) the use of it will be limited!

I'm tempted by a barracks in city 4 (possibly before the granary) as it'll be our nearest city to dtay for a while, it only costs us 25 hammers and we'll want to start pumping out axes and spears pretty soon. Otherwise REX it is.

Depending on the city site we might even need it to get grassland cows online (or do you mean the plains cow spot, I currently think that it should be our city 5)

Is library first a bit too noobish though? How do you feel about moving the capital here eventually?

Nah, library first is not a noobish move if it's the best play available It's clear that we need culture to get gold online somehow and our options are in practice a cheap barracks or an expensive library. I haven't simmed that far myself so I'm not yet sure how big of a trade-off library first would be there..

Palace move basically only makes sense if we are trying to build a strong bureaucracy capital. I'm not quite sure whether fish+gold+couple of river tiles is enough to justify the move.. It's definitely not an early priority.

We can share a bunch of cottages between cities two and three, I was thinking mines would be the best things to build at the capital for now, but a cottage or two wouldn't hurt either.

Yes to both! Let's put cottages in places where they can be shared but build mines first in capital. During the next 30 turns it's still foodhammers what we need!

Finally, have you thought about tech path? Maths will get us a lot of extra hammers for cities 4 and 5 so I assume we want it? Then:
1. IW+Sailing+Calender gets us two extra happy and a lot of food and commerce. I doubt we'll get MOM, though we might be one of the earliest to Calendar.
2. I don't think we're likely to get an early religion (unless we go straight for Judaism after pottery, and even then perhaps not) so we could take the cheap path to Monarchy instead and stuff our cities with units.
3. Currency-Code of Laws, for Caste System border pops and Confucianism (which spreads itself really nicely). Although someone going through priesthood could get there first...

I'm very undecided! I'll try to gather my thoughts and respond later!

[Old Harry]

I thought: Next turn the northern worker will move W or SW (not sure which is better) to a forest and road.

I prefer SW, it gives more flexibility later!

I just realised this means the Library would only get two chops and be delayed by about five turns in my quick-pasture plan. Could you live with W? I've written it up in the spreadsheet again. This might mean we need to decide if we use my plan or yours by the next turn (does your pasture need to finish the 1t earlier that the coastal road allows?)

In my sandbox the lion runs away when the scout and warrior are both on a tile... I was planning to move the scout on t38 (when I think he'll be healed or at least on 0.9) but I'm happy to move him to share a tile with the warrior next turn - shall we see where the lion is?

Since we are moving 1 worker out of our borders I would prefer if we would play this conservatively and guard it with warrior+scout if required! Otherwise no need to have warrior+scout in the same tile, but the spot W of the plains hill might still be the place to be..

Righto!

I'm tempted by a barracks in city 4 (possibly before the granary) as it'll be our nearest city to dtay for a while, it only costs us 25 hammers and we'll want to start pumping out axes and spears pretty soon. Otherwise REX it is.

Depending on the city site we might even need it to get grassland cows online (or do you mean the plains cow spot, I currently think that it should be our city 5)

I'm happy with grass cows fourth, but I've been simming plains cow fourth, so I dunno what we'd need for that city. I'll look at that in my next set of sims. How do you feel about 4a and 4b on here? 4a allows another city in between 4 and 7. (Also we should only settle 6 once we have Iron Working and plenty of spare worker labour.)

[Fintourist]

I just realised this means the Library would only get two chops and be delayed by about five turns in my quick-pasture plan. Could you live with W? I've written it up in the spreadsheet again. This might mean we need to decide if we use my plan or yours by the next turn (does your pasture need to finish the 1t earlier that the coastal road allows?)

Let's go with W then and leave the library card still open! This is not a huge deal anyways! And I prefer your plan of roading over the forest to the coastal road, because it makes moving of 2 workers from west to east easy as they both can efficiently chop the same forest on their way. With this approach we won't have problems with getting the pasture up timely in any case.

How do you feel about 4a and 4b on here? 4a allows another city in between 4 and 7.

Currently I still prefer 4a, because of the ability to have corn improved on the turn the city is settled!

[Fintourist]

The biggest difference in our plans is the decision whether we whip the work boat in Agincourt on T39. As our ~T50 screenshots show there is a difference, but it's not completely clear which of the approaches is better If we don't lose too many foodhammers it's of course a lot better to have our 3rd city one turn earlier up, but I would love to still test that before the time comes!

[Old Harry]

The lion is on the hill again, so I think warrior and scout both move to here with our worker:


I'll do that in about an hour if I don't hear back...

[Fintourist]

Yes!

EDIT: And you whip the settler, right?