Posts: 3,905
Threads: 26
Joined: Apr 2013
I'd echo what the others are saying about valuing the snowball factor of short term plays. I'd suggest trying to come up with at least one alternate play in each case and then compare the two of them.
For instance, a barracks is generally only giving the first promo at this stage in the game - which is usually C1. So it is roughly like a 10% multiplier on any hammers that are building military. Compare that to a worker that could chop out 20h every 4t or half a settler that could give you a new city building units.
Personally I'm super-stingy with barracks, I usually wait until I have a big enough empire that I can specialise one city doing military the whole time and build one there.
Same idea with plains hills - they give you +1hpt forever. If I was to give you X hammers right now, and I'd take away your plains hill, what do you think a fair price for X would be? Then try guesstimate how many food/hammers you give up by delaying a border pop on a resource. Dotmapping here looks quite difficult tbh, so I'm not sure what the answer is, but settling cities without any extra first ring resources rings alarm bells that I should really think if there are any other options. At least the location for the north west city is clear.
Tech wise I'd suggest adding Pottery to your list. Generally the strongest early game plays are working resource tiles and building granaries. So long as you are growing a granary essentially doubles your food surplus. If your capital is making 8fpt working the two grains then the granary is a building that gives 8fpt for 60h. That's nuts! Of course staying growing all the time is tricky, which is why slavery and bronze working is important(and to get the hammers to build the granaries also.) With the extra happiness from charismatic granaries are even better than usual for us.
