Some random thoughts:
Regarding tech, the plan right now is to go AH (needed for pigs + getting horses would really help against barbs) -> Writing -> Maths (boosted chops). Hunting and Myst can go somewhere, when needed.
After that, it's debatable. Going for Monarchy through OR is a possibility, possibly getting Sailing first.
Going for currency after Maths is a possibility too.
I'm leaning Monarchy because the map is really happy starved. I have ivory as an early happy. There's 3 calendar resources, but only one is inside my settling plan (the others are distant and on bad land). And the one who is is below jungle, so i'd need IW too. There's also whales, but this is not RB Mod. Not good. Monarchy would give +1 happy from wines and at least +1 happy from the essential military police. That'd be perfect if we where assured to get a religion for + happy and OR, but once again that's not guaranteed.
In this scenario, Sailing would be teched to give a quick commerce boost through an island city.
Going currency first might be preferrable if we find more happy to the NW or E. After that, I'd go for Monarchy and try for a religion in CoL.
Another possibility, one which I only now realized, is forgoing Maths for quicker Monarchy. We have loads of forests to chop, but my current Micro plan doesn't involve that much chopping (well, especially because my best tries didn't go as far as Maths). But since we are EXP, we can live with subpar chops, since our granaries are fast anyway. We'd save the chops for later, perhaps getting a Wonder or something like that -> forests will always be worth it and what will hinder our expansion is not how fast we can get settlers/workers/granaries, but the actual costs of expanding.
But that begs the question: do we need such a fast Monarchy and so much early happy? Perhaps. I think we need to fast expand until we can get good cities up on those river valleys, which will be cottage cities. When that happens, we'll be broke, with less than 10 cities. In this case, monarchy seems like a better commerce investment than Currency, since currency will give us 20 commerce tops (considering 10 cities, which is optimistic, and 2 island cities, which is also optimistic), while Monarchy makes us grow into more cottages as needed.
But that also brings another question: it's almost assured that after Monarchy, i'll go currency and that after currency, I'll go Monarchy. So, what we need to know is: which of these gets us to the other faster and which of these benefits more from starting earlier? And, is there a first to bonus involved?
Monarchy has the advantage of being part of a first-to bonus, the religions in Poly and Mono (it also gets OR, but Currency gets Math). It also benefits more from starting earlier, since the currency bonus is "flat". Getting Monarchy earlier means working more tiles earlier and developing cities earlier. But the key question seems to be, which of these gets us to the other faster? I'm guessing currency, but is that bonus so substancial in order to surpass the benefits of Monarchy? I'm not sure.
We could go AH -> Myst -> Poly. If we get Poly, we reassess, perhaps going Math before Monarchy. if we lose it, we keep going for Mono and Monarchy.
It's definetely a difficult decision...
Regarding tech, the plan right now is to go AH (needed for pigs + getting horses would really help against barbs) -> Writing -> Maths (boosted chops). Hunting and Myst can go somewhere, when needed.
After that, it's debatable. Going for Monarchy through OR is a possibility, possibly getting Sailing first.
Going for currency after Maths is a possibility too.
I'm leaning Monarchy because the map is really happy starved. I have ivory as an early happy. There's 3 calendar resources, but only one is inside my settling plan (the others are distant and on bad land). And the one who is is below jungle, so i'd need IW too. There's also whales, but this is not RB Mod. Not good. Monarchy would give +1 happy from wines and at least +1 happy from the essential military police. That'd be perfect if we where assured to get a religion for + happy and OR, but once again that's not guaranteed.
In this scenario, Sailing would be teched to give a quick commerce boost through an island city.
Going currency first might be preferrable if we find more happy to the NW or E. After that, I'd go for Monarchy and try for a religion in CoL.
Another possibility, one which I only now realized, is forgoing Maths for quicker Monarchy. We have loads of forests to chop, but my current Micro plan doesn't involve that much chopping (well, especially because my best tries didn't go as far as Maths). But since we are EXP, we can live with subpar chops, since our granaries are fast anyway. We'd save the chops for later, perhaps getting a Wonder or something like that -> forests will always be worth it and what will hinder our expansion is not how fast we can get settlers/workers/granaries, but the actual costs of expanding.
But that begs the question: do we need such a fast Monarchy and so much early happy? Perhaps. I think we need to fast expand until we can get good cities up on those river valleys, which will be cottage cities. When that happens, we'll be broke, with less than 10 cities. In this case, monarchy seems like a better commerce investment than Currency, since currency will give us 20 commerce tops (considering 10 cities, which is optimistic, and 2 island cities, which is also optimistic), while Monarchy makes us grow into more cottages as needed.
But that also brings another question: it's almost assured that after Monarchy, i'll go currency and that after currency, I'll go Monarchy. So, what we need to know is: which of these gets us to the other faster and which of these benefits more from starting earlier? And, is there a first to bonus involved?
Monarchy has the advantage of being part of a first-to bonus, the religions in Poly and Mono (it also gets OR, but Currency gets Math). It also benefits more from starting earlier, since the currency bonus is "flat". Getting Monarchy earlier means working more tiles earlier and developing cities earlier. But the key question seems to be, which of these gets us to the other faster? I'm guessing currency, but is that bonus so substancial in order to surpass the benefits of Monarchy? I'm not sure.
We could go AH -> Myst -> Poly. If we get Poly, we reassess, perhaps going Math before Monarchy. if we lose it, we keep going for Mono and Monarchy.
It's definetely a difficult decision...
Well, he likely revolted to Slavery with the settler in transit. I hope our fast granaries will pull us ahead.
).
