Here's some thoughts about openings. After this, we can get back to our regularly scheduled Player/Combo reviews. 
Fish Opening
Ivory Opening
This opening is a bit weird. The only player who chose it was "Scipio," and it is pretty reminiscent of his opening in PB20. It needs Imperialistic to be worth it, but it is the fastest way to open. Dreylin *should* have used this opening as it is INSANE with Imp/Pro.
First of all, you need to pick start Hunting/Mining (such as Khmer, Germany, Ethiopia, or Russia), and then you start with worker first, choosing BW as your first tech:
Once your worker is done, send him to the ivory and tell him to Camp. Immediately start on a settler!
Working the unimproved ivory is worth 8hpt for now, which is not bad. BW is done in 5 turns.
Once the ivory is improved, we get a whopping 10hpt! Move the worker 2N1E to the trees; start chopping next turn. Moving the worker here requires knowledge of the deer tile; if the deer tile does not exist, you instead want to move the worker 1E to chop there instead.
The chop finishes the settler 2T early, on T18, and generates a huge amount of overflow. Make sure you're researching fishing, because that's all going into a workboat!
We revolt into slavery T19, and then plant at the deer. The fact that this spot gets an auto-trade rout is very important; this opening is very beaker-poor in general, and will end up getting The Wheel late. If we don't get a trade route now, we likely wouldn't get one until after T40ish - a loss of about 40beakers.
Depending on where copper is, there might be a better spot available - I'm just going to settle based on what I can see for now though.
In the new city, we immediately start a new worker, while the existing worker is sent along with the settler to start a camp. Meanwhile, the capital continues to build its workboat.
T24, our fish is hooked and we start growing the capital to size 2. At size 2, we'll start the settler for our 3rd city.
Even with the camp, our 2nd worker comes out slow. We'll use a chop to speed it along.
Next, these two workers are both sent to the capital to start chopping at these two spots, to help finish the settler:
Our settler comes out T34, and we start on yet another settler while Worker A and Worker B start farming. Our settler heads towards the NW, to the twin-cow spot, as our workers will be in the best position to help from there.
Meanwhile, Oporto grew up to size 2 and then whipped a 3rd worker on T38:
And here we are on T41:
Totals for T42 (the turn after this screenshot):
Wheat Opening
Starting from T10, where our worker appears:
Our first two techs were Hunting -> Agriculture, same as in the real game. Work the 1/3 for 4 turns, then switch to the wheat once its ready. You grow to size 2 and finish the work boat at the same time.
Bam, now immediately grow to size 3. The worker heads over to the ivory and improves that.
At size 3, we start the settler, gaining 17hpt!! Meanwhile, the worker starts roading to the southeast:
So that we can plant the city on T27, the exact same turn the settler is done! This turns out to be only 1 turn slower than starting a settler immediately at size 2, and we have a lot more to show for ourselves.
BW comes on T33, the exact same time our 3rd settler is ready. So, we revolt. Yadayada, we end up with:
Totals T42:
Foodhammer wise, we end up about equal to the chopping-first strategy, despite having 1-2 less workers available for quite awhile! Suprised? Its because a.) we get high-value improvements online more quickly in this opening and because b.) our workers waste less time chopping. Chopping early can be very powerful but you should remember that it has an opportunity cost. Every turn that a resource lies fallow, unimproved or unworked, you are leaving foodhammers on the table. Chopping trees into workers that go on to just chop more trees can actually worse than useless. Remember that your trees aren't going anywhere; only chop when you have some specific build that you want to come out faster.
This opening also end up with a considerable beaker advantage; about half of this is because we start with TW instead of Hunting, but we also end up working the fish for longer. The result of this is that we also have more stray hammers going into Granaries rather than warriors and workers; not that warriors are bad builds early, but, in general, the faster you can get Granaries up, the better. We can also put the extra beakers into early archery; if copper ends up appearing under one of our cities, screwing up our warrior builds, we can just easily grab Archery for our UU without delaying Granaries.
That's not to say the Ivory-opening is definitely worse than this. First of all, it gets to see copper super early, and can thus adjust its settling pattern to grab it. Copper is also a very nice 6 yield tile; if it's in a nice spot, we can have a city pump Settlers at size 1. I wonder if Scipio is expecting BFC copper again, like PB20?
Fish Opening
Option 1 is the workboat start. It was used by Haram, Fennbandit, and Dreylin. All three have the productive trait.
The 1/3 ivory tile and the 2 hammer capital plant let us get the workboat out in 6 turns, coincidentally the same exact time that it takes to research Fishing!
The big advantage here is that we get a 5f tile like 9T before its possible to hook up the wheat. So, let's see what that gets us. Build the WB -> grow until size 2, selecting Hunting as our next tech to improve our scout's movement.
So, now we're size 2 on T10, the same turn the other two options finish their first worker. Not bad. The next thing we need is a worker; even if an immediate settler was the best option (and it is not), we wouldn't be able to have our new city work improved cities unless there's another good seafood spot nearby - and there's not. But, since we're size 2 and working 2 decent tiles, we at least finish the worker pretty quickly.
Worker is out T17, and starts farming. While we're waiting, we'll start putting hammers into our settler.
After the farm is done, we grow to size 3. This is worthwhile because the wheat is essentially a 7 yield tile, as Imp gives us an extra +1 hammer.
As you can see, we've already build half of our settler!
And our settler is out T27:
This opening is strictly inferior for a non-Pro civ, and so this is as far as I'm going to take this option for us. A Pro civ does pretty much the exact same thing, except they save two turns, one for each the worker and the workboat. A Productive civ needs to start with Fishing to be able to instantly work the fish, which makes Haram's situation interesting; I think we he ends up doing is just putting an extra turn into the worker at size 1.
Seven essentially fixed the big problem with seafood starts in ToW by allowing you to build workboats before you have Fishing. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that seafood-first is always the best way to go. For this start, it turns out both worker-first options are superior to this because they can essentially improve their food resources in parallel.
The 1/3 ivory tile and the 2 hammer capital plant let us get the workboat out in 6 turns, coincidentally the same exact time that it takes to research Fishing!
The big advantage here is that we get a 5f tile like 9T before its possible to hook up the wheat. So, let's see what that gets us. Build the WB -> grow until size 2, selecting Hunting as our next tech to improve our scout's movement.
So, now we're size 2 on T10, the same turn the other two options finish their first worker. Not bad. The next thing we need is a worker; even if an immediate settler was the best option (and it is not), we wouldn't be able to have our new city work improved cities unless there's another good seafood spot nearby - and there's not. But, since we're size 2 and working 2 decent tiles, we at least finish the worker pretty quickly.
Worker is out T17, and starts farming. While we're waiting, we'll start putting hammers into our settler.
After the farm is done, we grow to size 3. This is worthwhile because the wheat is essentially a 7 yield tile, as Imp gives us an extra +1 hammer.
As you can see, we've already build half of our settler!
And our settler is out T27:
This opening is strictly inferior for a non-Pro civ, and so this is as far as I'm going to take this option for us. A Pro civ does pretty much the exact same thing, except they save two turns, one for each the worker and the workboat. A Productive civ needs to start with Fishing to be able to instantly work the fish, which makes Haram's situation interesting; I think we he ends up doing is just putting an extra turn into the worker at size 1.
Seven essentially fixed the big problem with seafood starts in ToW by allowing you to build workboats before you have Fishing. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that seafood-first is always the best way to go. For this start, it turns out both worker-first options are superior to this because they can essentially improve their food resources in parallel.
Ivory Opening
This opening is a bit weird. The only player who chose it was "Scipio," and it is pretty reminiscent of his opening in PB20. It needs Imperialistic to be worth it, but it is the fastest way to open. Dreylin *should* have used this opening as it is INSANE with Imp/Pro.
First of all, you need to pick start Hunting/Mining (such as Khmer, Germany, Ethiopia, or Russia), and then you start with worker first, choosing BW as your first tech:
Once your worker is done, send him to the ivory and tell him to Camp. Immediately start on a settler!
Working the unimproved ivory is worth 8hpt for now, which is not bad. BW is done in 5 turns.Once the ivory is improved, we get a whopping 10hpt! Move the worker 2N1E to the trees; start chopping next turn. Moving the worker here requires knowledge of the deer tile; if the deer tile does not exist, you instead want to move the worker 1E to chop there instead.
The chop finishes the settler 2T early, on T18, and generates a huge amount of overflow. Make sure you're researching fishing, because that's all going into a workboat!
We revolt into slavery T19, and then plant at the deer. The fact that this spot gets an auto-trade rout is very important; this opening is very beaker-poor in general, and will end up getting The Wheel late. If we don't get a trade route now, we likely wouldn't get one until after T40ish - a loss of about 40beakers.
Depending on where copper is, there might be a better spot available - I'm just going to settle based on what I can see for now though.
In the new city, we immediately start a new worker, while the existing worker is sent along with the settler to start a camp. Meanwhile, the capital continues to build its workboat.
T24, our fish is hooked and we start growing the capital to size 2. At size 2, we'll start the settler for our 3rd city.
Even with the camp, our 2nd worker comes out slow. We'll use a chop to speed it along.
Next, these two workers are both sent to the capital to start chopping at these two spots, to help finish the settler:
Our settler comes out T34, and we start on yet another settler while Worker A and Worker B start farming. Our settler heads towards the NW, to the twin-cow spot, as our workers will be in the best position to help from there.
Meanwhile, Oporto grew up to size 2 and then whipped a 3rd worker on T38:
And here we are on T41:
Totals for T42 (the turn after this screenshot):
- 34 cities, 5 pop, 5 improvements, 3 workers, 2 warriors, 2 roads, slavery
- 3Fishing, Hunting, Mining, The Wheel, Bronze Working, Animal Husbandry, 76b into Pottery
- -3 trees
Wheat Opening
Starting from T10, where our worker appears:
Our first two techs were Hunting -> Agriculture, same as in the real game. Work the 1/3 for 4 turns, then switch to the wheat once its ready. You grow to size 2 and finish the work boat at the same time.
Bam, now immediately grow to size 3. The worker heads over to the ivory and improves that.
At size 3, we start the settler, gaining 17hpt!! Meanwhile, the worker starts roading to the southeast:
So that we can plant the city on T27, the exact same turn the settler is done! This turns out to be only 1 turn slower than starting a settler immediately at size 2, and we have a lot more to show for ourselves.
BW comes on T33, the exact same time our 3rd settler is ready. So, we revolt. Yadayada, we end up with:
Totals T42:
- 4 cities, 7 pop, 5 improvements, 3 workers, 2 warriors, 2 roads, slavery
- 1 granary fishing
- Fishing, Hunting, Mining, The Wheel, Bronze Working, Animal Husbandry, Pottery, 56 beakers into Mysticism
- -1 trees
Foodhammer wise, we end up about equal to the chopping-first strategy, despite having 1-2 less workers available for quite awhile! Suprised? Its because a.) we get high-value improvements online more quickly in this opening and because b.) our workers waste less time chopping. Chopping early can be very powerful but you should remember that it has an opportunity cost. Every turn that a resource lies fallow, unimproved or unworked, you are leaving foodhammers on the table. Chopping trees into workers that go on to just chop more trees can actually worse than useless. Remember that your trees aren't going anywhere; only chop when you have some specific build that you want to come out faster.
This opening also end up with a considerable beaker advantage; about half of this is because we start with TW instead of Hunting, but we also end up working the fish for longer. The result of this is that we also have more stray hammers going into Granaries rather than warriors and workers; not that warriors are bad builds early, but, in general, the faster you can get Granaries up, the better. We can also put the extra beakers into early archery; if copper ends up appearing under one of our cities, screwing up our warrior builds, we can just easily grab Archery for our UU without delaying Granaries.
That's not to say the Ivory-opening is definitely worse than this. First of all, it gets to see copper super early, and can thus adjust its settling pattern to grab it. Copper is also a very nice 6 yield tile; if it's in a nice spot, we can have a city pump Settlers at size 1. I wonder if Scipio is expecting BFC copper again, like PB20?
