Ok, so I had a deeper look and I apologise for moaning about the warrior standing around, there was only one
Well, just remember that squares hidden in the fog-of-war can be spawn-busted by any unit that is 2 squares away in any direction (horizontal, vertical, diagonal, or any combination of 2 of those), so feel free to readjust the Warrior distribution.
It wouldn't hurt to get a Chariot to scout up to the north part of our continent.
I disagree with Dhoom's city placement on the Eastern island mainly because it loses out on
tiles that would make the city worth more than just a
bridge.
Again, it's all about the Food. We lack it completely on that island. At best, we can have a 2-Food-surplus (generally you want a minimum of a 3-Food-surplus even after working your Mines unless you are at your Happiness cap). With only a 2-Food-surplus, a City built there is never going to work a Mine.
If it does, the City will stagnate growth, which won't be worth it. It would be better to slowly grow the City off of Grassland Cottages (that's why we are bringing a Settler AND a Worker to the island, right? Hint, hint, if that's not already in progress), followed by building and whipping a Granary, followed by building and whipping Lighthouse, so that we can grow off of the Coast squares. Growing into additional Coast squares will beat working a Mine and slowing or halting growth.
Settling on top of the Marble nets us 2 free Hammers in the City... the City Centre square will have 3 Hammers. Since we would have 1 Forest in the fat cross, which would give us 4 Hammers (for a multiple of 4 Hammers to go along with a potentially late-whipped Forge or to go along with Organized Religion once we finally get a Religion and spread it around), we might as well leave that Forest but put Cottages on the other 2 Grassland squares there.
The island itself is junk except that:
a) It gives us a Cultural Bridge, which could open up trading with AIs, Foreign Trade Routes, or just more land to settle
AND
b) We could use another off-island City (i.e on top of the Marble) to partner with The Great Lighthouse, giving us a second set of 2-Commerce Domestic Trade Routes in every City... the first set set of 2-Commerce Domestic Trade Routes comes from the Sheep + Copper off-continent City
AND
c) It has a Marble Resource which we currently lack
Since we are in anarchy, I could get really good views of everything but this is what is currently being built:
It's a good enough picture. What's important to note is that we could probably whip some Granaries. The ideal time to whip a Granary is when the Foodbox is roughly 40% full. The second most ideal time to whip a Granary in a City with at least 1 Food Resource is "as soon as possible."
So, feel free to do so (let's hope that we're in Slavery
).
You will notice Yakutsk needs loads of worker love to clear those jungles and cottage spam the riverside tiles like crazy.
Ummmm, we will need to learn Iron Working first and our tech rate was pretty pitiful the last time that I checked. It won't hurt to hire 2 Scientists in Cities that have Libraries, since The Pyramids' Representation will make them extremely good, particularly since we still have many Great People left to generate, so the Great People Points will be of great value, too.
If you are going to hire 2 Scientists in a City, I would probably NOT whip in said City, but if you aren't ready to hire Scientists (no Library, not enough population points, etc), feel free to whip in said City.
The Great Person Farm should NOT be hiring Scientists yet. Now is the time to get its infrastructure built... we can hire Scientists or other Specialists there in the future after we have built the National Epic. Now, of course, if you've built all of the infrastructure that we can currently build (Granary, Lighthouse, and Library) in the Great Person Farm and you are approaching the City's Happiness cap, then sure, hire some Scientist Specialists, but otherwirse, that City should focus on "getting ready" to hire Specialists at a future point in time after the National Epic is built.
I also really like this spot:
Those two gold resources sure look yummy to me. My only concern is feeding the place. More scouting in that area might reveal some food which would make that city loverly!
I agree with you on scouting the area for Food Resources and therefore I feel that we can't yet decide on a City location for the Gold Resources.
The spot that you have labelled could be good but it could be really bad. Right now, I see no Food Resources, so, for a long time at least (until after we learn Civil Service and spend a lot of Worker turns), there will only be enough Food to work 1 of the 2 Gold Mines and we will also stagnate our growth in doing so.
Thus, we really want to hunt for additional Food to partner with the Gold Resources before we decide on a spot to settle. Feel free to save the game partway through your turnset and post a screenshot once you have explored the area, asking for feedback on where the best spot to settle would be.
Minimally, I would want to check on all sides of the Gold Resources in every direction, just to see what our Food-to-partner-with-the-Gold-Resources options might be.
I want to go into full military production. Our army is pathetic:
Our army being pathetic isn't an issue.
I have no problem with you building a Military. Just, if you're going to do so, go relatively all-out and plan to build a stack of roughly 10 units that should stay within our Cultural Borders near to Alex. We don't really need extra defenders, but if you want to go to war with Alex, we can certainly do so--just plan to have several Cities building Military Units.
As I said to hoplitejoe, skip the Barracks. There's no point, as we'll roll over Alex with roughly 10 units without the need for Barracks. Since we still appear to be isolated, we would stop building units at that point, so the Barracks would just be lost Hammers that could have been invested in something better (like Workers, more Settlers, a navy, whatever).
Tech Math (1t)>Constr>Alpha. HbR for Stables and HA's could also be worth considering.
Horse Archers are way overkill. Just build up a large stack (10+ units) before declaring war and the stack of units can safely be a mix of Axemen plus Chariots, plus possibly 1 Spearman if you think that Alex has a Horse Resource.
Since we'll probably only fight 1 war for a long time, just like the Barracks, investing in Horse Archers would be overkill and it wouldn't be an investment that would pay off, since we'd have no use to keep building them.
Once Alpha is in, we can also trade for it with Alex.
No such luck. Unless Alex has met another AI, he will not trade techs with us. The exception would be if we could get him up to a Friendly Attitude, which isn't going to happen without a shared Religion. Since neither of us have a Religion, it isn't going to happen at all.
Alphabet is another investment where we won't see a payoff.
After Math, I'd say that your choices are:
a) Calendar
OR
b) Currency
I'd go for Calendar, myself, since we're still gonig to be hurting badly for Happiness and we have Incense and I think a Dye Resource if we settle another City to the north-east.
Currency would be great to get after Calendar, since it is +1 Commerce in each City. That's not amazing when you have 2 or 3 Cities but is pretty powerful when you have 10 or more Cities like we have.
All the coastal towns will get their lighthouses and other required infra but, like mentioned before, I wanna get our puny army a bit bigger and better.
Pick one of those two goals, but don't pick both.
Either Lighthouses or Axemen + Chariots. If we're going to build a Military, we should plan to put it to use against Alex. If we're going to build Lighthouses, then we only need 1 Warrior or Chariot per City, plus 2 or 3 other units maximum to cover the spawn-busting in the northern areas and to explore to the north.
Any more than that could just drain our economy or, minimally, would have been Hammers better spent elsewhere... unless we plan to build a stack, in which case we can gain Cities, Gold from capturing Cities, and Great General Points.
Also, we need IW to get those nasty jungle tiles removed. As mentioned before, a few more workers wouldn't hurt either
I would still put a lack of Happiness as our #1 issue, which is why I'd go after Calendar next. Getting our tech rate to increase would be our #2 issue, so I'd then get Currency.
We may not even need to work many Cottages--once our Cities get near their Happiness caps and if they have already whipped Libraries, then they can just hire 2 Scientists.
1 Scientist with Representation = 6 Flasks and 3 Great People Points
1 Grassland Cottage = 2 Food and 1 Commerce... even once it is a Village it will still only be 2 Food and 3 Commerce
While we will eventually want to get some Cottages (or Farms), there's no real rush, as we can hire super-powered Specialists when Cities run out of good squares to work.
It migiht be different if we had Riverside Cottages, but I don't remember there being a lot of Rivers near the Jungles, so I wouldn't concern myself with Iron Working for a while.
I notice that the one city (Yetakarinaberg?) had a long build queue: granary>lighthouse>forge. Although I don't disagree with the queue itself, is it common practice to do this? I'm only asking as I am relatively new to SGs and was wondering... That is nothing more than a curiosity from my side.
I'm not sure myself. I probably queued those buildings up, since I tend to do so. You're obviously free to ignore any and all of my advice and are free to change whatever build items you want.
If the City has those things queued-up, it was probably for a reason, such as doing so in the Great Person Farm, so that we don't accidentally build Military Units or other non-crucial build items in that City. We want to get it ready to build the National Epic as soon as it possibly can.