We have a major problem with our spawn-busters. The test game is missing a Hills square that the real game has, so City 4 isn't providing as much fog-busting as in the test game. Warrior 3 is going to have to go back to where he was. We're going to have to juggle the spawn-busters around for a few turns. We might get a Barb Archer or Barb Axe spawning to the west of City 4! It's going to be dangerous and tricky!
I'm looking into spreadsheeting the capital's Food.
Since we have +1 Hammer in the real game in City 4, we can have Gems City steal the Gems Mine on T74.
Unfortunately, we have no better square to work in City 4 than a G Riv unimproved square, but we'll only need to do for 1 turn and then we'll be whipping City 4. Then, the Gems Mine goes with the Library, helping us to get some of the Flasks that we're having trouble getting.
We might even want to switch the second G Riv Farm in Gems City to a GH Mine in order to get that Work Boat completed a bit faster, trading stored-up Food for Hammers in the short-term.
Excluding Buildings that produce Culture*, which will get destroyed upon City capture, Buildings in a City have a percentage chance of being destroyed upon capture. City Walls and Barracks have a 100% chance and a Granary has about a 33% chance of being destroyed (I'm not sure of the exact number for a Granary).
However, those numbers are scaled up by your percentage ownership of the City Centre square's Culture. So, if you recapture a City of yours that had a Barracks or Walls in it, you might actually keep those Buildings. The Granary is almost guaranteed to be kept since it already has a high chance of being kept, and we're talking about in a City with our Oracle Culture plus our Creative Culture, so we'll have a high amount of Culture relative to the 2 Culture that Willem can put in per turn, which will likely only happen for 1 turn if we do the recapturing of City 4 properly.
* Odeons (our Unique Colosseums) and Terraces (the Inca's Unique Granaries) are exceptions, as they won't get destroyed upon capturing a City, even though those Buildings produce Culture, since their base Buildings do not produce Culture and it was seen as being "unfair" that the Incas and Greeks couldn't capture certain Buildings, even though getting to capture said Buildings gives those Civs an extra advantage, which is why giving away Construction to the AIs that we will attack isn't a terrible idea, as they might build Colosseums which have a chance to survive as Odeons when we capture their Cities.
Farm instead of Cottage
It's tough to model the capital's Food, as we need to make some assumptions that may not be true.
For example, you have listed that we will work the GH Riv Mine there, which slows growth.
Also, do we steal the G Riv Farm from Gems City or does Gems City work it? Or, will that Farm get converted into a Cottage for Gems City to work pretty soon?
Speaking of which, we might just keep Gems City at Size 5 for quite some time after getting the Great Scientist there, working:
2 Gems, G Riv Cottage for the capital, G Riv Farm, and GH Mine, while building, say, Workers, since the 2-Food surplus will hardly lead to much growth.
Anyway, if we assume a perfect model of already having all squares in the capital pre-Cottaged, and if we assume that after whipping Settler 6, we have the same situation as we have now (Size 3 with 15 / 26 Food, such that we can earn 11 Food in one turn to get to Size 4 in 1 turn), then working 1 G Riv Farm plus several G Riv Cottages will allow us to grow to Size 8 one turn sooner than if we were to only work G Riv Cottages. We then also grow to Size 11 two turns sooner.
So, that extra Farm allows us to grow sooner twice, meaning that we get to start maturing the next Cottage sooner, and earn the +2 Commerce per turn sooner, but at the cost of maturing one less Cottage instead of the Farm.
We probably come out about even in that scenario, although it can be argued that getting Commerce earlier helps in some situations, it's probably not a large enough coming sooner to make a difference, so about even with a Farm or a Cottage next, especially since it takes the same number of turns to build a Farm with 1 pre-invested turn into building that Farm.
But, our Workers probably can't up with that pace.
If, instead, we model the growth curve to to be one where we work a Mine for a bit and then switch to working a Cottage once it's built, having that +1 Food can have an even bigger impact.
So, let's say that we compare these two options:
Size 4 = Farm or Cottage
Size 5 = Mine
Size 6 = Cottage
Size 7 = Mine
Size 8 = Cottage
Size 9 = We steal the Fur or something
Size 10 = Cottage
Size 11 = Specialist
Size 12 = Cottage
Size 13 = Specialist
Size 14 = Cottage
My model is only really set up to show on which turn we'll grow, so I need a simplistic example to plug into the model like that.
In this example, we grow to Size 9 one turn sooner, to Size 12 two turns sooner, and to Size 14 three turns sooner.
I didn't really design the model to work very well with City shrinking due to whipping, but let's say that we'll whip 2 more Settlers out of our capital, then use the overflow Hammers to go into Workers.
In that way, we can say that the Farm becomes even more valuable, as we'll need to focus on regrowth, and every turn that we grow faster doesn't just affect being able to work +1 square sooner in the capital but can translate into a City getting settled sooner, which, with TGLH, is a net gain, and with Workers coming out sooner means earning more Worker turns.
Now, I'm not suggesting that we go crazy on Farm-building, just that we build +1 more Farm, but I believe that it will be worth it, since we'll want to work that Farm to get us to whip sooner, so that we can get our Settlers and Workers out sooner, and can return to growing our capital to a large City Size sooner.
If you want to provide another example for me to run through the spreadsheet, I can do so. If you want me to throw in whipping cycles, I can try my best to model them, but it would take some playing around with the spreadsheet, so I'm not sure how quickly I could get an answer, but just give me the precise details of the example and I'll try my best to plug in the numbers.
Or, we can just accept that building the Farm is not going to hurt us Commerce-wise and will likely get us our Settlers + Workers + City growth sooner, and just build the Farm and feel happy about it.
It would be a lot easier if the Active Player was the one to update the test game, shortly after playing, when the actions are fresh in a player's mind. But, I'll do my best.
I'm thinking:
Settler 6 from Cap = Triple Fish
Settler 7? from Surfin' Turf = Horse
Settler 8? from City 4 = Northern Fish
Settler 9? from Cap = Take a Galley to the Sheep area (grow Cap after this Settler)
Settler 10? from Surfin' Turf = NW + NW + N of Surfin' Turf (1N of the Lake) to form a canal for our Galleys (as long as we build a Fort 1NW of Surfin' Turf at some point), which leaves room for a later City to grab Willem's unused Gems Resource in combo with his G For Deer square, and which also leaves room for a City 2W of the G Corn, in case we want a filler City there or in case we go for an Espionage-assisted Cultural Victory, in which case it helps a lot to have a few Cities that are 3 squares away from each other horizontally or vertically
We could do so, however, it seems that sending a Settler from City 4 to the northern Fish location is closer than the Sheep location, while a Settler from our capital can get to the Sheep location reasonably quickly...
Turn 0 Load into the Galley
Turn 2 Unload 1W of the Sheep
Turn 3 Settle by the Sheep, either 1NW, 1NE, 1W, 1S, 1SW on that turn (1NW would be prevented by northern Fish City)
I'm not sure that the capital's Settler can arrive in time before the war.
If the Sheep Settler can arrive before the war, the difference is pretty negligible, but...
If we pre-build a G Riv Cottage, Willem will work it for us in northern Fish City, which means him not working a Hammer-earning square, so he'll build less defensive Archers. Sheep only has Plains squares, so a Cottage would earn him +1 Hammer per turn toward Archers.
If Willem if awesome, he'll send a Work Boat to northern Fish from one of his other Cities sometime after his Cultural Borders have expanded, 5 turns after building the City. That's also 30 less Hammers somewhere going toward an Archer.
EDIT: I'm not sure about your version of the test game, but in my version, the test game had 5 more Flasks than in the real game (I will adjust the amount for the Turn 74 version of the test game, but if you had drawn any conclusions about how many Flasks we need based on the previous test game, those conclusions may be wrong).
Trade Routes are accurate as of the current turn, although you'll have to watch for Sury connecting his 5th City or for another AI founding another City... those things may not happen in the real game, which could throw off the Flask count.
I'll try playing through it shortly with Folket's suggestions in combination with the couple of ideas that I have added to the thread since then.
If we plan to whip the capital then a farm makes sense. I with stealing the gems earlier from city 4, we might be able to have surf'n turf work cow for one more turn.
The real game had 5 more flask since I had to do one urn at 10% to be able to produce Currency in 4 turns at 100% when less commerce in the real game.
We will need to be careful with warrior 3 as we are very tight on gold. It could spawnbust from W of corn and the other warrior and archer can move a little north to cover all tiles.
Great, thank you! From those, we can see that our "Exports - Imports" value went down from 10 to 1. The way that the number gets calculated is backwards (people on the forums have complained about this problem before) since the text should read "Imports - Exports" and then the numbers will make sense.
Anyway, we export +9 Commerce and we import 0 extra Commerce. In other words, Isabella is getting three 3-Commerce Trade Routes with us, and we are not getting any Trade Routes with Isabella.
It seems that way because the Developers wrote the text wrong (or else wrote the calculation wrong). Unfortunately, we did not get Trade Routes with Isabella.
But, we have confirmed that she is on another landmass, since her 3 Cities each earn 3 Commerce from the Foreign Trade Routes that she is getting with us.
We also know that she has revealed a coastal path from one of her Cities to our empire, so her Work Boat was not likely placed on the map by BSPollux but was likely built by Isabella.
We have no choice, really. City 2 can't contribute any Settlers, so our capital has to take on more of the whipping duty.
That fact is one of the sacrifices we made by going for Commerce over Hammers with City 2. I do not regret the decision. In fact, by the SGOTM Score graphs, we appear to have shot up a huge amount in Score by Oracling Civil Service, which we probably couldn't have done if we'd settled by the Cow for our City 2.
Anyway, it's not a bad thing to get some Bureaucracy whips in, as we essentially get almost free Worker every time that we whip a Settler in our capital.
We just need to be careful to focus on working Farms instead of Mines, since we will earn more Hammers sooner by growing faster, instead of worrying about the fact that 3 base Hammers only gives us 4 final Hammers under Bureaucracy. The extra Food will net us far more Hammers in the longer term, as well as more turns of working Cottages.
I'd like Surfin' Turf to keep working the Cow since it's the only City that is benefitting from Organized Religion right now.
We can always build Research somewhere, such as in City 5, or in City 4 after completing a Granary. Any Hammers that we put into a Granary in City 5 are really Hammers that are being saved up for a Lighthouse, since we'll complete the Granary with a 30-Hammer Chop and a 30-Hammer whip, but it would be nice to earn 30 Hammers to make the Lighthouse a 1-pop-whipping action.
To clarify, the real game had LESS Flasks than the test game. That was because we had too many Foreign Trade Routes in the test game. I have corrected that fact in the T74 test game.
We will need to be careful with warrior 3 as we are very tight on gold. It could spawnbust from W of corn and the other warrior and archer can move a little north to cover all tiles.
For Turn 76, you are correct that we will have to do so.
I'm not sure what we will want to do on Turn 77... we can either have Warrior 2 come back to the G Riv (SW + W + W + W of the G Corn) and keep Warrior 3 inside of our Cultural Borders, or we can have Warrior 3 go to that G Riv square, Warrior 2 to the Tundra Hills Riv For (1W of the G Riv Horse) that Archer 1 is going to spawn-bust from, and then have Archer 1 free for exploring again.
Let's hope that the Barbs do not notice our temporary lack of spawn-busting to the west of City 4.
EDIT: How did you get City 4 to Size 2 on Turn 76?
EDIT 2: Remember that on the F2 screen, the Research value will ideally be 1 less than a multiple of 5. So, it is excellent to make 104 Flasks, and it is good to make 105 Flasks, but it is not very good to make 107 Flasks, and it is terrible to make 108 Flasks. It is also excellent to make 109 Flasks.
HOWEVER, if we make too many Flasks on the last turn of researching a tech, those Flasks might disappear due to the way that the overflow calculation works.
Thus, if we can earn 109 Flasks on Turn 75, that will be great.
For example, in the test game, we make 105 Flasks on Turn 75, and if we're working the G Riv Farm in Cap, Cap can contribute 4 Flasks by building Research, giving us the desired 109 Flasks on Turn 75. Of course, if the numbers change in the real game due to Trade Routes changing, we may have to adjust these numbers, but 110 is also good, while 108 is terrible.
Since you posted your PPP almost 24 hours ago and no one else wants to comment, while I only made some minor changes to the micro, I think that it is fair to say that you can play whenever you are ready.
You should probably try a quick run-through in the test game to make sure that I didn't make any mistakes. Thanks! Good luck and continue to kick some butt!
Suggested PPP
T74
Research still at 100%
Still researching Currency
C2: Put Work Boat -> Barracks in the build queue
(Should be 16 / 30 Hammers in the Granary plus 15 Hammers going into the Granary)
C5: Build Research
We should be making 104 Flasks on the F2 screen, so building Research in City 5 actually counts as 4 Flasks (due to a 40% bonus to research, where every 5 Flasks = 5 * 1.4 = 7.0 Flasks) for the cost of 2 Hammers.
Archer 1: Move 1E G Riv (1E of the G Riv Horse, to uncover the water square 1SW of the Whale to look for more seafood and to help reveal part of the Coast between us and Shaka)
(We cannot move southward, otherwise we will open up a row of squares that are not spawn-busted)
T75, 1000 BC
ERASE WILLEM'S THIRD CITY, since we can't count on it existing in the real game.
C1: GH Riv Mine -> G Riv Farm
(We have to focus on growth in Cap as much as possible) C2: Southern Farm -> G Riv Gems Mine
C2: Put Work Boat -> Barracks in the build queue
C4: 1-pop-whip Granary
C5: Build Granary
Check the F2 screen. If we are making 105 Research like in the test game, then we should aim to make 109 Flasks by building Research in Cap. If we instead make 111 Flasks, then don't build Research in Cap and build Research in City 5 instead, so that we make 109. Making 110 is fine if we get +1 Flask from an extra Trade Route, but 109 is better than 111 if we get +2 Flasks from an extra Trade Route.
C1: Build Research (if we make 109 or 110 Flasks by doing so)
W1: Continue to Cottage G For that is 1N of the Fur
W2: Move 1SW G Riv (NE + N of City 4), partial Cottage, then STOP
W3: Complete the G Corn Farm
W4: Complete the G Cow Road W5: Cottage the G Riv that is 1W of Cap
Archer 1: Move 1NW G Riv Horse
(We have to head northward because Warrior 2 needs to move northward)
Warrior 2: Move 1NE G (NW + W of the Lake)
(We have to cover the area that Warrior 3 left without spawn-busting coverage)
Warrior 3: Move 1NW GH (1W of the G Corn)
Work Boat 4 (from City 2): Move toward Fur City's Crab
T76, 975 BC
We don't need to worry about trying to earn bonus Flasks on the F2 screen for this turn, since, on the turn that you learn a tech, those bonus Flasks sometimes disappear anyway.
Spoiler:
This fact happens because the game only gives you bonus Flasks on the number of base Flasks that are needed to research the tech when bonus Flasks are calculated in.
For, for example, let's say that we need 650 - 506 = 144 Flasks to complete research on Currency.
Well, the game will do some complex math that I don't fully understand, but roughly it says something like:
144 / 1.4 (the current research bonus) = 102.85, so round up to 103
Then, steal 103 base Flasks from the total amount of base Flasks earned
Whatever remaining base Flasks exist carry over
Now, that's a simplification of the math, but the understanding is sufficient to show that trying to get, say, exactly 104 Flasks on the F2 screen for a total of 105 Flasks after our free 1 Flask per turn gets factored in will not help us, as the calculation will do SOMETHING like 105 - 103 = 2 base Flasks carrying over.
As I said, that's a simplification of the math and in reality, you often lose 1 base Flask due to flooring in the overflow calculation, but you should be able to see that we don't necessarily gain anything by trying to get a multiple of 5 with our total Flasks on the last turn of researching a tech.
C4: Build a Warrior
C1: Put Work Boat -> Spy in the build queue
W1: Continue to Cottage G For that is 1N of the Fur
W2: Move 1S G Riv (1NE of City 4) and Farm
W3: Move to the G Riv that is 1NE of City 4 and Farm
(Irrigating this Farm gives us +1 Food for the G Corn)
W4: Move to G Riv that is 1NE of City 3 and Farm W5: Cottage the G Riv that is 1W of Cap
Warrior 3: Spawn-bust from the GH that is 1W of the G Corn
Warrior 2: We might as well promote him to, say, Combat I
Warrior 2: Stay in place on the Grassland that is NW + W of the Lake
Archer 1: Move 1W Tundra Hills Riv For (1W of the G Riv Horse)
Since you posted your PPP almost 24 hours ago and no one else wants to comment, while I only made some minor changes to the micro, I think that it is fair to say that you can play whenever you are ready.
You should probably try a quick run-through in the test game to make sure that I didn't make any mistakes. Thanks!
Suggested PPP
T74
Research still at 100%
Still researching Currency
C2: Southern G Riv Farm -> G Riv Gems Mine
C2: Put Work Boat -> Barracks in the build queue
(We can try to work the Gems in Gems City when at 100% Research and can possibly let City 4 work the Gems when we are at 0% Research, due to Gems City having a Library but no Market)
C4: Gems -> G Riv (happens automatically)
(Should be 16 / 30 Hammers in the Granary plus 14 Hammers going into the Granary)
C5: Build Research
We should be making 105 Flasks on the F2 screen, so building Research in City 5 actually counts as 3 Flasks for the cost of 2 Hammers, as otherwise, we will only earn 103 Flasks and will just barely miss out on earning a bonus Flask.
Let us compare. You gain 1 more flask, 3 more hammers in surfin' turf, 1 less food in Gems, 2 more hammers in gems, 2 less hammers in City 4, 2 less hammers in Athens.
Sum: 1 more flask, 1 more hammer, 1 less food. It is a fair trade but I would probably prefer my approach as it gives hammers in Athens towards the lighthouse.
Not moving the gems mine and building research in Athens gives 1 food for 1 flask compared to your approach. I am now favouring it.
W5: Move 1NW G Riv Road and Farm At +9-11 food I think we are growing fast enough. It think if we plan cottages getting turns on building those cottages is probably the way to go. Cottages will also help with setting up the 3 pop whips of settlers.
Extra farms will end up with us running scientists here which is not a huge loss but not that great either.
Galley 1: Probably move to 1NE of Cap
Archer 1: Move 1E G Riv (1E of the G Riv Horse, to uncover the water square 1SW of the Whale to look for more seafood and to help reveal part of the Coast between us and Shaka)
(We cannot move southward, otherwise we will open up a row of squares that are not spawn-busted)
T75, 1000 BC
ERASE WILLEM'S THIRD CITY, since we can't count on it existing in the real game.
C1: GH Riv Mine -> G Riv Farm
(We have to focus on growth in Cap as much as possible)
C2: Put Work Boat -> Barracks in the build queue
C4: 1-pop-whip Granary
C5: Build Granary
Check the F2 screen. If we are making 105 Research like in the test game, then we should aim to make 109 Flasks by building Research in Cap. If we instead make 111 Flasks, then don't build Research in Cap and build Research in City 5 instead, so that we make 109. Making 110 is fine if we get +1 Flask from an extra Trade Route, but 109 is better than 111 if we get +2 Flasks from an extra Trade Route.
C1: Build Research (if we make 109 or 110 Flasks by doing so)
W1: Continue to Cottage G For that is 1N of the Fur
W2: Move 1SW G Riv (NE + N of City 4), partial Cottage, then STOP
W3: Complete the G Corn Farm
W4: Complete the G Cow Road
W5: Farm the G Riv that is 1NW of Cap
Archer 1: Move 1NW G Riv Horse
(We have to head northward because Warrior 2 needs to move northward)
Warrior 2: Move 1NE G (NW + W of the Lake)
(We have to cover the area that Warrior 3 left without spawn-busting coverage) 1N is just as good. And if Shakas army is coming the northern route we will see it 1 turn earlier.
Warrior 3: Move 1NW GH (1W of the G Corn)
Work Boat 4 (from City 2): Move toward Fur City's Crab
T76, 975 BC
We don't need to worry about trying to earn bonus Flasks on the F2 screen for this turn, since when you learn a tech, those bonus Flasks sometimes disappear anyway
C4: Build a Warrior
C1: Put Work Boat -> Spy in the build queue
W1: Continue to Cottage G For that is 1N of the Fur
W2: Move 1S G Riv (1NE of City 4) and Farm
W3: Move to the G Riv that is 1NE of City 4 and Farm
(Irrigating this Farm gives us +1 Food for the G Corn)
W4: Move to G Riv that is 1NE of City 3 and Farm
W5: Farm the G Riv that is 1NW of Cap
Warrior 3: Spawn-bust from the GH that is 1W of the G Corn
Warrior 2: We might as well promote him to, say, Combat I
Warrior 2: Stay in place on the Grassland that is NW + W of the Lake
Archer 1: Move 1W Tundra Hills Riv For (1W of the G Riv Horse)
I think the micro of the capital is going to be important. I will run the test game and see what happens assuming we have 2 workers improving the capital.
Well, we might as well take the extra Flask (sometimes two extra Flasks) whenever we are at 100% Research.
It's going to be a long time before City 2 can reach Size 6, so it doesn't really matter if we borrow some Food to put to good use. That's making use of our Granary by starting off with some free Food that we can borrow from in order to make a free Flask or two from time to time.
What good is that Food doing us just sitting there? Let's make use of it when we have a good use for it.
Meanwhile, we can have City 4 steal the Gems back on turns at 0% Science, if it makes sense to do so.
We don't have enough improved squares in Gems City to even worry about trying to grow to Size 6, so there's no rush to get there.
By making a Cottage now, we'd lose 1 Food from not working the extra Farm at Size 5 but would gain 2 Cottage turns. So, a Cottage next sounds fine. I'll update my message above.
I still think that we'll want the Farm, so we can switch things to building a Cottage at 1W of Cap first and then the Farm at 1NW of Cap.
Do you really see keeping Warrior 3 inside of our Cultural Borders on the GH as the long term solution?
We really have 2 main choices here:
1. Warrior 2 moves to Warrior 3's old position and Warrior 3 becomes a Hereditary Rule Military Police unit
OR
2. Warrior 3 will move back to his old position on the G Riv (SW + W + W + W of the G Corn) on the turn after we learn Currency (on Turn 77), Warrior 2 will move to the TH Riv For (1W of the G Riv Horse), and Archer 1 can explore the rest of the coast and can go check out Shaka once Warrior 2 is close to being in the right position
For case 1, it's better to move Warrior 2 1NE. For case 2, it doesn't matter, since Warrior 2 isn't going to be there for very long. I picked moving 1NE since we hadn't made a decision yet.
One thing that I misrepresented is that we actually earn +2 Flasks for getting a multiple of 5 Flasks on Turn 74 or Turn 75, due to the 40% bonus to research on Currency.
5 * 1.4 = 7.0
7 - 5 = 2 bonus Flasks
So, let's do our best to hit that multiple of 5 (1 less than a multiple of 5 on the F2 screen, due to the free Flask that doesn't appear on the F2 screen).
In other words, we're trading 2 Hammers to get 4 Flasks on Turn 74 by building Research in Athens. That's a pretty good return on investment. It's similar to getting Failure Gold for a Stone Wonder, but we don't have Stone to make that good of a conversion from Hammers to Gold.
We don't really need Food in Gems, so "spending" Food there to get free Flasks is a good approach.
We can earn Food back on turns at 0% Research, when there is no gain for working the Gems Mine in City 2.
We can just let City 2 rot at Size 5 for a long time, growing when Cap doesn't need its Wheat and shrinking again when at 100% Research.
Let us compare. You gain 1 more flask, 3 more hammers in surfin' turf, 1 less food in Gems, 2 more hammers in gems, 2 less hammers in City 4, 2 less hammers in Athens.
Hammers in Surfin' Turf are good because they mean more Food from the Lighthouse sooner when at Size 3 (+1 F per turn) and even more Food when at Size 4 (+2 F per turn).
We're going to see a very quick payback on earning those Hammers, which will mean a faster-settled Horse City, which may or may not make the difference between us beating Shaka to settling there, and will at least mean Worker turns at Horse City start off earlier, netting us access to a Horse Resource sooner.
A bit more Food in Gems won't really get us to +1 City Size for a long time, so whether the Food box has a number between 0 and 29 that is a little bit higher gains us nothing for a while.
Hammers in Gems City are good as we are short on Work Boats. The less Work Boats that Cap has to build, the more that Cap can focus on other build items.
Other than Cap and Gems City, there are no good Cities from which to build Work Boats for Triple Fish.
Hammers in City 4 are just going to be dumped into Warriors and Scouts until we unlock Catapults. Most of the useful Hammers from that City are going to come from whipping it into major Unhappiness right before we gift the City away.
Those Hammers are not actually of good use for us right now.
Yes, it's a tradeoff to get 2 less Hammers for Athen's Lighthouse, but earning 4 Flasks seems like a good trade.
If we get Confucianism there, whether we build the Missionary or it auto-spreads, we'll only need to collect 24 Hammers for the Lighthouse, or 30 in the worst case. It won't take too long to get there and at most we're trading away 1 turn less of earning 5 Food from the Crab, so call it:
2 Hammers -> 4 Flasks now and possibly 1 less Food later
That's still a pretty decent trade, while the other items are giving us value where we need it and "spending" resources where we don't need them.
I uploaded a pretty sloppy game with cottages. I find that it does not matter much if we build cottage or farm since when we whip down the city we have so many tiles we want to work anyhow.
It still makes me feel that we should do a cottage since it will save us 4 worker turns.
Perhaps you can try to tell when that farm will pay off. Every turn we work a cottage it will give us one more turn in 70+ turns with 5+ commerce on that tile.
Dhoomstriker, my latest opinion is that we work cow in surfin' turf and build research in Athens.
It will land us on 104 research. So the gems trade will give us 1 flask for 1 food. Unless we need that flask to reach currency in three turn I do not see it as good use. Just as food are no use if we do not turn it into something an extra flask overflow from the tech is not good use unless it gives us an tech earlier. My bet is that the extra food has a bigger chance of turning into something. Building warriors is not a waste since we have monarchy.
Let's quickly compare +9 vs +11 vs +12, assuming no whipping (whipping makes it even stronger to earn more Food).
Starting off with 15 / 26 + 11 Food at Size 3 as our Turn 0, reaching Size 4 for all 3 scenarios as our Turn 1, then earning either +9, +11, or +12 per turn at Size 4 and above, while the +13 scenario is the +12 scenario but working the second G Riv Farm as of Size 5:
City Size, +9 Food, +11 Food, +12 Food, +13 Food
Size 5, Turn 3, Turn 3, Turn 3, Turn 3
Size 6, Turn 5, Turn 4, Turn 4, Turn 4
Size 7, Turn 7, Turn 6, Turn 6, Turn 5
Size 8, Turn 9, Turn 8, Turn 7, Turn 7
Size 9, Turn 11, Turn 10, Turn 9, Turn 8
Size 10, Turn 14, Turn 12, Turn 11, Turn 10
Size 11, Turn 16, Turn 14, Turn 13, Turn 12
Size 12, Turn 19, Turn 16, Turn 14, Turn 14
Size 13, Turn 21, Turn 18, Turn 16, Turn 15
So, is it worth delaying our Settlers, Workers, and turns of Cottage growth by up to 5 or 6 turns in a case with no more whipping (and longer with the whipping that we have planned) in order to "earn" more short-term Hammers by working the GH Riv Mine instead of a G Riv Farm?
Or, is it better to get the Food from the Farm and convert that into Hammers via Whipping, earning those build items sooner and getting to working our Cottages sooner?
Your point makes sense. Since we don't have a G Riv Farm to work in City 4 yet, it really is a trade of 1 F for 1 Flask, which isn't great. I'll make the change.
Later, once we do have a G Riv Farm to work in City 4, we'll just be putting the Food where it will be of more use (in City 4) while the Flask will be more likely to come for free... that is, until the last turn before gifting away City 4, at which point further Food will be meaningless.
Well, we also have to recognize that each Warrior will cost us 1 Gold per Turn, so we don't want to overbuild Warriors, but we also don't want to have to delay growth due to not having enough Warriors.
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But, I'll do my best.
