Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me to keep a turnlog.
Too bad; that erodes the value of the shadow turnset. OTOH...
However, I've got a pretty good idea what made the difference. In the original game, worker turns were used to road exclusively (with the exception of the first cow being irrigated). I seem to remember querying the fact that the spreadsheet wasn't making sufficient allowance for what would happen once Paris built its first settler and shrank back to pop 1. Although I watered the cow first, IIRC, things worked out even up until that point. The differences began once Paris expanded to size 2 again, 4 turns later. In the original game, the second citizen went to the second cow, which was only partially improved. In my game that tile was fully improved, giving one extra shield. The same thing happened with the next growth, 4 turns later. Once again, in the original game the new citizen went to work on a paritally improved BG. In my game, that BG was fully improved, giving one more extra shield. So at that point there was a 2 shield discrepancy, which ended up with the granary coming in several turns earlier in my game. That is what allowed me the luxury of building a couple of workers, and still being able to put out an earlier second settler.
This gives a pretty good outline of the different decisions you made. As for the spreadsheet, as I assured you before, it
did account for Paris dropping to size 1 -- unfortunately, I was driving for "How do we get those forests chopped with our Worker before both Granaries complete?" rather than "How do we most optimally build more Warriors and Workers in Paris?" This is where a more even approach to spreadsheets by the entire team would have helped -- I'm sure we'd have analyzed more options if everyone had written up a spreadsheet (and been comfortable with using one, of course).
TBH, I never considered running Paris as a size 3 to size 5 SF. To put it simply, I
like the idea of running it as a combo factory. I've never run one before, and it just seems really cool. OTOH, by time it can be up and running, it doesn't help us much (we'll have half a dozen cities building Warriors, and we'll be close to building better units anyway). Plus, not needing to use the lux slider helps us by
quite a bit.
The other major difference was with Orleans. In the original game it was set to build a granary, with the citizen working the unimproved wheat tile. In my game, I sacrificed growth for shields; it was set to build warriors, with the citizen working the forest/game tile, which - being a river tile - also added 1 gold to the treasury, increasing science output. Also, having these early warriors for MP duty allowed me to keep science at 100%, which is why Writing is so much nearer to being researched.
There are probably other minor differences, but IMO those two things had the most influence.
It's enough to get the idea.
Tusker, the save is hardly 'spoilerific'; we can see a few different tiles beyond our borders, something which we ought to be seeing before we send out a settler, anyway. Beyond that, we have met no-one, and haven't found any new resources, nothing at all that would affect the way the game would be played.
Given your penchant for it, I'm sure you can forgive me a minor foray into the realm of hyperbole
There is obviously no question that the new save is better. The extra city, the extra units and the slider make that glaringly obvious.
The big differences (not surprisingly) comes from the fact that bonus tiles were fully improved. Most interesting is that those improved tiles added much more value than a forest chop. The fundamental flaw in our original game was to go for a chop with our first worker (if at all). It was that chop that drove the worker moves in my turn and caused me to neglect tile improvement.
There is a good lesson to be learned there about the effectiveness of improvement over chops. But these are the same old rules of thumbs that have been repeated over and over again: avoid working unimproved tiles, fully improve bonus tiles before moving the worker etc. I thought that in the years since I have played perhaps a tricky way to out produce those tried and true rules might have been devised, but I guess not.
If we played from the original saves, I agree it wouldn't be too spoilerish. We would still have to get on warrior and worker builds and those warriors would still be sent to the same areas that have been exposed in the new save. Those were the areas we expressed a desire to explore anyway.
It is a bit disheartening to play a game that has been so flawed, but could be looked at as a challenge. I wouldn't mind a restart with another map. I'm not in love with the idea of just playing Buce's save, but I don't really have any ethical issues with it or anything like that. I see real value in the team trying to reproduce successful results. It might get a flow going and would give everyone a clear idea of where we wanted to get to. The one stipulation would have to be that we couldn't explore in other directions until we had opened up as much as Buce's save.
I'll agree that Buce's shadow save shows a better position than the team save, but "so flawed" seems like it's overdoing it. By comparison, the empire in SOGK still didn't have a second city until 2270BC or so (Turn 36, I think, halfway between 2550 and 2150BC). In Slavemasters, the second city was built in 2850BC, or Turn 23, and the third city was founded on Turn 39. I'd say we're currently ahead of both games, even in the "disaster"
of the team save.
I'm still adamantly opposed to reloading; it just doesn't seem right to me. That said, if you guys want to start over, I'd be fine with picking a new map. If, OTOH, we're going to continue with
this save, we'll need a consensus approach. Not pointless bickering or misunderstood spreadsheets or demands that the game be played "my way" (I think just about everyone on the team is guilty of at least one of these, myself included).
I propose that Buce finish his current set -- I think he has more than enough to go on for turns
34-40 of the game. Once that's in, we can figure out our next steps.
What do you guys think?
