Yeah, the thinking was that you needed 15 hammers and 22 surplus food. Working pigs your net surplus would be 2F3H (2F1H from pigs, 2H from city tile), so 2 turns of that is 4/22, 6/15. Then 3 turns of non-farmed corn at 3F2H gets you to 13/22, 12/15. And 2 turns of farmed corn at 5F2H to finish up gets you 23/22, 16/15; on turn 19 you've got warrior, 1/24 food in granary, and 1 overflow hammer. 2 turns on pig, 3 turns on unfarmed corn, 2 turns on farmed corn (1 turn pig, 4 turns unfarmed corn, 2 turns farmed corn also works, although it'd give you 2 overflow food and 0 overflow hammers instead so not quite as good because overflow hammers are more useful here). Sorry if I was too vague in wording that and didn't get the concept across of working pigs just enough turns
before the corn farm finishes.
Doing it this way isn't a huge loss in comparison - you're going to be behind by 1 hammer and 1 food from where you could have been. There's a small chance that means a production project finishes a turn later or the city grows a turn later at some point further down the line, but it's not a major problem. And given the situation you
are in, working unimproved pigs this turn actually is better than working the corn; it's just also a sign that you'd have preferred to work the unimproved pigs an extra turn earlier on instead.
Some players make a map note when and where they first spot AI scouts - something like "Asoka t5" or "Saladin t13" or whatever on the spot. That helps them keep good guesses of roughly how far away and in which direction an AI likely is, although it's far from perfect of course.
A quick rundown on the AIs you've met so far (a lot of this information can be gotten from the
Know Your Enemy thread in the strategy articles section)...
Mehmed is a warmonger - he builds a ton of units and attacks a lot. But unlike most warmongers, he will
not target civilizations he is "Pleased" with. If he's a neighbor, you usually want to make getting to Pleased status with him a priority; him declaring war on you can ruin your whole game. In chaotic target-rich games he generally does well; if (for example) he starts on a continent where everyone becomes Buddhist, he can end up dragged down in tech rate by all his unit production/upkeep while also being Pleased with all his neighbors and getting no value out of those units.
Saladin and Isabella are fairly similar AIs. They both love founding early religions, build lots of missionaries, spread their religions aggressively, demand neighbors adopt their religion, love neighbors who will and hate neighbors who won't, are not afraid of declaring wars against people who are not in their religion. Not a surprise to see them grab Hinduism and Buddhism here. They're both fairly mediocre as AIs - not great, not terrible - but usually have an outsized impact on the diplomatic shape of the games they play in. Isabella is the less comfortable neighbor of the two because she
will attack targets she is Pleased with from time to time.
Asoka we already talked about. Pacifist, low-ish unit count, generally does well if left in peace but can often get crushed early.
Wang Kon is a terrible AI. He expands pretty slowly, declares wars reasonably often but with a small unit count, wastes a lot of potential research on espionage with which he'll do silly things like poison the wells of his neighbors, and generally just makes poor life choices. The fact that he's protective can make him a pain in the neck to deal with before mid-game, and financial can help him get a slightly faster early start on teching (which he'll then fritter away over the mid-game). Generally he's just someone you try to ignore and work around until you have enough of an advantage to steamroller him. He will not start planning attacks at Pleased. In fact, of all the AIs you've met so far this game Isabella is the
only backstabber.
Best guess given all the "reliable friends" AIs in this game and the fact that the two big religious zealots founded the two early religions is that you're looking at a a fairly classic two-religion split of the continent between Buddhists and Hindus; as you get a little more information about which neighbors are closer or further you can decide which bloc to commit yourself to.
Next point of discussion, what to do with the warrior who just finished. You see the pigs on India's southern border? I'd take my new capital warrior and move him onto the hill 2S of those pigs. If you see the pigs already pastured then the opportunity is lost. But there's a good chance they haven't been pastured yet, and sooner or later (probably sooner) India is going to be wanting to move a worker onto them to make a pig pasture. That'd be an easy free worker for you.
Next build. I'd go settler here. While it's true that (a) you don't have any really amazing second city sites, and (b) you do have a lot of forests you could chop, the map is fairly crowded so grabbing land earlier is a good idea. And there is the chance of getting a free worker off India, in which case 3 workers and 1 city would be overkill but 2 workers and 2 cities would be great. Worker-warrior-worker wouldn't be a crazy decision; I'd just lean towards worker-warrior-settler in this case (you're getting the worker/settler at size-2, rather than growing further first, because you don't have more really good tiles to grow onto).
There aren't any really amazing city sites that leap off the screen. With a pig mine, rather than pig pasture, your capital doesn't really have the food surplus to fuel two cities yet. And the only other food
resource visible but unclaimed is sheep, which is much too far off and probably not great land anyways given the visible plains and tundra in the area. Although I would move my warrior up onto that tundra hill 1S of the sheep just to get a better look at the surroundings; if you found something silly-good like gold + wet corn there you might consider grabbing it second in spite of the distance. 3N2W of the capital looks like the place to take; plainshill city tile, strategically useful location, respectable early production and commerce. The stone to the south is a spot you'll definitely be considering later on, and there's probably something around that gold to the east worth having (although you'll need more scouting in the region to decide where - you've marked one possible spot, but stuff in fog of war could definitely change the thinking regarding that gold). If you
don't decide to axe-rush Asoka and the sheep is still available when a settler is ready to make your
third city, you might end up grabbing that area with it. One of the things about gold tiles is that because they give so much commerce, they can sometimes let you justify taking a city a little further away from the capital than would be a good idea normally. Barb defense, move distance and time, worker efficiency, that sort of thing is still a concern. But distance-based upkeep is thoroughly outweighed by the 8-commerce tile so you don't need to worry as much about effect on your tech rate. Of course, all this thinking could shift in 4 turns when you finish Bronze Working and find out where there is copper.
due to CHA+ivory. You still have some time before settling 2nd city, so still possible to find something better. Location of copper can easily alter plans.
on Wang now? Looking at the land, I don't think Asoka will be around for that long..
+2
, and on top of that a "half-improved" tile to immediately work (fp) which means the city requires zero worker turns to be productive!
