Immortal level Shadow game - Shaka of Zululand

[sampsa]

I thought that was Zara over there.

Yep, that is certainly Zara. Since he is creative and has 1 city, that is his capital 3rd ring borders. Opened the save, and it's Monty. Can see it both from the color and the <F4> screen - Hammurabi is the worst enemy of Montball.

Probably doubtful those horse can be nabbed, although you could settle 1S of them and share corn. AIs tend to emphasize settling those resources, so I doubt it will be available. Krikav's pig suggestion is good. For one, it will lock down that area, but otherwise has a lot going for it. Copper reveal may change things.

Indeed, main choices for 2nd city seem to be 1S of horse if available (this would also likely mean HA-attack on Asoka) and 1W of western pig as Krikav suggested.

i think i would start the first settler now. Basically slow build, but maybe after gold there is time to chop into it. Gold is certainly not in a convenient position.

My instinct was that we need some more warriors, I mean we only have one currently? A barb archer might be annoying.

The obvious alternative to now switching to settler would be to maximize food, build warriors and whip a settler at size 6. It leads to a slower 2nd city but is safer. Seems to go better with improving corn first, too.

I really liked it to see how you settle your cities, but it looks to me that you settle them so far away from each other, I tend to settle them as near as possible. I think I don't know how to choose good spots to settle.

Well, assuming we look at the first 4-5 cities, in those two games without a CRE leader, the first cities were founded as close as possible to capital, two tiles away. CRE allows you to catch a bit more territory with more aggressive settling. So I'd say often settling as near as possible is a good idea.

The other day I watched a game of a deity player called Lain (that's the name if I'm not mistaken) and he would settle a few cities without even connecting them, I don't know if I am wrong but I almost never settle a city without connecting it to other cities first.

Lain in an amazing player. Keep watching those videos and try to understand why he does what he does. I guess you can even post questions to his thread if you want. Lain taught me that "improve (food) - chop - cottage - connect" in that order is probably the best default usage of workers early on and that improved my early play a lot as I used to connect cities too early.

On how to settle the south, not probably relevant yet but perhaps teaches you to think in a correct way. Or maybe my thoughts are ridiculous, and someone will correct my way of thinking.

Spoiler :

If you want to play a relatively peaceful early game, Mids are a good wonder. In this case I'd aim to claim the stone with 3rd/4th city. Site B has no 1st ring food, so I'd forget about that. C is good, though that blocks D,E and F. It would fit in nicely with G/H and of these sites I prefer H, as it doesn't waste a forest and claims more forest. Of course, there might even be a resource 1E of H which might change things. Site A is nice as it insta-connects stone and grabs all that forest, but lacks 1st ring food. I wouldn't count this possibility out, yet.

If we don't intend to build Mids, sites E and F are attractive. I prefer E as it can be settled 1T earlier and doesn't waste a forest. Don't think D (the original settler spot!) is that good, though revealing something south of sheep might change that.

If we really want the ivory, it's going to be either spot I or J. Both are weak and this isn't going to be 2nd or 3rd city I think. J would stagnate size1 working gold allowing capital to grow. "I" could borrow the pigs and has more forest to chop, so certainly a stronger city, but kinda weakens the capital by stealing pigs. "I" is impossible if you go for G/H.

@Peacefanatic, play until BW, so we can see if copper location changes things? With AGG, axes are a tempting option. Either a settler now or keep growing (in which case, don't work 12-tiles as in the screenshot) intending to whip a settler.

 

[krikav]

Nice

I do like BW abit more than TW, but less conclusive than sampsa and lymond seem to do in this situation.
Even if you get TW, you would not start to connect a bunch of cities right away, that will have to wait (and can wait a long time with the commerce boost from the gold!).
What TW has going for it, is that we have to get there shortly anyway for exp granaries.
It's 9 worker turns to fully connect the gold (10 if we have to climb the hill again).
I have 5 hammers per workerturn as a rough yardstick in the early game (what they produce if chopping, which is the default thing they should do.)
So, 9 worker turns is 45 hammers to get an extra happines.

If copper pops in an ackward position I would ignore it untill later, grabbing pigs would be my highest priority.
But there is time to think and analyze this when BW is in. No point debating all possible ifs and buts when we don't have to.
I try to think this way when I play too, this game is complex as it is, and if I can postpone a decision untill I have more solid information I do that.

The northern horses I had given up hope on, perhaps prematurely?
But I think metal more important than horses here too. Agg works only on melee units, and impis solve some 2moving needs/wants.HAs/Chariots defend poorly against Monty.
If we are really unlucky and ignore horses first and then get no metal at all, we can always resort to ivory and break out that way.

 

[krikav]

As it is now, 1E of pigs would be my second city.
Scout should not move away from that area, but keep it fogbusted!

I think I would have just gone settler at pop3, assisted by a chop or two.
But reading it now, I do think that @sampsas suggestion of a few more warriors while growing to pop6 and then 3pop whip a settler is better.
It's much safer which is probably why I didn't think about it.
I have lost count of how many times I have had my first settler dancing around the intended city spot, or having to fall back to a inferior position due to barb issues.
Had good times in BOTM162 where I lost my second city to barbs too. >_<

Looking forward to a new post @ BW!

 

[Peacefanatic]

1E of 1SW of Ulundi pigs? Not sure I see any benefit of that unless you explain it.

You save one forest and get one more green tile

Settling compactly and overlapping to tile share is always good, but settling good cities is good too.

What would be a good city for you? A 20 population city?

<F4> screen - Hammurabi is the worst enemy of Montball.

That information doesn't show up for me. Why is that ??

Indeed, main choices for 2nd city seem to be 1S of horse if available (this would also likely mean HA-attack on Asoka) and 1W of western pig as Krikav suggested.

Which one would you settle first? Do you think a HA rush on Asoka is the way to go?

Well, assuming we look at the first 4-5 cities, in those two games without a CRE leader, the first cities were founded as close as possible to capital, two tiles away. CRE allows you to catch a bit more territory with more aggressive settling. So I'd say often settling as near as possible is a good idea.

I took a better look and you settle your cities very close together. I'm not used to playing without the gridlines and that's why I was confused.

Lain in an amazing player. Keep watching those videos and try to understand why he does what he does. I guess you can even post questions to his thread if you want. Lain taught me that "improve (food) - chop - cottage - connect" in that order is probably the best default usage of workers early on and that improved my early play a lot as I used to connect cities too early.

Thanks for the info. I did not know he stil played the game. I just watched the first part of the video and I'll try to watch the rest some other time. I have the habit of always connecting before settling because of the extra commerce. Don't you think that make a difference? I have watched a few games played by Absolutezero and he would skip settler turns until the road is connected and just them he would settle his cities.


I have just researched BW and I'll post some updated bellow so things are more clear for us.

Copper near the pigs:

Spoiler :

Copper to the SW:

Spoiler :

Land to the south:

Spoiler :

Updates so far:
2520BC
BW is discovered. I guess TW is the right tech to research now, right?
We have 1 scout fog busting pigs+copper to the west and 3 warriors. One warrior is discovering the land to the south, I'm sending one to meet Montezuma and the other one is sitting on the capital so we don't get an angry citizen.
Also we are 2 turns away of producing another warrior and growing to 6 population.
Additionally we have found fur and crab to the south.
I believe that our plan now would be to grow to population 6, whip a settler and claim that pigs+copper spot to the west. Produce another worker in capital and in the new city and start claiming more land. What do you guys think?

Please comment on my possible city spots:

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

 

[Peacefanatic]

I think I would have just gone settler at pop3, assisted by a chop or two.
But reading it now, I do think that @sampsas suggestion of a few more warriors while growing to pop6 and then 3pop whip a settler is better.
It's much safer which is probably why I didn't think about it.
I have lost count of how many times I have had my first settler dancing around the intended city spot, or having to fall back to a inferior position due to barb issues.
Had good times in BOTM162 where I lost my second city to barbs too. >_<

krikav I have the same habit and I would have probably done that or just growed to population 4 before producing another settler.

 

[lymond]

What would be a good city for you? A 20 population city?

Not at all. My comment strictly had to do with the early game. What a city does for you now. Anything to do with Size 20 is irrelevant to me unless maybe playing a Space game. It's more about settling cities with the key resources in the first ring.

1E of pigs is technically a better city in terms of overall tiles, but I have a slight concern about needing a border pop for the oddly place copper. I'm inclined to settle 1N for both resources in the 1st ring, and even then there is a possibility of Asoka settling somewhere just N of that and putting pressure on that copper. Horses look like they could be easily secured. I'd really want the copper for Shaka though. Maybe an early Impi out to harass the Indians some.

I like Sampsa's idea of settling on the stone at some point. That city is not food rich so having stone to actually work as a tile has little value, as opposed to earlier access to the stone itself.

yeah, I hear what you are saying about city connections. I've always really like to have a road in place for the instant commerce, but I've moved away from that some, focusing more on chops and stuff. But note that you can often place partial roads as you progress using half turn worker moves to place partial improvements on flat tiles, if the worker would otherwise be targeting a spot 2 tiles away or a hill or forest 3 tiles away. Step > place improvement > Cancel worker action. Definitely a high level trick to make most of worker turns.

Sometimes you get lucky with river or coastal connections too.

I like TW next regardless. Leaves open POT as a choice or just go Writing which you can do anytime now. Maybe not the smartest option, but I'd not be totally opposed to Myst either sooner than later just to get some culture in Pigs city, and you may want early Masonry anyway. Ultimately there are some options there but it really up to how you want to play this out. You will need TW to get copper online early and maybe rush somebody, or you go more peaceful and go to Masonry for some fail gold and to start Mids.

Personally, my choice would be to get copper online now and mess with the AI, and still look to try for Mids at some point.

I think you have at least 3 AIs in close proximity to you, so barbs are not going to be a major issue here with some decent spawnbusting.

 

[sampsa]

What information doesn't show up for me. Why is that ??

Maybe you just didn't know where to look for.

Spoiler :

You need to go to this chart and hover over smiley faces.

From what I understand, this is a bug and was removed in BUFFY.

Which one would you settle first? Do you think a HA rush on Asoka is the way to go?

I think HA rush or even chariot rush is one way to play. I wouldn't really recommend going for such strategies at this point though, learning normal empire build up is more useful. Also now with copper revealed, if you go for an early attack I'd recommend axes, as you are playing an AGG civ.

With copper revealed, pigs+copper seems like the safest and best bet. Copper on 1st ring certainly, so 1N of your marked spot.

Thanks for the info. I did not know he stil played the game. I just watched the first part of the video and I'll try to watch the rest some other time. I have the habit of always connecting before settling because of the extra commerce. Don't you think that make a difference? I have watched a few games played by Absolutezero and he would skip settler turns until the road is connected and just them he would settle his cities.

Having 2 extra is better than not having 2 extra , yes, but you need to compare that to other things that a worker can do. Maybe getting 20 earlier from a chop makes a bigger difference?

I have learned a lot tactics from AbsoluteZero's videos, but I wouldn't recommend trying to imitate his play. He is more of a fun player, despite being able to beat deity on occasion. Remember that settling a city earlier starts to produce / earlier. Usually they are more important than a small amount of early on.

BW is discovered. I guess TW is the right tech to research now, right?
We have 1 scout fog busting pigs+copper to the west and 3 warriors. One warrior is discovering the land to the south, I'm sending one to meet Montezuma and the other one is sitting on the capital so we don't get an angry citizen.
Also we are 2 turns away of producing another warrior and growing to 6 population.
Additionally we have found fur and crab to the south.
I believe that our plan now would be to grow to population 6, whip a settler and claim that pigs+copper spot to the west. Produce another worker in capital and in the new city and start claiming more land. What do you guys think?

Plan is good. A minor mistake I see in the screenshot - you are working a 12-tile instead of a 21-tile. Governor will make a lot of mistakes like this unless you watch him.

 

[Peacefanatic]

Not at all. My comment strictly had to do with the early game. What a city does for you now. Anything to do with Size 20 is irrelevant to me unless maybe playing a Space game. It's more about settling cities with the key resources in the first ring.

Got it. I believe I have learned this lesson and I'm pretty much always settling resources on the first ring. And to be honest most of my cities stay little all game long.

I'm inclined to settle 1N for both resources in the 1st ring, and even then there is a possibility of Asoka settling somewhere just N of that and putting pressure on that copper.

I totally agree with you, I forgot to update the city placements after discovering cooper.

Maybe an early Impi out to harass the Indians some.

I believe that will be necessary since he is already claiming our land.

But note that you can often place partial roads as you progress using half turn worker moves to place partial improvements on flat tiles, if the worker would otherwise be targeting a spot 2 tiles away or a hill or forest 3 tiles away. Step > place improvement > Cancel worker action. Definitely a high level trick to make most of worker turns.

I have learned that trick before and is definetely very useful.

Maybe you just didn't know where to look for.

I looked exactly in the same place you did, but in my game it doesn't appear the AIs you did not meet yet.

I think HA rush or even chariot rush is one way to play. I

I have never done a chariot rush unless I'm playing with Egypt. Is it a good strategy to rush with regular chariots?

Having 2 extra is better than not having 2 extra , yes, but you need to compare that to other things that a worker can do. Maybe getting 20 earlier from a chop makes a bigger difference?

I can see it now and I agree with you.

Plan is good. A minor mistake I see in the screenshot - you are working a 12-tile instead of a 21-tile. Governor will make a lot of mistakes like this unless you watch him.

I just worked that tile instead of the more food rich one to get the warrior and the population grow on the same turn.

I played a few more turns and I'll update the posts below.


It's 2280 BC now and one of our warriors died to a sneaky barb attack

Our city has grown to a population of 6 and whipped a settler with 40 overflow. I was really in doubt about what to do with so many hammers. I have decided to put all of that onto another worker but maybe I should have produce an Ikhanda since we are AGG and get a bonus for that. What do you guys think?

Now we have 3 warriors, 1 worker and 1 scout. Also we are one turn away of producing another worker.
We have discovered TW and I'm not sure wich tech would be the best choice now. As lymond have predicted Asoka is already near our copper+pigs spot and will culture pressure us. Also Montezuma and the chinese are getting close. Should we research Mysticism now or go straight for writing? Or pottery? What are you people thoughts on that?

Additionally we have met every AI now and they all have at least 2 cities, with the chinese having 3

Bellow are some screenshots of our situation but I'm really worried about claiming land.

Horses to the N:

Spoiler :

Settler to the W:

Spoiler :

Chinese to the E:

Spoiler :

 

[sampsa]

Very well played so far.

I looked exactly in the same place you did, but in my game it doesn't appear the AIs you did not meet yet.

Strange. In BUG-mod it should show, in BUFFY, no.

I have never done a chariot rush unless I'm playing with Egypt. Is it a good strategy to rush with regular chariots?

It can be good, especially against AIs that don't like to build many units. However, here we have lots of nice cities to expand and the start was rather slow (worker out T18) so probably not a great idea here.

I just worked that tile instead of the more food rich one to get the warrior and the population grow on the same turn.

Ah, makes sense. I think I still would have preferred to get that 1 extra food in, since you will be soon again in growth mode, while capital finishing that warrior was not urgent.

It's 2280 BC now and one of our warriors died to a sneaky barb attack

Unlucky there. If I'm reading combat log correctly, a wounded archer killed your warrior on forest? These things happen.

Our city has grown to a population of 6 and whipped a settler with 40 overflow. I was really in doubt about what to do with so many hammers. I have decided to put all of that onto another worker but maybe I should have produce an Ikhanda since we are AGG and get a bonus for that. What do you guys think?

Was the overflow due to a chop? Yes, definitely another worker was the best call! You need to chop/whip settler+granary in capital, connect copper in 2nd (maybe also connect cities quickly for axemen) so you have a lot to do. Ikhanda wouldn't help your early goals at all.

Now we have 3 warriors, 1 worker and 1 scout. Also we are one turn away of producing another worker.
We have discovered TW and I'm not sure wich tech would be the best choice now.

Pottery seems wise, because EXP granaries are so good.

As lymond have predicted Asoka is already near our copper+pigs spot and will culture pressure us. Also Montezuma and the chinese are getting close. Should we research Mysticism now or go straight for writing? Or pottery? What are you people thoughts on that?

Building monuments for the sake of getting a border pop just in case is nearly always bad, because there are better ways to gain culture. Sometimes some monuments can be necessary, but I don't think it's the case here. In general I'd go for writing before religious stuff. Opening borders may get AIs to send missionaries for you, so free

 

[krikav]

I too like the play so far!

40 hammers overflow could have been done naturally if care had been taken to maximum overflow, but if that was the case here the settler would have been delayed to achieve that overflow and that would have been wrong.
Overflow hammers into worker was certaily the best call. I like to see this as a farewell gift from the parting settler+worker pair that will now leave the capital.
Here it makes even more sense since we get +25% bonus on workers due to exp.
Not realistic here, but best is if we could also have gotten a chop so that the worker would have finished in one turn, as to minimize food "pollution" in it's build (food does not get +25% bonus) and if possible all food should go into population that will only later be whipped away.

But this early worker I see as a exception. This capital is of the type "food strong hammer weak", and as such, overflow or chops should find their place into infrastructure rather than into settlers /workers.
Although one has to be careful so that we don't completly deplete all possible useful builds, since we want this capital to grow/whip for a long time.


I would absolutely go for pottery next, exp granaries are soo good that I don't spend any mental effort even trying to analyze other options and their merits.


How did your warrior get killed? I'm too often reckless with my warriors, and it's often good to retreat if they don't have really good odds, (5t fortifed on forested hill). Or if they are guarding a very important location or angle of aproach into your homeland.
When I took the step from imm to deity, it was at a point where I had gotten more comfortable with handling barbs in the early game. Alot of nuances here...


Do you try to keep track of what directions the AIs are comming from? It can pay off to know their rough layout on the map, to know who will have bordertension with who and to start paying attention to diplomacy already.
There is a very large peaceweight span between some of the AIs here, which is good and makes it easier to keep safe. But if no attention is paid to it at all, you could find yourself in a situation where you get hated by everyone since you don't pick sides and have to decline too many requests.

 

[Peacefanatic]

Ah, makes sense. I think I still would have preferred to get that 1 extra food in, since you will be soon again in growth mode, while capital finishing that warrior was not urgent.

I did that while growing from population 5 to 6. Since we were going to whip a settler does that one extra food makes any difference?

Unlucky there. If I'm reading combat log correctly, a wounded archer killed your warrior on forest? These things happen.

Exactly. It happens to the best

Was the overflow due to a chop? Yes, definitely another worker was the best call! You need to chop/whip settler+granary in capital, connect copper in 2nd (maybe also connect cities quickly for axemen) so you have a lot to do. Ikhanda wouldn't help your early goals at all.

I don't remember to be honest but I think so. But I'm glad I did the right choice, I was really in doubt of what to do.

Pottery seems wise, because EXP granaries are so good.

Pottery will be then.

Building monuments for the sake of getting a border pop just in case is nearly always bad, because there are better ways to gain culture. Sometimes some monuments can be necessary, but I don't think it's the case here. In general I'd go for writing before religious stuff. Opening borders may get AIs to send missionaries for you, so free

Good point. But I'm worried with the AIs getting so close to us. What are the some good strategies to claim some good land?

I too like the play so far!

I'm glad we are doing fine so far. Your guys are definetely helping me learn the game better

Here it makes even more sense since we get +25% bonus on workers due to exp.

I have totally forgot about that

Not realistic here, but best is if we could also have gotten a chop so that the worker would have finished in one turn, as to minimize food "pollution" in it's build (food does not get +25% bonus) and if possible all food should go into population that will only later be whipped away.

I'm sorry krikav but I did not understand this. Could you explain it again please?

How did your warrior get killed? I'm too often reckless with my warriors, and it's often good to retreat if they don't have really good odds, (5t fortifed on forested hill). Or if they are guarding a very important location or angle of aproach into your homeland.

I was checking the land to the south and a mean barb killed my warrior on a forest. I don't know how to be careful since you can only move one turn and if there is a barb arch near there is not much you can do. Is there any way to check the combat odds if your unit is the one being attacked?

When I took the step from imm to deity, it was at a point where I had gotten more comfortable with handling barbs in the early game. Alot of nuances here...

Hopefully one day I'll learn.

Do you try to keep track of what directions the AIs are comming from? It can pay off to know their rough layout on the map, to know who will have bordertension with who and to start paying attention to diplomacy already.

Sometimes I try but I always forget a few turns later. I'll try to pay more attention to this.

There is a very large peaceweight span between some of the AIs here, which is good and makes it easier to keep safe.

What does peaceweight span means?

But if no attention is paid to it at all, you could find yourself in a situation where you get hated by everyone since you don't pick sides and have to decline too many requests.

Diplomacy is a very big leak in my game. I almost don't pay attention to that and declining many requests is what usually happen to me. Do you have any tips?

Thanks for your guys help so far. I'll play a few more turns and post the update here.

Also I just found out you can like other people comments

 

[Peacefanatic]

I forgot to ask. What do you guys think should be our plan now?

My ideas were that one worker would connect both cities and the other one would improve Pig first and cooper after. Second city would immeditealy build another work and our capital would grow to size 4 while producing warriors and then build another settler. Does that sound like a good plan?

 

[krikav]

Attached a file with peaceweights.
Basically it's just a number given to the AIs from 0 to 10 depending on how "good" they are.
The AIs have an attitude against each other depending on how much they differ in peaceweight.
Asoka is 8 (very good guy!) and monty is 0 (Evily evil!!), so they are almost certainly annoyed or even furious about one another from the bat.
These peaceweights, and religious blocks, bordertensions and favourite civics determine to a large extent what blocks are going to form.
It's very difficult to play on both teams, and often it pays of to know pretty early who you are going to buddy up with and who you are likely to ignore, attack and regard as an enemy.

Take a look at the chart, and try to apply it to your own game and come to some conclusions.

 

[krikav]

I said this:
"Not realistic here, but best is if we could also have gotten a chop so that the worker would have finished in one turn, as to minimize food "pollution" in it's build (food does not get +25% bonus) and if possible all food should go into population that will only later be whipped away."

I'm quite sure that this is really getting way too deep in detail, so feel free to ignore anything thats confusing, but...

Ideally, a worker with exp should be built with 48 raw hammers since this is multiplied by 1.25 landing at 60.

If you grow your capital from pop2 to pop4, (without granary) you need 24+26 = 50 food.
You can then whip away two population and gain 60 hammers.
So it's always more efficient to first use food to grow pop, and then whip it away.
If you are slow-building workers/settlers with food, you are not gaining this benefit.

Your capital has wet corn and pigs and gold at pop3, yielding 8food and 4hammers.
If you build your worker over two turns, you will "blend in" 16 food into the build. Exacly how this blends is complicated... But it's safe to say that it's better to build the worker in one turn, using only 8 food.
That would require 42 raw hammers in overflow, natural hammers and chops.

 

[krikav]

Oh, and the warriors...
Stay put most of the time, find safe fogbusting locations and good outposts to camp, don't push forward and don't scout around if you can't afford to lose them freely, or if you can live without the information they can provide.
Keep them alive.
When a barb archer is aproaching, consider if you really have to take that fight.
"The warrior who runs away, will live to run away another day."

 

[krikav]

Have not analysed the current position in depth, sorry for that.
An screenshot showing a zoomed out overview often helps me.

But something like this now I would say:

If it was a good copper tile, the worker would just tag along with the settler, improving pigs and then copper.
Now with nasty desert copper that takes alot of workerturns to get up and running, I would likely improve pigs and then possibly a chop into a worker and 1pop it, so I could improve copper with two workers there.

The worker that will finish in capital should not connect yet, but rather go chop more, either another worker or another settler. Roads can wait, we don't need the commerce as we have gold, and copper won't be online for a while yet.

 

[sampsa]

I did that while growing from population 5 to 6. Since we were going to whip a settler does that one extra food makes any difference?

The difference is that you will be growing AFTER the settler whip, and 1>1. So unless there is a special reason (like if you really really needed to get that warrior out asap), favor 1 over 1.

Good point. But I'm worried with the AIs getting so close to us. What are the some good strategies to claim some good land?

Either settling cities or capturing cities. You really can't beat immortal AI to every spot, so just settle the best ones and take more by force later.

I was checking the land to the south and a mean barb killed my warrior on a forest. I don't know how to be careful since you can only move one turn and if there is a barb arch near there is not much you can do. Is there any way to check the combat odds if your unit is the one being attacked?

No, not really, but you'll get the feel for them by experience. I can say that you've scouted enough, maybe even too much. I scout often less (though on deity you'll just die if you wander too far with warriors) assuming I've found spots for cities number 2 and 3.

Sometimes I try but I always forget a few turns later. I'll try to pay more attention to this.

I always label the tile I meet the civ and put the turn number there, too. The turn you meet someone also matters when you beg for from an AI, so it's useful to know.

I forgot to ask. What do you guys think should be our plan now?

My ideas were that one worker would connect both cities and the other one would improve Pig first and cooper after. Second city would immeditealy build another work and our capital would grow to size 4 while producing warriors and then build another settler. Does that sound like a good plan?

1st worker on pigs first, then copper is a good idea. Probably connecting cities, too. Starting a worker in 2nd city is a bad idea. Growing to size 2 (build ikhanda I guess), switching to worker is better by a mile, especially since we are EXP. Growing to size 2 costs 22 and a whip turns that into 30. Well, in this case to 30*1,25. Capital should grow also, intending to whip a settler and get the granary done by overflow.

I'm in a hurry, but if you play now, probably make it a very short turn set.