ha! interesting the first 20 turns went exactly like mine... I think great minds think alike!
Yes, I think that you made the right choice to work the Clam until the Grassland Hills River square was Mined.
the other 30 went in my case completely different though :-( I focused more on land units then you obviously and the scouting went poorly on my side
Interesting you choosed sailing right after BW. I think in the end it didnt matter that much. One thing I am really angry on me is that I teched the AH...needless distraction.
And nice catch with chopping that forrest 1NW of the riverside for the tree pop (even if a bit lucky) should done it too. I have more mines though (which are a bit useless without working pop otoh
).
Here are some of the similarities:
a) We both Chopped the same first Forest, which was a great way to speed up your early production of Work Boats and has a positive cascading effect on your game
b) We both chose to build a Settler around the same time as each other and chose the same location for City #2
c) Although you built the Settler 1 turn faster than I did, we will end up settling on the same turn as each other, since I built 2 squares' worth of Road
d) We both spawn-busted City #2's location, although you used a Warrior while I used a Work Boat
Some of the differences are:
e) You chose to build 2 more Warriors. The cost is essentially the same as a Work Boat, so I will say that my spawn-busting Work Boat is equivalent in terms of the number of Hammers
f) I Chopped 2 more Forests than you did. While, to be fair, one of them "came for free," but certainly you could have chopped a second Forest and still maintained good Forest-regrowth possibilities (as my game provides evidence of, since a Forest did actually regrow).
g) You kept your starting Warrior, while I had to build one to sit in the capital. Let's assume that you were to replay through my approach. It would not be fair to expect a Forest to regrow, but you could probably keep the initial Warrior alive and use him for Military Police in the capital. That would save you 15 Hammers, while the Forest only gave me 20 extra Hammers--so you could follow my steps and just be 5 Hammers short by keeping that initial Warrior alive... an idea that is definitely worth considering, even if you don't play forward from what I did but just follow through my steps as a learning exercise.
h) One of the bigger differences is that because I chopped a second Forest, I was able to get all 3 Seafood Resources improved for the capital. In so doing, as long as you are able to get our initial Warrior back in time to be a Military Police unit, you can whip a Lighthouse. The extra Food from working three +1 Food Seafood squares essentially pays for the cost of the Lighthouse, netting almost a "free" Lighthouse. The major difference is that the Settler comes out one turn later... which is actually pretty good--the extra Food has almost "caught-up" with the no-Lighthouse-approach. If we were to both build another Settler or Worker immediately after the Settler, we'd probably complete it at the same time, meaning that the Lighthouse would have been completely for free by that point. Since you want to build The Great Lighthouse, having a free Lighthouse (where the whipping unhappiness has already worn off) is a noticeable difference that I think warrants trying to play through my steps to try and reproduce them (although the missing 5 Hammers from the third Forest chop might or might not slow things down by 1 additional turn of building the 4th Work Boat, essentially delaying the Settler by 1 more turn, I think that it would still make for a good approach).
i) The other likely difference is that while you were building your Settler, you were working a Plains Hills square, while I was working a Lighthouse-enhanced Clam square. We already "counted" the extra Food as going towards making the Lighthouse "free," so the only remaining difference is the Commerce--I would have obtained 3 more Commerce per turn.
Here is my tech path:
Fishing -> Bronze Working -> Sailing -> Agriculture -> Pottery -> Masonry -> Writing (one quarter researched)
Since you probably want some land-based spawn-busters and since it is getting a bit late to build them, probably a better tech path, if you were to replay my steps, would be:
Fishing -> Bronze Working -> Sailing -> Hunting -> Archery -> Mysticism -> followed by your choice of Agriculture -> Pottery or Masonry
In so doing, after building the first Settler, you could switch to working more Mines than Seafood Resources in the capital and could pump out 2 quick Skirmishers, before starting on another Worker or Settler. I'd probably suggest that after completing the first Settler we go with: Skirmisher -> Skirmisher -> Worker -> Settler -> The Great Lighthouse (since we already have our Lighthouse built).
That way, you'd have some strong spawn-busting units and would not really have to worry too much about the possibility of interrupting The Great Lighthouse due to a spawn-buster dying.
I would probably suggest making City #3 the northern location--that way, the Skirmisher that you send up there can move to a different spawn-busting location after a Worker gets in the area to start Mining the extra Plains Hills square that the City will share with the capital. The Worker can then choose to pre-Chop Forests or pre-Road part of the path to speed up the Settler's movements by a turn. The Worker will thus act as the replacement spawn-buster and the Skirmisher from up there can move to somewhere south of City #2, with the other skirmisher being to the south-east of the capital, probably in the same spot as or near to where you put your Warrior spawn-buster.
That way, your empire would be very well protected.
Now, since you'd have an extra Work Boat that was used to spawn-bust for City #2, that Work Boat could do the following: improve the Clam for City #2. Since City #2 will form a canal, the Work Boat can easily get to City #2's Clam.
In exchange for being able to work a 4 Food + 3 Commerce square immediately, City #2 can begin to build a replacement Work Boat, which it can whip. Doing so means that Worker #1 can keep improving the Grassland Hills Mines to the south of the capital before improving City #2's Rice, so that you'll have the flexibility to work just the Fish + 4 Mines (at City Size 5) when building The Great Lighthouse, losing you only 1 Food per turn from your Foodbox thanks to owning a Lighthouse.
Once City #2 whips the Work Boat, that Work Boat can travel up to City #3. You can then start on a Monument in City #2, since that reason is likely why you chose to research Mysticism in your game (I put that tech into the suggested alternate tech path above because you seemed to want to research it and I think that the idea was a good one).
Then, City #3 can build a replacement Work Boat as its first build item, in exchange for getting to work a 4 Food + 3 Commerce square early on. See how this trick works? We keep getting a "free" Work Boat scout, albeit at the cost of lost turns of exploration, but in exchange for improved productivity in our empire.
All of the extra Commerce that we will get from working so many of these 3-Commerce Seafood squares can help to ensure that we get all of the necessary techs in time.
