I tried that utility, and it does work great!
If you just rushed something (so the shield box was full), you still get that city's shield output for the next thing you are building, so you aren't 'wasting' any shields by rushing.
One thing I haven't checked is if the cascade of shields from a cleared forest prevents a wonder build. Let's say you only need 5 shields to finish a project. You clear the forest (10 shields), and now have 5 shields cascaded to the next project. I don't know if those 5 shields will be counted as coming from the forest and preventing you from building a wonder next. I know the forest gets cleared before the game adds your city's shield production, so in some cases this penalty won't apply (like if you need 11 shields to finish something, and you produce 6 shields/turn, then the last 5 shields that got cascaded came from the city, so you could start a wonder).
You still need to do some micromanaging, so there is still an advantage for doing micromanagement. Example: For 4 turn settler factory, you still may need a forest tile to pick up the extra shield or two every time you gain a population point, and then to take the 'new' citizen off of the forest and back to a higher food tile to stay at +5 food.
But actually now that I think about it, maybe if you use 'emphasize food' you wouldn't need to do this. The first settler may get delayed by 1 turn, but after that you should be able to keep the settler/4 turns pace since the shields are cascading. The one or two shields may eventually add up to 1 full settler, but that wouldn't be for another 15 settlers (minimal impact), it isn't too much of a difference if you have 16 cities instead of 15.
But for those cities at +3 or +4 food that have a granary (where you only need 10 food, so some food is wasted), you don't need to switch the tiles around every 3 or 4 turns (to maximize commerce/shields since you don't need the food), or to build cities so that they share these tiles so you can switch the tiles around between the two cities every 3-4 turns.
You probably wouldn't need to do the more advanced micromanagement, either (having workers adjust the terrain every turn or two to accomodate your shield/food needs).
This does help the human in the early game more so than the AI. The AI would still have the problem of having the shields for a settler built up before they have the population points for it. And the notorious worker tasking of the AI hurts it. So the human still needs proper worker management to have an edge.
Later in the game, the AI would be better, because they of course don't try to balance shield output to what they are building (have a 30-shield city build a 90-shield unit, and a 20-shield city build an 80-shield unit). The AI will still build solar plants when they already have Hoovers. The AI will still have too few workers when they have pollution all over the place, and other idiot things the AI does in the late game that causes them to fall apart.
However, I think the human player will have a greater advantage in the late game because the human won't mass-irrigate the world like the AI does. So the human has more shields to cascade to the next building/unit. But that is what the shield discounts are for! Maybe the discounts wouldn't need to be so great?
As long as Chieftain isn't too hard for novices nor Deity too easy for experienced players the difficulty levels are doing their job.
There are people who play 'Beyond Deity' where they give the AI a bigger discount than deity level.
Deity=40% discount
Beyond Deity=50%
Plus, IMO, the concept of production and research going in turns shouldn't be so strict.
