SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Dhoomstriker]

Longer (yet now shorter) Messages

Spoiler :

I love that idea. I love to learn all the nitty gritty details but I find myself unable to respond to some of this stuff because by the time I read the 5 pages of new posts every day, I have forgotten what I wanted to comment on.

ditto!
We're surely beating any other team in number of posts. This seem to be a constant of our last SGs.

Don't fall out of your chairs or anything, but I went back and updated my messages for a number of pages back. You have no excuse now for "missing things," as you can easily skim through the bolded titles in order to re-read (or read for the first time!) relevant messages and comment on them.

In addtition, our posts (not only Dhoom's ones) are mostly long

Thanks for admitting that.

Anyway, i must admit i'm learning something here.

Great! That's one of the whole reasons for this effort.

I think that our strategy is out of the schemes enough to be a winning one.

Even if it isn't the top-placing strategy, it's certainly a fun one! It's nice to grab religions out from under the AIs. If we stay on track with our successes, we'll be able to do the same with some Wonders, too!

There was an AI (Hannibal) definitely too overpowered from the start. And in our game, that AI was lucky too.

I've heard that luck is a 4 letter word that is spelled w.o.r.k. Let's make Zara work for his luck in this game!

 

[Mitchum]

Havr, as the UP player, it's up to you to see if I missed anything in my suggestions. You should probably draft yourself a mini-PPP, too.

I agree. Playing one more turn would really help us decide what to do in the NE. Havr, can you put together another mini turn set (1 turn this time) just so warrior 5 can climb that stinking desert hill to see what's on the other side... After that, it will make sense for you play a more proper turn set and finish out the rest of your turn (after test games and a PPP of course ).

Speaking of test games, I will play one tomorrow AM where I delay settling city 3 (likely grabbing the stone and marble) until the turn before getting CoL to see how much I can pull in the date for Writing. Our game is currently gated by research, not production and not REX. It will be for some time. So, I'll also delay city 4 until the turn before bulbing Theology. I'll continue play until we're the proud owner of a shiny new wonder (The 'Mids). At that point, I am pretty sure that our science rate will really pick up (cottages in the capital, Representation-powered scientists and bulbing with GSs). I'll let you know my results, likely tomorrow. If anyone wants me to modify something in my test or make any special notes, please let me know within the next 12 hours or so.

 

[Irgy]

I'd just like to complement Dhoomstriker on his progressively easier to read and follow posts. They've progressively gone from long, confusing and very informative to well structured, easily browsed and very informative. I'm almost feeling on top of what's going on again.

I am going to guess that you mean the Warrior to the mid-east, and that you mean to send him 1NE onto the Desert Hills square. If that is the case, then yes, this Warrior, Warrior 5, should be relatively safe in mounting that Desert Hills square. If you meant something else, please let us know.

Sorry, that was very indeed bad form of me. I was looking at a warrior so I called it "the warrior", but it's quite unclear. You guessed exactly right though. That move was probably already the plan but now that I've said it I can feel like I'm contributing again

 

[havr]

I'd just like to complement Dhoomstriker on his progressively easier to read and follow posts. They've progressively gone from long, confusing and very informative to well structured, easily browsed and very informative. I'm almost feeling on top of what's going on again.

Agreed. I too feel it is much better.

Anyway, I think it is safe for me to execute another turn to climb that hill. Both Dhoom and Mitchum agree, and usually they are the last ones to agree . So I will do when I find time later today (friday morning is busy), unless I see a "STOP" post floating around.

 

[havr]

OK, climbed the climb. Very enlightening.

- Not much to the east over there. Large desert, "The Ethiopian Desert"

- From the look of Zara's borders + worker working cottage we can with high certainty know where his capital (and only city) is. I marked it on the map.

- Just north of Zara and his fat cross there is the see, so Zara is blocking all the east from us. We should block the west from him.

EDIT: The fact that he is blocking + to OB can explain why the other AI hasn't reached us yet. He might well be on the same continent and that the continent is very big and long.

EDIT: I think this also means that we should continue exploring with a WB. We have limited area that we should fog-bust. Maybe build a WB in Silverado and send it east? City 4 will build a WB and send it NW.

- I checked it and we still can't sign OB with Zara so he hasn't learned Writing yet.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Comments on the Mini-Turnset
Thanks for getting that one done so quickly!

Where are my Oases? My Floodies? Just more Desert!

Spoiler :

OK, climbed the climb. Very enlightening.

- Not much to the east over there. Large desert, "The Ethiopian Desert"

Wow, is it ever a large Desert! I was really hoping to see another Oasis or the edge of a Flood Plain for the Option e) settling location. No such luck... just more Desert!

Zara's Capitol Location

Spoiler :

- From the look of Zara's borders + worker working cottage we can with high certainty know where his capital (and only city) is. I marked it on the map.

By this point in the game, all AIs' borders should have expanded twice. So, we're not actually seeing his fat cross--that Archer that we see is within his fat cross but the square 1W of the Archer is not in his fat cross. His City's Centre square is 1E of where you placed it. If you get a chance, maybe you can update the screenshot

Spoiler :

one way would be to edit your message, upload the new screenshot, and optionally remove the old one--you can remove attached images on the Manage Attachments page, the same page where you upload them.

Where to Settle Next

- Just north of Zara and his fat cross there is the see, so Zara is blocking all the east from us. We should block the west from him.

I am really tempted to block him by stealing at least one of those Flood Plains squares! Certainly, having one of those would make the Riverside City much better, while the revealed Desert definitely reduces the value of Options d) and e) in my mind.

It's probably better to save the Cow + Oasis for one of the other City Options, such as Option a), the Option some of you seem excited about settling.

Possible Options are:
g) S + S of where Warrior 5 (the easternmost Warrior, stated for Irgy's sake) is standing, on that Grassland River square. That would net us 3 Flood Plains
h) S + S + S of where Warrior 5 is standing, on that Grassland Forest River square. That would net us 1 less Flood Plain but also 1 less Desert, 1 less Desert Hills square, and 2 less Peaks!
i) SE + S + S of where Warrior 5 is standing, on that Plains River square. We'd once again get 3 Flood Plains and what looks like a fourth one to the SE of Zara's Archer. We'd have a "stronger cultural pressure" on Zara's squares, by nature of our City 3's Centre being that much closer to the relevant squares. The downside would be that Zara may try to culture flip us if for some reason Confucianism isn't founded there.

The plus side of any of these options is that:
1. We can get a Cottage-heavy location, to help boost our economy throughout most of the game
2. We would have a city location where Zara's culture will eventually partially-enter the City Centre: that means he will 100% accept the city in a peace deal and probably even as a gift. You know, like a city with The United Nations built in it?!?!
3. If there is a Horse or Iron on that River, we won't lose it to Zara (until the end of the game when we trade him the city, at which point it will be too late to help him!)
4. We don't have to settle our City 3 as a location with almost half of its squares being Peak + Desert squares!


Open Borders Policy with Zara

Spoiler :

EDIT: The fact that he is blocking + to OB can explain why the other AI hasn't reached us yet. He might well be on the same continent and that the continent is very big and long.

Speaking of Open Borders... what is our Foreign Policy with Zara? Open Borders to improve relations would be my suggestion, once Writing is in. Doing so will help to passively spread a religion his way. Plus, once he has Sailing, we may get trade route benefits with him, which in the early game, are a very big thing to have...

Spoiler :

I'm not sure if we have to know Sailing or if just one of us or an AI has to know it before we can trade with them on the Coast. I'm also not sure if we need to "see" his city before we can trade with it. At least Writing will be ours soon enough, so it shouldn't be too hard to soon "see" his city if we agree to Open Borders with him.

I do not think that we will be able to form a "complete" cultural blockade of Zara, no matter where we settle, so denying him Open Borders so that he doesn't "walk through our lands" is not really a valid reason.

A valid reason might be so that we don't upset his enemy, but until we've met his enemy

Spoiler :

stating that he has an enemy is assuming that he isn't already Pleased with everyone and they with him

, there is no one to ask us to Cancel Deals with Zara.

Teching to Work Boats

EDIT: I think this also means that we should continue exploring with a WB. We have limited area that we should fog-bust. Maybe build a WB in Silverado and send it east? City 4 will build a WB and send it NW.

We will need to research the Fishing tech in order to do that.

Optionally, immediately after researching Writing, we can go one of:
a) Meditation -> The Wheel -> Fishing -> Pottery
b) The Wheel -> Fishing -> Meditation -> Pottery
c) The Wheel -> Fishing -> Pottery -> Meditation
EDIT: d) The Wheel -> Pottery -> Meditation -> Fishing or just about anything else

Fishing helps to speed up research on Pottery, and Pottery is in the plan anyway, so I don't mind slotting Fishing in there, as long as Pottery isn't TOO slow in coming.


No Open Borders... yet

Spoiler :

- I checked it and we still can't sign OB with Zara so he hasn't learned Writing yet.

Thanks for that tidbit!

 

[havr]

Updated screenshot - per Dhoom's remark + show yields.

 

[BLubmuz]

what a rubbish of land! ​

Usually i complain on the poorness of the land the mapmakers invented for us.
This time i think DS surpassed the worst expectations.

And he was even pleasant when he was just a player.

OK, it's the same for any team, but this won't add fun to a game.

 

[havr]

Actually, I think you are a little spoiled. Usually when I play I don't see land that is much better than this, often poorer. I think it is less interesting (and therefore less fun) to win with prime land...

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Next moves...
So, what's next? Note that I am not writing a PPP. I'm just giving suggestions. We may use them word-for-word, but I want to see you, havr, making your own PPP. I don't care if you wait to do so until we've gotten more feedback from the team or if you write one and keep editing it every time that something changes.


Settler 3
Well, if we settle Settler 3 on the River, in order to steal some of those Flood Plains squares, then Settler 3 can head directly there. The first move would be 1NE PCow, 1SE P. After that would depend upon where we settle, but the most direct route to the settling location is probably what we'd use. The sooner that we settle the city, the sooner that our "passive" culture starts to accumulate in squares currently owned by Zara.

Spoiler :

Mini-lesson on Passive Culture
In addition to the culture obtained each turn from what you normally think of as a city's culture output, there is a bonus culture value that gets added to all of the squares in the city's cultural borders. It should be something like:

- Before the cultural borders expand, a "passive 20 culture" is added to each of the 9 surrounding squares of the city.
- After the cultural borders expand once, a "passive 40 culture" is added to the same 9 squares and a "passive 20 culture" is added to the other squares in the fat cross.
- After yet another cultural border expansion, each "ring" of "passive culture" adds another 20 per turn.

It is these calculations that are what get used in square ownership. Culture from the city itself is also added to these squares, but the point is that "length of time stiting down in a certain location" also plays a major role in square ownership.

So, if we want to challenge Zara for ownership, the sooner that we sit down, the better.

We'll just have to keep our Maintenance expenses low using other means, such as not exploring outside of our cultural borders with Warrior 3 just yet--wait until Warrior 5 is within the settled borders for City 3--then we will have enough "free Unit Supply" available to us to go exploring & fog-busting outside of our borders with Warrior 3 "for free" again.

Warrior 5
We'd probably want to bring Warrior 5 down to guard City 3. For now, he could go to where we plan to settle City 3 and guard it directly. Later, we can probably get him to "push out" and fog-bust for us, once Warrior 4 is healed enough to do the same in a different direction.


Warrior 3
Warrior 3 should probably "duck" back into our cultural borders for now, just to save 1 Gold Per Turn. If we stay within the northern edge of our cultural borders, we can help to passively fog-bust squares 2N of Warrior 3, as well as 2 squares to the east and west of said square. I haven't given much thought as to which particular spot within our cultural borders there would be best.


Warrior 4
Warrior 4 should probably continue healing. He's in an acceptable place to help fog-bust the south of the Grassland River area.


Warrior 6
He should probably continue heading north within our cultural borders. Once he gets to the edge of our cultural borders, we'll probably have to wait him inside, until City 3 is settled. After that, the Unit Supply cost for the Settler will disappear, allowing Warrior 6 to move out to his fog-busting position in the near west. Similarly, the Unit Supply cost of Warrior 5 would go away once it is within the borders of settled City 3, which is when we'd be free to send Warrior 3 out again for free.


City 3
City 3 should probably start by building an Obelisk, if we're going to put it on one of the locations that attempts to steal Flood Plains squares from Zara. Its culture will double quickly, too, by having been built early in the game.

There will be a choice as to whether we should work a Grassland River square for +1 Commerce or a Grassland Forsest River square for +1 Hammer. My gut tells me that we'll want that Commerce for Writing for now

Spoiler :

the Hammer can be "made up" for by whipping the Obelisk, while there's no way to whip a Commerce!

, but a test game would confirm if that extra Commerce would make a difference in the date that we complete Writing.


Civics and Religion
Once Worker 2 is complete, we'll immediately want to switch to the capitol's religion, Hinduism. We'll also immediately want to switch to Organized Religion.

We can probably wait on switching to Slavery, as we don't really need to build the Temple before The Oracle and Slavery might or might not cost us 1 more Gold Per Turn in Maintenance. It would be easy to switch to it later, when we need it.

In my test games, it was easy to forget to switch to both Hinduism and Organized Religion at the right time--I often missed doing so by a couple of turns. Playing off of a PPP with the exact date to switch to both would probably help in this regard.


EDIT: Worker 1
Worker 1, after completing the Copper Mine, can probably directly head to the eastern Grassland Hills Forest square that is W + W + W of Delhi. He can get there in one turn and then start chopping the Forest on the next turn.

From there, I'd say we could send him 1NE to chop the GFor for 1 turn, then stop the chopping before the turn is over.

Then head 1SE to the GForRiv to the W of Delhi and start pre-chopping (but don't fully chop just yet) the Forest there.

Spoiler :

We might have to delay completing the chop, depending upon how close we are to completing The Oracle. We might not even complete the chop, depending upon The Oracle's date of completion by chopping compared to Writing's date. Since this Forest has a (small chance) of regrowing, we could try chopping it soon--perhaps into a Library (or probably better yet, into a Settler, as the Library can be built while growing and then whipped, while building the Settler halts growth) if The Oracle doesn't need it. A test game will give us the answers that we seek, in terms of how many Forest chops are required. Note that some chops are for 24 Hammers (those just outside of the fat cross), while others are for 30 Hammers (those inside of the fat cross).

EDIT: Worker 2
Mitchum seemed to want to Mine a Grassland Hills River square to the east, as per his testing.

Spoiler :

I'm not sure which Grassland Hills River square is better to use--if we chop and then immediately Mine the southern one, then all 4 surrounding Forests will be unable to spread to that square. However, if we chop and then Mine he northern one, then as soon as that Forest is chopped, it won't be able to spread 1N.

I guess that the answer depends upon how much chopping we are going to do now. If we are going to only fully chop 2 Forests, then probably those would be the Grassland Hills For square to the W + W + W of Delhi, plus the "southern" Grassland Hills For River square to the E + E of Delhi. If we plan to chop more than 2 Forests now, my opinion may change.

Spoiler Tags

Spoiler :

Opening a bunch of Spoiler Tags can be annoying when they cover up information that everyone on the team should be reading at least once. I don't mind "going back and spoiler tagging" messages that most players have read, nor do I mind spoilering the little side details that you don't need to know. That said, for currently relevant info, such as what goes in the next PPP, I'd rather not immediately "spoiler tag" the entire thing until at least some of us have had a chance to read it. Later, once the info is less relevant (say, havr has started to write his PPP version of the suggestions), then I can go back and "spoiler tag" the message. Make sense?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

The bad land aka "The Bad Lands"

Spoiler :

what a rubbish of land! ​

Hmmm, you only used one "mad" icon, not a ton of them. I guess you aren't really THAT cross, are you?

This time i think DS surpassed the worst expectations.

I thought so, too, at first, but the west was nicely left to us, with 2 good possible Legendary City locations. Not 3 or 4 or 5 of them, just enough. That way, a Diplo game can't totally pull away from a Cultural game, since the Diplo game would settle more cities more quickly.

We also have a TON of Health Resources, which are what you need for a successful Cultural game. Happiness Resources, beyond the first couple needed to get your empire going, are far worse in a Cultural game than Health Resources.

OK, it's the same for any team, but this won't add fun to a game.

Then let's just leave Zara nowhere to settle to his west (our east) but in The Bad Lands (aka let him settle in the middle of the Desert, while we grab a River City and a Cow + Oasis City). That approach, to me at least, sounds like a fun thing to do!

The trick will probably be in getting a Stone City followed quickly by a Cow + Oasis City, without letting Zara beat us to one. Hopefully, by taking the River City, we'll force him to settle to the east for now, until we're ready with Settler 5 for the Cow + Oasis location.

 

[Mitchum]

Open Borders Policy with Zara

Speaking of Open Borders... what is our Foreign Policy with Zara? Open Borders to improve relations would be my suggestion, once Writing is in. Doing so will help to passively spread a religion his way. Plus, once he has Sailing, we may get trade route benefits with him, which in the early game, are a very big thing to have...

I think we need to open borders with Zara as soon as we learn Writing. We need a religion to spread to him and we need to know which one it is so that we can plan accordingly.

Note: Do we want to run the same religion as Zara initially? I'm thinking yes. We can get all the way to +7 for sharing a religion with him (at least according to the reference guide).

Optionally, immediately after researching Writing, we can go one of:
a) Meditation -> The Wheel -> Fishing -> Pottery
b) The Wheel -> Fishing -> Meditation -> Pottery
c) The Wheel -> Fishing -> Pottery -> Meditation

Fishing helps to speed up research on Pottery, and Pottery is in the plan anyway, so I don't mind slotting Fishing in there.

I vote for option c (preferred because we need cottages badly) or b. Getting Meditation later means that we may not need to run a priest in Delhi. The Oracle should produce a GPro by the time we get Meditation. That frees up Delhi to build a library and missionaries (if we decide that makes sense).

 

[havr]

I am again getting confused. Probably me...

Let me ask the first question we need to decide.
We have 3 future cities: "Stone", "Cows & Oasis", and "River" (where exactly is that?).
Which is City 3, City 4 and City 5?

I was under the impression that we all agreed on "Cows & Oasis" as C-3, but now Dhoom posted a message saying C-3 was stone...

 

[Mitchum]

I am again getting confused. Probably me...

Let me ask the first question we need to decide.
We have 3 future cities: "Stone", "Cows & Oasis", and "River" (where exactly is that?).
Which is City 3, City 4 and City 5?

I was under the impression that we all agreed on "Cows & Oasis" as C-3, but now Dhoom posted a message saying C-3 was stone...

I think this is what we need to decide. I was leaning toward settling "Stone" first so that we could basically bee-line toward the Pyramids. That is what I plan to do with my test.

Settling "River" is a new thing that just came up today and needs to be discussed further.

I think most of us are in agreement that "Cow" can be 4 or 5, but I'm not sure.

Maybe we need to vote on the order of the cities (3, 4 and 5) while at the same time debating exactly where each should go.

 

[Mitchum]

Worker 1
Worker 1, after completing the Copper Mine, can probably directly head to the eastern Grassland Hills Forest square that is W + W + W of Delhi. He can get there in one turn and then start chopping the Forest on the next turn.

Why are you talking about chopping a square (W+W+W) that only yields 24 hammers? The benefit of chopping in our BFC is two fold. First, we get 6 more hammers. Second, we'll have a clear spot to lay down a cottage (if a forest doesn't re-grow there).

 

[Mitchum]

Dhoomstriker, you edited in quite a bit of NEW text into your post 1070. Can I ask that you not do that? I had already read that post before the change. I only re-read it because my name caught my eye. Editing anything more than minor typo / grammar fixes in a post risks the chance that someone will miss something.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

"River" City Location

I am again getting confused. Probably me...

Possible Options are:
g) S + S of where Warrior 5 (the easternmost Warrior, stated for Irgy's sake) is standing, on that Grassland River square. That would net us 3 Flood Plains
h) S + S + S of where Warrior 5 is standing, on that Grassland Forest River square. That would net us 1 less Flood Plain but also 1 less Desert, 1 less Desert Hills square, and 2 less Peaks!
i) SE + S + S of where Warrior 5 is standing, on that Plains River square. We'd once again get 3 Flood Plains and what looks like a fourth one to the SE of Zara's Archer. We'd have a "stronger cultural pressure" on Zara's squares, by nature of our City 3's Centre being that much closer to the relevant squares. The downside would be that Zara may try to culture flip us if for some reason Confucianism isn't founded there.

I'll make you a screenshot shortly.
EDIT: Here's the screenshot (I just re-used yours):

Spoiler :

Proposed City Settling Order

We have 3 future cities: "Stone", "Cows & Oasis", and "River" (where exactly is that?).

Which is City 3, City 4 and City 5?

My suggestion would be:
City 3 = River
City 4 = Stone (or else we might not get the Stone Quarried in time for it to be of use for The Pyramids)
City 5 = Cow + Oasis, probably Option a) or f), since the only other reasonable location, Option e), would overlap too much with the River City.

Spoiler :

Note that I wouldn't want to delay City 5 for too long, so we might have to build one of our Settlers in Silverado or else chop a bit into one of the Settlers in order to get 5 cities before we're ready to start building The Pyramids.

Why the River City?

I was under the impression that we all agreed on "Cows & Oasis" as C-3

I previously didn't even want to settle a River City and would have instead later built a Southern Coastal City, thus the only "blocking City" in the east was the Cow + Oasis City. I have since changed my mind, based on what we see.

Option e) was my favourite location, but it just ended up with more and more Desert squares. Options a) and f), the other reasonable options, will not overlap with a River City.

With the opportunity to steal some Flood Plains squares PLUS the very strong chance that we'll get a bit of Zara's culture within our city's borders (since he has the Cultural Trait), while the chance of our city flipping to him will be small (thanks to Confucianism, which will probably also auto-spread to him, with it being founded so close to him, plus an Obelisk). The sooner that we settle such a city, the harder it will be for Zara to flip it, due to the "passive culture" aspect of city settling. EDIT: This shared cultural aspect of the City's Centre would tie in very well with our United Nations Gifting strategy. I do not think that we will risk losing the city to a culture flip, especially if our Confucian Missionary is able to spread Confucianism in our capitol while it auto-spreads to Zara, meaning that we could run Confucianism as our State Religion.

 

[havr]

Lets progress one step at a time.

First: Let vote on city order.

I vote: "Cow", "Stone" finally "River" (probably we wiill miss "River").

My logic:
a) "Cow" better than "River"
b) If we settle "River" first we might lose "Cow"
c) If we settle "Stone" first we might lose "Cow"
d) We cannot lose "Cow".

If (b) or (c) are wrong in your opinion, I will change my vote.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Delaying the Great Prophet?

Getting Meditation later means that we may not need to run a priest in Delhi. The Oracle should produce a GPro by the time we get Meditation.

The sooner that we complete the Great Prophet, the sooner that we can fire the Priest and hire 2 Scientists. Doing so not only helps us to get our 2nd Great Person sooner, but it also increases our Science output.


Meditation When?
While I will entertain the idea of delaying Meditation in order to get Cottages first, I'd like to see a test game prove that concept. Perhaps a fourth suggestion could be:
d) The Wheel -> Pottery -> Meditation -> Whatever (possibly Fishing or possibly skipping Fishing and a Work Boat for now)

You're right that we need Cottages ASAP, especially before we can tackle research on a tech like Math (or Alphabet, if that's the way that the team decides to go). I won't be sure how much we'd delay Christianity by delaying Meditation and if we could grab it safely, until we get some results from a test game.


Editing messages

Spoiler :

Yeah, sorry about that, Mitchum. I remembered to put the EDIT tags while I was writing the next message. You beat me to the punch, though, before I could go back and do it.

All of this editing of messages in order to include titles, spoiler tags, and summary results has been keeping me constantly busy with updating my messages. In the end, it should be worth the effort, but you have to allow for some temporary lapses here and there, okay?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Comments about City Locations

Spoiler :

Lets progress one step at a time.

First: Let vote on city order.

I vote: "Cow", "Stone" finally "River" (probably we wiill miss "River").

My logic:
a) "Cow" better than "River"
b) If we settle "River" first we might lose "Cow"
c) If we settle "Stone" first we might lose "Cow"
d) We cannot lose "Cow".

If (b) or (c) are wrong in your opinion, I will change my vote.

EDIT: It is my opinion that c) won't happen, as by settling the Stone first, Zara's borders will expand, such that his "passive" culture will get there first and reduce our ability to steal his squares, thus reducing the value from settling on the River to the point that we might as well not even settle there. Our second Settler should easily come out in time in order to beat him to the Cow location, and since the River location will be gone, the Cow location is where we will settle.

It is also my opinion that b) could happen, since I want to slot in a Stone City before settling the Cow. To mitigate this risk, I suggest putting a couple of Forest chops into a Settler or else building one of our Settlers in Silverado. Either option *should* get us a Settler in time for both the Stone location and the Cow location, but a test game would have to validate my claims, particularly the one about how long it would take to build a Settler in Silverado vs whether our build order allows us to fit another Settler into the build queue of Delhi.

It is also my opinion that we might lose Option a) but there is no way that we will lose Option f). So, even if we settle the Cow City last, as long as we are reasonably content with getting Option f) instead of Option a), then settling Cow City as our 5th City is a pretty safe option.

Note that my above points are only my opinions, not facts.