SGOTM 11 - Fifth Element

[Dhoomstriker]

What info from the Demographics screen are you after?

I am still curious about this point and it would be great if you could expand upon the value of the Demographic screen's info.

Relative Power Level to an AI is about the only thing that I keep track of there, so anything of value that you normally find from such a screen would be useful info for the team to know.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Suggestions for improving the Test Path or for running additional Test Paths for comparison's sake

T20 - Delhi at size 20. Work Hill for extra commerce. Switch to worker.
T21 - Got warrior.

Did you maybe run a couple of tests or change your mind and then forget to update your turn report? I'm just curious how you started the Worker on Turn 20 and then still completed the Warrior on Turn 21.

Also, I would recommend that instead of working the Plains Hills square for 2 Hammers and 1 Commerce, you would be better served by working a square that gives 1 Food and 2 Hammers.

Our Worker will come out faster this way, which is what we care about most right now. The "extra Commerce" mattered more for the Hinduism beeline than it does at this particular stage, where the sooner that we get the Worker out, the sooner we can get more value from each square worked by a citizen.


Another test worth running would be Worker -> Worker -> Settler.

If that Second Worker can help to improve the Corns or the Hills in time to speed up the production of the Settler, it MAY be worthwhile in the long run.

T47 - To avoid getting Mono before founding Bombay I swith work hill to forest.
(I want second religion in Bombay).

Consider that since we will have our capitol's borders expand over the Silver due to Hinduism, we might actually WANT to found Judaism in the capitol. Why? Well, with City 2 so close, we'll get a free religious spread to it. Whichever religion it gets will then be our State Religion in TWO CITIES. We'll also have a total of 3 RELIGIOUS CENTRES (not 3 different Religions but 3 total spots where a religion exists across our various cities) across 2 CITIES, instead of 2 RELIGIOUS CENTRES across 2 CITIES. So, by founding both religions in the capitol, we will set up a situation where we can build 1 less early Missionary in order to have our State Religion in 2 different cities.


Havr seems to imply that we could get Judaism in the capitol by working the Plains Hills River square for 2 Hammers and 1 Commerce per turn, but I argue that doing so is not efficient and we should be working a 3 (Food + Hammers) square instead.

However, since he implies that Monotheism is so close, by going Worker -> Worker -> Settler, we can certainly get both religions in the capitol, creating an ideal situation.

There is a bit of a delay in getting the Silver worked, but how much delay is worth testing. With 2 Workers, we can improve all of City 1's squares first and then have 2 Workers to quickly improve the Silver at the same time. There's no point worrying about "duplicated Worker movement being wasted" here, since the Workers won't have much in the way of useful things to do next, anyway.

PRE-CHOPPING AND CHOPPING TIPS FOR FORESTS

T72 - BW -> PH.

Different players will likely be able to achieve different chopping efficiency results. The best keys that I can give to you are to:
a) Plan a path for each Worker, starting in a flatland Forest and then moving to another Flatland Forest
b) Plan for there to be a path from the City to a flatland Forest for each new Worker that exits the city. If you don't have many such options, then you can consider only partially pre-chopping one such Forest. So, instead of pre-chopping a Forest for 4 turns, you can "use that Forest for movement" by having each Worker that moves there pre-chop it for 1 turn and then move on to the next Forest to pre-chop on the following turn
c) Consider that Forests may regrow, but they only regrow horizontally or vertically from another Forest. They won't grow diagonally. Thus, if we don't plan to chop TOO many Forests, it can be our advantage to create a diagonal chopping pattern, to maximize Forest regrowth

T108 - Got GP, but forgot to discover Meditation :-(. Fire priest, hire 2 scientists.
T113 - Got Meditation, Lightbulb CoL.

Well, getting the tech a bit later in our test proves that we can get it a bit later in our real game.

You also revealed a neat idea that we hadn't thought of: Lightbulbing Code of Laws!

I guess we will need to weigh the cost of researching Theology after Lightbulbing most of it against the (hard to define) risk of an AI beating us to Code of Laws. From a pure numbers standpoint, it is clear that The Oracle will give us 100% of Theology and a Great Prophet will give us 100% of Code of Laws. A Great Prophet is not likely to give us 100% of Theology. However it thus becomes a matter of how late we can risk getting Code of Laws via a Lightbulb which, due to us being Philosophical, is still probably faster than manually researching it, although to be fair, we've never run a test to see if manually researching it was feasible, either.

Thus, we CANNOT claim that just because our previous PLAN was to manually research Code of Laws and because Lightbulbing it is faster than manually researching it, will automatically mean that Lightbulbing it will get us the religion.


ADVANCED PLAYER TACTIC: WAIT WITH MISSIONARIES

(christian missionary failed to spread).

If possible, stand a Missionary in a city (end its turn) for 6 consecutive turns (actually, 5 turns of full movement having its turns ended, but that usually works out to be 6 turns if you have partial movement left over from walking into the city). Doing so gives you the greatest chance of religious spread, just like stationing a Spy for 6 turns (5 turns of full movement being used up) in an AI city will maximize its chances of success.


ANOTHER MISSIONARY TACTIC: GROW YOUR CITIES BEFORE SPREADING
Ensure that the city into which you are spreading the religion has at least 2 more population points than the number of religions that already exist in that city. So, if the city has 1 religion, wait until it has 3 population or more before "spending" the Missionary there, in order to maximize your chances of spreading that religion.

Bombay is pretty useless except for that silver...

The hope is that later on, we'll build Moai Statues there, probably for some basic task, such as pumping Workers or Missionaries throughout the game.

The city could also be moved to the east of the Silver or to the south of the Silver if a Seafood Resource is available.

WARRIOR MOVEMENT
Warrior 2, assuming that we are VERY CAREFUL with Warrior 1, can hopefully discover this info for us.


On that note, Warrior 1 is going to have to dance around the Barb Animals with care--2 Lions and a Bear nearby, with not many Forests? That's just asking for trouble. I'd rather see him "end his turn" several times and "uncover zero more hidden squares" if it means we are able to bring him back safely to just outside of our borders to help fog-bust for Barb People (Warriors, Archers, etc).

Something like S, then SE might work for running away, but ending the turn beside the River for a couple of turns might also work in our favour. A third alternative might be to stay in place for a while until Animals start disappearing, only then making a beeline eastward to finish off its hidden-square exploration.

Consider that a few turns lost from ending the Warrior's turn is preferable to having him die.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Thanks for the explanations. Only this: "zero to sixty" is used only by some barbarian Civ.
More civilized Civs use 0-100.

Still, i can understand

Is that because "0-60" is in miles and most of the civilized world uses kilometres?

Or is that because 0-100 in miles is what Italian cars can do compared to the acceleration of other cars' 0-60 miles in the same amount of time?

Or both?

 

[BLubmuz]

Is that because "0-60" is in miles and most of the civilized world uses kilometres?

Or is that because 0-100 in miles is what Italian cars can do compared to the acceleration of other cars' 0-60 miles in the same amount of time?

Or both?

Both
But i got a Toyota

 

[BLubmuz]

I am still curious about this point and it would be great if you could expand upon the value of the Demographic screen's info.

Relative Power Level to an AI is about the only thing that I keep track of there, so anything of value that you normally find from such a screen would be useful info for the team to know.

The most important value i always look is the GNP.
In the demographics screen (second tab in F9) you can always see where you are compared to the best, worst and average opponents for any (meaningful) parameter.

Buy you won't know who they are or where they are compared to you.

I look to the power only when planning a war, even if i know that many factors influences the power rating along with pure military units (military techs and population, mainly and some wonder, barracks, drydocks).
To avoid to be last in power the 2nd Tab is enough, but if you need to know anything else, you need the Demographics.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

More Tips on Forest Regrowth
1. Forest growth has up to 4 times the amount of chance happening, based upon how many squares that are surrounding a non-Forested square have Forests on them. So, a square with 2 adjacent Forests has twice the amount of regrowing a Forest than one with 1 adjacent Forest.
2. A Road (or Railroad) on a square without a Forest halves the chance for a neighbouring Forest (or Jungle) to spread there.
3. Jungles regrow at twice the rate of Forests. So, if you chop Forests next to Jungle squares, you have a much higher chance of a Jungle growing in place of the old Forest than you do of having a Forest regrow there.
4. Squares that have an improvement other than a Road or a Railroad WILL NOT get a Forest growing on them. For example, if you put a Camp on a Tundra Deer, you won't get a Forest growing on it, but you might get one before you build the Camp, but that would only happen if there is a Forest in an adjacent square.
5. A unit standing on a square will prevent Forest growth there.

Implications of point 1:
If you have a square where a Forest cannot regrow, such as a square with a Resource on it, a Desert square, etc, then a Forest which is next to that square which gets chopped will have a smaller chance of regrowth than a Forest which is surrounded by other Forests.

If you have the choice of Forests to chop, you usually start with ones that have Forests on 3 or 4 sides of them, as those squares will have a relatively greater chance of a Forest regrowing on them


Implications of point 2:
Plan out in advance which Forests will be chopped with the hope of regrowth and which Forests will be "left for later chopping," in the hopes that they will spread to the chopped squares or to squares that don't have a Resource or a Forest (such as the Grassland square to the NW of our capitol, if it turns out not to have a Resource there).

Build Roads only on squares that won't have Forest regrowth possible. Such squares include:
a) squares where you have an improved Resource
b) squares where you have a Resource where a Forest won't grow (Resources such as a Corn or Copper Resource won't allow a Forest to grow, but a Deer or a Fur can get a Forest to grow on them if you don't put a Camp on the square first)
c) squares where you put an improvement (such as a Mine on a Hills square)
d) squares with a Forest that you plan to use as your "feeder Forests"--i.e. you will not chop these Forests for a long time, as you will hope that they will spread to adjacent "empty" squares (empty meaning non-Forested squares without a unit, without an improvement (such as a Cottage), and preferably without a Road there). Since, if you do eventually chop these Forests, you will chop them last, there won't be any remaining Forests to spread to those squares, so you don't have to worry about the fact that a Road reduces the chance of Forest spread--the chance is already 0 because all of the nearby Forests will be gone!

 

[BLubmuz]

Another test worth running would be Worker -> Worker -> Settler.

Your post has many interesting points, mainly the one about missionaries, but this one worries me.
If we use our second warrior as a scout, we need at least 2 more before to have the settler out: 1 for Dehli and 1 to escort or clear the fog for the settler.

Barbs can be a problem. A warrior fortified on a forest can survive to an archer, but it's a great risk. Our Capital borders will expand quickly and this will surely help, but we need fogbusters since we can only defend even against warriors.

About CoL or Theo from Oracle, CoL is pretty Cheap compared to Theo and the AI loves it. Mainly if Organized. It's risky delay it until we have a GPro.
Remember that if we have many religious zealots in our game, they will chase a religion, they can't "feel good" without a religion. And the AI also loves Chicken Pizza.

Anyone do not love Pizza?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

If we use our second warrior as a scout, we need at least 2 more before to have the settler out: 1 for Dehli and 1 to escort or clear the fog for the settler.

Warrior 2 as a scouting unit was to scout out the area to the south, to see where best to put City 2.

Regardless of whether we build Warrior 2 before Worker 1 or after Worker 1, we will get Warrior 2 before Settler 2, meaning that we should have enough time to find the best spot to settle the Silver city. Since the land area to the south is very small, the chance of Barb units spawning down there is very tiny and thus it is not that risky to explore the area with Warrior 2.


Delhi can function with 4 citizens without requiring a Happiness bonus, as we only get "-1 Our city should have a defender" at Size 4 and the city itself starts with 5 Happiness. None of our tests had us growing Delhi to Size 5 for quite some time, so it does not need a defender for Happiness levels.


After we've settled City 2, which, as you suggested was pre-defended by Warrior 2, Warrior 2 can scout a tiny bit east and then fog-bust somewhere to the east or north of the capitol.


EDIT: We MAY need a Warrior to fog-bust somewhere to the south of City 2, but the land layout doesn't currently look like doing so will be a priority over fog-busting the vast area of land to the east, north, and west of our capitol.

Barbs can be a problem. A warrior fortified on a forest can survive to an archer, but it's a great risk. Our Capital borders will expand quickly and this will surely help, but we need fogbusters since we can only defend even against warriors.

Agreed. Hence why I'd rather "end the turn" of Warrior 1 for several turns until either the Lions and Bear move away, until one of them appears close and then we can try to "run away" from that unit, or until the time that Animals start to disappear from the map.

About CoL or Theo from Oracle, CoL is pretty Cheap compared to Theo and the AI loves it. Mainly if Organized. It's risky delay it until we have a GPro.
Remember that if we have many religious zealots in our game, they will chase a religion, they can't "feel good" without a religion. And the AI also loves Chicken Pizza.

Zara has the Organized Trait...

We just need some testing done in order to get the numbers (how many turns of manual research will be required on Theology after Lightbulbing, for example). It might be that 0 turns of manual research will be required, meaning that the only relevant factor becomes the risk of missing a religion, which would clearly indicate that grabbing Code of Laws with The Oracle is the way to go.

 

[BLubmuz]

Warrior 2 as a scouting unit was to scout out the area to the south, to see where best to put City 2.

Regardless of whether we build Warrior 2 before Worker 1 or after Worker 1, we will get Warrior 2 before Settler 2, meaning that we should have enough time to find the best spot to settle the Silver city. Since the land area to the south is very small, the chance of Barb units spawning down there is very tiny and thus it is not that risky to explore the area with Warrior 2.

Not to be pedantic, but i recall that someone in this thread asked to consider the settlers as Settler 2 for the first we built and so on.
Same for cities: Capital is city 1, the one founded by the 2nd settler (not the free one) is city 2...

It's a great effort use the same numberig for the warriors?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Not to be pedantic, but i recall that someone in this thread asked to consider the settlers as Settler 2 for the first we built and so on.
Same for cities: Capital is city 1, the one founded by the 2nd settler (not the free one) is city 2...

It's a great effort use the same numberig for the warriors?

Just to be absolutely clear, when I write "Warrior 2," I am referring to the one that is currently in our build queue. Following this concept, "Warrior 1" is the one that we started with. Those are the names that I was using, so hopefully re-reading what I wrote is now clearer.

 

[Mitchum]

FYI. I've worked on the test game a bit, but I'm not done yet (90%). I'll be tied up much of this weekend with projects around the house. I'll try to read the thread, but I probably won't be able to play any test games until Monday.

Smilies for my kids:

 

[BLubmuz]

Just to be absolutely clear, when I write "Warrior 2," I am referring to the one that is currently in our build queue. Following this concept, "Warrior 1" is the one that we started with. Those are the names that I was using, so hopefully re-reading what I wrote is now clearer.

Yes, it's now clear, but i'm worried again
We will left out capital undefended for some 20 or more turns, provided we do not bring home warrior 1 or we use warrior 2 only to unfog a short path South?

I'm not worried by Zara, but by barbs. On Emperor they start spawn about turn 20-25 or am i wrong?

 

[havr]

Well, I went back to my test game, and changed using WB the tech that I have from Theology to CoL. Back to the game the GPro was able to research Theology in one turn. So it seems that if we want to maximize our chance of getting both first we should get CoL from Oracle and Theology from GPro.


That said, I have played games where a GPro was not enough to research Theology.

 

[unclethrill]

Okay I ran a couple tests and the majority of the new decisions to be made (CoL v. Theo; builds, techs; settle locale) all will fall outside of my TS. So my PPP is not very complicated and I hope that it won't cause much heartburn. Unless there is a major problem, I will try to play tomorrow night, about 24 -36 hours from now. Okay so here I go:

T19 switch to 2 food 1 hammer square. This takes growth to 3T and warrior to 2T. 2 hammer 1 food delays growth by 1 turn.
Move warrior to the forest 1E
T20 Send second warrior to the E. Staying in forests and hills as much as possible
Build 1 turn of warrior to allow growth to 3
Switch back to two corns
T21 Grow to 3. New citizen to 2F1H. Worker then takes 15 turns.
T30 Get Agri and Start Masonry
T34 Borders should expand to include Silver.
T36 Finish Worker. Start Corn Farming
T38 Finish TS

 

[BLubmuz]

T21 Grow to 3. New citizen to 2F1H. Worker then takes 15 turns.[/B]

All i deleted is OK. If you work a 2H+1F you can maybe have some more overflow.

Just this, not much to add.

Well, I went back to my test game, and changed using WB the tech that I have from Theology to CoL. Back to the game the GPro was able to research Theology in one turn. So it seems that if we want to maximize our chance of getting both first we should get CoL from Oracle and Theology from GPro.


That said, I have played games where a GPro was not enough to research Theology.

Well done. Those games could have been on a higher level or on a larger map.
But to verify this is the way to go, i think it's enough to know how many population you has when you Lighbulbed Theo.

For bulbing a tech, A GPerson has, depending on speed, so for Epic:
- 1500 base beakers for all (GM,GA,GE,GP *1.5 for the GS
- 3 points for any population point of your Empire, always * 1.5 for the GS

For build a wonder, a GE has a base of 750 hammers + 30 for any pop point of the City

I carefully verified this using WB.

Ok, i've ran a quick test using WB. I gave myself all the needed techs and a GE for the Oracle. The GE built the Oracle in 1 turn, and i could choose between CoL (819 b) and Theo (1170 b).
Next turn i gave me a GPro and Meditation, since this is his first LB.

He bulbed Theo with Dehli (my only city) at size 2.

So, my idea will work if we manage to actuate it.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Yes, it's now clear, but i'm worried again
We will left out capital undefended for some 20 or more turns, provided we do not bring home warrior 1 or we use warrior 2 only to unfog a short path South?

I'm not worried by Zara, but by barbs. On Emperor they start spawn about turn 20-25 or am i wrong?

Barbs only enter our borders as we start to spawn cities... it's based on the avg number of cities per player, but generally when you only have 1 city for a while, they won't enter your borders.

Play a test game and you'll see.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

T19 switch to 2 food 1 hammer square. This takes growth to 3T and warrior to 2T. 2 hammer 1 food delays growth by 1 turn.
Move warrior to the forest 1E
T20 Send second warrior to the E. Staying in forests and hills as much as possible
Build 1 turn of warrior to allow growth to 3
Switch back to two corns
T21 Grow to 3. New citizen to 2F1H. Worker then takes 15 turns.

T18, 3550 BC is the turn that you pick up from where Irgy left off.

So, you need this entry for sure:
T18: Press Ctrl + E. Assign a Weight of 1 to Zara for Espionage.

So, do you mean T18 when you say T19?

Anyway, I checked it out: there is no way to get the Warrior out AND grow within 2 turns. Therefore, without question, 100% guaranteed, it is better to grow first and then, as BLubz said, work Corn + Corn + a [1 Food & 2 Hammer] square to complete the Warrior, as opposed to a [2 Food & 1 Hammer] square, so that we get one more Hammer overflow into the Worker. That extra overflow of a Hammer won't help us now, but it might add up for our Settler or 2nd Worker, whatever we build after the first Worker.


DISCUSSION POINT: So, we have 3 options:
A] Building a Worker right away takes 18 turns from now to get the Worker.
B] Growing for 2 turns and building a Worker right away without finishing the Warrior now takes 17 turns from now to get the Worker. The Warrior will not lose any Hammers invested in this manner, as long as you keep him in the queue.
C] Growing for 2 turns and finishing the Warrior and then building a Worker takes 18 turns.

Of those options, A] is kind of silly. So, the discussion point is around:
whether we get the Worker out 1 turn faster in scenario B] or if we
delay the Worker EVEN MORE (by 1 turn) just to get another Warrior out now, i.e. scenario C].

T36 Finish Worker. Start Corn Farming

Which Corn? It's important. You want to farm the north Corn first. Why? Well, Mitchum mentioned that we might need to send the Warrior south to the Silver after irrigating the second Corn. Regardless of whether we Mine the Plains Hills River square or the Silver square first, we can gain 1 extra Worker turn if we just finished irrigating the western Corn.

By irrigating the northernmost Corn first and the western Corn second, we will save a Worker turn later when we move to either the Silver or the PHRiver square.

We won't save it directly without a bit of micromanagement, though... after finishing with the western Corn, we have to Irrigate the Grassland River square to the S + S of the city temporarily and then stop in the same turn. We would do so any time that we want to climb either the Silver Hills square or the Plains Hills River square, so as to not lose a Worker turn. For example, after improving one of the Hills square, we'd perform the same trick to gain back another Worker turn, just before moving to the other Hills square.


Playing ahead without any test game
What comes after the Warrior? A Settler? Another Worker, now that we are short on Worker turns compared to our previous test games? We don't know. No one has run any test games yet far enough to see the impact of one choice vs the other.

In the interest of moving the game along, if no one runs any test games before you are ready to start your turnset, then I suggest you stop your turnset on the turn that the Worker is built.


Warrior moves
Can you give a general idea of what you plan to do with Warrior 1? Are you going to follow my advice and end his turn a few times in place, waiting for the Animals to come to you and then deciding which way to move?

If you move now, you risk facing 1 Lion (could mean our death) or maybe even 2 Lions if you move 1E into the Plains Forest. Moving 1S or 1SE are both crapshots--either a Lion or a Bear could eat you alive in flat terrain the next turn.

Even if only 1 Lion attacks when you move 1E into the Plains Forest, you'll have to stop and heal, and a Wounded Warrior is very unlikely to survive a second Animal attack when the other Lion appears a turn or two later.


The good part is that a Barb unit will "fog bust" a 5 x 5 area just like any other unit will. So, the longer that those Lions and the Bear stay alive, the less Barb units will spawn. The last thing we need is to barely survive a Lion fight, only to have a 2-movement Wolf spawn and chase us down, because the Lion that was fog-busting is now dead. At least with the Lions, if one comes next to you, you can "get away" without fear of that particular Lion* attacking you on the next turn.

* No guarantees for the other Lion, however!

Eventually, once the Lion activity dies down, that Plains Forest 1E will make a great fog-busting location, anyway. Remember that is a 5x5 diameter centred around the Warrior that gets fog-busted. Seeing where our Cultural Borders will be in less than 10 turns once Hinduism pushes out the borders, the actual ideal place to fog-bust from is where the Warrior is standing right now. Since flat terrain isn't safe for the long run, we'll take the acceptable place to 1E of him, in the Plains Forest.

So, arguably, it will be far more important to keep a fog-buster alive and "out there" than it will to risk trying to "bring him back" only to need to send him out again back through all of that unforested flatland.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

If we vote for Warrior 2 before Worker 1, then I'd like to see you, Unclethrill, at least map out the first few planned moves of the Warrior, so that the team can possibly give input on how you might improve your initial Warrior's pathing.

If we have no advice to give, then you will have given us great confidence in your defensive-terrain-scouting abilities.

 

[Irgy]

I noticed that Irgy had not uploaded the save yet, so I just did it. I used my forum name rather than his, but it shouldn't matter, right? I also assumed that the save in post 389 is our save.

Thanks, sorry about that. I actually knew I hadn't uploaded it yet, but late we started getting ready to go to this wedding, and were running late, and from that point on I think my wife would have just about strangled me and thrown the computer off the balcony if I'd sat down at it to upload the save

I figured someone would be able to grab it from the post, sorry for the hassle though.

Back from the wedding, but not much time to post a lot, just trying to read through it all and keep up.

 

[Mitchum]

Playing ahead without any test game
What comes after the Warrior? A Settler? Another Worker, now that we are short on Worker turns compared to our previous test games? We don't know. No one has run any test games yet far enough to see the impact of one choice vs the other.

In the interest of moving the game along, if no one runs any test games before you are ready to start your turnset, then I suggest you stop your turnset on the turn that the Worker is built.

I agree that we need to play a test game until we have both CoL and Theology for multiple reasons:

1. How quickly will our worker get all of his tasks done and how will his actions line up with settling Silver City?
2. What is the impact of completing the warrior first, thus delaying our worker by one more turn?
3. What turn will we settle Silver City?
4. Should we build settler #3 or worker #2 first? I'm a bit worried about having too many workers with nothing for them to do...
5. What turn will we complete the Oracle (havr got it on T90 IIRC)?
6. Do we want to found a religion in our third city to help with border pops? If so, we may want to found religion #2 in Silver City (even though Dhoomstriker seems to be against this).
7. Oracle CoL and bulb Theology or vice versa?
8. On what turn can we get a GPro if we focus on it?

I realize that most of this falls outside your turnset, but right now we have the ability to shift everything one turn with respect to the worker. It may turn out to be a big deal, or it may be nothing. I used to be pushing for warrior first, but that was when we built him at size 2, getting him 27 turns earlier. Now, it's only 17 turns earlier. I'm just not sure how the worker timing will work out with our development at the moment.

Like Dhoomstriker said, if the consensus is to push forward with your turn set, then it would be best if you stopped when the worker is done, which is likely close to the end of your turnset anyway, right? In general, if a turnset goes shorter or longer than our planned 20 turns, it isn't a big deal if we are able to progress to the next decision point, right? We may find some new information between now and when the worker is complete that would change our mind about what to build next. I Zara is closing in, maybe a settler would make sense. If worker turns are slowing us down, maybe a worker would be better.

My vote, if we decide to push forward without test games, is to start the worker as soon as we grow to size 3, keeping the warrior in the queue. ...

Regarding workers, I'd like to get by with one worker out of the capital if we can since in my test, I had 3 workers sitting around for a bit with their thumbs up their butt. We could always build worker #2 in Silver City since it will be working the silver mine and won't be growing anyway. Until we have BW for chopping, we have 3 farms and 2 mines to build ASAP. I guess we could build another mine in the capital, but after that, there won't be much to do. I think one worker from the capital and one from Silver City will be plenty to chop the Oracle (2 chops only) and not have too many idle worker turns. Again, this needs to be tested.