I don't have time to review the PPP... that'll happen sometime tomorrow. But I do want to coment on this point:
Just letting you all know: Still reading, a tiny bit out of touch with the details because there's a lot going on in the MTDG and related pitboss games just now. I'll have a ton of free time next week as my wife is going on a short holiday with the baby but without me, so I'll hopefully be well on top of things by the time it's my turn set.
I'm still dubious about the idea of delaying settling. I'm willing to believe the trick would work, but the thing I still don't understand is what evidence we have that Saladin is likely to send a settler on a galley any time even in the next 50 (let alone the next 10) turns? I thought all we'd seen was an exploring workboat. Do we even know where his own lands are yet?
The primary goal of delaying Settling is NOT to trap Saladin or any other AI that sends a Galley filled with a Settler Party.
The primary goal of delaying Settling is to avoid crashing our economy by building Cities that are not productive.
We wanted the Great Person Farm ASAP, as we want it to grow ASAP so that it can run Specialists ASAP.
But the other Cities are just mediocre Cities anyway.
What we'd LIKE is to FIRST have each of those Cities having at least one improved square to work before settling them.
Otherwise, the Maintenance Costs plus working a 3 or 4 "basic Inputs" square will not balance each other out.
I detailed this stuff before, let's see if I paraphrase what I wrote previously.
We have no rush to actually sit these Settlers down immediately. It will cost us more to settle them than they will be beneficial, until:
1. FOR CRAB CITY: we get the Fish + Pig improved in the Great Person Farm. Sharing the Fish with the Crab City by settling it immediately would just mean that the Great Person Farm would have to work an unimproved square. So both the Fish and Pig must be improved before settling the Crab City. PREFERABLY, we will wait until we have TWO Fish and the Pig improved, OR the Fish + Pig + Cow, because we'll want the Great Person Farm to be at Size 2 for quite some time early on.
2. FOR RICE CITY: we either improve another square for Bedrock to work or else we whip Bedrock to Size 2, such that Rice City can steal a Flood Plains square without leaving Bedrock working an unimproved square. Rice City will not be effective if it steals Bedrock's Cottage but leaves Bedrock working an unimproved square, nor will it be effective without its own improved square if Bedrock keeps using all 3 of its Flood Plains Cottages.
3. FOR THREE CLAMS CITY: we get a Work Boat for the Clam City or at least the Marble or Cow improved.
Now, here's the tricky part:
We can't just settle one of those Cities IF we meet its condition UNLESS we have all 3 Settlers in place. Otherwise, Saladin
could scoot past us and steal the City location for which we don't have a Settler prepared.
So, ideally, we will say:
A] Until all 3 Settlers are in place, do not settle them, UNLESS an AI Settler Party lands, in which case we must settle in order to prevent them from Settling. We MUST let that AI Settler Party LAND BEFORE we Settle, otherwise we will not effectively mess up the AI Settler Party and will VERY LIKELY LOSE A CITY LOCATION TO THE AI.
B] Once all 3 Settlers are in place, but they don't have an improvement to work, DO NOT SETTLE THEM.
C] Once all 3 Settlers are in place AND at least one of those Cities has an improvement to work, we have a decision to make. One decision is to wait a few more turns to both:
1. Keep our Science Rate higher
AND
2. Give the AIs a chance to land a Settler Party, so that we can permanently mess with that AI, like we messed with Zara earlier
The other decision is to settle that particular City, since it can start being productive.
So, part C] of the plan still has a decision that needs to be made. But Parts A] and B] are the stages where we must delay settling UNTIL an AI Settler Party lands. That's the primary purpose of delaying settling--to keep our economy in check.
Messing with the AI in Stage C] is a secondary goal that we have to vote on whether or not we support it.
HOWEVER, messing with the AI in Stages A] and B] IS A REQUIREMENT of our plan, or else we'll strongly risk losing at least one City location--if not on our continent, then the AI will likely just send their Settler Party to one of the nearby continents and steal that location.
So, the advantage of messing with the AI's Settler Party in Stage A] will help us to secure our on-continent and off-continent City locations.
Messing with the AI's Settler Party in Stage B] will help us to secure our off-continent City locations and will help us from crashing our economy by settling prematurely.
Messing with the AI's Settler Party in Stage C] will simply help us to secure our off-continent City locations.
How long we wait in Stage C] is something that we can discuss, but I SUGGEST that we do not settle any of the 3 Cities until all 3 of them can be immediately productive AND no AI Galley is in sight. This situation shouldn't happen until after BLubmuz' turnset.
However, what COULD happen during his turnset is an AI Settler Party showing up. That's too early for us to get effective Cities settled, so we'll have to convince the AI Settler Party to land and then settle the Cities near where they landed, in order to:
1. Make the AI Galley run away
AND
2. Prevent the AI Settler Party from settling anytime soon. Remember, a Galley moves AT TWO SQUARES PER TURN. A GALLEY CAN ALSO CUT CORNERS BY MOVING DIAGONALLY and our Coast is rather diagonally-shaped along the way to the Three Clams location. HOWEVER, an AI Settler Party will move AT THE SPEED OF THE ARCHER, aka ONE SQUARE PER TURN. That's the BIGGEST VALUE of messing with the AI Settler Party--it buys us time before we have to settle our Three Clams City in an unproductive status (when it doesn't have a useful square to work).
THE OTHER VALUE of messing with the AI's Settler Party is that the AIs will often only have 1 Settler early game and only 2 Settlers later in the game, so we effectively reduce the AI's City spamming, because we'll have trapped their Settler on our continent. That will leave neighbouring continental City-settling more to us than to the AI.
Do you get it yet? If not, ask questions, but the point of doing all of this is to:
1. Meet our long-term primary goal of getting a Diplo victory, which means not crashing our economy if we don't need to do so
AND
2. Meet our short-term primary goal of REXing as much as we can off-continent. Unless we see an AI Settler Party soon, the goal IS NOT REALLY to secure our on-continent City locations but instead TO SECURE OUR OFF-CONTINENT CITY LOCATIONS. You guys talk about wanting to settle off-continent. I'm telling you how to do it the most effectively. You can either trust my experience with "messing with the AIs"--that's one of my strongpoints in playing Civ 4--or you can ignore my advice and likely need to give up on most or all of our off-continent settling. Make the choice.