SGOTM 11 - Plastic Ducks

[Duckweed]

1. Tested it in WB, I can show you pictures if you like? (In the test game).
As we said earlier it is possible that Saladin has a coastal city but it isn't this one and it wouldn't be connected to his Capital.

The Archer's facing only indicates where he came from, not necessarily where he's going.

Only we see a water tile inside AI's culture border, should the trade route be opened. The exception is the land tile with a fort and being directly connected to the city center or through other forts.

If zara decided to go for the riverside, he should not appear on that tile, which is not on his route to the riverside.

I worldbuildered in ToA to check... the 100% to trade routes isn't added, but it's a multiplier of the base 1.00 trade route.

Meaning we gain 1 commerce from each trade route.

The actual yield from ToA is then 10GPP (Philo)+1.5H(bureau)+1G+5.25B+2C.

Of course trade routes value will increase over time but it isn't that strong as it obsoletes at SM of course.

Back to HG: since we'll most likely build most of it under Bureaucracy but Aqueduct pre-CS, total cost is
450/2.5+150 = 180+150 = 330H

We've already put 50H in ToA so 475 are left. The difference however is it will be complete before Bureaucracy so the cost really is
475/2 = 237.5

So the actual hammer difference is more like 100H in build cost.
3 pop is already better across the empire but then you have to factor in the extra yield from ToA in Delhi. It starts getting complicated however as we also need to consider the pop points that we won't whip in the cities.

Finally there's the odds we lose out on it which are actually high (especially if we don't whip!)

In a perfect world, I'd take both of them. I think we need to carefully make this decision.

How soon are we going to obsolete ToA? Do we want something post-SM from Liberalism? (say Biology/Electricity/Radio?)

Where did you get this formula " 450/2.5+150 = 180+150 = 330H"? I mean the 2.5 divider.

Regarding the 100% trade route income, what size of the city are you using for test? My impression is that income from the city with ToA is bigger. I might be wrong. At least it's 3C with the bureo bonus and remember the 5.25 beaker is only at 75% multiplier.

I will clarify more on this issue in the reply to dingding's post.

 

[Duckweed]

I think this logic appeals to me. I'm not sure the assumption of 1 pop = 45H is 100% accurate. The extra citizen will be working some tile for a lot of turns for more , and in some instances probably quicker growth all over our empire for quite some time (untill pop maxes out). I'm just not sure how to value that (other than 45H).

That said.. if we want ToA (and I'm not sure we can get it given we're fairly late in the early game) we need to push for it (maybe at least with som non-BFC forestchops), and the risk is we end up getting nothing but gold for it. Getting ToA then would probably mean we're not getting HG, so that needs to be addressed.

You are right that the translation of pops to hammers is not 100% accurate, but pretty close. While the extra pops produce commerce and/or hammers, they eat maintenance. Furthermore, by the time HG completed, most cities are still in short of critical infrastructures and that extra pop is going to be whipped in short time.

 

[Duckweed]

Sorry I don't have much time to discuss lately, for instance I have two interviews today

About the HG, I think I've made my point in the previous posts. As Diplo Victory is the first priority, I would put a GE in the first priority as well. You're welcome to propose another shot better for generating a GE.

To be honest, I don't really care about +1 pop and +1 health. And HG should be 150/1.75+450/2.75 = 250h only.

Also it's not that I dislike ToA, but we have better things on which we can put hammers. And at this point, the chance to grab it becomes slimmer and slimmer.

About expansion: according to the west coast we explored, one settler is enough for blocking Saladin, though we have capacity to rush 2 more. To the north, there is no potential competitor so far.

Sacrifying so many pops in Delhi to rush one irrevelant settler doesn't sound very wise to me, let alone we can spam them even faster with Bureau and they could growth better under OR.

I like some of your creative thoughts, such as borrowing the corn from Delhi and letting Bombay grow to size 2. It's not difficult for me to see the real shining points and give you my support. I'd like to see the counter arguments with careful thinking or with real tests. Unfortunately, your arguments in this post were mostly from your intuition and plausible.

There are ~30 turns away from CS now, if you rate HG much higher than ToA, what are you going to build in Delhi during this period? No doubt you want start Aqu and then HG. The earlier HG also increases the odd of GE as 3rd GP. Therefore the 75% bonus from CS and OR are not there yet.

After the CS, TGL will be available to be built soon. If you start Aqu and HG after CS and OR (If we really want the OR bonus, we might need to research it ourselves depending on whether any AI research Alpha ~500BC and that's questionable in Emperor.) It still needs ~20 turns. Do you want to complete HG before TGL? Each turn delay of TGL costs us 16 GPPs + 21 beakers. If not, then the huge GPPs from TGL lower down the odd of GE.

If we get a GE as 3rd GP, do we want to let it sit for ~100 turns and eat 100G, or settle it to produce 4.5~6 H + 10.5 ~20 beakers for 100 turns. I will not hesitate for the latter choice!!! While the GE hurries the UN, the date we can research Mass Media is also critical. This is the counter argument against your emphasize of sanctifying GPPs for a better odd of GE. Some planned overflow and forest chop will speedup the UN a lot. In a side note, the forests northern and eastern of the capital should be reserved in case.

I don't understand your argument about whipping a settler in Delhi, I made a very detailed comparison in previous post. If you can post something convincing that a couple hundreds of beakers is better than an extra city for 50~100 turns, you get my vote.

BTW, regarding your negative point on whipping granary immediately Delhi, did you see that the 7th citizen was working on an unimproved tile? While citizen produces hammers and commerce, it also eat maintenance fee, that's why citizen can not work on improved tile should be whipped.

 

[Duckweed]

Suggestions for next set.

The optimal settling order:

5th city site -- On rice and cottage it up
6th city site -- the Gold site oversea or the Fish/Horse site if Zara is sending a settler.
7th city site -- the other choice left
All the new city starts with Granary.

The safest settling order: Fish/Horse > Gold > Rice

Delhi -- focus on hammer output, when it hits size 6, starts a settler and produces for 3 turns and then whip to allow maximum overflow to ToA. The difference between 6 and 7 is that 4 or 5 turns earlier of the settler and 2 turns loss from the cottages. Again, earlier settler could be critical to beat AI to a critical site, this is almost as worse as losing GLH but with much higher chance and the cost is very trivial!

Bombay -- starts a worker after the settler
Vij -- whip a gallery following by a WB to scout east and probably another WB for the new city oversea.
Pap -- WB and then granary, after that 3 pop whip of settlers until all the available sites are settled. Let the overflow go to LH.

<100g Gold from zara is safe. Trade away any single health resource for gold if not necessary in 10 turns.

Reject any demand of embargo and war, but grant any other demand except gold.

Send the current chariot with settler 1st and then a worker follows next.

Run partial research slider if that enables 1 turn earlier of Currency. Same for CS, but at that time we can build research to accelerate it.

I can't run any tests this week, so no comments on worker move until I see the final detailed plan.

 

[kossin]

Some planned overflow and forest chop will speedup the UN a lot. In a side note, the forests northern and eastern of the capital should be reserved in case.

We'll want to chop some of those forests soon actually. Zara will send his 4th settler in that area and some of them are at risk of being lost to his culture.

Only we see a water tile inside AI's culture border, should the trade route be opened. The exception is the land tile with a fort and being directly connected to the city center or through other forts.

If zara decided to go for the riverside, he should not appear on that tile, which is not on his route to the riverside.

Where did you get this formula " 450/2.5+150 = 180+150 = 330H"? I mean the 2.5 divider.

Regarding the 100% trade route income, what size of the city are you using for test? My impression is that income from the city with ToA is bigger. I might be wrong. At least it's 3C with the bureo bonus and remember the 5.25 beaker is only at 75% multiplier.

I will clarify more on this issue in the reply to dingding's post.

Fair enough, I'll provide some screenshots for you to see my test.

The settler could still have altered his route west a bit, but it was a long shot I agree.

Stone and Bureaucracy make every 1 hammer be worth 2.5, yes? 450/2.5 = 180

ToA bonus will start getting better as we know the civs for longer and their city size increases, yes. For starters it will only be 1 extra commerce/trade route however.

~~~

I ran a few tests until 1AD and here are my impressions:

• We can grab ToA and HG [10~12 pop in my tests] without delaying TGL much (all before ~350BC).
• Delhi can whip 2 settlers to do this (first 3 pop, second 2 pop) without losing too many cottage turns. With GLH, more cities(especially intercontinental) is better than a hamlet vs a cottage.
• Grabbing 2 cities per landmass if possible (high priority)
• No bulbing of Education. Cities won't be ready to build Universities at that time. Better to settle them in Delhi imo
• We're going to want a lot of settlers Workers can follow later on.
• Settle horse city and double wb there. Vijay makes a galley right away.

I also prefer horse city first to get a wb out fast and go explore Izzy's area.

 

[kossin]

Unlocking Trade Routes

Here's an example I worldbuildered. Both Saladin and us have Fishing, Sailing. We have Writing in addition.

This is Saladin and his revealed tiles (most are part of his network).

Spoiler :

Now, this is us and our revealed tiles.

Spoiler :

What happens when I propose OB to Saladin?

Spoiler :

We get a Trade Route to the city adjacent to our revealed tile - but not the complete network.

Spoiler :

And yet this is all we see.

Spoiler :

Conclusion:

• You only need to reveal tiles next to the AI's trade network to gain access to trade routes.
• In our case, what is certain is: either that city wasn't coastal or either it wasn't culture-connected to his capital's trade network.
• As a result, the workboat had no use going back to reveal that tile, unless his Capital network was close to that city (doubtful).
• We should have opened borders immediately when we met him, just in case it is a coastal city. (We possibly lost 2x the number oif turns me know him plus an extra 2 for the last turn.)
• Open Borders immediately when you meet an AI, you never know when you might gain trade routes.

 

[Bugg123]

Let's see.. in order for us to have something concrete to discuss, I'll start by posting a potential turnset. It's a bit early for that, maybe, but hopefully it won't hurt either.

This turnset includes 3pop-whip of settler in Delhi. I'll try no whip as well to compare later. Will also avait the HG/ToA etc discussion

Spoiler :

T114:
I'm leaving Warrior around Lalibela to scout for approaching settlers for now
OB Saladin
WB continues west
Chariot starts heading fo Vijay (goes south along roads to reveal city)

Workers:
Worker on mine cancels mining and moves towards FP by rice
Worker 2S Vijay goes to pig+road+cancel
Worker E Bombay goes W and helps chop there

Settler moves towards rice


Bombay - Start Settler
Delhi - Switch cottage - Mine (growth in 4)

Cottageturns lost count: 1

T115:

Workers:
Worker on pig -> Pasture cow
Worker arrives FP by rice -> Cottage
Workers complete 2 chops around Bombay: 1 worker moves W and starts chopping

Varnasi settled (on rice), starts Granary, assign artist.
Vijay - Reclaims marble and works it
Pali - Whip WB

Cottageturns lost count: 2

T116:

Workers:
Worker 2E of Bombay moves W and helps chop
Worker SW Bombay finishes Farm 2S Vijay (going to help out cottage around Varnasi)

Pati: WB->Fish(worked), start Granary - Growth in 4

Cottageturns lost count: 3

T117:
Research 0%

Workers:
Worker 2S Vijay moves and cottages around Varanasi
Chop finished in Bombay (Settler in 1)

Cottageturns lost count: 4

T118:
Research 60% (Currency in 5)

Workers:
2 workers in Bombay build road towards Hors+fish


Vijay: GLH in, start Galley
Bombay: Settler in (Moves to Vijay avaiting transport and chariot), Start Worker.
Delhi grows (works cottage (or Farm?)) switch to Settler

T119:
Research 70% (more efficient, Currency in 4 still)
Chariot arrives in Vijay

Workers: Nothing

Vijay -> Whip Galley. Working Horse+Cow
Varanasi -> Cottage done, Assign cottage (borders popped)


T120:

Workers:
2 workers in Varnasi move W and builds cottage
2 workers continue road to horse+fish (on incense)

Vijay: Galley in, WB in 1. Assign FP+Cow for growth
Bombay -> Switch FP->Horse (Worker in 5, saves 1 turn)
Pati -> Growth to 3, pasture on cow done (worked). Growth in 4.

Settler and chariot loaded onto Galley -> Head for gold+fish (Site is 2S of fish, S of Mountain?)

T121:

Workers:
Worker near Pati on cow goes to road on pigs


Vijay: WB in, start Granary while growing (still working Cow+FP). WB Explores north (do we go on

eastern or western side of land?)
Delhi: Whip settler (overflow to ToA). Working Cornx2+Silver

Cottageturns lost count: 5


T122:
Research 50% (Finish Currency, could do 30%, but less efficient?)

Delhi: Finishes Settler, continues on ToA. Settler moves for Horse+Fish. Growth in 2

Workers:
2 workers road Horses

Cottageturns lost count: 6

T123:
Currency in, start CS. Research 0%

Workers:
Road on pigs done, start road on cows.
Road on horse done. 1 worker moves to hill (SW) and mine+cancel.
Cottage around Varnasi done


Cottageturns lost count: 7

T124:

Revolt to Caste

Workers:
Warrior scout moves back in towards Agra


1 worker pasture horse by Agra
2 workers near Varnasi -> Continues cottages around Varnasi on FP
1 worker from hill goes to forest S of Incense and starts chop (completes when Agra pops borders for instant WB)

Agra Settled. Start WB. Assign Artist.
Delhi Grows, assign Mine (ToA in 12, growth in 4)
Pati Grows, Assign 2F2C


Cottageturns lost count: 8

T125:

Workers:
New worker in Bombay mines hill in Bombay? Could go to chop forest around Delhi, I suppose.


Bombay: FW in, start Axe and growth? (Or more workers?)


Cottageturns lost count: 9
T126:

Done, upload, post report

 

[kossin]

There's a lot of things to fix, I will check with the game a bit later.

The one thing that stroke at me was the chariot move on IHT: go to cows 2N to meet Izzy then OB with her.

 

[Bugg123]

Ah yes.. definately. Move to cows, then back to Vijay (unless we want to finish exploring and delay overseas settlements.. we could ofcourse explore and have chariot hook up with galley near pati as well.. come to think of it)

I'm glad there are things to fix up. It's kind of why I posted it a bit soonish. It's easier to discuss this way, I think?

 

[kossin]

Yea, it's definitely the right thing to do, else we'll be spending 4 days on this set.

The Chariot can keep exploring... he doesn't have to be in Vijay before the galley is done.

EDIT: I suggest we move the Chariot right now (before playing the set) and OB with Saladin+Izzy. The intercontinental trade routes will make a difference on research and meeting Izzy could be important.

 

[Bugg123]

I'm ok with that. You can just do it (I suppose, just wait for a few others?). That way you're sure to have it done when you have time to update the testgame.

 

[kossin]

Ok, I'll draft a proposition for the plan... keep in mind it's pretty vague

Spoiler :

t114 - 1150BC
Meet Izzy
OB with Saladin+Izzy
cancel mine 2E of Vijay

[stop, upload]
~~~~~~~

t114 - 1150BC, part 2
3 workers chop another settler in Bombay (due 1050BC)
1 worker goes on pig road+cancel
hill worker goes towards fp to cottage up (he can put 1 turn of cottage NW of Vijay if we want)
wb moves onto hill city of Saladin (see more tiles)

Delhi 5th worker to farm (going to grow some more faster and keep working the cottage)
Bombay starts settler

t115 - 1125BC
1 worker finishes chop by Bombay
1 worker starts cottage in Varanasi
1 worker starts cows pasture
Chariot keeps exploring

Delhi farm->mine (growth in 2)
Vijay: check to make sure it keeps the Marble
whip wb in Pali
Revolt to caste
settle Varanasi on Rice ->start Granary and assign Artist

t116 - 1100BC
1 worker finishes chop by Bombay
1 worker moves 2S of Vijay to finish farm
wb builds net on fish

Vijay stone->fp farm (GLH still in 2, we'll grow this to 5 while building galley)
Pali assigns 2nd pop on Fish and starts granary

t117 - 1075BC
slider to 0%
1 worker helps finish final Bombay forest this turn
1 worker helps on cottage (2S of Vijay)

Delhi 6th citizen to farm

t118 - 1050BC
Send settler E of horses
2 workers move 1W grass hill for cottage/road? (moving them outside culture costs 1gpt)

Delhi 6th citizen to mine instead of farm (same time [3] to grow)
Bombay settler done, 4 choices: settler, worker, Axe, granary - I like Axe as settler escort better than Chariot.

t119 - 1025BC
slider to 100%

2 workers go grass hill 2E of Vijay and mine it
Varanasi artist ->cottage

t120 - 1000BC
1 worker starts another cottage in Varanasi
settle Agra (assign artist), start 2x wb (one to explore, one for fish)
1 worker moves to start chop in Agra
1 worker moves 1E of Vijay to help finish mine next turn

Pali grows to 3 assign pastured cows

t121 - 975BC
depending on # of trade routes, turn slider to 0% finishes Currency this turn

worker by Pali adds road on Pig (cancel or let it finish to trade, depends if someone shows up with luxury resource)

Delhi grows to 7 (farm), start settler

t122 - 950BC
Currency in, start CS at 0% slider. Beg gold from Zara if he has a decent amount and Pleased i.e. 40+. Look for 2+gpt resource trades we can afford

t123 - 925BC
2 workers start horse pasture
1 worker in Pali starts chop

t124 - 900BC
revolt to Slavery
Delhi whip settler (3 pop, 7->4 still working cottage or mine and silver, 62 overflow)
Bombay Axe done, work something [infra, I suggest 1 turn of ToA while Delhi is still busy with Settler] for 2 turns to allow growth to size 3
Vijay fp to mine (finish galley this turn)
Pali 4th citizen on lake 2F2C (going to grow it to 5, chop into lighthouse then 2-pop whip granary to finish granary and lighthouse in 1 turn each)

t125 - 875BC
Delhi settler done, resume ToA (mine or cottage depending on if we want more commerce or production - cottage is almost hamlet)
Bombay borrows horse from Vijay [growth in 1]
Vijay borrows fp from Bombay [growth in 2] start Granary or wb
Pali starts LH
2 workers free by Agra, can either cottage, pre-chop or go around Delhi (should be a few forests in danger of being swallowed by Zara)
Agra artist -> horse pasture
1 worker chops wb in Agra

t126 - 850BC
[stop] discuss
Axe ready to load on boat 2N of Vijay, settler will load next turn)

This is an alternative of course. Duckweed's approach grabs the city faster overseas so it may well be better as this might be too slow to do the same. In any case, we can delay growth in Vijay and get a head start on the galley which the settler can join later and still grow Delhi to 7 first.
That way we could unload the chariot/WIII warrior on the island north to explore (saves 1 wb in a way) and also unload the Axe on the other landmass ahead of the settler for fogbusting a bit.

The overall delay of settling the city is only 3 turns but we gain a lot in every other city.

 

[Bugg123]

@kossin:

Looks like a good alternative. You end up 1 worker shorter with 1 axe more and also one WB short, and a bigger Vijay (by 2 pop) and Bombay (by 1 pop), If I read it right. What's the status of ToA in this version? In mine it's 350/525

If we're settling goldx2+fish next the galley takes forever to get there. Delaying this much may be a problem, but I don't know.

Maybe trying the other alternative : Whip Vijay while growing Delhi as well to see.

I guess we're not really comitted to ToA either, but I haven't played on to see our HG and GL dates from 850BC. That should also be done, I think.

If anyone wants to have a crack at no ToA and play on, that'd be good.

 

[kossin]

@850BC
356 hammers

 

[BornInCantaloup]

So... I didn't check every of your plans
In Kossin's draft :

"t114 - 1150BC, part 2
Delhi 5th worker to farm (going to grow some more faster and keep working the cottage)"
Not a criticism, here, but... are we going to work only one cottage ?
With the "heavy" whiping, Delhi's max size will be around 8 (10 base happiness with gold and 2 unhappy from the whip). 2 corns + silver + 2 farms + 1 cottage makes 6 tiles worked. Meaning we can then work the 2 mines and no additionnal cottage. Wouldn't it be better to have 2 cottages instead ?
(I counted only 2 unhappy because I guess that will be the average, but there will be 3 when we'll whip the settler and we won't have access to the gold, yet, reducing the max size to 6 for a short moment.)

"t115 - 1125BC
settle Varanasi on Rice ->start Granary and assign Artist"
Are you sure we need the fast border pop here ? We can work 2 fp cottages immediately and 3 when Vijay's borders expand again... With the GLH it won't be soooo long (didn't check how long exactly... some 15 turns).
Only the 4th fp remains unaccessible but we can bet on Confu spreading for a border pop in another 15 turns.


"t116 - 1100BC
Pali assigns 2nd pop on Fish and starts granary"
I'd go for another workboat there, but I can't really back it up. I just feel we still need to explore a LOT. Alternatively, it could ease the horse/fish city with wb production, since Pali is more advanced.
Hum... On second thought, maybe you're right. That granary is to hire mass caste scientists, right ? Will we be in caste soon or will we keep whipping for some time ?


On a general note, I agree that settlers should take precedence over workers.
The exception is Bombay, in my mind. It will become a weak prod city as soon as it's deprived of forests. Then it should produce workers over settlers.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

T120 :
Settler and chariot loaded onto Galley -> Head for gold+fish (Site is 2S of fish, S of Mountain?)

I would settle on the gold in the middle : 2S1E of the fish. Hire an artist first to pop borders while building a granary/workboat (depends if we provide the wb with another city).
Hill city : safer on another continent.
Settle on gold : immediate happiness boost.
Further from Saladin : less cultural tensions.
Grab 3 gold : better than 2 for trade sake.

Also, I don't know where you plan to unload the galley, but we are not forced to go all the way to the settling site, especially if there's a chariot escorting the settler. Unloading asap makes it faster to go fetch a worker.

 

[Bugg123]

@BIC:

City Site: Yeah. That seems kinda obvious, don't know what I was looking at

Unloading: Probably E of closest gold T126 and move onto location T127. However, there's a lot of fog there, and it doesn't really seem safe to just unload settler+escort either, so that's up for discussion.

 

[kossin]

So... I didn't check every of your plans
In Kossin's draft :

"t114 - 1150BC, part 2
Delhi 5th worker to farm (going to grow some more faster and keep working the cottage)"
Not a criticism, here, but... are we going to work only one cottage ?
With the "heavy" whiping, Delhi's max size will be around 8 (10 base happiness with gold and 2 unhappy from the whip). 2 corns + silver + 2 farms + 1 cottage makes 6 tiles worked. Meaning we can then work the 2 mines and no additionnal cottage. Wouldn't it be better to have 2 cottages instead ?
(I counted only 2 unhappy because I guess that will be the average, but there will be 3 when we'll whip the settler and we won't have access to the gold, yet, reducing the max size to 6 for a short moment.)

"t115 - 1125BC
settle Varanasi on Rice ->start Granary and assign Artist"
Are you sure we need the fast border pop here ? We can work 2 fp cottages immediately and 3 when Vijay's borders expand again... With the GLH it won't be soooo long (didn't check how long exactly... some 15 turns).
Only the 4th fp remains unaccessible but we can bet on Confu spreading for a border pop in another 15 turns.


"t116 - 1100BC
Pali assigns 2nd pop on Fish and starts granary"
I'd go for another workboat there, but I can't really back it up. I just feel we still need to explore a LOT. Alternatively, it could ease the horse/fish city with wb production, since Pali is more advanced.
Hum... On second thought, maybe you're right. That granary is to hire mass caste scientists, right ? Will we be in caste soon or will we keep whipping for some time ?


On a general note, I agree that settlers should take precedence over workers.
The exception is Bombay, in my mind. It will become a weak prod city as soon as it's deprived of forests. Then it should produce workers over settlers.

Don't worry, I haven't tried optimizing anything, I'm just throwing something different in the fray - trying to think outside the box.

Re Delhi cottages:
We could certainly work a second cottage yes, but we're already got 7 improved tiles so why not use them? If we decide not to whip Delhi then yes definitely add a cottage or 2. I've tried it and it just doesn't feel right if we can grab GLH... spamming a few intercontinental cities is just so much better than growing cottages for a few turns like Duckweed said.

Re Varanasi:
There's no guarantee Confu or any religion will spread but it would gain 12 food so 4 more turns of cottages initially (we might need to pop its borders later). I just used the opportunity to pop borders while we were in Caste and had no improvement. However if we decide to whip settler at size 6 then this city should go by the horses as we won't have time to pop its borders afterwards. Only horses in first ring sucks for a city.

Re Pali:
Either we make it big to run Caste specs or we use it to whip settlers/workers

Re Bombay:
producing settlers at size 2/3 takes quite a while (12 F+H/turn at size 3 compared to 10 at size 2, 13/14 at size 4) but workers can be done in a reasonable amount of time.

@Bugg123
Yea, whipping Vijay for earlier Galley can work but it's not useful unless we whip Delhi at size 6. No point having the settler too early, maybe a 2-pop whip could work however?

Just so we're clear:

Would you like a pre-set where we meet Izzy, OB with her and Saladin?
That is:
1. chariot on horse 2N of Aksum to meet Izzy
2. OB with Izzy
3. OB with Saladin
4. Save&upload

Bugg and I have voted yes on the issue.

It could alter how we move forward by quite a bit I think. There's much to learn from these 3 moves.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Preset is ok with me.
I can't see any harm it could do, but there are possible advantages


@ Rice city's artist :
I can see your point about seizing the opportunity to pop borders while we are in caste. I'm not sure it is needed but, well, it would be safer and of little cost, granted. My point was mostly that there was only a little reward as well (1 tile) so...

@ Horse+Fish city :
Agreed, here we definitely want an artist first.

 

[Duckweed]

@kossin

About trade route

The test you ran was close to the actual situation but only 1 thing different and that made the result totally different. In the actually game the water tile in Saladin's culture is 1SW of the revealed tile and that's not considered as adjacent. While in your tested game, it's 1N. Only N,S,W,E are considered adjacent. My opinion was that city could be coastal so that we need to reveal the water tile to enable the trade route with at least that city. We adopted NSR and that's a clear decision of OB with anyone immediately. We should OB with him immediately and don't care about the demand from Justinian. We need all those oversea trade routes anyway.

About your plan

Your settling order makes me feel nervous. IMO the gold site oversea is the most important atm. If we don't hurry, there is high chance that Saladin will grab it. It has the food plus golds and is adjacent to Saladin's culture. AI will rate high on this site. I strongly prefer to whip a galley from Vij and send the settler to that site as soon as possible. This site is an absolute boost to everything including the net commerce income. Why don't we try to work on those gold as soon as possible? I have not looked at the save, but I guess Zara probably whipped his 3rd settler so that his 4th settler won't be ready for a while and the Fish/Horse site is not urgent and can be grabbed by the settler from Delhi.

Regarding your build in Delhi, I am not sure whether it's better to sacrify earlier settler and hammers to favor commerce. When a new city can pay for itself and get to work on improved tile, earlier settling makes good return like the snowball effect. Considering the safety and the actual gain from the new city, I think starting the settler at size 6 is better. I also prefer to work at the mine for faster ToA.

Are you sure that Izzy can see the cow tile? If her culture border is 3 tiles away, she can not see it. If this is the case, I think Bugg123's plan about moving the chariot to Vij is a right choice. We can send the warrior there and wait for her culture pop. If you are very sure in this case, I'm fine with the preset.

I don't think axe is necessary for escort for now. All the barbarians should enter Saladin's land atm.

It seems to me that you and dingding favor the cottages in Delhi much more than fast expanding. I has the same opinion when I play a deity game with average start since the cost of fast early expansion is high and the tech trade window is very narrow. However, when the economic situation allows, i.e. with strong commercial resources around and/or GLH available, the extreme expansion is the most efficient way to play the game even in deity. The earlier settling of the city, the faster the city starts to be profitable to empire. I'd suggest that you try to play BOTM29 of Inca to make a comparison. Even with a financial leader, my capital worked 0 cottage early on, but focused on wonders and whipping of settlers (it accumulated 6 whipping anger at certain point) to take the benefit of GLH. Without any bulb and golden age, I was able to complete Edu in 50BC with 13 cities and the free GA from Music as well.

@ Bugg123

Your overall plan looks pretty good to me except that you did not allow maximum overflow from settler to ToA, but that depends on how fast is Zara's next settler. I have no comment on the worker move, but I think kossin is pretty good with that.