Could you attack the barb galley with the trieme, so we will know whether we need to build a replacement?
Sure.
Why would we not want open borders with her? As we want to trade for a couple of techs with the AI speeding up her research would be a good thing.
Well, until Vicky meets others, she isn't going to be trading us techs, unless, say, Ragnar knows them, too, and then maybe only if Ragnar and the Unknown AI know them... so, there is a chance.
The possible downside to speeding-up AI Research is when any AI that chooses to go after Monarchy and/or Feudalism.
But sure, I'll Open Borders with Vicky.
I have never seen an AI amphibious force at this stage of the game with more than 2 galleys, so 2 centrally positioned triemes+scout should be OK for defense against Ragnar.
Where to amphibious attacks "form up"? The capital, if it is coastal? Anywhere? I've only ever seen Amphibious Assaults from AIs launched from a STACK of boats. Maybe it's worth sending the Work Boat Explorer right to the capital now, just to see if we see a stack of boats and how big it is?
If we don't see any, then I don't know what to think... either we're not the target or else the boats could be forming-up in a different City.
Is there any chance we could scout the north of iron island sometime in the near future?
Sure: I can move a Worker onto the Silk Resource.
If we did a 2 pop whip in gold city, would we still be at size 9 when we planned to make the big revolt?
I don't know and we don't have an accurately-updated test game, but let me fake this scenario using a test game.
A minor note about the screenshots:
So here's where we are now: 51/54 Food and about to grow into Unhappiness.
2-pop-whipping: If we were to avoid working the Gold square and avoid hiring Scientists, here's where we could be maximally Food-wise in 3 turns, the turn on which The Pyramids should be completed:
2-pop-whipping: If we were to work the Gold every turn, as well as Coast squares instead of Scientists, here's where we would be after 3 turns, at which point we will have The Pyramids built:
The difference is +4 Food for the first scenario versus +3 turns of working the Gold Resource (+9 Hammers and +21 Commerce) for the second scenario. The first scenario is only ahead by 4 Food instead of 6 Food because we "efficiently" regrow 2 population points in 2 turns in the first scenario, but then we are punished with 1 turn of "working" an Unhappy person.
Therefore, if we were to 2-pop-whip, the ideal Food-based scenario would be to work the Gold Resource for 1 turn, then stop working the Gold Resouce for 2 turns, so that we'd have the same final Food as the first scenario but with 1 extra turn of having worked a Gold Resource in place of having "worked" an Unhappy person.
1-pop-whipping: Now, let's compare things to the planned case, which has us growing into Unhappiness next turn and then 1-pop-whipping 2 turns later:
Thus, if we 2-pop-whip now and then work the Gold for 2 turn and stop working the Gold for 2 turns, on Turn 144, we will have:
35/54 Food (growth in 2 turns to Size 9)
1 turn of working the Gold
90 Hammers from whipping
If we do not 2-pop-whip now but instead wait for 2 turns and 1-pop-whip, then on Turn 144, we will have:
50/54 (growth in 1 turn to Size 9)
3 turns of working the Gold (an additional 6 Hammers and 14 Commerce)
45 Hammers from whipping
So, we'd lose out on 6 Hammers + 14 Commerce, but would gain a 45 Hammer whip, but would be behind on population growth.
How far behind would we be on population growth?
The 2-pop-whip scenario would take 2 turns to grow to Size 9
The 2-pop-whip scenario would take 3 turns to grow to Size 10
The 1-pop-whip scenario would take 1 turn to grow to Size 9
The 1-pop-whip scenario would take 3 turns to grow to Size 10
However, the 1-pop-whip scenario could reduce the growth to size 10 to 2 turns if we skipped working the Gold square for those 2 turns. The 2-pop-whip scenario cannot get this similar savings
We, however, seemed to be capped at 9 Health in Gold City. So, we'd probably only grow to Size 9, meaning a difference of 1 turn of growth.
That 1 turn of growth would mean 1 less turn of hiring 6 Scientists, in exchange for working 4 Coasts and 1 Gold for 1 turn, so:
8 Food + 3 Hammers + 15 Commerce
versus
36 Flasks + 36 Scientist GPP
As long as we're only growing to Size 9 in both scenarios (which we will be limited to, since we don't have 10 Healthiness in Gold City), then the difference in Food does not matter... otherwise, it can matter in terms of the 2-pop-whip scenario working the Gold more and the 1-pop-whip scenario working more turns of Scientists (but not quite as many, since the 1-pop-whip scenario would have a bit of extra overflow Food that would get "eaten up" at a deficit by additional turns of hiring 7 Scientists). Yet, this point is meaningless since we are unlikely to get +1 Health anytime soon (no one has offered up Resources for trading for a long time and no one has expanded to new Cities, so you have to assume that all AI Resources are hooked-up).
Thus, the 2-pop-whip gains us 42 Hammers and 1 Commerce, but loses us 36 Flasks and 36 Scientist GPP.
EDIT: I just saw Mitchum's message below... so... we might not actually "gain" the Flasks and Scientist GPP if we don't want to hire Scientists right away. In that case, then we're probably better off 2-pop-whipping since we are going to delay hiring Scientists for a couple of turns (apparently) anyway.
