Regarding the next Great Person, we'll finish the Pyramids before we have our next GP by several turns. So if you're going to push for revolting to Police State on the turn the 'Mids are completed, it's going to come with anarchy no matter what we do in Prague. I'm inclined to delay the GP by 2 turns personally. Jastrow wasn't wanting to "waste" the GP on a Golden Age this early anyway, so maybe we should just bite the bullet and revolt to PS on the turn the Mids are in and we've learned HBR...
It was my impression that he wanted to run Representation, which would mean Great Person ASAP, switch to Representation at the start of the Golden Age, and then switch to Police State at the end of the Golden Age.
That said, you're probably right that we should just switch into Police State ASAP, as we really need to get the war going, both in terms of stealing Mansa's Cities and his Workers. Also, then being prepared to potentially go for another quick war would be great and failing that, we'd only need 1 more tech (Construction) to be able to pump out enough units to fight against Longbowmen.
Worst case, we can't reach an AI to the south but we should at least be able to reach the Barb City in the west... there isn't a full wall of Peaks over there, which is something that I discovered when setting up the test game since we'd have "seen" the Peaks from further away if they existed there, so there is definitely room to move about and the Barb City can't have a unit stronger than a Longbowman/Crossbowman anyway, plus the only (currently visible) way to get to that City is to capture Mansa's land.
I'll build a LH in Fish. There are land tiles to work (we're building a cottage on a plains square there per your suggestion) and some of them are riverside Grass shared with Rice if I remember correctly but they require IW...
Just to clarify, if we're working land squares, as you are suggesting that we can, we'd build the Granary before the Lighthouse.
Other than the GP issue in Prague, it looks like we're on the same page. Keep in mind that working the cottages likely speeds up HBR by a turn... plus we'll most likely be revolting to PS sans a Golden Age should we want to do it ASAP.
Okay, sure, then let's make it the plan to go for Police State as soon as we get Horseback Riding (we can obviously leave the Civic Revolting action to the start of the next turnset, to allow us to change our minds).
As for the Worker actions... I don't think that it is a fair assumption to make to say that we have a lot of them. We really are talking about a difference of 1 Food in total, not 1 Food per turn, since NE City will hire 2 Scientists one turn later.
The whole point of building a Road and not a Farm on the Grassland square 1W of NE City was to be able to gain Worker turns elsewhere... those gained Worker turns, for example, mean a faster Camped G Ivory For square, and all future Worker actions happening 1 turn sooner, such as the wet G Banana getting Farmed.
Further, it is at least Jastrow's hope that we'll get Alphabet at any time in trade. If that happens, Worker turns will be our most valuable Resource, as getting those Pig, Gems, and Silver Resources up-and-running will become critical actions.
Thus, I think that it still makes sense for Worker 3 to Chop, Road, then move to the G Ivory For and Road it, allowing any Worker who builds a partial Farm on the Grassland square 1W of NE City to be able to move to the G Ivory For square and put in a turn of Camping that square for free.
Thinking about it further, some of the "free" Worker actions may just translate into having a Road 1W of NE City, but better that than losing Worker turns in total.
Remember that NE City doesn't have to build a Library on Turn 76 to "catch" Chopped Hammers into a Library, as those Hammers can be parked into a Wealth build. Your PPP had us building Wealth, but I'm just confirming this fact for you.
Finally, I played it out a bit... on Turn 78, when we Chop the last 2 Forests into the Library, we will have a Pastured Pig and a GH Mine to work at Size 2.
On Turn 79, 350 AD, we will be at Size 3 and will own a Library, so we can hire 2 Scientists immediately. Thus, there's no rush on getting a G Farm 1W of NE City.
If we later want to fire some Scientists after we've had time to complete the Grassland Farm 1W of NE City, we can do so, but there's no need to rush to complete it now.
Besides, I do have a concern that we aren't prioritising sending our Workers southward.
I'd prefer to put a higher priority on Farming the wet G Banana at Ivory City than I would on Camping the Ivory for NE City.
We also need to make sure that a Worker moves from Camping the G Ivory For that is NW + N of Ivory City to the G For that is 4W of Ivory City (NE + N of the GH Banana Mine), as Chopping that Forest will speed up The Pyramids. This movement can happen within the span of 1 turn if we first have Worker 3 Roading the G Ivory For square.
I don't see the need to save this Forest to build additional Wonders, and even if we do want to build MoM or something later, we can just use the Forests that are in Djenne's Cultural Borders to do so.
As for Worker 5, I thought about it some more... I'm not exactly sure if we have enough Worker turns to do so before completing The Pyramids, but we could potentially do something like:
Worker 5 (near Prague): finish cottage at Aachen-W -> partial farm at Aachen-NE+NE ->
partial Farm at Ivory City-SW+S -> Farm the wet G Banana (or at least help to Farm it) -> chop forest at Aachen-4E into Pyramids...
I'm not sure that we really need a Road on that GH square, though... I guess that if we still haven't gotten Iron Working in trade by then, you can build a Road there, as we'll want a Road there eventually, but it's a very low priority for a Worker action and I'd skip building the GH Road at this point if there's anything else useful that our Worker could do elsewhere.
Mitchum said:
Worker 1 (near NE): Mine at NE-E -> road mine at NE-E (to speed up getting to forest at NE-2E or in case there is iron on that tile) -> move to ivory resource at Ivory City-N+NW and road -> camp NEs ivory at NE-S+SW just as borders pop
It seems that we have 5 Worker turns to use up with this Worker before we can start Camping NE City's Ivory.
1 of those Worker actions can be completing the Grassland Farm 1W of NE City.
If you count Roading the GH Mine at NE-E, that leaves two Worker actions.
After Worker 3 Roads NE-W and Roads the G Ivory For square, Workers 2 and 6, who have partially Farmed NE-W can move to the G Ivory For and Camp it for 2 turns, leaving Worker 3 to go elsewhere (heading toward the wet G Banana, for example, by partially Farming along the way (Farm at Ivory City-E, Farm at Ivory City-S, then Farming the wet G Banana).
But, that still leaves Worker 1 with four Worker actions to use up.
You did mention Roading NE-E, but it might be better to simply use Worker 1 to Mine NE-E then finish off the Grassland Farm at NE-W, which allows us to get the G Ivory For connected quickly and also allows us to temporarily fire the 2 Scientists sooner to work the G Farm and the GH Mine to be able to grow to Size 4 then rehire the 2 Scientists while working the G Farm while we wait for the G Ivory to come online.
I'm not sure what to recommend here and it depends upon how soon we might want that NE-W Farm completed. I've run out of time to check when we'd ideally want it completed.
Ideas for what to do with Worker 1's other turns include:
i. Roading the GH For at NE-2E, although I'm not sure that's totally useful
ii. partially Farming the G at NE-NW (although we will have to lose 1 Worker turn to get to the G Ivory, unless we delay completing the NE-W Farm until right before needing to move to the G Ivory, but we probably want the Farm at NE-W online sooner than that)
iii. partially Chopping the G For at NE-NW+W
iv. Roading the G Jungle that is at NE-S... actually, this option might work out okay, as it lets us get to the GH For at NE-2E after Camping the Ivory... so, maybe something like:
Worker 1 (near NE): Mine at NE-E -> finish the G Farm at NE-W, which we can do without losing a Worker action thanks to Worker 3 having Roaded that square (and have NE City use that Farm and GH Mine to grow to Size 4) -> partially Farm at NE-NW for 1 turn (or 2 turns if my math is off, but I think only 1 turn) -> move to the G Jungle at NE-S and Road it -> Camp the G Ivory at NE-SW+S -> use the fact that we have a Road at NE-S to be able to get to the GH For at NE-2E within the span of 1 turn -> Chop then Mine that square (that's assuming that we don't have Iron Working yet, otherwise we can leave that Forest for later)
I wonder if us attacking him put him on the Monarchy -> Feudalism path?
