Pre-Math Forest-culling
Regardless of where we settle, I still think that it can be a very strong play to improve a Food Resource -> Copper -> At Size 2 build a Worker -> Chop into that Worker -> have one Worker keep Chopping while the other Worker improves Resources -> only need to 1-pop-whip or 0-pop-whip the Granary.
What bugs me about 2-pop-whipping the Granary is that we:
i. Inefficiently grow without a Granary to Size 4
ii. Must continue to build a non-Settler build item in order to make use of the early Granary
iii. Aren't working improved Resource squares after whipping
If we're looking more at a 1-pop-whipping approach now, then we could alternatively try to make it a 0-pop-whipping action or we could just be happy about getting the extra Worker turns. There's no doubt that stealing Workers helps your empire... that's partly because of the extra Worker turns... if we don't expect our neighbours to be nearby, then building our own Workers early is a good alternative.
Flood Plains squares
1. Here is one basic principle:
If you have infinite Worker turns and a fixed Happiness cap, it makes sense to have 100% Farms, grow to your Happiness cap (or perhaps 1 Size below there if, while working Cottages, you still have some net growth), then convert all Farms to Cottages.
2. Here is another basic principle:
Focus your improvements. A simple example. You have 1 FP and 1 G Riv square. One will get a Cottage and one will get a Farm. Which should get which?
Well, if you are in the whipping game (and we certainly will be), it makes sense to focus the Food one one square. That way, when your City is small in Size after having whipped, you can regrow the City quickly by working only a few squares. If all of your "extra Food" (more than 2 Food per square) is spread out across multiple squares and you don't have enough population points to work all of those squares, you'll regrow more slowly.
So, Farm the FP and regrow faster, then Cottage the G Riv square and you will, when your City is large enough to work both squares, still get a Town, but during your whipping cycles, you'll regrow faster, meaning working more squares overall as time passes.
People often Cottage a large swath of FPs because Happiness and Healthiness tend to be limiting factors. Take away the Happiness limit and it still makes sense (given infinite Worker turns) to Farm the FPs and grow on them, then Cottage them later.
We don't have infinite Worker turns, and it usually takes longer to expand our Happiness cap than it takes to grow into a Happiness cap of FP Cottages, which is why Cottaging a stack of FPs usually works out well.
However, for a one-off FP, it's going to be better to Farm it... and, if we really want a Cottage, we Cottage a G Riv square.
Fog-gazing
Sorry, I wasn't clear... do we think that the 3 hidden squares that settling 2S would give us contain Hills? If yes, are they G Hills or P Hills?
I'd like to list out another comparison between two settling locations (SIP And 2S), since I don't seem to have made that comparison yet, but it would be nice to incorporate info on whatever fog-gazing has told us about those hidden squares.
never farm floodplains.
(EDIT: I'm not 100% sure about the math here... I guess it depends upon the exact bonus to Settler production... is it +100% or +50%?)
