SGOTM 23 - Xteam

[pigswill]

Two city alphabet line does indeed look promising depending on how quickly we can expand after T50.

One minor detail might be dumping 31 overflow hammers into worker T53 instead of granary, whip worker T54, slowbuild something (granary, archer, warrior) while regrowing into unhappiness then whip/chop another settler. If we're looking to have Paris as research central then we shouldn't be whipping it once we've got out settlers and workers so granary may not be so important (cue another flurry of posts re cost/benefit of granary).

What to do with early GS? Founding the Sorbonne (academy in Paris) is more obvious than bulbing maths, settling or saving for a better bulb. On the other hand this can probably wait a few turns until Paris has more base bulbs to multiply.

Other issues to consider: best use of worker after T42? Maybe consider pre-roading towards city#3 (west or north east), maybe improve horse after t50. How to use missionary after T50 border pop? Exploration? If we have sailing we can have coastal trade routes and maybe better trade routes with foreign cities to boost commerce.

The real game is still only at T17. SGOTM is unlike a standard monarch game so maybe play a few more turns to see what happens in the real game and if this will affect current plan.

edit (following crosspost). I did a couple of test runs on alphabet/expansion (eg post#348). Even though alphabet was delayed (t55-57) writing was still trade bait for pots, archery, sailing, mining, on some runs I had to put some beakers into BW to be able to trade it for writing (both 179 beakers).

 

[Dhoomstriker]

One minor detail might be dumping 31 overflow hammers into worker T53 instead of granary, whip worker T54

Without the Granary, I wouldn't want to whip away another population point off of a power square (which includes Scientists hired), but we could choose to slow-build the rest of that Worker. Or, dump the Hammers into a Granary but don't grow into Unhappiness by stagnating while building a Worker or a Settler.

Realistically, though, Granary + whipping is far stronger than slow-building Workers and Settlers, with your only handicapp being the Unhappiness, so in that situation, I'd consider spreading Christianity in Paris and switching to Christianity as our State Religion or perhaps hoping for Sailing in trade soon and Roading all of our unconnected Resources as another way to get Happiness (trading away a Health Resource that we don't need for a Happiness Resource from an AI). Basically, find a way to "cheat" the system by earning more Happiness so that getting a Granary and regrowing WILL produce better results. Without that extra Happiness, then yes, being at our Happiness cap and building a Granary makes less sense.

Another way to do things if we can't drum up more Happiness is not to 1-pop-whip our Granary but to dump 31 Hammers into it, put 20 or so Hammers into a Worker while stagnating growth, 2-pop-whip the Worker (earning another turn worth of Food + Hammers converting into overflow Hammers), then complete the Granary with overflow Hammers from the Worker, thereby giving time for some Whipping Unhappiness to wear off while also doing a 2-pop-whipping action, giving you more efficiency on the limited Happiness that you have to work with by 2-pop-whipping instead of 1-pop-whipping while not growing when the Granary isn't in place (due to stagnating while building that partial Worker).

slowbuild something (granary, archer, warrior) while regrowing into unhappiness then whip/chop another settler.

That's the inefficiency that we want to avoid, if possible. Ideally, we should do our planning around trying to get the Granary built (using 3 Chops, Whip overflow, or a combination thereof) before we grow another City Size, and I think that we have enough options that we can meet the ideal case in a couple of different ways such that it's not an unattainable ideal.

If we're looking to have Paris as research central then we shouldn't be whipping it once we've got out settlers and workers so granary may not be so important (cue another flurry of posts re cost/benefit of granary).

Think about the bigger picture. We want to find a way to cheat the Happiness system... trading for Resources, racing to capture The Pyramids using a stack of Horse Archers for one of Hereditary Rule or Representation, using Religion for extra Happiness, settling a junk City on top of that Gems square, racing to early Calendar and settling on Spice Girls Island, or any other trick that we can come up with to increase Paris' Happiness so that we can grow into working more squares there, particularly G Riv Cottages.

What to do with early GS?

Hands down would be an Academy.

If we don't want an Academy, we shouldn't be generating a Great Scientist that early at the cost of short term expansion and should instead heavily focus on REX, then build Libraries in several Cities, and aim to generate Great Scientists concurrently in multiple Cities at once.

We chose a capital that is heavy with G Riv squares instead of a coastal capital, so I think that we've already implicitly made the decision to get an early Academy. Even without Civil Service, an Academy will make a big impact in Paris.

We have all sorts of tactics available to us for earning Gold... whip Warriors for Military Police Units or Scouts for gifting to AIs (to earn near-infinite XP from Catapults, since Catapults can't kill Scouts but will retreat 99.99% of the time for 1 XP per turn per Catapult + AI Scout combination) possibly combined with Math-enhanced Forest Chops to earn excess overflow Gold, Failure Gold from building Stone Wonders in multiple Cities (Moai being an obvious choice for the medium term), spreading Christianity and then building excess Missionaries for Missionary Failure Gold (if you have Hammers invested in Missionaries in several Cities when you already have 2 Missionaries and then you complete your 3rd Missionary and wait a turn, all of the Hammers invested in Missionaries--of the same Religion--will get converted into Gold, giving you a way to convert an average of 15 Food into 30 Gold via Granary Whipping), lump-sum Gold trades or Resource for Gold per Turn Trades after Currency, Wealth after Currency, etc... so, we can keep a high Science Rate in the medium term and then onward for the rest of the game... with an Academy therefore giving us a decent amount of our total Research:
4 Flasks from the Palace
2 Flasks from the Fur
1 Flask from the Wheat + the City Centre
1 Flask per Foreign Trade Route
1 Flask per G Riv Cottage worked (and more once the Cottages start to mature)
(Add another 50% more Flasks later after learning Civil Service and running Bureaucracy)

Other issues to consider: best use of worker after T42?

You have come up with some good ideas. We won't know for certain until after we've found out if we can steal a Worker (or two) or zero. Having extra Worker actions from stolen Workers will give us more options, allowing us to do multiple of the things that you mentioned.

How to use missionary after T50 border pop? Exploration?

I'm going to rule out exploration right now. We don't even know for sure if there is a Christian Holy City out there. The map might therefore not give us the chance to earn Christianity from natural spread. If we don't end up needing it for a Cultural Border expansion in a City, its fall-back usage is in Paris, whether for Whipping a Temple later or for picking a State Religion, either way being for Happiness and then eventually for use with Organized Religion.

SGOTM is unlike a standard monarch game so maybe play a few more turns

We can't. An Alphabet-beeline-using-a-Library approach requires us picking Writing first. A Slavery + Granary beeline requires us picking a different tech first (almost certainly Fishing). That's why we need to make the decision now.

I did a couple of test runs on alphabet/expansion (eg post#348). Even though alphabet was delayed (t55-57) writing was still trade bait for pots, archery, sailing, mining, on some runs I had to put some beakers into BW to be able to trade it for writing (both 179 beakers).

How did you feel about it overall when compared against the production-oriented approach (Slavery + Granary early)? How about when compared to an Alphabet-beeline with a Library in the capital and an early start on our Academy?


My favourite part of testing is optimizing a certain approach. I'm not very good at playing a ton of different approaches as I feel that I'm not giving an approach a fair chance if I don't optimize it as much as I can, but doing so takes a long time, so I don't end up having time to perform a lot of different approaches.


The part that I struggle with the most is that we don't have good Commerce locations to REX into--if we had, say, 3 or 4 Cities that could each get an extra Commerce Resource, then REXing first and getting Commerce later could work. If we had a way to get Slavery + Granaries + Sailing + Masonry via self-teching reasonably quickly (i.e. if we had a Gold Resource nearby), then REX + The Great Lighthouse would be a very strong play. So, I see ourselves struggling a bit with the production approach in a non-Immortal-Level game, as we can't count on multiple AIs to get to Alphabet early, making it hard for us to get techs such as Sailing and Masonry without self-teching Alphabet or else just spending a long time researching older techs.

I don't think that the team who makes it to Alphabet first will win this game. But, the team who makes it to Currency first will pull that team far ahead of the other teams, and an Alphabet beeline is one way to get there, since in BtS, Alphabet leads directly to Currency (not so in Vanilla where Alphabet leads to Literature).

So, I do find the Turn-50-Alphabet approach very compelling if our alternative is Turn-45-Slavery-plus-Granaries, and I'd probably pick the Turn-50-Alphabet approach in my own game, as for me, it's a game about hitting certain key milestones by certain numbers of Turns, and having the ability to get all of the early-game techs that we want by around Turn 51, with the freedom to then tech "bigger techs" (Currency then Horseback Riding would probably be my choice of tech order) is strong. But it's a team game, so I'd like to hear what other players think and if there's one of the other 3 main options that people would like to see if we can optimize, then let me know and I can try. Or, if a majority like the pure-Alphabet-beeline approach, I can go back and document my micro.

I think that we have these main options:
1. Settle west and go for Fishing, Bronze Working, and Pottery (Jersey Joe tried it in Message #357)
2. Settle south-east and go for a super-early Library plus beelining Alphabet to get it on Turn 50 (Dhoomstriker tried it with Turn 50 comparison data in Message #358 and with Turn 55 comparison data in Message #364)
3. Settle south-east and go for Fishing, Bronze Working, and Pottery
4. Settle south-east and go for more Settlers/Workers without a Library and without an early Great Scientist but getting Alphabet on Turn 55 (pigswill tried it in Message #363 with the screenshot and details show in Message #364)
5. EDIT: Settle west and go for a super-early Library plus beelining Alphabet to get it on Turn 52 (Dhoomstriker tried it in Message #365)

 

[pigswill]

An example of combining alphabet beeline with expansion. T55 alphabet.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Nice job, pigswill! Thanks a bunch! I'll play my existing testing run forward a few more turns.

Okay, doing some comparisons:
With the Alpha Turn 55 approach:
4 Cities
2 Workers
31 Hammers in Paris' Library (could 2-pop-whip it on Turn 57--two rounds of trading + 1 turn of Anarchy)
22 Hammers in City 2's Worker
City 3 just finished its Work Boat
City 4 12 Hammers in its Work Boat
Tech: Just finished Alphabet barely (nice job) with what looks like 0 overflow Flasks, but we did have 7 Gold leftover

Spoiler :

With the Alpha Turn 50 approach:
3 Cities
1 Worker (another one will be 2-pop-whipped this turn)
Paris' Library has been completed
31 Hammers in Paris' Granary (will get completed next turn with overflow Hammers from the Worker)
42 / 100 Great People Points (GPP) in our first Great Scientist--10 turns to go with 2 Scientists hired, but I'd suggest delaying that a bit in order to whip out a Worker and overflow into our Granary, then regrow efficiently and re-hire the Scientists
City 2 just 1-pop-whipped its Granary with help from a Forest Chop (62 / 60 Hammers)
City 2 has 10 Hammers in something (I put it in a Library but it could be a Warrior)
City 3 was just settled
We've already revolted into Slavery
Paris' first whipping action's Unhappiness will wear off in 7 turns
Tech: We've got 170 Flasks in Currency, but we might instead just accumulate Gold until we get our Academy and then power through the techs

Spoiler :

 

[Dhoomstriker]

What about a 5th approach? The City to the south-east lacks a third square to improve, at least given our tech path.

So, settle City 2 to the west.

Granted, with only 1 Worker, I was only just able to improve the 3rd Resource (the Horse) for City 2 as of Turn 54 (it could have been 1 turn sooner without Roading one of the western Cow or the Deer, due to when our Culture expanded over the Horse Resource). We still went for a Library in Paris, having 88 / 90 Hammers in it on Turn 46, 1800 BC.

But, being able to work a second Cow instead of a second Fur only slowed Alphabet to Turn 52, while allowing us to self-build Library -> Settler (without Whipping) in Paris by Turn 55 and building Work Boat -> dump 2 turns worth of Hammers into a Library -> Settler by Turn 55 in City 2.

So, we have a Size 8 Paris, a Size 3 City 2, and 2 Settlers as of Turn 55.

We have 118 Flasks in Currency. We didn't emphasize Commerce as much, but details such as only having 1 Gold in Maintenance for City 2 (until our population points grew and Maintenance increased to 2 Gold) and being able to grow City 2 to Size 2 faster helped out.

Meanwhile, we have the same GPP in Paris as the Turn-50-Alphabet approach (actually, it's 48 GPP, but we haven't taken 1 turn of Anarchy for Slavery yet, so essentially the same after 1 turn of Anarchy). But, this time, we don't have to whip our Settler out of Paris, allowing us to 2-pop-whip a Granary without needing to ever fire our Scientists, so we'll get our Great Scientist faster.

We're also ahead in production relative to the Turn-50-Alphabet approach, or at least it can be said that our production was put to good use.

Not needing Slavery so soon allows us to Revolt AFTER our Settler 3 and Settler 4 have been built, allowing them to move for 1 extra turn during Anarchy.

Paris has 10 overflow Hammers coming in
We have 6 Hammers in City 2's Library with 12 overflow Hammers coming in

If we don't really need Slavery until 1 turn after we learn Alphabet by learning Alphabet on Turn 52, then the delay in Alphabet is justifiable. Perhaps we've found the compromise solution that gets us the techs that we want while also not sacrificing too much on early production.

Spoiler :

(I also World-Built in a Swordsman into Paris in this test run. The signs in the picture are also wrong, as they indicate what I had planned to do until I said "why not simply try settling to the west to see how it works out?")

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I don't have much time for playing a turnset, especially after doing a lot of intensive testing. So, hopefully, someone can volunteer to pick things up from here. I don't mind even if we see a duplicate player (pigswill?) pick up the torch for a bit.

I believe that the latest testing run will satisfy everybody with a decent Alphabet date, a start on a Great Scientist, and decent production, so I'm assuming that we'll be playing with it.


Suggested PPP
Goals:
1. Tech Writing next
2. Grow to Size 3 while building Warrior 2 -> Settler 2
3. Warrior 2 tries to get into a position next to a Resource (or at least a GH non-Forest square like in the test game) where we could steal a Worker from Germany. Stop play if we find such a spot, so that we can discuss how best to approach a possible Working-stealing operation. Also, stop play if we find that we are blocked off from getting to Berlin's southern area by a solid wall of Peaks, so that we can discuss what to do with Warrior 1.
4. If Warrior 1 gets wounded, take the time to heal, as we'd rather not lose Warrior 1, if possible
5. Try not to meet additional AIs for as long as possible
6. Keep spawn-busting with the Missionary and the Scout
7. Warrior 2 Moves to the south-west toward the Green AI


Turn 17, 3320 BC
Tech Writing
Warrior 1 Moves 1 S GH For (to see 2 more squares of Berlin's big fat cross)

Turn 18, 3280 BC
Worker 1 Moves to the Fur (2 W of Paris)
Warrior 1 Circles around the Peaks as tightly as possible, trying to get to Berlin's southern side. Stop play on a future turn if we find that we are completely blocked by Peaks

Turn 19, 3240 BC
Paris is at Size 2. Let the City Governor automatically choose to work Corn + Deer
Worker 1 Camps the Fur (2 W of Paris)

Turn 22, 3120 BC
Paris Builds Warrior 2 -> Settler 2
Paris is at Size 3, so let the City Governor automatically choose to work Corn, Deer, and Fur
Warrior 2 can head south-west toward the Green AI

Turn 23, 3080 BC
Worker 1 moves to the G Riv that is 1 N of Paris

Turn 24, 3040 BC
Worker 1 Moves 1 NE G Cow and Pastures
Leave at least 1 unit with movement points available and stop on this turn to assess the situation, if we haven't stopped already due to finding a potential Worker-stealing spot at Germany.

That approach will bring us far enough forward where we haven't yet met the Green AI (unless the Green AI first comes looking for us) and will let us know whether we have a shot at stealing a Worker from Germany or not.

 

[pigswill]

I think its pretty clear that alphabet and backfill is better than researching a tech at a time because there's plenty for workers to do with agric, hunting, AH and wheel and enough to get our initial expansion going.

DS favours emphasis on research with slightly later expansion, I favour combining research with expansion. We probably won't agree fully on this. What do the rest of the team think?

edit:another approach we haven't really tested is going for Glight.

 

[Folket]

In general I prefer expansion and teching later.

 

[Folket]

I will need to run a second game later. Right now I think the first game look better. Also planing for more cities make sense as we might also be able to steal workers.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I thought that we had already hit upon an approach that did a good job with production while also emphasizing our Science needs with our Option 5, but maybe it's harder to see when just looking at screenshots.

So, let's do some relative comparisons of the math. There are some factors which need to be weighed subjectively, such as having the AIs go for Math sooner by feeding them Writing sooner and getting more trading value out of our existing techs by trading a few turns sooner, but let's take a look at the raw numbers for now to see where they get us.

Option 4. Alphabet rush without a Library
Turn 55, 1800 BC
Food
Paris Size 6 with 2 Food = 22 + 24 + 26 + 28 + 30 + 2 = 132
City 2 Size 3 with 11 Food = 22 + 24 + 11 = 57
City 3 Size 2 with 12 Food = 22 + 12 = 34
City 4 Size 1 with 16 Food = 16
Total = 132 + 57 + 34 + 16 = 239 F

Hammers
Paris Library = 31 H
City 2 Worker = 22 H
City 3 overflow = 3 H
City 4 Work Boat = 12 H
3 Settlers built
2 Workers built
2 Work Boats built
2 Warriors built
Total = 31 + 22 + 3 + 12 + 3 * 100 + 2 * 60 + 2 * 30 + 2 * 15 = 578 H

Commerce
Flasks = 0 overflow Flasks (hit End Turn at a 0% Science Rate and see how many more Flasks we earn in Currency above our default 1 Flask per turn)
Gold = 7
Total Flasks/Gold = 7

Potential Foreign Trade Routes = Turn 55
Earliest possible Great Scientist = Turn 76 without efficient Granary regrowth, or Turn 79 with efficient Granary regrowth


Option 5. Alphabet rush with a Library
Turn 55, 1800 BC
Food
Paris Size 8 with 2 Food = 22 + 24 + 26 + 28 + 30 + 32 + 34 + 2 = 198
City 2 Size 3 with 2 Food = 22 + 24 + 2 = 48
Total = 198 + 48 = 246 F

Hammers
Paris' Library = 90
Paris' overflow = 10 H
City 2's Library = 6 H
City 2's overflow = 12 H
3 Settlers built
1 Worker built
1 Work Boat built
1 Warrior built
Total = 90 + 10 + 6 + 12 + 3 * 100 + 1 * 60 + 1 * 30 + 1 * 15 = 523 H

Commerce
118 Flasks in Currency
1 Gold
Total Flasks/Gold = 118 + 1 = 119

Potential Foreign Trade Routes = Turn 52
Will get a Great Scientist on = Turn 65


Differentials
Option 4 relative to Option 5:
239 F - 246 F = - 7 Food
578 H - 523 H = + 55 Hammers
7 Flasks/Gold - 119 Flasks/Gold = - 112 Flasks/Gold
0 GPP - 48 GPP = - 48 GPP

The big convincing point for me is getting our Academy on Turn 65 while only being less than the cost of a Worker behind in production.

If we want to "spend" our Missionary in City 2 for a City 2 that gets settled to the west, we can earn additional production (and Commerce) in the short term from improving the Horse Resource sooner. I didn't use our Missionary, though, as we'll probably prefer to use it in a City that gets settled to the north-east.

 

[pigswill]

Its also worth considering tiles improved because that indicates how quickly we can continue growing and researching (and how soon we can use workers for other stuff like chopping and cottages).
Option 4: 2 cows, deer, wheat, 2 fur, 2 fish, horse, 6 roads.
Option 5: 1 cow, deer, wheat, 2 fur, fish, 1 road.
Differential: Option 4 +1 cow, +1 fish, horse, +5 roads.

I think its not about how soon we can research key techs (eg currency, HbR, CoL) its how soon we can convert these into a decent size empire. I think that the key date is the date we have currency, CoL 10 HAs and 30 hammers/turn devoted to military production.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Are you teching Fishing > Writing > Alphabet? I know it might be somewhere in the last few pages, but I did not see it on a quick review.

Also, after learning writing are you accepting requests for open borders?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Differential: Option 4 +1 cow, +1 fish, horse, +5 roads.

Just to clarify, we were already working the improved Horse in Option 5, whereas with Option 4, we'd improved it but weren't working it yet.

Where is the +1 Cow? Paris is still working its Cow and City 2 is working its Cow.

So, yes, we have +1 Fish Resource.

But, we also have -2 Scientists.

We might not even need the Roads if we can get Sailing in trade relatively early on, since every City besides Paris is planned as being coastal.


One thing that we can compensate for by stealing Workers is Worker actions, including a whole extra Chopping cycle by getting Bronze Working 3 turn sooner. What we can't compensate for are GPP, which means delaying when we go to 100% Science or losing efficiency on our way to Currency and/or Horseback Riding.

I agree that if it were just raw Commerce against raw production, it would be a closer race, but getting the Library and GPP early is the strength of going Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> Writing (-> Fishing -> Alphabet).

Yes, it would be nice if we could whip a Library, but doing so takes too long via self-teching, while slow-building it gives us early efficiency on our Commerce and the GPP.


Getting our Academy sooner bring us to Currency + Horseback Riding sooner, and once we can start Whipping Horse Archers, we can get our army on the roll, earning an extra AI City at a time.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Also, after learning writing are you accepting requests for open borders?

No, to be as fair as possible. I didn't want to accidentally get a Foreign Trade Route and have it offset the results. But, in the real game we may be able to do so. If we are able to get Sailing in trade, then sure, let's Open Borders for Foreign Trade Routes.

Or, in the real game, Open Borders really early for the additional +1 Diplo Attitude per 25 turns of continuous Open Borders (up to a max of +2 Diplo Attitude after 50 turns).

Are you teching Fishing > Writing > Alphabet?

Options 2 and 5 call for teching Writing > Fishing > Alphabet. That way, we can immediately start building Paris' Library after Settler 2 has been completed. Options where we aren't going for an early Library will probably grab Fishing first, which may or may not speed up when we start on our first Work Boat by 1 turn. If it turns out that we don't need Fishing that early, we could just proceed with Writing first, so that we'd be able to start Opening Borders sooner, but I believe that by settling south-east and not building a Library, we were wanting Fishing 1 turn sooner than we could get it by researching Writing first.


I wonder if there was confusion, where it was believed that I was still talking about Option 2, which is where we settle City 2 to the south-east and only have Settler 3. I've already given up on Option 2 in favour of Option 5, as Option 5 gives us more production while still getting us our Great Scientist at the same time as Option 2.

Option 5 is with settling to the west while building our Library, so yes we are short 1 Camped Fur Resource and are short 1 netted Work Boat, but we are up one worked G Horse Pasture and are up 2 hired Scientists. But, with even just 1 stolen Worker, we can pre-Chop that Work Boat plus part of a Granary by having Bronze Working sooner. If we cannot steal a Worker, Paris could 2-pop-whip a Worker to overflow into a Granary.

Please take a look again, as what I am suggesting is settling City 2 to the west (the more production-oriented City which can grow faster thanks to working the second Cow instead of a Fur) while getting a Library in Paris for the earlier Horse Resource within our Cultural Borders, the more efficient use of our Commerce, and the GPP. As I showed, we get Settler 3 and Settler 4 on Turn 55, then we can slip into Anarchy while they head toward their respective settling locations, and we can plan for 2 Chops to start off the Fur City's Work Boat so that the City will not have to slow-build the Work Boat, will not have to slow-grow on the Fur, and will buy us time where we don't need the Fur improved as we'll be working a netted Fish, instead.

We've got to do something slowly, and I think that building the Library slowly to unlock 2 Scientist Specialists is a preferable option to building City 3 earlier just to slowly grow that City first on an unimproved Fur and then an improved Fur. If we think about it, with well-timed Chops, settling to the south-east after knowing Bronze Working means only 1 turn of working the unimproved Fur (it takes 1 turn for those 40 Hammers to turn into a Work Boat), then we work the netted Fish at 5 Food per turn for 4 turns for a total of 22 Food after 5 turns, growing the City in a total of 5 turns, buying us time to Camp the Fur for when the City hits Size 2. That's in comparison to at least 3 turns of working the unimproved Fur and then spending another 8 turns to grow while working the Camped Fur for a total of 11 turns to grow, and still not having the Work Boat for another 2 more turns. THAT's the power of Bronze Working... 5 turns to be working 2 improved squares instead of 13 turns to be working 2 improved squares.

Now, if we had Fish, Fur, and Gold to improve and work in the south-east City, I'd see how we'd want to get the south-east City up sooner, as then it would be a race to get that Gold Resource improved. But, that was my point earlier--we don't have a ton of Commerce Resources to REX into, and we're stuck waiting on Alphabet before we can start on The Great Lighthouse, so an early Great Scientist looks far more attractive. If we had more Commerce Resources to expand into then sure, we'd REX and forget the early Library, but we don't have those extra Commerce Resources... there's a Gems Resource, but it's in an awkward location that looks like it would need both a Cultural Border expansion and a Galley just to improve it, making it already not count as an early-game Commerce Resource.

If the argument is that by settling the south-east City earlier, we get more Food or more Commerce overall, then the mathematics show differently, partially because of the increased Maintenance Cost of settling extra Cities earlier and partially because we're growing Paris while building a Library, then later building Settler 3 once we make more Food/Hammers per turn by being at a larger City Size in Paris, making Settler 3 take less turns to complete, which means more turns where Paris' Food is going toward growing the City and less turns where its Food is stuck being turned into Hammers at an inefficient ratio of 1 F : 1 H.

 

[Jersey Joe]

We don't even know for sure if there is a Christian Holy City out there.

We do know that holy cities exist. If a Holy city did not exist it would show as "none" not "unknown" on the religion screen.

 

[Jersey Joe]

Option 5. Alphabet rush with a Library
Turn 55, 1800 BC
Food
Paris Size 8 with 2 Food = 22 + 24 + 26 + 28 + 30 + 32 + 34 + 2 = 198
City 2 Size 3 with 2 Food = 22 + 24 + 2 = 48
Total = 198 + 48 = 246 F

Hammers
Paris' Library = 90
Paris' overflow = 10 H
City 2's Library = 6 H
City 2's overflow = 12 H
3 Settlers built
1 Worker built
1 Work Boat built
1 Warrior built
Total = 90 + 10 + 6 + 12 + 3 * 100 + 1 * 60 + 1 * 30 + 1 * 15 = 523 H

Commerce
118 Flasks in Currency
1 Gold
Total Flasks/Gold = 118 + 1 = 119

Potential Foreign Trade Routes = Turn 52
Will get a Great Scientist on = Turn 65


Differentials
Option 4 relative to Option 5:
239 F - 246 F = - 7 Food
578 H - 523 H = + 55 Hammers
7 Flasks/Gold - 119 Flasks/Gold = - 112 Flasks/Gold
0 GPP - 48 GPP = - 48 GPP

The big convincing point for me is getting our Academy on Turn 65 while only being less than the cost of a Worker behind in production.

If we want to "spend" our Missionary in City 2 for a City 2 that gets settled to the west, we can earn additional production (and Commerce) in the short term from improving the Horse Resource sooner. I didn't use our Missionary, though, as we'll probably prefer to use it in a City that gets settled to the north-east.

I did a test of settling West out to turn 51 when I learned Alphabet. Projecting out to turn 55 (1800BC) my results are similar to yours. Paris built a library on turn 46 and started working 2 scientists then. Paris will get a GS on turn 63. Settler 3 will be built by then and the horses will be pastured and roaded.

 

[pigswill]

I still think that production will be more of a bottleneck than research but its time to actually play the game and see how it turns out. Option 5 has a green light from me.

 

[Cactus Pete]

There's more in the thread than I have time to analyze right now, so I'm green with whatever the players who have been studying and testing this agree on.

Urge one of the three who've have been immersed to play some turns. (Sure would like to explore around the Portuguese city.)

 

[pigswill]

I'm a bit occupied with RL at the moment so I'd prefer someone else to play the next set.

 

[Jersey Joe]

I will play some turns. I will post a option 5 ppp for tweaking.