Sorry for the lengthy answers, but I'm trying to put together the reasoning for the suggestions that I'll later put forth in a PPP.
Looked at save and follow most of the plan already proposed. Not sure what "enabling" the horses means
When two Cities share a square, only one of those Cities can work that square. Of course, not every square that a City can work does get worked, which will always be true when Cities are smaller than Size 20. So, when two or more Cities share a square, only one City has that square as "visible" aka "not covered by fog" aka "enabled."
Jersey Joe has said that for the London-building-a-Courthouse-micro to work, he wants London to "steal" the Horse from York, and doing so will require going into London and clicking on the Horse square once to "enable" the Horse for London's use, then clicking again on the Horse square to actually have a citizen get assigned to working the Horse square.
Do you have preferred terminology? I think that we've been saying "steal the Horse from York" reasonably consistently.
what all the proposed settlers are needed for.
We were going to settle a City at 3 N of Athens, but Frederick already has a Settler there, and if he doesn't settle there, he'll settle within a square or two of there, meaning that we won't be settling that location but can probably capture the City from Frederick later instead.
The one from York will be to resettle Nottingham 1 SE of where Nottingham is located. So, the plan is to raze Nottingham and then settle a new City, to get a second Fish Resource.
We can only keep 3 Cities in England otherwise each City will cost us roughly an extra 8 Commerce each per turn due to the way that Colonial Maintenance works in BtS--1 City on an island doesn't cost any Colonial Maintenance. Having 2 Cities on an island costs a tiny bit, perhaps 1 Commerce per City. Having 3 Cities on an island costs more, perhaps somewhere between 2 to 3 Commerce per City, and that's about the sweet spot for an island with good locations to settle. Having 4 Cities on an island costs significantly more, about 6 to 8 Commerce per City, to the point that that 4th City is not worth keeping.
York is about equivalent to Nottingham as long as London is small, as York can borrow the Resources (Horse and Stone) that London isn't working. So, if we can only keep 3 Cities in England, trading York for Nottingham isn't really gaining us all that much.
But, if we resettle Nottingham, the City will be able to grow quickly and will be worth giving up York for. Plus, with all of the Forests of Nottingham (think Sherwood Forest and Robbin Hood, I suppose), we should be able to Chop out MoM in a resettled Nottingham.
Once we're ready to settle a replacement City for Nottingham, we can gift York to Joao and when we gift him York, we'll have a couple of Spies inside of the City, to try to steal Metal Casting from him.
As for Joao himself, he will switch Civics at Pleased, so once his current Anarchy cooldown (not switching Civics again for 5 turns since the last time that your Civic-switching Anarchy period ended), we should be able to bribe him to switch into both Hereditary Rule and Pacifism. Hereditary Rule will get him happier toward us, since it is his Favourite Civic and we are also running it. Pacifism should give him extra GPP in Lisbon if he hires any Specialists while running Caste System (Joao has already chosen to run Caste System). Theoretically, Joao getting Great People means helping us out, if he builds an Academy or settles a Great Person for us to capture later.
For the other Settlers...
we have one from Orleans and plan to get one from Argent, with 2 Settlers needed for Scandinavia
- One Settler for the Sweden region, at the "Resort Coming Soon!" sign's location on the map
- One Settler to resettled Vlad at 1 SW of where Vlad is located. This part will be a bit tricky, since, after we raze Nottingham, we'll have to Cease Fire with Churchill and we'll have to gift him another City elsewhere to keep him alive, and then we'll be able to re-declare war on Churchill, raze Vlad, and resettle Vlad to 1 SW of where it is located, to pick up another Deer and to share 2 of St. Pete's Fish Resources
So, we may need yet another Settler (a 4th one) to gift Churchill a junky City (maybe in the Tundra area to the north of Scandinavia or maybe we'll be able to capture a junky City from Stalin in the second war and just use that City to gift to Churchill).
Arguably, at some point, we could also settle a Spice Girls Island City, which would give us +1 Happiness and would give all of our Cities a 4th overseas domestic Trade Route. What that 4th overseas domestic Trade Route would mean is that these Cities would get a 2-Commerce Trade Route in place of their current 1-Commerce Trade Route:
Athens
Ivory Coast
Gold Coast
Jackpot
So, that would mean +4 Commerce, which would help to pay for the extra cost of settling on Spice Island.
Either Berlin or Moscow would make an excellent Heroic Epic city.
We can't capture a Barracks in a City that has 0 of our Culture in it--Barracks get auto-razed in Cities with none of our Culture in them. Barracks are a pre-requisite Building for being able to build the Heroic Epic.
There's also the consideration that a City that we would have to capture would be in City Revolt for a number of turns after we capture the City, and then we also have to count the turns needed to capture said City.
As such, we might be better off using a City that we already own, such as Athens, which has a lot of production and comes with 2 pre-settled Great Prophets for an extra 4 base Hammers per turn. That City is a bit far out of the way from the rest of the world relative to Moscow's location (other than for going after Germany with Athens-built troops), so we can try to capture Moscow within a reasonable time frame using siege warfare, to try to make Moscow our Heroic Epic City, and have Athens as a backup option.
In regards to the capture of Moscow, what we really need is a fast way to get Catapults to the front lines.
I'm thinking that the Settler for Vlad can be delayed, meaning that one of Argent or Orleans can delay building a Settler. Since Argent is closer to the front lines and since Orleans has already started on its Settler, logically, Argent can delay building its Settler and could instead be used to whip out a couple of Catapults.
Originally, we were thinking that putting a Road on the GH Iron at 1 SE of Argent would be bad, as then we'd have multiple Iron Resources connected and an AI might Demand an Iron from us. Now, I'm thinking "who cares?" We're only looking to get Joao to Friendly, and later possibly Churchill to Friendly via City Liberating and recapturing, but we could equally do the same with Joao. While we don't want to anger any of the other AIs if we don't have to, saying "no" when someone asks for an extra copy of our Iron isn't a big deal. If we build a Road on the GH Iron at 1 SE of Argent, Catapults build in Argent could get on a Galley within 2 turns of being built and then get Galley-chained into St. Pete's.
We'd only need 2 Galleys in the chain, since we get 2 turns' worth of movement with Galleys, due to being able to load Units, then move Galleys on the first turn, then on the second turn, move Galleys and only then unload Units.
If we capture Yaroslavl', we can aim to Cease Fire with Stalin, but before we Cease Fire, we could try to pick off high-chance wins (95%+), such as our Chariot picking off an Axeman in the field, our Horse Archer picking off an Archer in the field, or our Woodsman III Unit (or even our Woodsman II Unit) picking off a Spearman in the field.
After that, we'd try to get siege Units into St. Pete's with all due haste via Galley-chaining, declare war on Stalin again after a few turns' time, defend our captured Russian Cities, and push in toward Moscow from 2 or 3 sides (St. Pete's + Rostov and possibly + Yaroslavl' if we capture it).
On the England front, we're going to have Workers 5 and 6 complete a Road at 1 NE of York. Doing so allows our York-built Horse Archer to move 4 squares from York to Nottingham, at which point the rest of our army can join our Horse Archer and we can do our best to raze Nottingham before Churchill whips too many Units there.
We have to be wary of Churchill loading troops onto his Galley and him going after Ruby Bay's Worker.
With any luck, 1 Horse Archer, 2 Axemen, and 3 Chariots will be sufficient forces to take down Nottingham, but it might be tight if Churchill keeps whipping Military Units. I'll try to bring in 1 more full-health Chariot from Paris, to give us an option of delaying the attack by 1 turn but having 1 more Unit, perhaps also giving time for Churchill to send Units away on a Galley.
In our core Cities, it would be very nice to soon get them up to working 10 Cottages for Paris.
To make that happen, we'll probably want to 2-pop-whip a Worker out of Lyons, now that we've delayed the need for our southern army.
At some point, we're presumably going to want to capture Hatty's capital, complete with the Apostolic Palace and the Pyramids, so that we'd eventually run Representation and could be a voting candidate for an Apostolic Palace Victory, but for now, our core-area Cities are going to be tied up building Workers, Courthouses, and growing into working Cottages.
It will take 30 turns of working a Cottage to get it into a useful status (a Village that gets +1 Commerce via Printing Press).
An 11th Cottage would come from later turning the G Riv Farm at 1 SW of Paris into a Cottage (but a Farm is more useful first to actually help with growing Paris), and once we unlock Oxford University, we can put 3 Chops into it to unlock 3 more Cottageable squares, giving Paris 14 Cottages.
Meanwhile, Orleans, in addition to building a Settler, is going to have to start spreading Christianity around, so that we can get some GPP from Pacifism during our Golden Ages.
Our Workers in England are also going to be very busy, with every Worker move counting, getting a 2nd Gems Mine up, getting Roads for the York Horse Archer to be able to arrive at the gates of Nottingham within the span of 1 turn, Chopping a Courthouse in London, Chopping a Settler and a Spy in York, and pre-Chopping for MoM around the resettled Nottingham area.
In the south, we have 2 Spies coming from Portugal that will go to 2 of Hatty's Stone Resources, and we'll need Ivory Coast to balance out the production of Work Boats (2 for itself and 1 for Gold Coast) and the production of a 3rd Spy so that we can use 3 Spies to Sabotage (aka Pillage with a Spy) all 3 of Hatty's Stone Resources (and get another Spy for her 4th Stone Resource if our exploring Chariot 9 in Africa reveals a 4th Stone Resource). By Sabotaging all of Hatty's Stone Resources, all of her trades to other AIs where she trades a Stone Resource to get another Resource will be cancelled, such as Hatty's trade of Stone to Mehmed for Mehmed's Marble. That situation should leave Mehmed's Marble available for us to get in trade.
We also need to estimate how many EPs to collect against Hatty so that we can steal Civil Service, Literature, and possibly Music from her. We don't necessarily have to take Music, but having Music could mean building Culture as a build item in Cities to quickly expand the Cultural Borders of captured Cities, such as St. Pete's, where most of our Food Resources are in our big fat cross but aren't adjacent to our City. I'll have to set aside some testing time for the task of figuring out just how many EPs we will need against Hatty, but for now, we can at least put another turn of 100% Espionage onto Hatty.
For the next few days, I will not be able to devote as much time as I have been.
You've done a great job, so thanks for that! I'll try to put together a PPP and would still appreciate any feedback on it.
Six (6) courthouses: Paris, London, XO Cognac, Orleans, Argent, Rostov.
Lyons might end up being a replacement for Orleans, as Orleans needs to complete its Settler and also spam Missionaries in order to make us able to effectively generate Great People while under Pacifism during our Golden Ages.
For Lyons to build a courthouse, I would suggest it do so with overflows from whippings since it does not produce many hammers.
T102 Lyons could whip a Chariot.
I'm not sure why we couldn't instead 2-pop-whip a Courthouse and overflow into the almost-completed Chariot. 2-pop-whipping is generally better than 1-pop-whipping.
But, first, I think that we will want to 2-pop-whip a Worker, to get some Cottage-building turns in. There are a lot of Cottages to erect. If it takes us until T130 to erect all of our Cottages, then they'll be completed too late to be effective.
My build plan (for discussion purposes) for Argent is:
T103 Settler (to build New Yak, or is that Yetti)
T104 Archer (future MP and to allow growth)
T105 Settler
T106 2-pop whip Settler
T107 Courthouse
T108 1-pop whip Courthouse (1 of 6 for Forbidden Palace)
I'm afraid that Catapults are going to have to come at a higher priority than all of that. We really don't have the resources for Military Police Units in most of our Cities. To put things into perspective, we're the SGOTM team with the lowest Power right now, so, except for in Paris, most of our troops should be on the front lines as much as possible.
Orleans' Settler, since Frederick has trumped us into settling to the north of Athens, can be used in Scandinavia to replace the razed Yakutsk, freeing up Argent to get us some desperately-needed Catapults.
Ruby Bay 1-pop whips Granary and Works Gem Mine and Gem Hill. (Zero (0) food so no growth. Will the Granary be almost full?)
How Granaries work is as follows:
On the turn after the Granary exists (so the turn after you complete the Granary), the Granary is empty of Food. On the turn after the Granary exists, you will put whatever Food you earn on that turn into the City's Food box, as normal, but you will also put a duplicate amount of the Food that you just put into the City's Food box into the Granary.
As an example:
T102 Whip a Granary
T103 This turn is the turn after the Granary has been completed, so the Granary has 0 Food inside of it
T103 Work a Fish at Size 1 for 2 + 5 - 2 = +5 Food
T104 The Granary has 5 Food inside of it
At any time where we grow City Sizes, if the Granary already exists, we first put duplicate Food in both the City's Food box and the City's Granary. Then, if the Food in the Food box exceeds the amount of Food needed to grow to the next City Size, the Food in the Food box, minus the Food required to grow, will carry over. So, if we're at Size 1, we have 21 Food in our Food box, and we have just whipped our Granary, if we earn +1 Food by working a Gems square, we'll be at 22 / 22 Food. 1 Food will have gone into the Food box and 0 Food will have gone into the Granary. We'll then be at Size 2 with 0 Food in the Food box. That's the scenario that you just described, so it doesn't help us to whip the Granary now.
In a different scenario, let's say that we're at Size 3 with 7 Food in our Food box and we whip our Granary. Let's say that we make 4 Food by working a Fish and a Gems square at Size 2. On the next turn, we'll have 7 + 4 = 11 Food in our Food box and our Granary will still be empty. On the following turn, we'll have 11 + 4 = 15 Food in our Food box and we'll have 0 + 4 = 4 Food in our Granary.
Food stored in the Granary gets added to our Food box whenever we grow a City Size. But, you first have to have a turn where our City has the Granary completed in its list of Buildings before the Granary can get any Food going into it.
The traditional heuristic is to whip a Granary when the Food box is half full. Exact cases of whipping just before or after that turn can be better slightly if you spend the time to work out the math. But, generally, whipping a Granary when the City is about to grow is usually the worst time to whip a Granary.
Our Warrior 1 could probably Pillage the ruins of Yakutsk, to give the Forest a chance to grow.
After we Cease Fire with Stalin, we may want to see if we can bribe Mehmed to stop the war with Stalin, so that Stalin stops producing Military Units. While it's nice to get help from Mehmed's troops when we're at war with Stalin ourselves and thus at a time when Stalin will already be building Military Units, it will be nice to give Stalin a "cooldown" period where he builds peaceful build items while we get our Catapults into position.
Churchill's Fur has just finished being Camped, so Churchill has definitely got his Worker on his Fur at Nottingham. What's not certain is whether that Worker will be defended or whether it will be ripe to be stolen by our Axeman 3 Woodsman II Unit.
I'm not sure where we'd put our National Epic. Argent might be a decent choice, with a surplus of this much Food:
City Centre 2
Fish 6
Deer 4
Deer 4
Whale 3
Whale 3
5 population points - 10
2 + 6 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 3 - 10 = 12 surplus Food, for 6 Specialists at City Size 11
St. Pete's might also be a very strong choice, after we capture Moscow, with the option of using:
City Centre 2
Fish 6
Fish 6
Fish 6
Wheat 6
4 population points - 8
2 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 - 8 = 18 surplus Food, for 9 Specialists at City Size 13
We haven't really even talked about Moai Statues. Argent might be a good spot in which to complete it, as we have 3 seafood Resources there. But, it's also a bit out of the way in terms of troop production.
Athens would probably make a decent choice, too, with 3 seafood Resources of its own, and being on the mainland, but lacking the Forests that Argent could use to Chop it. The City is also about equally far away in terms of troop production.
I don't see us owning a better City that's closer to the front lines (St. Pete's looks to be the clear winner for the National Epic) for Moai, so it'll likely get built in one of Athens or Argent.
Whichever City location we choose for Moai, if we plan to build it, it will help for us to have some other Cities partially build it for Failure Gold. Of course, we'd have to complete the National Wonder before we saw a return on our Hammer investment, so in general, putting Hammers into Courthouses is probably a wiser investment in the short term, as they pay off both in terms of reduced Maintenance Costs and in terms of free EPs for stealing techs from Hatty.
The Heroic Epic and the National Epic are less easily used for Failure Gold, since they require a Barracks and a Library to be able to build them, respectively. Moai doesn't have a pre-requisite Building, just a pre-requisite of being on the coast, and we have many coastal Cities, which is why Moai will be potentially quite useful for Failure Gold.
The developers of Civ 5 who ruined the series? 
