So our choice is between Chivalry in about six turns without any guarantee we'll get Engineering any time soon and Chivalry in about twelve turns (assuming it isn't researched elsewhere first) with Engineering in 7? With only 50-odd turns left in the game, that's a significant difference: ~ 38 turns we'd have knights versus ~44.
How much do we really need shields in India/Zululand? The one use for forest chops I can come up with without half trying is for producing settlers out of the corrupt regions. A few chops per city could get a settler or two out of every one in time to get where they're needed and could make a big difference to the ease of grabbing all that coastal area. Madras in particular may be useful for this, because it has a granary. Corrupt towns will need to work irrigated grassland, obviously.
I guess I'm not against finishing Engineering provided we do upgrade our swords at the front, and provided we spend nearly all the time and all our cities between now and then building horses. I'm not exactly for it, though; I hate the delay.
Here's my list of suggestions:
: I suggest closing down the operations at AI Bait in the near future, once we've secured the Ulundi area. The cats and galleys there can be shifted southeast to Jungle Port to pick off galleys trying to sneak by on either side of our main island; a second collection of cats and galleys around Ulundi could do the same for any interlopers coming up Arabia's east coast. With Bapedi in our hands, the AIs will have no chance of sneaking into our backyard via unexplored sea tiles until astronomy is discovered, and by controlling those two points, we will be able to leave cities and regions undefended where troops are not needed for MPs, suppression of resistance, or flip-recovery.
I also suggest getting to domination primarily with settlers, not libraries, because of the maintenance issue. I also suggest to settle primarily along the coasts, so that most of the coastal tiles can be claimed without having to build libraries. We can rush libraries where they are needed on the coasts and to fill in inland gaps as we get closer to the end of the game.
City-based suggestions:
Sogut can get to 20spt with two more mined plains. It doesn't matter now, but will allow 3-turn knights after Chivalry with a ten-shield short-rush of a pike after the first turn. (GL will also be able to do 3-turn knights.)
Antalya needs one more MP to avoid rioting at size 9. I'd have it build several more horses first before going to a market; it'll take 20 turns to grow naturally to size 10. By that time we may even have another lux and not need a market; Antalya is too low-commerce to bother building one for cash.
Bangalore should rush a settler once it's out of resistance; that'll spread the flip risk of having two Indian citizens in the same town without having to starve it. Madras might also build a settler.
Uskudar also needs an MP in a few turns. It shouldn't be allowed to finish its settler until it hits size 9 or it'll empty its granary on regrowth to size 7. South Beach has the same issue, but since it has no granary, it doesn't really matter.
Hlobane -- the elite sword should be moved out so it can join the attack and replaced with one of the vets from the stack to the southeast. The cats and workers should also be evacuated; we don't want to lose them if Hlobane flips.
Izmit could really use a harbor. One of the few infrastructure builds I'm all for. In the meantime, the grassland tile to its northwest could also be irrigated. With both those things and few worker joins, the town would be able to work that unused mountain tile, which should get it to 14spt -- perfect for knights.
Aydin should have one worker joined to get it to size 7 for the extra unit support. Will require Epulu to shuffle some tiles.
The Lahore/New Calcutta area needs some work, but I'm not sure what's best.
Bursa could use an aqueduct once the time for horses is over.
As Tao pointed out, Jungle Port can be put into WLTKD and still retain its two shields. That would also free up a tile for Epulu to take so Aydin can grow.
I'd chop that last forest by Cowtown North. Can always be re-mined if shields are needed.
Finally, Zimbabwe: Keeping so many units in a flip-prone town makes me nervous, and the resistance won't be gone soon enough to rush that barracks. I'd get the settlers out of Konya and founding new towns, and rush a barracks in one of them.
Renata
