akots
Poet
Hmm, picking up a peace of paper and pencil. Cannot find both, typing straight. Your example with market is not useful IMO. For example, there is a size 10 city making 10gpt. It is building market at 10spt and has 2 turns left to finish. We can rush market there now wasting 10 shields of production and spending 80g. Basically, this way we spend 10 shields and 80 gold. What are then our benefits of doing so? We get in return 2 turns of 15gpt making it +10g. This would be a waste of both cash and shields. We don't gain what we invested. The city would have its market built in 2 turns and there is nothing to gain extra. Market would produce the same benefit now or 2 turns later for the rest of the game. It is a steady structure not developing on its own. There is no gain of something that you describe. It does not gain income from our cash, only increases the income from gpt income for the city. Assume slightly different situation. All our income is set to tax and city has 5 happy faces and five unhappy. We play GOTM (for score) and the city would grow in size next turn and riot unless we hire some taxmen. It makes sense then to rush it. First, you get some nice addition of 8 points this turn (which you cannot buy for money) to the score and if income increases that may partially cover the expenses. However, with this cash, it is always possible (if played properly) upgrade a unit (say, horse to knight) or rush a temple. Units mean better military and hence higher increase in score (again, if used properly) and temple means addition of 5 or more tiles to the territory which again is better increase in score than given by happiness increase in the city with market. Also, the score that we gain would be averages over the turns and would indeed be smaller than 8 points very soon. It is all an issue of balance and current situation in the game. If peaceful expansion, playing for score, and rushing market pays for itself (low-shield and high-commerce cities), it is one thing. If it is war and Domination settler-temple rush, it is another thing.
Regarding food and growth. The situation there is different. Rushing settlers, workers, and granaries is a good idea. However, granaries are reasonable to be built in +5fpt cities (+4 fpt as an exception and critical situation with food bonuses) with low or modest corruption so that there is no happiness problem. Being 1 turn later on the first settler, means being 1 turn later on all other subsequent settler. So, if you have 50 settler and built 50 towns in the game, each of these towns would be losing certain amount of food/shields/trade on the first turn and on every subsequent turn it grows because it would grow in size one turn later than if the first settler production is not delayed. In the end it all accumulates to frightening numbers of losses. This is true whether you are playing for score or for victory, either way. It may have a weaker impact than I described earlier regarding the settler move because we would have overwhelming corruption pretty soon. However, food still would be lost. To illustrate the point, imagine that you have size 1 town on a river one turn earlier. Assume there is 50% corruption. It gets you +2 extra trade and +5 extra food for 1 turn with agricultural civilization. Then, it grows to size 2 one turn earlier. This gives you extra +1gold and +2 food for that turn. Same goes for other turns when the town grows. Don't understand why you don't understand. There is no similarity with market (or factory). Culture is somewhat unclear depending on situation.
Few notes about workers. 1 worker/town is a minimum and 3 is a maximum. We are industrious and can cope with 1. So, now, we are short in one worker.
Sorry for the long post. These beers are gone now and thoughts (however trivial they are) just cannot stop.
