RBPB4 [SPOILERS] - De Gaulle of the Egyptians

[Lord Parkin]

Senseless, no you didn't do anything wrong. I just never knew if you decided to follow through on it, or if Lord Parkin had "accepted" your offer of help.

For the record, I wasn't sure if Senseless was going to follow through with it either, but now that he's here I'm glad to have the company.

[Lord Parkin]

Right... onto early game options. Senseless, I'd welcome any thoughts and/or opinions you have. (Anyone else is free to comment too.)

Builds: Worker first seems like pretty much the only sensible strategy, since we start with a Warrior and have plenty of things for the Worker to do (Deer and/or Cow to hook up, as well as The Wheel allowing us to make roads during any down-time while we wait for Mining and Bronze Working). The Worker will take 10 turns with the 2 hpt from the capital tile (assuming we settle in place) and the 4 hpt from one of the Deer tiles. After that, probably a Warrior or two is in order, then maybe another Worker and/or more Warriors. (Or War Chariots if we get lucky with Horses near the capital, but I doubt it.) About that time we'll have to start thinking about Settlers, but we'll get to that when the time comes. The first Settler will probably, although not certainly, want to head for a Horse spot if we don't already have one secured with the capital.

Techs: Going for Animal Husbandry straight off the bat would take 15 turns (and leave us without Hunting to hook up the two Deer tiles). If we go Hunting -> Animal Husbandry, then Hunting will finish in 7 turns and Animal Husbandry about 12 turns after that with the discount, I think... so that'd be around turn 19. So essentially we sacrifice about 4 turns on Animal Husbandry to get an additional tech that would otherwise take 7 turns (i.e. sacrificing 4 turns now to save 3 turns later). Worth it, I think. The only slight downside will be that we won't be able to build Warriors for city happiness anymore after we hook up Copper, but I think we'll want the option of a Spearman or two anyway "just in case" (an option we wouldn't otherwise have without Hunting).

So assuming we go Hunting -> Animal Husbandry, what next? The logical choice would be Mining -> Bronze Working. We could potentially slip in Mysticism before that to start on Stonehenge, but I'm dubious about whether we'd want to build it that early (if we build it at all). All in all, Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> Mining -> Bronze Working seems like a solid start. Any thoughts or disagreements there, Senseless?

Worker Moves: Assuming we go for Hunting first, we'll have the option of hooking up either the plains-hill-forest or grassland-forest Deer first. (By the time we've hooked up the two Deer, Animal Husbandry should just be rolling around to hook up the Cow.) So, looking at the options... the plains-hill-forest Deer will be identical to a plains Cow (3f/3h) when improved, while the grassland-forest Deer will be identical to an irrigated plains Wheat (5f/1h) when improved. Normally I'd be inclined to go for the higher food first, but I'm not completely sure here. I'll run a few numbers later and see.

[Lord Parkin]

Alright, here are the main options I've come up with so far from a few simulations I've run. This is assuming no-one has any problems with Worker first and Hunting -> Animal Husbandry.

Option 1: Food Heavy

7 - Hunting finished, start on Animal Husbandry
10 - Worker 1 finished, start Warrior 2, work 3f/1h Deer to grow
14 - Deer improved to 5f/1h
15 - Warrior 2 finished, start Warrior 3
16 - Growth to size 2, work 2f/1h/1c Cow or 1f/3h Deer; start Worker 2 (or continue on Warrior 3)
19 - Deer improved to 3f/3h
19/20 - Animal Husbandry finished, start either Mysticism or Mining
22 - Worker 2 finished (assuming started at 16)
23 - Warrior 3 finished (assuming continued after Worker 2); Cow improved to 3f/3h/1c, work this tile; Workers build 1 road per 1-2 turns or 1 farm per 2-3 turns after this point
26 - Growth to size 3, work Deer-Deer-Cow; Warrior 4 finished, start Settler 2
27/28 - Mysticism or Mining finished, start either Mining or Bronze Working; Workers can build mines every 3 turns from this point if have Mining
32/33 - Settler 2 finished

Option 2: Hammer Heavy

7 - Hunting finished, start on Animal Husbandry
10 - Worker 1 finished, start Warrior 2, work 3f/1h Deer to grow
14 - Deer improved to 3f/3h
15 - Warrior 2 finished, start Warrior 3
18 - Growth to size 2, work both Deer; Warrior 3 finished, start Worker 2
19 - Deer improved to 5f/1h
19/20 - Animal Husbandry finished, start either Mysticism or Mining
23 - Worker 2 finished, start Warrior 4
24 - Cow improved to 3f/3h/1c, work this tile; Workers build 1 road per 1-2 turns or 1 farm per 2-3 turns after this point
26 - Warrior 4 finished, build something (Barracks or Warrior) for a turn while wait for growth
27 - Growth to size 3, work Deer-Deer-Cow; start Settler 2
27/28 - Mysticism or Mining finished, start either Mining or Bronze Working; Workers can build mines every 3 turns from this point if have Mining
33/34 - Settler 2 finished

On the whole I think I prefer Option 1. I'd really only consider Option 2 (or a variant thereof) on a map I expected to be quite cramped, where the quicker Warriors would be necessary for survival. But with the huge size and only 10 players, I'm assuming we'll have a bit of leg room. Therefore, my gamble is that Option 1 seems preferable, as it gets us off to a better start (earlier Workers, improvements, growth and second city), even though it's slightly Warrior-thin early on (comparitively 1 Warrior fewer from turns 18-22).

Any thoughts? Please feel free to point out any mistakes I might have made. Any suggestions for improvements or alternatives to the options I've presented are also welcome.

[Lord Parkin]

Since we're Ind/Cha Egypt, let's look at the obvious option of Stonehenge for a moment. This wonder would take approximately 8-9 turns to finish from size 3 with minimum 9 base hammers per turn (13 with Industrious) and growth to size 4 while building (minimum 10 base hammers per turn, 15 with Industrious). From size 4 it would take 7-8 turns. Chops would speed it up, but if we go Mysticism before Mining then Bronze Working probably won't be available for this wonder at least.

Is it worth building? Maybe. Almost certainly not before the second Settler, which limits it to the early 40's for us (minimum) in terms of turn numbers. Is that early enough? Maybe. Would it be silly to delay our third and subsequent Settlers by building it? Maybe. I'll have to think about this more later on. It's not until turn 19/20 that any firm decisions need to be made anyway (Mysticism vs Mining).

[Senseless]

I ran a few simulations in worldbuilder with the following results. I attempted to determine the relative short and long term benefits (relatively speaking) of each tech path and build order. The main performance benchmarch is how fast each build can churn out 3 settlers. (I'm not necessarily suggesting that we go for 3 settlers right away. I just used settlers as an expensive placeholder to gauge our production/chopping capabilities)



Case 1
Tech: Hunting, Animal Husbandry (AH), Mining, Bronze Working (BW)
Build Order:Worker, Grow to 2, Worker, Grow to 3, Settler (T33), Settler(T39), Settler(T42)
Workers: Improve grassland deer, then cow, then road forests until BW then chops
Note: This build is essentially what you proposed in your post.
Pros: Fast vision of horses, thereby allowing us to settle horses with our first settler, and keeping the option of rushing open.
Con: A slower builder strategy than the other options if we don't rush. Worker first leaves us vulnerable to a worker steal unless we forgo scouting.

Case 2
Tech: Hunting, Animal Husbandry, Mining, Bronze Working
Build Order: grow to 2, Worker, Worker, Grow to 3, Settler(34), Settler(39), Settler(42)
Pros: Essentially the same as case 1, case 2 goes warrior first while growing to size 2.
Con: Even slower than case 1.

Case 3
Tech: Hunting, Mining, Bronze Working (BW), Animal Husbandry (AH)
Build Order:Worker, Grow to 2, Worker, Settler (30), Settler(34), Settler(39)
Workers: Grassland deer, plains deer, road forests, chops
Note: This build sacrifices early AH for early growth. AH gives diminishing returns compared to hunting since we have only 1 cow tile and 2 deer tiles. Additionally, researching AH early delays our ability to chop out settlers. Without the ability to pasture the cows, there's really no point to growing to size 3 before pumping settlers.
Pros: Balanced builder's strategy balancing rapid expansion and capital development. AH finishes turn 38, allowing us to get access to horses with our 3rd settler.
Con: Horses come too late to allow us to effectively put together a rush. Then again, if we can get 4 cities up this quickly, we might not have to.

Case 4
Tech: Hunting, Mining, Bronze Working (BW), Animal Husbandry
Build Order:Grow to 2, Worker, Worker, Settler (T32), Settler(T37), Settler(T42)
Workers: Improve grassland deer, plains deer, then road forests until BW then chops
Pros: as case 3, but warrior first increases safety.

Case 5
Tech: Mining, Bronze Working (BW), Hunting, AH
Build Order: Grow to 2, Worker, Worker, Settler (28), Settler(36), Settler(44)
Workers: Road forests until BW, then chops
Pros: Fastest pure expansion build (in the short term) by a wide margin. Early bronze for a possible axe rush. Early chops mean explosive early growth.
Cons: Late AH means a difficult chariot rush. Late hunting means that early worker turns are spent on mines and roading forests, leaving our capital undeveloped.

My personal vote for best option is either case 3 or 4. Exactly which one would depend on how early we encounter another civ, and who that civ happens to be. Given the map size and number of players, I feel that a rush is less powerful than brisk expansion. We should have enough room to expand peacefully a few times. Furthermore, given that there are so many teams, eliminating another team early is not as powerful as with a smaller number of teams. Therefore, I feel ok with delaying access to horses.

I would improve the grassland deer before the hills deer. The output is the same in terms of spitting out workers and settlers, but improving the grassland deer allows us to grow faster, which the plains deer does not allow. Generally, I find that early food is stronger than early production.

On stonehenge: Personally I feel that going mysticism/stonehenge would slow our initial expansion way too much. I'd rather play the early landgrab game while there's still land to be had, and just slow-build monuments when necessary at our leisure. Then again, we have very good early production and we are industrious. Early border pops would be nice as well given that we aren't playing a Creative leader. On balance I would skip stonehenge, however, especially if we skip early animal husbandry due to the lack of early plains cows.

[Lord Parkin]

Well, I flipped a coin and picked 1NW as the direction for the Warrior to go. Senseless, hope you don't mind - I think that was one of your options anyway.

Nothing interesting revealed, which pretty much seals in settling in place.

First though, let's set up a bit of pointless nomenclature for this empire, just for the fun of it. (Anyone familiar with any of my other games will recognise there's nothing much original here.)



Alternative suggestions are welcomed - if not we'll stick with this.

So, here's the updated map with the capital settled:



No other resources revealed at all. Glad we stayed in place.

Forests are a bit thin, quite a lot of hills though. Hammers shouldn't be much of a problem with this start. The river should give us a decent amount of commerce, though nothing astounding. Food's a little on the low side, but we can always irrigate a river tile or two if necessary.

It looks like there's coast both to the SW and NE. Maybe water's reasonably high on this map... then again, it could just be some small lakes that happen to be nearby. A bit more exploring will be in order to figure out whether this is an island, a continent or a larger land mass.

Senseless, it looks like there's another hill 2NW of where the Warrior currently is. I'd suggest that sending him NW the next two turns and following the high ground might not be a bad idea. We can re-evaluate along the way if necessary. What are your thoughts on the matter?

[Lord Parkin]

I ran a few simulations in worldbuilder with the following results. I attempted to determine the relative short and long term benefits (relatively speaking) of each tech path and build order. The main performance benchmarch is how fast each build can churn out 3 settlers. (I'm not necessarily suggesting that we go for 3 settlers right away. I just used settlers as an expensive placeholder to gauge our production/chopping capabilities)

Excellent, thanks for the input! (One request - if you have the numbers on hand, could you put in the turns at which each tech is expected to be researched? I'm mainly interested in exactly how many turns the Mining-Bronze route is... can always check it out in my own sim I guess.)

I hadn't considered skipping Animal Husbandry to get to Bronze Working earlier, but it does make a certain amount of sense. You're right that the Cow would give diminishing returns after hooking up the Deer, and if we're assuming that we won't have Horses in the immediate vicinity then it won't make a great deal of difference early on to skip it. Losing 1f/2h per turn from the Cow tile would probably be well balanced out by accessing +20h chops much earlier.

The main thing that I'm a bit hesitant on is the idea of being blind to Horses for most of the early game. It just doesn't seem to make sense playing as Egypt to forgo War Chariots for so long. Then again, if it makes our builder start stronger (and we can afford to only have Warriors around for so long), then it might be okay. However, I think it's a bit risky, especially since we can't necessarily rely on having Copper nearby. Seeing Horses after 2 techs and Copper after 4 is simply safer than seeing Copper after 3 techs and Horses after 4. Especially with 5 strength Charismatic Chariots potentially available for use.

I'll try it out a bit in my own sim though. I do like the idea of accessing chops earlier and going on a chopping spree - it's a tried and true way to a fast start. However, bear in mind that we only have 4 non-resourced forests immediately next to the capital to chop, so we're limited to +80 hammers early on in the capital. We could chop the Deer forests, but then we'd cost ourselves 2 hammers per turn for the rest of the game. (Granted, it would make us slightly safer from an early invasion, but I'm not sure we need to worry about that.)

Is accessing the +80 hammers earlier worth losing 1f/2h per turn from the Cows for ~20-25ish turns? Keeping in mind that we'll still get access to the +80 hammers later on (when they're admittedly a bit less useful)? I'm not sure, but I'd be interested in your thoughts. Knowing the exact amount of time that the Mining-Bronze route would take would be helpful here.

As for Warrior first vs Worker first, I really don't think that we need to worry about being "walked into" that early on. The slowest that I got to a second Warrior in my simulations was turn 15, and that could be sped up by working heavier hammer tiles if an emergency struck. It all comes down to whether you expect 10 civs on a huge map to have at least 15 turns of travelling time between their capitals on average (I'm assuming that everyone's Warrior started on the same tile as their Settler like us). From my experience of bigger maps, I'd have to say that 15 turns of travelling time for 10 civs on a huge map is probably about right. I'd be very surprised if it was less than 12, anyway... and that's assuming that the rival walks straight towards your capital from the start - more likely that at least one or two turns will be spent wandering in the wrong direction.

My personal vote for best option is either case 3 or 4. Exactly which one would depend on how early we encounter another civ, and who that civ happens to be. Given the map size and number of players, I feel that a rush is less powerful than brisk expansion. We should have enough room to expand peacefully a few times. Furthermore, given that there are so many teams, eliminating another team early is not as powerful as with a smaller number of teams. Therefore, I feel ok with delaying access to horses.

One other thing to consider is that there may be quite a lot of land on this map, and if that's the case then sooner or later everyone will hit an expansion cap (at least early on). Now it's probably a risky gamble without knowing anything about the map layout, but delaying expansion slightly for other ventures (maybe wonders, not necessarily a rush) might not be such a bad thing if that's the case. If everyone has tonnes of leg room, then there's not quite the same urgency with the settling race compared to a game where you're all cramped in and fighting for the same spots. Still, I hear you about wanting to expand quickly, and my hunch about having a bit of room may well be proved very wrong in the next few turns as we learn more about the map.

I would improve the grassland deer before the hills deer. The output is the same in terms of spitting out workers and settlers, but improving the grassland deer allows us to grow faster, which the plains deer does not allow. Generally, I find that early food is stronger than early production.

Yeah, that was the conclusion I reached as well. Okay, so that's the first two Worker moves sorted, at least.

On stonehenge: Personally I feel that going mysticism/stonehenge would slow our initial expansion way too much. I'd rather play the early landgrab game while there's still land to be had, and just slow-build monuments when necessary at our leisure. Then again, we have very good early production and we are industrious. Early border pops would be nice as well given that we aren't playing a Creative leader. On balance I would skip stonehenge, however, especially if we skip early animal husbandry due to the lack of early plains cows.

Fair points. Although if it does turn out that we have a bit of room to ourselves, then fighting for city spots won't be quite as urgent as in a more cramped situation (see above). I guess the best thing to do is just to wait until we learn more about the map before deciding anything for sure with Stonehenge.

[Senseless]

Glad to be of help. I don't have a whole lot of multi-player experience, so this is very interesting for me.

First, the tech timings:
Hunting (T6), AH (T16), Mining (T23), BW (T37)
or alternately
Hunting (T6), Mining (T13), BW (T28 ), AH (T38 )

You raised the concern that it is safer to get early vision of a strategic resource, and in this respect the first tech approach is clearly better. However, I would note that for any of our proposed openings that involve some early pop growth at the capital and two workers, the earliest settler arrives at T30. For both tech options, at T30 we have vision of one and only one strategic resource. Therefore, unless horses specifically are within our fat cross, prioritizing AH gains us nothing in terms of security (assuming that we take copper and horses to be roughly equal in terms of providing for our early defense) and delays all of our expansions by about 3 turns.

While I don't think that getting AH before mining/BW would be a disaster economically speaking compared to getting it after mining/bw, I don't consider it to be significantly safer, either. And in a game like civ where small advantages compound and snowball over the length of a game, I would be leery of anything that slows our expansions down needlessly. Of course, as I said before, my MP experience is limited, so I really don't know the rush timings in a game like this. Would it be unreasonable to see some kind of axe or chariot push by around T45?

In regards to the relative advantages of early chops over missing out on the food and production from cows: I think that my sims, if they are accurate, would seem to indicate that early chops absolutely are better than growing to size 3 and working the pastured cows. Case 3 has all of the settlers popping 3 turns earlier than in case 1 (Also, all of my sims chopped only forests without deer. I agree that we should keep those except in the case of an emergency or invasion). This means that our loss of resources is not (income of cows) * (turns elapsed), because this loss is offset by the resources gathered by faster cities.

Plus, I really do think that this is the best use of our forests. Jump starting your settlers like this does wonders for the integral of the resource curve.

I agree that early warrior aggression is probably not a huge deal, as long as we are careful. We can always keep the first warrior close at hand, at least until the second warrior pops at around T15. Worker first is much better economically as well, so I'm happy.

Speculations on map size and room for peaceful expansion:
I've never played on a map of this size. A huge map seems to default to 11 players, which would seem to indicate that we do not have that much more room than normal to expand. For this reason, I think that an early land grab will still be important. Of course, I'll have to defer to your experience and judgment in this area. At any rate, further scouting will be necessary to really make an informed decision.

A point I forgot to mention in regard to stonehenge is that we are facing three other industrious teams, and another that starts with mysticism. One of the industrious teams is creative, and as such probably have no interest in stonehenge, but that still leaves us with three other teams to contend with. Just something to keep in mind, especially if we decide to devote any chops to workers/settlers.

[Lord Parkin]

Glad to be of help. I don't have a whole lot of multi-player experience, so this is very interesting for me.

Cool, hope you enjoy seeing how the game plays out!

First, the tech timings:
Hunting (T6), AH (T16), Mining (T23), BW (T37)
or alternately
Hunting (T6), Mining (T13), BW (T28 ), AH (T38 )

Ah, ok. One thing I spot here immediately is that you've got the tech costs a bit wrong in your sim - an easy mistake to make, but one to avoid. Tech costs scale with map size and difficulty... I imagine you've got it set to Noble and/or Standard in your sim rather than Monarch+Huge. It does make quite a difference... Mining is 85 beakers in this game, for instance, and Bronze Working costs 207 beakers. It means a longer wait before each tech, which might slightly affect which of the BW/AH strategies are stronger.

You raised the concern that it is safer to get early vision of a strategic resource, and in this respect the first tech approach is clearly better. However, I would note that for any of our proposed openings that involve some early pop growth at the capital and two workers, the earliest settler arrives at T30. For both tech options, at T30 we have vision of one and only one strategic resource. Therefore, unless horses specifically are within our fat cross, prioritizing AH gains us nothing in terms of security (assuming that we take copper and horses to be roughly equal in terms of providing for our early defense) and delays all of our expansions by about 3 turns.

The aforementioned disparity in tech costs might affect this analysis, I think. I'm not sure we'll have Bronze Working before turn 30 even if we skip AH... will have to check it in my own sim later. If we can't see either Copper or Horses when the first Settler arrives, that could be quite a problem. It might give slightly more weight to going AH first, I'm not sure... will have to do some testing.

While I don't think that getting AH before mining/BW would be a disaster economically speaking compared to getting it after mining/bw, I don't consider it to be significantly safer, either. And in a game like civ where small advantages compound and snowball over the length of a game, I would be leery of anything that slows our expansions down needlessly. Of course, as I said before, my MP experience is limited, so I really don't know the rush timings in a game like this. Would it be unreasonable to see some kind of axe or chariot push by around T45?

It could happen, although if distances are large between civs on this map then I think it'd be less likely than "usual". Especially against us, if our neighbours are aware that we have War Chariots available to build. ("Usual" for me is more cramped than 10 civs on a huge map.)

Bear in mind also that rushing to expand beyond the 2nd or 3rd city too quickly could well be pretty costly economically this early in the game. Of course, we don't have to build just Settlers with all the extra hammers from the chops. From comparing our numbers it seems like there's about a 3-4 turn difference in getting out each of the first few Settlers between the BW-AH and AH-BW options. For Settlers #1 and possibly #2 the extra couple of turns will be useful, but beyond that not so much (especially if we get too Worker-thin).

In regards to the relative advantages of early chops over missing out on the food and production from cows: I think that my sims, if they are accurate, would seem to indicate that early chops absolutely are better than growing to size 3 and working the pastured cows. Case 3 has all of the settlers popping 3 turns earlier than in case 1 (Also, all of my sims chopped only forests without deer. I agree that we should keep those except in the case of an emergency or invasion). This means that our loss of resources is not (income of cows) * (turns elapsed), because this loss is offset by the resources gathered by faster cities.

True. I wonder if we run the sim a bit further though, if it'll peter out a bit a few turns down the track. Sure in the BW-AH scenario you get the first few Settlers 3-4 turns earlier, but then you're out of good forests to chop. In the AH-BW scenario, a few turns down the track when BW comes into the picture (turn ~40?) the hammers suddenly catch up (and surpass the other option) with all the forests still to chop plus the extra bonus from the Cow all that time. Of course, this doesn't account for forest chops around future cities which may be available in the BW-AH scenario with earlier Settlers.

Plus, I really do think that this is the best use of our forests. Jump starting your settlers like this does wonders for the integral of the resource curve.

Indeed, it does to a point. I guess my main counter-arguments (which don't necessarily mean I disagree with going BW-AH, I'm just playing devil's advocate...) are that:

1. Playing blind without knowledge of any strategic resources until turn 30+ (have to check) is pretty risky.
2. Delaying visibility of resources means we can't pre-road to pre-planned cities in their direction, possibly adding a further 5-10 turns to the time to hook them up.
3. Do we really want only Warriors for that long? Maybe we can get away with it, but I'd feel safer with the option of a War Chariot or two.
4. It's only 3-4 turns earlier for the first couple of Settlers, then the benefit of BW-AH peters out (and possibly reverses a bit in favour of AH-BW around turn 40-50).
5. Getting too many cities out very early could hurt us economically.

Again, I still think BW first is a decent idea, I'm just trying to consider things from all perspectives to make sure we don't miss anything.

I agree that early warrior aggression is probably not a huge deal, as long as we are careful. We can always keep the first warrior close at hand, at least until the second warrior pops at around T15. Worker first is much better economically as well, so I'm happy.

Ok, cool. Worker first it is then.

Speculations on map size and room for peaceful expansion:
I've never played on a map of this size. A huge map seems to default to 11 players, which would seem to indicate that we do not have that much more room than normal to expand. For this reason, I think that an early land grab will still be important. Of course, I'll have to defer to your experience and judgment in this area. At any rate, further scouting will be necessary to really make an informed decision.

I guess I should have said that it was "relatively" spacious compared to what I'm used to. (Which is typically 16-18 players on a huge map, where things are considerably more cramped than they're likely to be here.) Agreed on the need to scout out more territory quickly though.

A point I forgot to mention in regard to stonehenge is that we are facing three other industrious teams, and another that starts with mysticism. One of the industrious teams is creative, and as such probably have no interest in stonehenge, but that still leaves us with three other teams to contend with. Just something to keep in mind, especially if we decide to devote any chops to workers/settlers.

Fair point about the guys starting with Mysticism, although I'm not really sure if they're more likely to go for Stonehenge than anyone else. I'm more concerned about the two non-Creative Industrious nations, personally (Bismarck/Luddite and Roosevelt/Mackoti). Maybe the fact that we're Ind/Cha will actually work in our favour, given that everyone will expect us to go for Stonehenge early and thus not bother trying as hard for it. Then again, some of our opponents might equally try to get it early just because they think we'll want it, so who knows.

[Senseless]

Hm. I did not know that tech cost scaled with map size. Interesting.

The readjusted tech paths with associated build orders are:

AH-BW
Hunting(7), AH (20), Mining (28 ), BW (44)
Worker, Grow to 2, Worker, Grow to 3, Settler(33), Settler(38 ), Settler(45)

BW-AH
Hunting (7), Mining (16), BW (33), AH (45)
Worker, Grow to 2, Worker, Settler (30), Settler (36), Settler (40)

Since the BW-AH build doesn't see a single strategic resource until after our first settler, I can definitely agree that it is quite a bit more risky. I think that AH-BW should therefore be our default plan, at least for now. My only reservation is that with this tech path BW comes so late that it will not have a huge impact on our initial settler push.