[Spoiler] Team slowwalk of the Reservoir Cats (Suleiman/Korea, slowcheetah + Catwalk)

[slowcheetah]

Ok quick report.

Moved Scout SW and Warrior NE, scout found some more deer, nothing to exciting though

Worker finishes next turn, I think one thing we definitely agree on is he should farm the corn first.

[slowcheetah]

I very quickly tried BuildOrder of Worker-Worker-Warrior-Settler (at size 2). Against worker-warrior-2nd worker(whip)-settler(overflow)-warrior(to size 3)-Settler(chop to finish).

Both could be founded and slavery could be revolted into by turn 24, with buddhism coming in turn 25. Capital is pop 2 in the first path, pop3 in the second. Extra worker turns have let me move onto and start mining a hill.

I still prefer method two, due to the higher pop in the capital, and I don't think the extra worker turns appreciably speed us up (they delay third worker production in the capital). However, I will do a more thorough examination tonight (maybe).

Note all of these tests have been conducted in game (not on a spreadsheet), and the two above have both used the corn site for a second city.

[Catwalk]

Going to try to take a step back and look at the overall goals for the Oracle/Pyramids plan:
Finish Oracle at the earliest possible date
This is crucial, as this is where we're in direct competition with Sian. In order to do this, we need to:
Research Pottery + Priesthood as soon as possible
Priesthood unlocks Oracle, Pottery gives access to Metal Casting. Sian might be a spoilsport and build the Oracle before he can get Metal Casting. That would suck, but he'd be losing out too. I don't think he's going for this. The first question then becomes when we can expect to land Pottery and Priesthood. Your previous post suggests that we'll land Pottery before it's possible to complete the Oracle, and that it's all about getting enough hammers in time. In other words, boosting research with extra commerce matters almost nothing. Which leads us to the third point:
Coming up with 100 hammers as fast as we're able to
While chopping is one way to do this, relying entirely on chopping sounds really expensive to me. Both in terms of forests depleted for this purpose and the worker turns required. Pre-chops can be prepared ahead of time, but it sounds like we won't land the Oracle on the turn we research Pottery. The sooner we research Priesthood, the sooner we can contribute regular hammers towards wonder production. For this reason, I think it's critical that we research Meditation and Priesthood after Bronze Working. If you do The Wheel first, Priesthood is pushed back a full 5 turns. That sets back our wonder production by either 15 or 25 hammers, depending on which site we use.

Based on the above analysis, I think early settler and Priesthood has major advantages over delaying the settlement. Hammers are the main bottleneck, and settling early gives us a head start on them. This is the case no matter which site we go with. EDIT: Looking over it again, I really think research is the bottleneck. With an early settlement and Priesthood before The Wheel, we can easily pick up 50-60 hammers on The Oracle while waiting for MC prerequisites. Add whipping to that and we'd only need to cut down two forests. It sounds very realistic to land the Oracle on the turn that we have completed all necessary techs.

As for health in the FP location, I think that's a very minor concern. We will have cows and corn hooked up in no time, with a granary that's +3 health. Add the SW wheat before too long and we're up to +5. Fish, clams and crabs are also easy to grab for +8. I think this will have minimal impact both short-term and long-term. The city will have +6 food from the FP and the cows without any farms, so a future health hit won't hit it that hard.

[Catwalk]

Outline of plan:

Tech = BW, MED, PH, TW, POT

Production = Worker, Settler, Worker, Warrior (not decided entirely on what happens after the settler)

Wonder = produce most of the hammers in the city, some with whipping overflow and 2 forests chopped

[Catwalk]

I did a really quick and sloppy simulation which landed the Oracle on t41. Pottery finished t35. I feel confident that we can get it much faster than t40. Will need to do more testing to figure out exactly how, but hammers are definitely the bottleneck as you mentioned earlier, and my estimate of t40 to get all the required techs was way off.

[slowcheetah]

Ok I havent tried your plan yet, but I just got the oracle turn 38 (the turn pottery came in), using double worker-ivory site. Chopped down 4 forests, key was getting six hammers per turn every turn since discoerving priesthood, which I'd been lax on before. (Now I just have to remember worker movements, and I did succeed in getting the forge (1 chop, but we had to mine the hill anyway) up in time. Both the prophet and engineer are due in twelve turns. Turn 54. I had four workers, three warriors a city on the crabs cow site ready to found with a settler ready to found turn 44 (can almost certainly get a settler down to the (fishfurswheatsheep (thats rather a mouthful site)) around turn 50.

Tech path was Ag-BW-Wheel-Med-PHood-Pottery-Hunt-Fish-AH

Going to test out your plan now, Catwalk

If any lurkers are reading along do you know what happens when two cities are due a great person on the same turn? Does it choose the city founded first (which in this case would lead to the desired engineer result.

Additional note: I think we can get the oracle turn 37 looking back at my save I had an extra turn of hammers into it. If I can figure out where I lost commerce compared to your pottery turn 35 then it should be possible. We could possibly get it even faster if we chop another forest.

[slowcheetah]

Played through your plan, got the oracle turn 40 like you said. I dont think you can go much faster I went through quite carefully (and kept making annoying errors which I had to go back and correct). I think my guys the plan currently :P.

[Ceiliazul]

If any lurkers are reading along do you know what happens when two cities are due a great person on the same turn? Does it choose the city founded first (which in this case would lead to the desired engineer result.

Anecdotal: in my experience, the city closest to the top of the F1 list pops the Person.

[slowcheetah]

Cheers Celiazul, sounds promising.

[Catwalk]

Right now I think I'm fine with agreeing to the NW site, and I still think Priesthood first is important. Do you agree with that part of the plan? The NE site does indeed have horrible health, it starts out with a health cap of 1. In my test run above (using your sim) I cheated and gave myself BW on t13, as that's when we get it in-game. That may account for part of the difference. I did focus quite a bit on growth in my run, though. Also partly accounts for why I was slow on the Oracle. We really do need it at the earliest possible date, else Sian's hammer difference will let him grab it faster. Does it sound realistic to have 3 forests chopped on the turn before we research Pottery? Whip overflow from a warrior on the turn before we start + 3 forests would put us at 61 hammers. That leaves 39 to be produced by the city. Which turn do we reach Priesthood? We should use this as basis for our plans, as it lets us calculate how many hammers we can produce in the city.

If we are agreed about the NW site and Priesthood first, we can start looking at other considerations and getting the micro for the first part of it just right. Which sites do you think we should settle, and what should our other worker priorities be? Farming both FP by the capital sounds good, lets it grow to size 4 by the time it's ready to double whip the forge. That way we'll easily get it in time with 2 chops, gives 66 hammers total out of 80. Given that our capital has fresh water (I think we made a good call on the southern PH), chopping 4 forests total in the capital won't matter too much.

I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time today either, in 1.5h I'll be out for 8-10h. I think we will want to spend the first 3t after the worker on a settler, grow on a warrior for 3t after the Corn farm is done and then go back to the settler. We don't need the settler at the earliest possible time, and I think we have time to grow on a warrior without setting us back (check with Buddhism arrival time). But I think we definitely want the settler before the second worker. That would let us grow the capital to size 3 in preparation for Priesthood, letting us do whip overflow on a warrior for the Oracle and still have 2 pop for 5 hammers per turn while waiting for Pottery. In the meantime the capital can take the corn back and grow to size 4 as mentioned above.

for good teamwork so far!

EDIT: In conclusion, it seems that our bottleneck is how many workers we can have ready to chop out the Oracle on the turn before Pottery. Delaying Buddhism seems to be a bad idea, as that reduces the number of turns we can put hammers towards the Oracle. The advantage of delaying Buddhism is that we can start growing the expansion sooner. I don't think that'll be worthwhile, so let's plan on not delaying.

EDITSOMEMORE: We don't need to found Buddhism in the second city! There's absolutely no need to, for purposes of building the Oracle. And since we're putting the Oracle there, it makes no long-term difference where we found Buddhism. I say we get the first settler as soon as possible and found Buddhism in the capital. Work the corn in the expansion heavily and grow it as big as we can. We'd need a warrior for it at size 4, but the capital can probably supply that.