I recently wondered whether pitting first, then docking would be a viable option on your typical extremely watery map as a phoenician with water fairly close..... Turns out it is with some conditions. I tried this with phoenician on reveal, large continental map, though it doesn't depend on the reveal because water is predictably located.... Essentially I pumping all my original guys, built ONE house and pitted near a nice juicy forest, no gold, no stone, no food near it, just a nice big fairly close forest ~15 tiles. I then put all 7 guys on wood until I got 100, which didn't take too long, and i proceeded to yank two off and send them to dock... in the one I have screenshots of there was just one sf nearby dock 1.... Because I still had 5 phoenician woodcutter they had cut sufficient wood to produce a boat, and my two dockers built a house, and wandered along the coast for a second and built another dock, queueing up boats at both then as needing and producing about 12-13 more real vils, who didn't start popping out until ~4 minutes ... All the vils went on wood, and nothing but wood, some stopped and built houses, and I hit the tool upgrade at ~9:30... I soon built another dock and rotated most of my boats there as the fishing by my first two docks was pretty slim.... I built a rax in stone with one guy. As soon as I tooled I build an archery and a stable.... I then hit the bronze upgrade, bronzing in ~14:30 with 39 total vils and boats about evenly split.... The first time I tried this I had better fishing and would have bronzed ~13:30 but I built two stables instead of an archery range and a stable DOH. Anyhow I continued to cut wood until i had approx 520, fairly shortly.... I then pitted gold and put all my villagers on it... as soon as I bronzed I layed down an academy and a seige workshop.... I had to wait for the gold to roll in, Food was fine, I ironed at ~18:30 still with just 39 villagers... So it seems to me that with *****berries and no sweet spot on conti, pit first dock second is very viable, giving you the resources to real vil boom when in bronze. I have screenshots of the latter game which was actually a very crappy spot, imagine a 14:30 bronze max every time on conti with resources to blow when you get there.......... The first time i did it i didn't get screenshots but the fishing was better and I would have bronzed ~13:30. Heres the Bronze shot, I bronzed about 15-20 secs before I took this one.... 14:30 bronze and this is when I ironed, note that when I played this I had the resources to continually pump eles out of my archery range and stable,18:30 iron again this is about 10 secs after I ironed, while I realize 18:30 isn't anywhere near the best iron time by any stretch of the imagination it seems pretty good to me considering it can be gotten without great fishing and no berries (note on the minimap how far divided my docks are, and those boats there in the big clump, they are a ways away from my dock)
So what do you all think, I haven't tried this in a game but I suspect its most vulnerable to boat wars, with fewer real villagers you won't have the wood to fight an extended boat war..... Also with no granary or market you can't wall or get any of the upgrades (which is why ironing took so long, the goldmining upgrade really would have helped) I just wanted to show that it is possible to bronze with 40 (ok 39 close enough) at under 15 (unmolested) something like 85-90% of the time with phoenicia.....
So what do you all think, I haven't tried this in a game but I suspect its most vulnerable to boat wars, with fewer real villagers you won't have the wood to fight an extended boat war..... Also with no granary or market you can't wall or get any of the upgrades (which is why ironing took so long, the goldmining upgrade really would have helped) I just wanted to show that it is possible to bronze with 40 (ok 39 close enough) at under 15 (unmolested) something like 85-90% of the time with phoenicia.....