Bronzeworking - Too important?

[Sauron07]

The more I play and move up in difficulty, the more I become convinced that bronzeworking is overpowered relative to the other early techs and is the one truly must have tech for most strats I've seen discussed on the board (CS slingshot excepted, but even there I notice alot of people try to squeeze bw into the beeline).

The combination of revealing copper, unlocking axemen/spearmen, allowing use of the slaver civic (whip) and forest removal (chop) is just too powerful not to research early on. I question why the designers would unlock both tree chopping and slavery with the same tech as they are the only two methods for rushing production early in the game and tying them to the same tech pushes everyone down the same path and reduces strategic variety. I know I can still compete if I skip fishing, hunting or even mysticism for 50 turns but bronzeworking is one of my first 3-4 techs in close to 90+% of my games,and my guess is that in the single player tournaments hiere the percentage of players researching bw early will be similar..

If either the whip or chop were tied to a different tech it would increase your options and make tech builds that dont research bw early more viable. Even when I want to stress commerce I research bw early on so that I can use the whip to build infrastructure in cities with little natural production.

[Urban Ranger]

1. I don't think slavery is that big a deal, YMMV. Still, Bronze Working is very important because of the dreaded Axemen unit.
2. What on earth is "CS?"

[Drachasor]

Chopping alone makes it overpowered, imho. Chopping is the single most important thing in the early game. It becomes more and more powerful (relatively) the greater the difficulty setting.

Slavery becomes less and less powerful as difficulty increases. Axemen are nice, but copper can be hard to find, so you aren't certain to get them.

In my Monarch games the first thing I do is research Bronzeworking. I get a worker soon after this and start chopping. The entire game until the ADs is pretty much governed by the availibility of forests to chop--if there are very few then the game will be very hard, but if there are many then the game can get downright easy.

I cannot do this well if I research anything else before Bronzeworking. Getting great prophets can also be important (to found a religion and for money), but there are several options there. Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and the like have import, but the order of research is always after BW and then depends upon the map (whereas BW really does not).

-Drachasor

PS. the CS-slingshot refers to a strat to get the Oracle completed just after getting Code of Laws in order to get Civil Service.

[Blake]

It's good for strategy games to have strong options.

Altough the strongest early tech may be Bronzeworking, the keystone early tech is writing, and there are multiple paths to writing.

Myself I usually head to writing asap, taking the path that maximizes early improvements.

It does depend on the civ and settings though... such as starting with mining provides extra incentive to head to bronze working.

One thing to note is that half the benefit of BW (copper, axemen) is not guaranteed (even if it helps to know), while with a tech to Writing and Archery you are dealing with certainties, you WILL get to build a library and fast acadamy, you WILL get a decent defensive unit.

Chopping isn't essential for fast early growth... if you have a couple of good specials then IMO it's better to improve them and save the forest for later (thus no need to get BW).. it's only cases where you have a mess of forest and no decent specials that getting chop quickly becomes a decisively more powerful strat.

I probably only research BW quickly in about 1/3rd of games, otherwise I tend to head to writing first - usually via Animal Husbandary for pastures and to reveal horses.

[MoonWolf]

So, you actually want techs to be balanced? Some stuff in the game will of course be stronger than other. That's how it is, how it has been and how is always will be, in games and real life.

Bronze Working is important, yes, but too? No, think not. So, if you research this fast, other important techs will suffer. If you postpone agriculture or animal husbandry, your growth will suffer as you can exploit these resources that fast. And if you adopt Slavery and use it to pop-rush buildings/ units, your growth will again suffer and is really not a good idea unless an enemy knocks on your door and you don't have any proper unit(s) in the city. To let your cities grow to optimal sizes is extremely important in the early stages...

Please don't try to "flatten" out everything. If all techs and aspects of the game get "equal", it will get boring, and I feel it's balanced good enough already when it comes to tech-choices; some sacrifies must be made if you want to reach certain other goals.

[rjmatsleepers]

Well, as they say, it does rather depend on which leader you're playing and what your starting position is. If I don't have it, I usually start with mysticism - just to get the early GP points from Stonehenge. Animal husbandry is next, if there are resouces that I can develop with a pasture. But after that it's a dash for mining and bronze working.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Drachasor
Chopping alone makes it overpowered, imho. Chopping is the single most important thing in the early game. It becomes more and more powerful (relatively) the greater the difficulty setting.

I haven't used the "Locust" strategy as a starting gambit, then again I haven't played at high difficulty levels, yet.

[Leifmk]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I haven't used the "Locust" strategy as a starting gambit, then again I haven't played at high difficulty levels, yet.

In the games I've played so far (granted, not much above Prince level) I seem to get the best results by engaging in moderate but not radical deforestation early on.

My "pet game" (which I keep returning to in between shorter games on various smaller worlds, and restarting from the beginning to try slightly different early approaches, just to see how well I can do) is on the huge Earth map as China. Generous amount of resources in the capital's city radius (fish, grain, pigs and horses, and some iron on a hill once I discover Iron Working), lots of forest nearby.

Since I start with Mining I could beeline for Bronze Working and start chopping almost immediately, but I find I get better results in the longer term by letting the capital grow a bit before building the first worker and pursuing a somewhat balanced land-use policy. So far the optimum seems to be to start with Fishing and build a workboat, maybe go for one of the early religions, let the capital grow to size 3 or even 4 before making the first worker, then time that to coincide with the discovery of Bronze Working, rapidly chop out one or two more workers, then put one worker on "improve land" detail while one chops a few more forest tiles for settlers and such until I have 4-6 cities; after that it's time to grow the cities and try to get some wonders and so on before expanding further.

I've tried going totally locust and that works well enough, but in the long term my production suffers quite a bit (not so much in cities with many hills, but flatland cities should keep some forest tiles for the day when lumbermills and railroads come along) as does health.

[Brizey]

If everything was perfectly balanced, then the choices you make would be meaningless by definition.

[Diadem]

Bwah..

I usually only research bronzeworking to see if I have copper anywhere. And when I want iron working.

Slavery is useless. Give me caste system! Chopping can be useful, but it's highly overrated. Lumbermills beat all other tile improvements but watermills. And usually I don't have that many forests closeby to make wasting them viable. But that is highly map dependent. Axemen are of course nice, but unless I plan an early military campaign I don't need them that early.

Of course bronzeworking is a good early tech. But to say you need it within the first 3-4 techs is nonsense.

I need farming more, and animal husbandry. After that tech to monotheism to grab judaism (and get masonry for pyramids in the progress). Then we need The Wheel to hook up resources. Then I want The Oracle and writing so I can do a CS slingshot. After that I finally get bronzeworking. Unless I want pottery of course.

There are situations in which I get bronze working much earlier, of course. Being completely surrounded by forests for example. But the above is my usual tech order, and it works amazingly well even on high difficulty levels.

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Leifmk
In the games I've played so far (granted, not much above Prince level) I seem to get the best results by engaging in moderate but not radical deforestation early on.

On Monarch I have gotten best results by total deforestation. You get a worker, and use that worker to chop for another worker or two. Then Chop for a Settler. Then you chop for Stonehenge (the great prophets from this are invaluable). Continue chopping for settlers and workers in new cities. Chop for the Pyramids, Chop for the Oracle, etc.

This is the only strategy out of the many I have tried that gives a decent chance to be ahead of the AI on Monarch. It also guarantees the gain of several wonders (Stonehenge always, essentially, the Pyramid and Oracle are a bit up for grabs). It is also the only way to keep up with the AI's rapid expansion capabilities due to the bonuses it gets.

Some say that lumbermills are a great improvement, but they are hundreds of turns away. The cost of waiting for lumbermills is simply too great. Chopping makes cities go from producing 4-8 production a turn (maybe 15 when they get bigger) to more than three times that amount on average. It can be much greater with more than one worker chopping. The gains from this are massive and they are most certainly not overrated. Expanding to 6 or 7 cities twice as fast (or more) as you would otherwise and still being able to produce wonders is a huge boon. Naturally you can't get beyond this number of cities until a bit later, but with all those workers you can also improve your land rapidly. That with boosts from things like Great Prophets let you stay equal to or ahead of the AI in the tech race on Monarch -- otherwise you will fall behind.

If someone has another strategy that gives them these tech advantages, wonder building capabilities, and a game score equal to or greater than the AI's on Monarch (or higher) well before the AD's hit and lasting long after, then I'd like to hear it. On Prince in below things are easier, and this isn't as relatively beneficial -- partly because on Monarch the AI starts with a worker, archery, and archers; a big advantage.

-Drachasor

[Cort Haus]

Getting a flying start is one thing, Drachasor, but how do your cities get on in the mid-late game with no hammers?

[Blake]

It's a myth that chopping your forests will impair hammers.

Here's the FACTS.

A state property Workshop has exactly the same stats as Forest+Lumbermill+Railroad, minus the health benefit ofcourse. However, Workshops are better because they require far less investment in technology, you only need to get Communism and Chemistry and you have the full +3 hammer Workshops, you can pre-build the suckers too and they auto-upgrade come the techs. To get full-powered forests you additionally need railroad and to locate coal, and to seperately build the Lumbermill and Railroad upgrade - which takes time.

State property is (probably) the best economic civic in the game and there's no reason not to run it. For any remotely large empire the savings seem to surpass Free Market's income, so the massive +food benefits are pure gravy.

But then again if you make Communism a priority and build Kremlin it's not like it matters how many hammers your cities prouduce...

[Drachasor]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
Getting a flying start is one thing, Drachasor, but how do your cities get on in the mid-late game with no hammers?

Workshops, as Blake just said. Also, many cities have more than enough hills to provide good production. A forest for most of the game provides very little.

Also, by the time you get lumbermills producing decently, you can easily have Universal Suffrage and Freedom of Speech (and US can happen earlier with the Pyramids). This can provide a potent boost to city production via rush buying. Mid-game you can easily be producing a great deal cash and have a great science rate*, making rush-buying a very easy thing to do.

-Drachasor

*Great Prophets, Great Merchants, and Wall Street in a Holy city can greatly assist this.

[ghen]

want to try new builds? play a 'great plains' map.. very few forests there.