The Devel's Workshop I - CS Slingshot

[Velociryx]

Summary and Conclusions

Our starting position was fantastic, and allowed us to take a number of detours which bore fruit. That, coupled with the staggering advantage of BronzeWorking for free, and an early switch to Slavery, really helped us along.

Had it not been for those things, our course would have been somewhat different. After Agriculture, I'd still have gone to Bronze, but we would have run without the Pottery detour (which would have been about the same amount of time (Wheel + Pottery more-or-less equalling the price of Bronze)). I think though, that specifically BECAUSE of the advantages this start provides, it's a great test case, because it allows for a lot of variance and experimentation. I would say this one could be played repeatedly, trying all sorts of different approaches to the CS Slingshot puzzle.

With more than six times our starting research, we are well positioned to rip through the rest of the ancient era tech tree, especially given that while we've been setting up, our rivals have been researching all the cheap stuff, making them even cheaper for us. We're gonna completely dominate this continent.

-=Vel=-

[OzzyKP]

I haven't yet been able to get the CS slingshot to work above Prince.

A test case with a perfect start doesn't much give me any clues to help me in other games besides hoping for gold.

It is interesting though that you didn't found a second city. Nor did you build any roads.

[Arrian]

I know... when I do the Slingshot on Prince, I found between 2 and 3 cities, not just 1. On Monarch, I'd gun for just one extra (2 cities total). I particularly like to make sure that my capital is *not* my holy city. I like the combination of National Epic/Oxford or Ironworks/Oxford far better than Wall Street/Oxford.

When possible, I even build the Oracle in my #2 city, not the capital, so as to get a "pure" great prophet city (best-case is that it's got some food, too, so I can build a temple and run a priest to speed up the prophet).

That *is* a beautiful place, Vel. It's good to have you back! Check out the GS forum when you have a chance, btw.

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

Ozzy: That is, unfortunately, something of a two-edged sword. Purely random starts are just that. Of course, the game would have progressed along radically different lines had there been no gold present, but that, like not being coastal and starting with Fishing, is just the luck of the draw. The GOOD thing about this start, however, is that if you can make the slingshot work here, then the same principles will apply in other games, even if the execution is different. Maybe the next random seed will give me fish or crabs and a coastal start...still good gold, but it will change the shading.

A single randomly seeded map isn't the beginning and end of the learning, but it gives us a place to start from...and I would contend that as pretty as the starting terrain is, it's far from perfect. With anemic production here, we're in a bit of a catch-22. Pop rushing is somewhat less attractive here, given that it'll play havoc with our beaker numbers, and we're not overrun with forests, meaning that our second city (when we get one) will have to pick up the production slack. Good, sure, but far from perfect.



And thanks, Arrian! Not back to full steam by a longshot, but....rumbling along a little better today....and you bet I'll give a look to the GS forums!

-=Vel=-

[Stickyman]

Thanks Vel. I think this will be very helpful. I do have a question though.

In the 2320 bc city view, you are showing research of 21 beakers, but commerce of only 16. Where are the other 5 beakers coming from?

[Velociryx]

Sticky - In looking at the screenshot you referenced, I count 13 commerce from worked tiles + 8 for the palace, for a total of 21?

-=Vel=-

[DaveV]

Originally posted by Stickyman
Where are the other 5 beakers coming from?

There's a bag of gold (5 commerce) mostly obscured by the three coins on the gold mine. I made the same mistake on my first look.

[Stickyman]

Yes, I see. I missed the bag of gold on the gold mine. Thx.

[Velociryx]

And Ozzy's post brings up an excellent point...one that should be addressed early on.

Not every start will be well-suited for such fancy footwork as a CS Slingshot. Some, and perhaps even many are, but that's the sort of thing that needs to be assessed once you see the starting terrain.

What you can't do is say to yourself, "I think I'm gonna do a CS Slingshot this game," and then try to make that happen. You could be trying to force a square peg into a round hole. Maybe the terrain will support it, and maybe it won't, but you can't know that until you have a first look.

When doing this first workshop, I had no idea what the subject would be until I took a look at the underlying terrain. That informed me of how best to proceed.

Had the terrain been different, but still commerce heavy, it may have been the case that I'd have tried it anyway, or perhaps some other start would have stood out as superior (ie - had I started in a hammer-heavy environment, and six tiles from one of the "Feather-Heads" (Aztec, Inca), I can assure you that CS Slingshot would not have crossed my mind!

-=Vel=-

[vmxa1]

Hi Vel, when did you get to Slavery? Did I miss it or do you not need that to pop rush?

[couerdelion]

Great work

Very interesting and great work in putting this all together. You can see the starting point looks OK but I can imagine my first thought would have been to think when I could send out my first settler.

As a tutorial, I think there are a number of things that you could explain a little more. For one thing, the term CS slingshot will not be obvious, neither will the reasoning behind why you want the GP, Code of Laws and Oracle to be completed around the same time and why indeed they are so important. I also wasn’t sure if you had mentioned that the combination of corn and gold were enough to keep your people happy. I guess you would have had happy problems at the higher levels.

As things turned out, you got the luck but used it very well. Both corn and gold and a river link to both!!!!. Do you think this would work on the much higher levels or are the odds too heavily stacked in favour of the AI to grab a lot of the prizes first, particularly if that gold were not there or if you hadn’t got the bronze-working?

[Velociryx]

vmxa1:

BronzeWorking came very early on, courtesy of a MOST fortunate "goody hut," and I made the switch immediately (reference screen shot five, in the set).

Note though, that the only time a pop rush was used was to speed the Oracle to completion, and it prolly wasn't necessary....I wasn't sure though, and we DID lose some time in making the detour to Pottery, so...better safe than sorry.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

LionHeart:

Good points, and I'll go back and flesh out the supporting documentation further, per your comments.

Happy problems....eh...perhaps, but then, my solution would have been to make at least one additional use of the Pop-Rush to be rid of the dissidents, and set the city on growth avoidance earlier. As it was though, the gold provided +1 happy, and I've got another +1 happy waiting in the wings (which will cost me a turn of anarchy for declaring Confucianism as my state religion). With an expansive Civ, I wasn't nearly so concerned about the health aspect, and that would hold true (tho less so) even on a difficulty level higher than Monarch.

With regards to those higher levels, no...I definitely would not have made the detour to Pottery before completing the Slingshot, but given the gold mine, I don't think it was necessary in any case. I just....felt the pulse of the game and figured there was time.

-=Vel=-

[LzPrst]

dummy question... CS slingshot?

I cant figure out the abbreviation...

[vmxa1]

Civil Service, it was mentioned in full in one of the post.