The Devel's Workshop I - CS Slingshot

[Velociryx]

Lion, Prst, I have edited the initial post with a more complete explanation, and vmxa1 beat me to it...Civil Service Slingshot....a means of catapulting your research to extreme heights in the early game.

-=Vel=-

[LzPrst]

ah. thanks. I get it now. great work.

and just to explain my ability to miss it earlier, I cant be bothered to read closely all the posts I read here, if I didnt skim I would be reading for days at a time, not hours

[uberfish]

Nice article and analysis!

I've pulled off the oracle -> CS slingshot successfully on emperor a few times, usually with a financial civ. The conditions have to be right for it as the AI will generally build oracle sometime in the 1500-500 BC timeframe and take CoL for Confucianism. Research is the key, and I think a start position with high commerce potential is necessary, as you need a lot of beakers to get the 2-3 key economic techs for your position and still make it to Code of Laws in time.

I usually have time to get one settler out, or a library, but being greedy and trying for both tends to just lose me the Oracle. I personally prefer the settler if there are any good city sites fairly near, so the new city will be in a better position to crank out units/workers/settlers once Oracle is done, while the capital makes buildings and Wonders to continue vertical growth and take full advantage of bureaucracy - as the natural followup to this opening is alphabet, trade CoL to fill in the ancient age techs, literature and great library.

[Velociryx]

No problem, Prst...totally understand!

And thanks uberfish! Quite right about alphabet...I will probably make a move toward that one next and do a bit of selective trading....wanted to get Husbandary before the settler completed tho, so I could find out where the horse-critters were...that could well shade my decisions about the second city site, and then of course, after Alphabet, the very NEXT move would be to Ironworking (especially given that we're the Romans!). Not only do we have LOTS of jungle to the south, but Ironworking is the key to unlocking our invinicible army....

-=Vel=-

[uberfish]

Hadn't really sunk in that you were playing Rome due to the opening (hehe) but alphabet or CoL usually gets me iron working in trade. Granted, the AIs would have to be particularly foolish to ever trade iron working to Rome, but I'm not sure they take UUs into account...

[Velociryx]

Yeah....thing is tho...I'm not really fond of trading CoL for the much less expensive IronWorking...'specially now....and if lots of other civs have it by the time we get to it, then I can research it much more quickly than they can, even with their AI bonuses.

I'll part with pottery if there's a laggard, and writing for sure, but the upper level stuffs...I'm hoarding...

-=Vel=-

[uberfish]

I like trading CoL away as Rome, so the other civs can build the courthouses for me :P

But in general, I do like researching deep and don't mind trading at a bad ratio if necessary to fill out older techs. Matter of style I guess. There's always that 1950 space launch by some AI on another continent lurking at the back of my mind, urging me to get to my next research milestone faster.

[couerdelion]

The Bureaucracy bonus

I guess I’m right in saying that the Bureaucracy multiplier is applied to base commerce. So that an additional 10 commerce from tiles would generate 15 for science.

Then the science multiplier of 175% is applied giving an extra 26 beakers!!!

If this is the case, then building cottages would seem the sensible medium term approach as long as the city is happy enough to grow and you can always churn out workers and settlers if not.

[gus_smedstad]

That's an interesting example game. I gather you routinely research Bronze Working when going for this? It seems like a big detour. I've done the CS Slingshot several times on Monarch, but never researched Bronze Working as part of the deal. The upshot of that has been that most of the time I can't get the Great Scientist before I get the Oracle.

The big random element in this particular article isn't the terrain, it's Bronze Working from the hut. That alllowed you to do all sorts of things I'd never touch as part of a normal CS slingshot.

- Gus

[Martinus]

This seems like a perfect setup for the Chinese civ under Quin. Financial and Industrious will help both with the oracle and the research speed, and Civil Service will unlock the UU, which is very powerful and will be unbeatable gained so early in game (you will also need other prerequisites, but they should be a piece of cake with your monster science production).

Even Mao could be great for it, being Philosophical, and thus getting the great scientist even faster.

[Hauptman]

Now from this point, I would rather time ironworking with the settler to get city #2 working the iron pronto. But I guess you have the room to not need to rush it.

Couple things i would have done differently, Romans = fear noone early game, so I would have switched to Confucianism imediatly and taken the extra commerce from the extra cottage. Also, when i found Issabella i would have checked to see if she left me a worker sitting on her border. But I'm much more agressive, and feel that pretorians make me invulnerable...

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Martinus
This seems like a perfect setup for the Chinese civ under Quin. Financial and Industrious will help both with the oracle and the research speed, and Civil Service will unlock the UU, which is very powerful and will be unbeatable gained so early in game (you will also need other prerequisites, but they should be a piece of cake with your monster science production).

Even Mao could be great for it, being Philosophical, and thus getting the great scientist even faster.

The Cho comes with Machinery, not Civil Service. CS provides Macemen, but macemen also require machinery, AFAIK.

Usually when doing the CS slingshot, you need to do a substantial amount of backfilling in other areas before getting to Machinery...

-Arrian

[Hauptman]

Usually when doing the CS slingshot, you need to do a substantial amount of backfilling in other areas before getting to Machinery...

Actually, asuming you took bronze working for chop rushing its only metal casting then machinery. Then hunting and archery and whalla. That is what I did on my AU100c. I did however miss the oracle so no slingshot, and also missed confucionism by 4 turns... /grumble. But i had a thousand years of conquest with cho ku nus vs axemen. (machinery done in 1ad)

[Arrian]

Ok, fair enough. I guess *I* have backfilling to do, because I want things like:

-pottery
-monotheism
-maybe monarchy (if I've got lux resources that req it)
-fishing
-sailing
-iron working
-alphabet
-literature (GL!)
-currency
-calendar (if needed for luxes)

And yes, also metal casting and machinery

Some of that can be satisfied once I have alphabet, via trade.

Obviously, if one wishes to focus on kicking butt with Cho's, one can forgo a good chunk of the above.

-Arrian

[OzzyKP]

I am always a big fan of early religion. Extra culture, extra happy person, plus access to organized religion I find are good bonuses not to overlook.

Especially since you have to take an early religion path eventually to get priesthood, why not do that first so you can grab Hinduism?

So perhaps go mysticism, polytheism, and then go agriculture. I suppose I could give it a shot when I get back from work.

Like Hauptman said, you don't have much to fear from the AI by taking on a religion. Especially not that early in the game. One more extra person working in Rome could help speed both construction of the Oracle and invention of CoL.