The Devel's Workshop I - CS Slingshot

[smacfan]

Hi Vel, this is my first post here on the Civ4 forums, though I used to lurk and occasionally post over on the SMAC/X forums.

So I tried your CS slingshot twice so far, both at the settings your savegame started with. First time got beat to the Oracle (Doh! forgot to research Wheel/Pottery, no towns, only 20 beakers, so no wonder about that).

This second time, got to pottery before starting down the CoL beeline, got both a Granary & Library in Rome, 1 scientist working, 2nd Worker active on chop duty, 33 beakers, building Oracle, cool!

Then came the barbarians...

Wiped out in 3 turns, Warriors just don't handle Barb Archers too well. They even founded a city right on the southeast flank of Rome!

Admitedly I'm not such a good player (novice would be a kind appellation), but ISTM that Hunting/Archery almost have to precede the beeline so you can fight off the Barb Archers. Your opinion on that would be interesting to hear.

Also, I think trying to do it with only one city makes it *much* harder. Third time around I'm definitely going for two cities, if only to have another place to build more warriors while the Oracle is brewing!

Thanks muchly for an excellent teaching tool.

[Velociryx]

Hiya SMACfan, and you're welcome! Good luck, and let us know how you far in your next attempts!



-=Vel=-

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by smacfan
Wiped out in 3 turns, Warriors just don't handle Barb Archers too well. They even founded a city right on the southeast flank of Rome!

Admitedly I'm not such a good player (novice would be a kind appellation), but ISTM that Hunting/Archery almost have to precede the beeline so you can fight off the Barb Archers. Your opinion on that would be interesting to hear.

As always, sometimes you can be just plain unlucky with the barbs but I would tend to avoid the diversion to develop archery, particular if the diversion also has to involve hunting.

You can always increase your odds sometimes in the archer/warrior battles. Keeping units fortified unless you HAVE to move them is better than shuffling them around from place to place. Also bear in mind that some improvements may not be worth defending but in this scenario the gold is critical for the speed at which it gets you CoL along with two scientist.

Oracle is often the least of your problems since you can usually chop and pop-rush this one.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve defended during a CS Slingshot successfully against axemen and unsuccessfully against archers (although I at least had chariots in the former case)

Also don’t be frightened of trying it without the wheel and pottery if animal husbandry is a quicker route to writing. This would be particularly appropriate if you have animals around to “husband”. I tend to think of the tech pattern as involving four distinct stages.

1) Think which techs you might need for your workers (not all of them but the important once to allow the city to use its resources. (Any of Fishing, Agro, Hunting, Animals)
2) Bronze-working
3) Writing
4) Code of Law.

2) and 3) all help to speed the way towards 4) since they will both help to get the Library up early for your scientist. It’s a real virtuous circle with the only weakness that you will have to “box clever” for some time in what Vel calls the “blackout phase” after Priesthood.

[smacfan]

And your opinion on whether Hunting/Archery are necessary to succeed in this workshop is... ?

I wouldn't suppose going for Alphabet and trading instead of Hunting/Archery would help too much, as I wouldn't think even the friendliest neighbor would be willing to trade Archery for anything... At least not that early. Or would they?

[smacfan]

coerdelion,

In this case the barbs came knocking on Rome's door with Archers from two directions. Per Vel's guide through the scenario, I had 4 Warriors inside the city boundaries, two inside the city itself and one each on the Corn and Gold. The southern Archer wiped out my long-fortified Warrior on the Gold, and the second was a pair that came right to the city gates and wiped me out in one turn while I was building Oracle.

Is that just bad luck? Does fighting a lot of Barb Warriors (with my roaming 1st Warrior) provoke the barbs to attack the city in retaliation? My roaming Warrior had recently beaten 3 sets of Barb Warriors, and was up to 7/10 for his next promotion.

[couerdelion]

Archery before slingshot "blackout"

Originally posted by smacfan
And your opinion on whether Hunting/Archery are necessary to succeed in this workshop is... ?

I thought I mentioned earlier that it was rarely necessary. Besides, it's likely to cause the whole thing to fail, particularly if you have to go for hunting first. With archers your main threat, the promotions would make sense using Combat I to give access to Cover.

Failing that, you would try to get the archers to attack you in favourable terrain and, if I recall this scenario correctly your best defences are

1) In the city (+40%) – most units at +25% fortified
2) In the forest
3) Across a river
4) On the gold hill.

Looking at the relative value of the improvements the only one that is crucial to the slingshot seems to be the gold (although even this might not be too bad if the cottages are growing nicely). Defending the slingshot is more important than defending that farm because you will usually have enough food from the foodplains.

I would think that the best way to defend the corn farm may actually be to fortify a warrior in the woods on the other side of the river from the farm. I always forget what the river bonus is but just with the woods your warrior is 50:50 against an archer and any fortification and river bonus is going to push the odds in your favour. Also keeping it there allows you the option of switching it to the capital if the risk there is greater.

I think the gold hill is a little problematic since a fortified warrior is at best 50:50 against an archer. If you do lose that battle then having another warrior there will probably save the mine. So I might tend to leave a second warrior available there to protect the square and possibly also take advantage of a weak archer who managed to kill my other warrior. Should be a quick and easy promotion to Combat 1 and better chance of winning the next encounter of this type.

Bear in mind that we are talking a little hypothetically here and Vel has already stated that the two-city slingshot is a safer, and sometimes faster option. Quite apart from giving the extra commerce and production – allowing the cities to concentrate on one or other part of the slingshot, it may also open up horses or copper and this will increase your options significantly.

Another thing to be aware of is that you can always rush a warrior if they are knocking on your door in numbers. By then your slingshot attempt will probably be in tatters anyway so your focus may just be for survival

[xxFlukexx]

I notice some people are wanting this game to be played out to the end.

I just finished my last game so I was going to play this one out to the end (I am confident I can win any start on Monarch) but I couldn't find a save after the CS is completed. Could Vel/Dominae or anyone else post a save of just after the CS slingshot is done and then I'll play the game out and post my results here? Thanks.

[Shr3dZ]

Just as a general warning: I started a new game last night, went for the CS-Slingshot, got the Oracle, 6 turns later my GL was about to be born, chances: 12% prophet, 88% scientist ....

I dont even need to tell you which GL I got, Im not ammused.

And I even held off building the Oracle for an extra turn just to give my GL the best chance to become a scientist, grrr.

[Tokyo Sexwale]

Originally posted by smacfan
coerdelion,

In this case the barbs came knocking on Rome's door with Archers from two directions. Per Vel's guide through the scenario, I had 4 Warriors inside the city boundaries, two inside the city itself and one each on the Corn and Gold.

Is that just bad luck? Does fighting a lot of Barb Warriors (with my roaming 1st Warrior) provoke the barbs to attack the city in retaliation?

I had a harder time with bards until I realized its better to get most of your warriors OUT of your cities (in the ancient era) and into the wild where they can receive +50 and +75 bonuses in forests/hills.

Leave those forested hills covered (chop elsewhere if you have to) and strategically place your warriors (later, archers) AROUND your cities. If you get the positioning right the barbs will attack your fortified position first and won't even make it to your cities. I'm playing on Monarch now and without this trick I would have been overrun by barbs everytime.

In your example I would have had 1 warrior in the city and 3 outside in the forests, maybe even those on resource would be pushed into forests. This idea has been talked about a lot - but just in case you missed it, smacfan.

As to yuor second question, I think Barbs will attack you all the time no matter what, so it doesn't matter if you go looking for them. The Barb is a stupid AI - you can use this to your advantage and park some units on for/hills outside his city and his newly built forces will attack you there (and lose usually) and never make it to your lands.

Summary --> use of for/hills in ancient era is paramount... get your forces on them and wait for the promotions to come rolling in.

[DirtyMartini]

I post my warriors where they remove the greatest amount of fog to prevent barbarians from spawning in the first place. This limits my barbarian problems to one or two compass points in most cases, and at worst gives me advance warning when they do come at me. Not my own innovation obviously, but I didn't really think it would be as beneficial as it is until I tried it for myself.

[smacfan]

coerdelion, thanks for the advice on warrior placement and survival. I'll try that this time around, maybe with a few more warriors in outlying forests too.

Originally posted by Tokyo Sexwale

Summary --> use of for/hills in ancient era is paramount... get your forces on them and wait for the promotions to come rolling in.

Tokyo, thanks for the additional specific advice. I can see where your technique would tend to keep the barbs at a distance, except where you don't have forest or hill cover. I will try it out and see for myself.

Regards,

smacfan

[smacfan]

Well, it looks like third time is the charm. I managed to perform the CS slingshot, with (I admit it) one or two restarts from a save when I lost my roaming warrior due to my own stupidity.

However, building a Barracks for the level-up and posting my improved Warriors in forest or forest/hills for the 50%/75% defensive bonuses sure helped with the barbs, both animals and human.

Something I noticed though, is that barbarian animals do not seem to contribute to experience after a Warrior reaches 5 out of 10 experience points (or maybe it was after a certain date? not sure at this point). Is that accurate, or am I seeing a bug of some kind? I do know that several of my 5/10 Warriors fought a *lot* of attacking animals and got only damage for their trouble (though they did always win).

Next time I go for two cities to see how things change, then on to Devel II and the Jag rush.

Vel, thanks once again for a great teaching tool. This is fun!

smacfan

[xxFlukexx]

Exp cap is at 5 for animals and 10 for barbarians, this is working correctly.

[smacfan]

Thanks for that info, I did not know that.

Peter

[couerdelion]

That experience cap

Does that also mean that those nice “experience hut” only push your little warriors up to level 5 too or do they “add” 5 XP?

The trick of moving a unit onto an adjacent square can also help against other civs. I once had Napoleon’s troops pillaging around my capital and one axeman moved onto a developed fur tile. In a post slingshot city (with financial trait) that tile gives me 4.5 hammers and 13.1 beakers so I did not want to see it burn. It was also the strategic link to my second city and its copper. The axeman had avoided the capital but his location had forced me to keep my axeman in the capital rather than move to defend the tile. To save the tile, I moved a quecha warrior next to Napoleon’s unit. No doubt Napoleon would have been furious with his unit but off comes the axeman from the wooded hill and kills my quecha. I can then move my axeman onto the wooded hill.

N.B. Is it just Napoleon or have people had experience of other civs just declaring war for no apparent reason. Perhaps it’s the aggressive trait but I also notice a tendency of the war to have no logic but to inconvenience me while I’m building a wonder.