Slingshot question

[Alkis2]

Hi there, I used to write here some years ago... anyway I recently got this game and I have a question:

How many towns do you have by then? I read about the slingshot but it appears that I do it in a different way. My idea is to build some towns while I do it. The fact is, it works on Prince level. I didn't try higher, I am still a newbie.

So, those of you with exp please answer, especially if you play with normal speed and standard size.

[gdgrimm]

I think if you read Vel's thread about the CS Slingshot game (thread is called something like Devil's Workshop) you'll get plenty of answers.

It seems most players run the CS Slingshot with from 1-3 cities.

Pesonally, if I'm going to do it, I'd do it with 1. If I have some hammers to spare (perhaps because I don't have Writing yet, or whatever) I may devote them to a Settler, and if it finishes build a second city. But every bit of my capital's production will go toward completing the Slingshot.

My main reason for that is that researching Code of Laws is a big investment. And it only pays off if you:

1) Have quite a few cities, so you get the Courthouses to drop expenses.

or

2) Can trade it for other techs

or

3) You use it as a jumping point for Civil Service with the Oracle slingshot.

Now once you start down the Slingshot path, you won't be in situation #1 or #2 for a 1000 years or so after you finish the Oracle. So you HAVE to get the Oracle completed to get any return on the research into Code of Laws.

IF you don't get the Oracle, you've almost completely wasted a lot of hammers (in building it), probably a forest or two (trying to chop rush it), and invested a whole lot of research into Code of Laws that will be of no value for quite awhile. So you once you start down the CS Slingshot path, you HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING YOU CAN to make it succeed.

Personally, that's a very large gamble for me to take.

[Crossfire]

I generally start by building a worker (while researching BW) then a settler, then I settle into Vel's build for getting the Oracle. My library will be a little behind Vel's and so I won't get the great scientist quite as soon so my academy is also a little later, but everything else is pretty much on the same timeline. I usually chop twice for my settler and twice again to get my oracle out on time. This cuts your settler build time down to 8 or 9 turns so it is not that much of a difference.

In the meantime, I have another city starting to produce both revenue and workers and more settlers so that I can spam a few cities out sooner. Once my capitol comes back online I usually can move unit production there and work on building infrastructure in my second city. This also prepares me to be able to spam more troops if I find out Monty is my nearest neighbor.

[Alkis2]

Well, remember that I play on a low difficulty setting. On Prince it always works. In one game I got the Oracle as late as 850 BC. I think I did it something like 4 times. Faster was 1200 BC.

Anyway the real novelty is that I don'rt build a library. I build settlers instead and the new towns however small they do give some research points. Another thing is that I don't use tree chopping, too much time to get to Bronze.

About number of cities I have when the Oracle is completed, usually 3 but once 4.

The main argument is that the Academy can wait but if the AI takes every good spot you will be left with very few (and not so good) towns.

[Velociryx]

The main argument is that the Academy can wait but if the AI takes every good spot you will be left with very few (and not so good) towns.

The flip side to the equation, of course, is that if your research is vastly better than your adversary's (as it would be with an early academy, cottage focus, slingshot, early bureaucracy), then even if he does settle in a spot you wanted, taking the town from him with your macemen/knights vs. his archers is like taking candy from a baby....

-=Vel=-

[alva]

Originally posted by gdgrimm
I think if you read Vel's thread about the CS Slingshot game (thread is called something like Devil's Workshop) you'll get plenty of answers.
* snip *

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=147474

[Alkis2]

To Vel

Ehm man not everybody has your luck in battles etc. Also your great man usually comes after the Oracle is built and he can be a prophet. He is usefull no doubt, he can build the Dai Miao and give you maybe 4-5 gold per turn.

Another thing is the time you spend to actually cut those forests. It's 3 turns each and another turn to move the worker to the forest square. If you cut 4 forests that's 16 turns. I can do many things with my worker in 16 turns, build cottages for example.

So I humbly believe that my idea of "the primitive slingshot" deserves a try.

[Velociryx]

And you're exactly right! That's the cool thing about Civ IV....so many ways of accomplishing the same goal!

-=Vel=-

[Alkis2]

Hehe diplomatic answer

A thing I forgot to mention is that I usually do it with a Financial Civ and my cottages are maybe as good as a scientist. There is often a river at the capital site.

[JackRudd]

Oooh, yes, Slingshots with a Financial leader can be very good.

(Lizzie for preference - get that Academy NOW!)

[Alkis2]

I changed my mind

I am also a fan of Lizzi

Several days have passed and I am more experienced now. I played two games on Monarch and this time I didn't go for the slingshot. Well, the result was that I had much easier wins. In the first I built the Statue in the 16th century, had computers by the 17th and launched long before the coundown.

So I tend to think that the slingshot is not a sound plan. It just isn't logical to spend so much to get a high level tech and remain underdeveloped. A little later, maybe you will have to go to war to get what was rightfully yours.

And now is the time to talk about priorities. If you consider the Academy a first priority thing why geopardize it with building a wonder that gives great prophet. And maybe expanding is an even greater priority. I think the way to expand is FAR FIRST and near later. That way you may have say 4 towns but another 3-4 in between. The AI doesn't build towns behind your lines that early.

For me:
First priority, build towns, claim territory(any Go players here?). Remember, far first.
Second priority, the Academy.

You can still beeline to some interesting tech like Alphabet/Literature and build the GL later.

Saying all that, I admit that there are many interesting (and probably unsound) strategies involving a wonder that it's fun to try. In my second game on Monarch I tried to get the Pyramids and I failed. Also the barbs managed to found a town at the edge of the peninsula. I was dissappointed and wanted to resign. Instead I played on and won pretty easily. I lost 3 swordsmen to get that darn village though

[couerdelion]

Better to avoid confusing towns and cities in this game because you will almost certainly want to be building cottages with the CS slingshot. The question of building new cities is likely to be one of determining whether or not you’ll do the whole thing more quickly with another city providing either production or science.

One big external factor that will influence this is the discovery of interesting resources near a second city site. Some key ones to find are

1) Marble (+100% production speed of key use to non-industrious civs)
2) Gold (to vastly increase research speed) – you may even find some gems lying outside a jungle
3) Copper (both strategic and for production

One city slingshots work well if you have good production and commerce but it you will always be trading off between production and GP points. Two cities allows for a limited period specialisation and can often turn out to be quicker. More than two, I’ve only failed to complete the slingshot

[couerdelion]

Expand far and early/Great People

I think this strategy will be found wanting at Monarch level and higher. Your costs will be crippling you for city maintenance and with you playing at a building and starting disadvantage to the AI, you probably won’t even get your cities out there first – let alone hold them from any cultural or military threat. Even barbarians will become a significant barrier to rapid early game expansion through settlement.

With regard to your Great Prophet/Academy, these GPs are very valuable and extremely so in the early game. It costs 100 GPP (Standard Speed) for a GP and, for the scientist before the slingshot, you are not losing out on science investment unless you have problems feeding the scientist. With Bureaucracy the capital could be producing 20-30 commerce even at this stage so your Academy will generate an additional 10-15 per turn invested in science immediately. Great People are “extremely” valuable in this game and generate significant returns for people who invest in them early. I tend to think of them as being worth about 2000 gold each in the middle game. Over the long term, I think generating that early GP is perhaps a better investment than a second or third city.

[Alkis2]

On the contrary my strategy works great on Monarch. Really really easy wins with almost no wars. You have to be patient though because at the beginning your research will be low. It's no big deal because you will catch up later. You say that GP are worth about 2000 gold for you. I will make no comment on that I will simply say that the AI will never sell you one their cities even for 2000 gold. If you lose the specific city site it's lost forever. Only war can get you that city and I hate wars. In my last game I had 8 cities, one of them barbarian that cost me a lot to get. Two of them were found by settlers built in "new" cities, in other words not from the capital. Even though I made a mistake chasing the Pyramids in my capital, I had the Acadamy there, more or less early. In my new cities I don't build obelisk unless absolutely necessary. I build more units instead and settler ocasionally. Also, remember that by not persuing the slingshot I can afford to research Archery

Thanks for your suggestion on cities and towns. When I say town I mean city not cottage-town.

[gus_smedstad]

Originally posted by Velociryx
taking the town from him with your macemen/knights vs. his archers is like taking candy from a baby....

I'm currently finishing a Monarch, Standard Speed, Terra, Standard Size game in which I executed the Slingshot as Saladin. I started with Gold and Rice, and an initial hut which showed nothing but desert to my west. The terrain to my east didn't look terribly promising either, so vertical growth looked good.

I was surrounded by the Aztecs, England, India, and Spain. They rapidly moved into my area, and I only managed to found 2 more cities after finishing the Oracle. Both of these cities had border problems. Damascus in particular was near York and some unpronounceable Aztec city, but it was vital to my long-term plan because it was adjacent to Horses.

Both Damascus and Medina focused on culture in order to push back their borders whenever they could. Both built Obelisks and Confucian Monasteries early, for example. This proved vital because York actually took away Damascus's horses by culture early, but Damascus was able to take them back.

Because I had several strong neighbors, I stayed scrupulously neutral through much of the game. I didn't switch to Confucianism when I got it, because it would have annoyed India, the Aztecs, and Spain, all of whom had different religions. I moved my free missionary to London to spread Confucianism there, which persuaded Elisabeth to switch immediately and sowed further discontent.

Because of all this religious strife, I never declared a state religion. This meant missing out on +1 happiness and +25% production, but I more than made up for that by building no military. Eventually of course I got Free Religion.

I never traded technology with anyone who had made enemies, which meant that mostly I traded with Rome and Russia, and even that was quite sparing. When Montezuma asked for tribute, I gave it, which meant he marched his horse archers through my territory to raze Bangalore instead of attacking me. That was a real boon because Medina's massive culture suddenly gave me a fair amount of territory.

After backfilling the basic techs, I beelined for Literature for the Great Library. I then got Music because I planned on attacking with Cavalry, since I had no iron or copper. I used the resulting Great Artist as a specialist in Medina to help with its cultural war with Bangalore. Next I got Philosophy and Taoism, which I spread to all my cities for the culture, the monasteries, and the temples. My initial Taoist missionary went to Rome to encourage Caesar to choose a religion that didn't match my neighbors.

Whenever I ran out of infrastructure to build, I built Confucian and Taoist missionaries and spread them around for the extra commerce.

Pretty soon I got Liberalism, which gave me Military Tradition for free, and I researched Gunpowder. By this time I had 1200 gold despite running 100% science because I had 2 religious shrines (Confucianism and Taoism), only 3 cities, 3 warriors, an archer, and 6 chariots I'd built for the advent of Cavalry.

I quickly converted the old units to Cavalry, and built a few more, and attacked England. I chose England because the Aztecs were currently at war with them, and I wanted to build my relationship with Montezuma. I went through England's longbows and spearmen like a hot butter through knife, even though I brought no Catapults, and hadn't even researched Construction. This netted me 6 cities and some much needed food resources.

I then moved my army to my Spanish border, whereupon Isabelle attacked. Her War Elephants and Macemen did poorly against my Cavalry and Riflemen, and pretty soon I had 4 new Spanish cities. I did have to bring along Catapults because Spain had Chichen Itza, and Pikemen behind +85% defenses are too strong for Cavalry.

Eventually war weariness became serious, so I made peace with Spain, and prepared for war with India. Most of my Cavalry ended up trapped behind Spanish cultural borders inside Madrid, but they were more or less obsolete anyway because India would soon develop Riflemen. Which wouldn't help them much against my Infantry.

As it stands now, I've wiped out India completely, and I'm eyeing taking out Rome. I'm a few turns from Tanks, and Rome has barely made it to Riflemen.

- Gus