CS Slingshot and then What? (Death!)

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Like I said.. I had four warriors per city, (so eight and two cities), three were fortified on resources and one was in the city.

No copper or Iron, and there was no copper that was viable. By the time I got iron working and the iron was revealed to be in a reasonable position, there was no way to build a settler, grab the resource, and connect it.

Every 3-4 turns I was being attacked by Barb archers or Axemen. So they were coming at me faster than my fortified warriors could heal (if they even survived the first attack).

Don't get me wrong, when I've been able to get copper or iron early enough to chop rush an axeman or three, the CS slingshot works great.

This is without raging Barbs, by the way. How many Barbs are most people encountering? By the time the slingshot is complete (on epic) I've usually had 10-15 Barbarian encounters in my cities.

[Dis]

stupid question? But what does CS stand for? Or just please provide a link to the relevant thread. thanks.

[Huskerfan]

civil service

[cal_01]

From what I've seen, barbs tend to "pop" more frequently near resources.

Also, my strategy for the post-CS rush is to trade away... Code of Laws! It's fairly inexpensive, and you can catch up fairly quickly, especially if the slingshot was fast enough so that only one or two civs have Alphabet.

You typically want to research/trade for enabling techs, such as Calendar. I sometimes make Construction a priority if I'm having happiness troubles. On the other hand, I find that beelining too far up the tech tree may actually hurt your overall tech base.

Nowadays, I find that going after Grocers and Banks is a good target after CS; it gives you a good financial base to hit Education next.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat
Like I said.. I had four warriors per city, (so eight and two cities), three were fortified on resources and one was in the city.

No copper or Iron, and there was no copper that was viable. By the time I got iron working and the iron was revealed to be in a reasonable position, there was no way to build a settler, grab the resource, and connect it.

Every 3-4 turns I was being attacked by Barb archers or Axemen. So they were coming at me faster than my fortified warriors could heal (if they even survived the first attack).

That's pretty severe barb problems!

I'd advise you to research early a 'cheap' military tech (Hunting, Archery or even Animal Husbandry depending on your starting techs). Then use your second city to produce the units. Only having warriors seems to embolden the barbs!

Another tip is to keep one or two units scouting - if you keep to defensive terrain a warrior can maybe beat an archer, or can be a decoy to lead an axeman away from your towns.

[couerdelion]

There will always we problems to deal with

I guess all my comments are general and look at the decisions taken in an ideal situation. This will rarely be the case an usually you plans have to be continually adjusted to reflect those external element that you cannot control. To give an example, I tried a second Quecha Rush yesterday and circumstances told me early that I would be better of going for the CS slingshot – those barb archers had no business killing my Quecha explorer. With so nice resources (crabs, horses and lots of rivers and fur) this is a big commerce city for a financial type like Huayna Capac. What’s more, the horses allow Chariots to give me that extra option when dealing with Barbarian warriors or Axemen.

Here’s where signs appear that things will not be so simple. After I lost two Quecha in the wild, I’m hunched up in the capital when Napoleon declared war. Does this guy have a problem? He only sends in an archer and warrior which are easy pickings for my chariot and quecha - but the signs are definitely out there. In fact, with my Chariot and Quecha off to check on Orleans (from across a lake) I can soon realise a problem when some French spearmen arrive in the city. I decided to spare them.

The barbs struck big time towards the end of the CS Slingshot but the feared French attack failed to materialise. I even once found my capital producing a chariot but this may even have helped a little. With two workers chopping - and Quecha protecting them when the barbs got too close – the race was for CoL rather than the building itself.

But the barbs continued and the warriors became axemen. They also approached from two directions forcing me to divert units to cover my fur farms. Also my tech choices were rather limited. First quickly clean up archery (the capital was netting 73 beakers at this stage) and with the nearest bronze resource just sitting there waiting for my capital culture to reach 5000, I thought iron working might just be useful.

Here perhaps I should point out the next big setback. Apart from trying to eat my horses, they had set up a city just to my north within two tiles of my first choice for the second city which would have grabbed the copper, cattle, wheat and some more crabs. When iron working was discovered, my second city had iron in the fat cross and with workers chopping a library there it would quickly bring in the resource to help alleviate a temporary weakness. Iron to the south of my capital (just in the 750 culture circle) could was also mined but it took a long time to dig through the ice for it)

On discovery of the alphabet, I thought it time to make peace with the French when I noticed two axemen approaching from the north. Also gave me the chance to trade some low techs with someone else. The French actually knocked out the barbarian city – with no injuries to their axemen. Without missing a beat, those Axemen started towards my capital and I got another declaration from Napoleon and I realised that I still hadn’t adopted slavery – I think I may have originally wanted to wait one turn (for a worker) before adopting it.

This time Napoleon wasn’t messing about and he knew that his units could take on any that I had. They came from three directions: north west towards my happy camps, south east passing my iron mine, and north east towards my horse pasture. Construction being a few turns away I was able to rush an axeman and finish another before my iron mine was trashed. The horses went too and along with several roads and camp and I had very few options to sally out. Even when I managed to build a road to the second iron mine the link between the capital and second city link was easily broken. Napoleon’s tactics were a fine demonstration of how to severely hobbling your opponent when you do not possess the mass of forces to capture a city. Even when the main threat to the capital was destroyed in the city attack, I still had to spend an axemen taking out his last axeman/spearman combination up in the hills. I might even have been able to arrange peace – which I did shortly after – but I’m at least content to have hit Napoleon harder and get some return for all the damage he has caused.

One funny thing was that I also had a couple of barb axemen as well during the attack and they went for Napoleon’s lot.

If I were to compare this with a more traditional development I would still have run into trouble with Napoleon and Barbarians and would also have to chase technologies much harder without CS. My second city might actually be in a slightly worse position. However, the much shorter link to the capital and the quicker start time for the second city might also have forced the barbarian city a little further away, got the copper working earlier and may not have delayed the Oracle. It’s something I may try out this evening despite not being too keen on playing a game “with prior knowledge�.

The fun in all this - if you can count seeing your production and commerce being destroyed as fun - was that I also learned a few more truths of the game.

1) AI units will often leave your city unmolested if they can loot something easily.
2) Slave-driving during time of war is expensive.
3) I really hate Napoleon – no I REALLY do. With his balanced armies, I’m now beelining for Knights via Macemen (but grabbing those horse-archers for some additional short-term protection)

[Rancidlunchmeat]

Well, I also had some interesting things happen last night.

First, I got Rome by random roll so it was my first time playing with the Praetorians! I also managed to get iron (still no copper) in my capital city so I could build them! What fun, I'll have to play Rome more often.

As far as what I noticed... the Barbs do in fact ignore your fortified units. I started out with Warriors (had them for quite some time because no other unit was available until iron working.. I skipped archery once again) but then quickly replaced them with Praetorians and then sent the warriors out exploring.

The Barb AI.. warriors, axemen and archers would ignore my fortified praetorians on rice and cows, and would instead head straight past them to unprotected farmlands and pillage them.

..So they don't always suicide against your units.

Second.. I'm on a continent with Saladin and Isabella. I completed the CS slingshot, and was able to spread confucionism to Isabella! She immediately switches to organized religion, so I don't think she'll ever change back.
That's the first time I've ever been able to get Isabella to have my religion. She's such a religion whore, this should help our relations.

Third... ARRRGH! So stupid! I'm so used to going after machinery after completing the CS slingshot that I went ahead and did it again. Despite the fact the main benefit at this point is macemen, which I didn't need because of the Praetorians. And now I can't build them any more. What a waste of time, turns and research going for machinery when I could have better spent that research going for drama or music.

Fourth.. a question.. For those of you that follow Vel's slingshot technique of getting the library, forcing two scientists, getting the academy.. once the academy is built, do you go back and remove the two scientists or do you keep them? I've been removing them to go back to work once I get the academy, but I was wondering what other people do.

[Crossfire]

I often get the library early enough that I only need one scientist (oh yeah, I often play Phil civ) in order to get an academy before the Oracle is done. If I do need 2 I immediately put one back to work and sometimes I put them both back to work. Depends on health and happy caps and how close I am to them.

[Swiss Pauli]

Originally posted by Rancidlunchmeat
Well, I also had some interesting things happen last night.

First, I got Rome by random roll so it was my first time playing with the Praetorians! I also managed to get iron (still no copper) in my capital city so I could build them! What fun, I'll have to play Rome more often.

The Barb AI.. warriors, axemen and archers would ignore my fortified praetorians on rice and cows, and would instead head straight past them to unprotected farmlands and pillage them.

..So they don't always suicide against your units.
Fourth.. a question.. For those of you that follow Vel's slingshot technique of getting the library, forcing two scientists, getting the academy.. once the academy is built, do you go back and remove the two scientists or do you keep them? I've been removing them to go back to work once I get the academy, but I was wondering what other people do.

If you've got Praets then hunt the barbs, or maybe sentry instead of fortify then kill the barb before he does any damage.

Post-Library: depends, but I'll often make a quick archer and then switch back. Or if I've got some growth potential then I'll move them to food then re-assign them once it's done.

[couerdelion]

Putting scientist back to work

The answer depends on what your tiles are generating and what the city/civilisation needs. Also on happy/healthy faces and, well everything. The important thing to remember is the +50% bonus on production and commerce (ie not to beakers). This will mean that a tile generating two commerce will produce as much science investment at 100% as a scientist. In most cases, you’ll gain food, production and probably also gold and/or beakers. All you lose are the GP points which are a longer term investment and you can always catch up here later.

Usually I would switch back to working some developed tiles to get things built. Playing a financial civilisation means that my science is even improved by this.

Given the huge imbalance in your civilisation, I might even go so far to suggest that you should work every developed tile you can at the expense of producing further cities. Then when you reach your happy cap, you might consider throwing out another settler. Growth in the capital, within happy limits is likely to be your best bet and tech investment should reflect the desire to increase this further (good techs are monarchy, calendar, drama, currency) and religion will also help.

Let your other cities slave drive their people, build your military, generate GPs. Your capital is the queen bee and all your other cities just its drones and workers.