Alternate CS Slingshot

[The_Paladin]

I discovered a method of performing a CS slingshot… without building the Oracle! Now that I have your attention… I’ll describe my motivation for the method first.

I bought the game about a month ago and have been playing ever since. I’ve read much of these forums and have really enjoyed them. I’ve picked up a lot of ideas and re-enforced many of my own. Thanks to all the great contributors around here! Anyway I am a builder at heart and like the CS slingshot approach. Great research, great production, and tons of options open to you. However I find that whenever I play at the harder difficulties (Emperor+) achieving the slingshot requires some luck. You need a decent start (good commerce and production… a little less on the commerce if use scientists) and you need to be lucky with barbs as you don’t have much of a military (this is especially true on the slower game speeds as barbs tend to hit faster and harder). It also prevents any major kind of expansion and restricts your early tech choices fairly heavily. In MP its even more of a risk… you try it and fail its practically a death sentence. So there must be a better way… a trade-off that would allow you still to get civil service fairly quickly but not restrict expansion and military so heavily. IMHO I think I’ve found one that better suits my methods.

I call this method the Philosopher’s Slingshot as it is benefited greatly by the PHI trait. I’ll describe it in by stepping through a game I just played with it. This is an emperor difficulty, normal speed game.

4000 - Capital Starts Worker, Start Researching Animal Husbandry
3520 - Capital Finishes Worker, Starts Warrior
3440 - Finished Researching Animal Husbandry, Start Researching Wheel
3240 - Capital Finishes Warrior, Starts Settler
3040 - Finished Researching Wheel, Start Researching Mysticism
2760 - Finished Researching Mysticism, Start Researching Pottery, Capital Finishes
Settler, Starts Stonehenge
2440 - Finished Researching Pottery, Start Researching Writing
2160 - Capital Finishes Stonehenge, Starts Worker
2040 - Finished Researching Writing, Start Researching Meditation
1960 - Capital Finishes Worker, Starts Library
1800 - Finished Researching Meditation, Start Researching Priesthood
1600 - Capital Finishes Library, Does whatever you want it too
1560 - Finished Researching Priesthood, Start Researching Code of Laws
1200 - Great Prophet born in Capital.
1000 - Finished Researching Code of Laws, Start Researching Polytheism
950 - Finished Researching Polytheism, Start Civil Service and burn prophet to hurry its
research
775 - Finished Researching Civil Service

So in this instance I did not build the Oracle, was able to expand and research many techs I wanted (did not need for the slingshot itself). This slingshot is all based around using a great prophet to speed your research of Civil Service, which is why the PHI trait helps speed it along.

The key elements of this approach are:

1) Obtain a method of generating a great prophet early… either the Stonehenge, or an early religion to form a temple will do nicely.

2) At some point (ideally near the completion of the great prophet but this isn’t required) research code of laws, polytheism, meditation, and priesthood. This is so the great prophet can be burned for civil service.

3) The great prophet will compete around 1000 points of research towards civil service leaving about 200 on emperor difficulty. That’s easy to finish off so do it!

What I really like about this approach is that it really doesn’t require strict adherence to a tech beeline or a timeline for that matter. Obviously faster is better but if you decide you need bronze working or archery for example to deal with barbs you can easily add that and not jeopardize your chances to obtain civil service this way at all. Also you have the option of building Stonehenge to enable the slingshot, which is very early in the tech tree (depth 1), its cheaper / easier to get typically than the Oracle, and allows you to expand / build up after its completion, which is sooner than the Oracle.

The only way this method would fail is if you couldn’t get a great prophet reasonably quickly. There are three nice options to get a great prophet though:

1) Stonehenge
2) Founding a religion
3) Getting a religion spread to you

Technically it can also fail if you research too much (thus allowing the prophet to grant you another tech… but I’ve never had that problem and with practice you can control this 100% of the time). Specifically one tech you want to avoid at all costs is masonry. If you get this the prophet will no longer help you reserach civil service. That means no building the pyraminds and, ironically, no using marble to help build Stonehenge or the Oracle! Also be aware that masonry can be obtained from goody huts... if you are trying this strategy and that happens its practically worse than getting 5 angry barbarians out of the hut. In this case its research civil service manually and use your prophet for something else.

It still gives you practically the same benefits as the Oracle method and can be just as quick. In the game I described it was slower (probably by 10 – 15 turns or so but I was grabbing all these other worker techs I didn’t really need but wanted anyways).

So anyways… there it is. Thought I’d share it with you. There’s quite a few alternate follow-ups you can do too that I kind of like. I’ll detail them a little below:

Education Philosopher’s Slingshot
------------------------------------------

This method is the same as above but along with generating a great prophet you, as quickly as possible, generate 2 great scientists. Now after researching civil service, research paper and mathematics (math is needed or else the scientist will give you that). Now as soon as you get them use the scientists to grab yourself education. You can get this done fairly easily by 400BC if you use the caste system and allocate a couple of cities to science specialists. Alternately you could use 1 scientist in your capital now running bureaucracy to generate an academy, use the other on education and just research it to completion (both are practically just as good, turn wise but the second method nets you an academy too!).

Oracle + Philosopher’s Slingshot
-----------------------------------------

This is for the truly brave. You need a prophet and a scientist or an additional prophet for this to work. Thus it essentially requires multiple cities generating them. But if you can get both Stonehenge and the Oracle done, you can do some great things. You can use the prophet from Stonehenge to grab civil service. You can use your second great person to grab philosophy (if it’s a scientist you need mathematics first, prophet just burn away) then when completing the oracle you can grab nationalism and start working away on the Taj Mahal immediately while putting yourself really close to representation if you want it. However, this is rather challenging to pull off on Emperor+ and requires some pretty impressive land starts… but still if you can do it you can stomp over the AI easily.

Anyways these are my starts and basic mods to them. Safe approaches to CS slingshots (or poor man’s approaches… whatever). Hope you like them!

[Velociryx]

-=Vel=-

[fluffyflyingpig]

That's really odd. I KNOW I tried using a Great Prophet to grab CS, but ended up with a different tech as the option...

Ah, that's right. I need the Pyramids for my OCC, which requires Masonry. Masonry + Polytheism unlocks Monotheism. Monotheism is cheaper beaker wise than Civil Service so the Prophet will research Monotheism. Monotheism + Writing unlocks Theology. Theology is cheaper than Civil Service. Since writing is a hard prereq for Civil Service and Polytheism is unlocked on the religious path to Civil Service, I if I research Masonry I would need Monotheism + Theology or completely avoid the religious branch of the tech tree to Civil Service, which would make it harder/impossible to generate a Prophet. If I wait that long, I might as well use the Prophet as a super specialist.

Summary: the GP => Civil Service gambit fails if you learn Masonry.

Amusingly enough Masonry is a goody hut tech. So there is a infinitesimally small chance of failing this gambit due to a "lucky" goody hut.

[The_Paladin]

Very good point about masonry. I've run into that once before and I just tested it out again to be sure. You are correct you have to go all the way to theology before the prophet will help with civil service.

So I guess you have a choice at that point... either don't pop huts to be really safe or risk it knowing that if you do get masonry your civil service attempt is shot.

I suppose in the later case when you do get masonry you have a prophet at least to form the special holy city structure as you still have a good chance of founding Confucianism. Not exactly what you were going for in the first place but still a decent use of the prophet. Or you could go for theology with the prophet and use great scientists to grab education bypassing civil service all together. A university or two is a nice early asset for a PHI civ too (for anybody but much easier to produce for PHIs).

Ill add something in my original post to warn about masonry.

[gentle]

here is the reference for GP tech donations.
we are also discussing a "burn through tech tree til liberalism" in the culture thread. might be interesting too.
anyway, hope the tech table helps, if unknown.


GP tech (copy/paste):

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=140952

Culture thread (starts in the middle of page1)
Culture thread

[Blake]

Another possibility I see (for forest-heavy start) would be building the oracle, getting code of laws with it and building a conf temple. Might be a good alternative for civs who don't start with myst.

[uberfish]

great idea, I didn't realise CS could be researched by a prophet.

I think emperor is the highest realistically viable difficulty for the traditional oracle CS slingshot on normal land maps, been playtesting variants of that on immortal and the AI seems to prioritise oracle and build it very early (typically 1600-1400 BC) making the risk too great. One thing I noticed is that Elizabeth with a lake, oasis or coastal seafood can still frequently get Hinduism by working the 3 commerce tile and going for it straight off, which gives you an early temple option too.

[The_Paladin]

No I didn't realize that chart existed gentle. I've been keeping busy just reading this forum. Haven't had time to head over to the 'fanatics at all. Its very useful though.

I also think I read that culture thread. Both what you are proposing there, and my education after CS proposal, put you in a good spot to grab liberalism early thereby allowing faster cultural victories. In some ways going through theology to grab the sistine though is better for culture win, I think. On the other hand if you do go through CS you will get less early culture but a much stronger capital. Both methods have merits and are worth contemplating for culture wins. That's what makes this game great - all things can work if you put enough effort into them.

Uberfish, I was under the same impression originally. I didn't realize that prophets could research civil service. I figured that, since you have code of laws, the prophet would grant philosophy, which is open at that point. I was playing around with the world builder to see if I could get philosophy with a prohet (I was looking into getting pacifism ASAP) and realized I could actually get civil service... much better IMO.

I like Blake's option as well as an alternate to getting an early prophet. It also frees up your research a lot earlier than traditional CS slingshots.

[Blake]

If you do want Philo ASAP you want a Great Scientist. It's a strategy I've toyed with. You do need to research Mathematics first. Interestingly this works well with a beeline to construction, so you can grab philo and soon after pump out some pults to make up for lost ground. Philo is no-upkeep which can help a fair bit at that stage of the game.

I think however that using a Prophet for CS is better, except maybe the research restrictions.

[The_Paladin]

I agree 100%. Given the choice between Philo and CS I'd always take CS. You can grab philo easily afterwards probably ~50% faster with bureaucracy anyways.

I'm not sure if a prophet can even finsih philo completely. A scientist grants around 1500 research, normal speed. I think a prophet only gives 1000 which isn't sufficient on most difficulties. Again this leads towards the slightly cheaper, more useful, CS.

[Arrian]

Hmm. I wonder if (on a lower level), this could be combined with the Oracle for some sort of super-slingshot...

If you get to CS-via-prophet + research and THEN build the Oracle, you could take another expensive tech. Philo, perhaps. Now, in quick succession, you've founded Confucism & Taoism, and unlocked Bureacracy and Pacifism.

I don't have the tech tree handy, but would that be possible?

-Arrian

[Velociryx]

It should be, yes, but in order to time it well AND build an early academy, you'd almost HAVE to be Philosophic. I just can't see anybody else generating that kind of pointage quickly. Even better tho, would be to combine this with a Parthenon build, but now we're weaving together an almost too-intricate web of plays to be reliable....

-=Vel=-

PS: Super-Slingshot = Trebuchet?

[Arrian]

Of course you'd have to be PHI. I'm thinking Lizzy, specifically.

I'm thinking that stonehenge/oracle might actually be best built in city #2 largely via choprush (if possible). The capital provides defense and, asap, a library.

What other valueable techs (besides Philo) could one pick up via the Oracle if you've already got CS? The one I'd really want requires a bundle of pre-reqs, IIRC (Machinery).

-Arrian

p.s. Again, to be clear: I'm thinking of a lower diff here... not Emperor. More like Prince Further, I'm not sure the opportunity cost of this approach would necessarily beat out building a 3rd city.

[Arrian]

Paladin,

Can you post the 4000bc save of your game? What leader did you use. What settings?

-Arrian

[The_Paladin]

I don't think I have the save anymore... I've played games since so the auto save would be gone. I could play through another one tonight or tomorrow though and post that save / details.

The settings were Emperor, normal speed. I think I played as Mao (PHI/ORG, AGR/MIN). I find him very effective for this method as you don't start out with that -2 upkeep, and city 2 adds only -1. Find a few coins and you are set for quite a while. Lizzie would be good too though and on a lower difficulty she is my #1 choice for this.

The start was both good and bad IIRC. I built on a plains hill (great) but was surrounded by flood plains so I had a hard time with health fast.

One of the reasons I really like ORG for this on higher difficulties is the ease to build courthouses. The caste system early lets you assign merchants so you can expand like mad and let one city pay for the rest while the others build half-priced courthouses.

---------------------------

On a lower difficulty some really nice "rail-gun" lanuches are possible. The way I approach things on prince for a super-launch would be something like:

1) Found a second city fast and rush stonehenge by whatever means possible in it.

2) The capital should be building a library. A worker should also be focusing on food generation in the capital.

3) When capital completes library, start great scientist generation BUT make sure to get prophet done first. Now either get the capital or second city to work on the oracle.

4) After getting code of laws switch to caste system and further pump that great scientist out. This is why the focus is on food here.

Now we have a branch (path A or path B):

Path A:

5A) Use prophet ASAP to get CS. Now start researching mathematics (yes mathematics).

6A) After mathematics and generating a scientist, use scientist to get philo.

7A) Finish oracle ASAP to grab Nationhood. 1 step from representation... pretty good IMHO.

Path B:

5B) Use prophet ASAP to get CS. Revolt to bureaucracy and power your way through paper research.

6B) As soon as scientist is out, build an academy in capital.

7B) Finish oracle ASAP to grab education. I love this method because univ's are half price for PHI people. So much for the PHI building being middle game . Also one step away from another free tech in Liberalism .

I've executed path B on prince before to great sucess. The AI generally already complain that you are too advanced at that point (with good reason).

If you just want to get CS, you can do this without PHI. But my feeling is that if you really, really want research power, either use an oracle build or a scientist burn strategy I described in post 1 to get education for unis. 100 hammers for a uni is pretty cheap and an incredible boost early on.

I can play through a game like this and post it later on for info purposes.