Alternate CS Slingshot

[Arrian]

Ok, I gotcha. Then again, the faster the better, because the payoff is all about the Bureacracy bonus to your capital.

Ultimately, I prefer the traditional slingshot to the alternate, simply b/c it denies the Oracle to the AI, and because I love that early academy + Bureacracy. But I'm even more intrigued by the SuperSlingShot (I love shooting for the moon).

-Arrian

[The_Paladin]

True enough about oracle denail. I guess it should be said as well that on lower difficuties when the oracle is fairly easy to grab in time, the traditional method works well and probably the opportunity cost favours that method since you don't need a massive early defence and you still can grab a few other techs before heading for CoLs as the AIs dont get the oracle till 1000BC at the earliest. So yeah you make a good point. The opportunity cost does depend on the difficulty / map settings.

On emperor+ you can have an AI with the oracle at 1400BC if not earlier and there is simply no time for detours (unless you got like 3 gold mines in your capital) to other techs.

[Dactyl]

Paladin,

I appreciate the detailed reply and I can see how the alternate CS strategy would work if you got a really good starting position, but my complaint is that it hasn't done what it was supposed to do for me, namely, give me a big early boost in research. As I said, when I get CS, the AI civs are either not that far behind me and/or I have to do so much back filling that they catch up.

[The_Paladin]

Dactyl,

No problem on the details - don't mind writing them. I'm curious, do you have better luck with oracle CS slingshots or is it just the alternate slingshot that you aren't getting the benefits from?

My personal experience is that my research before CS is usually around 40 - 50. If I've used the tranditional CS (and therefore have an academy) my research is usually 70 - 80 after CS. If I've used the alternate method my research is between 60 - 70 (less due to missing the academy capital bonus, more due to extra expansion / development of secondary cities). Then I quickly get an academy that ususally brings things to about equal with the trandional method.

So no your not going to be drastically ahead of the AIs with them having no hopes of catching up on emperor or even monarch but you should be able to grab additional techs or backfill 30 - 50% faster than without bureaucracy. The rest of your empire / build stills needs to be efficient to maintain your bonus you got from bureaucracy... which can be difficult depending on terrain.

And yes if your capital is bad for commerce, getting CS probably won't help you much. OTOH you might be in trouble anyway in that case. If you, say cottage spam your capital and get CS then you will see more of a benefit from this approach, at least for research. Or if you empasize production and get this then you can pump out the military or additional wonders. So CS has to really be combined with an emphasis on good capital development (be that cottages, mines, gold income, seafood, whatever your case may be). To me, at least, this empasizes again alternate vs traditional. In traditional you often have a less well developed capital since you cannot get worker techs as fast. In the end its kind of all dependent upon your capital and making the decision as to whether you can leverage CS to an advantage or not.

[The_Paladin]

Sorry for the double-post but it occurs to me that the comments on this thread are very indicative of the nature of the game overall and that's good.

The basic nature of Civ4 is that there is no one perfect approach to everything... sometimes a strategy works, sometimes it won't. The key thing to learning the game then is to know when a strategy will work and when it won't. Or even better what's that quote, translated to civ terms it would be something like:

"Give me the knowledge to know what I can do, the ability to accept what I can't, and the wisdom to tell the difference"

Master that and you've mastered the game . That's the real key for anyone learning the game and I think frankly all of us are still learning new things all the time, with respect to that.

So along those lines, knowing that CS methods are based on leveraging good commerce starts to even better levels, a focus on emphasizing that commerce early then amplyfying it by CS is a gererally good approach to its use.

[fed1943]

The Paladin:
Thank you for your lessons.If correctly understood,the alternate method doesn't require necessarily the stonehenge;found a religion,build the temple,divert one person to priest.Am I right?And,if afirmative,what is more costly and more compeling?I would like to ear from you.
Best regards,

[Arrian]

I see no reason why you couldn't do it with a priest specialist. Hmm...

/me ponders Ghandi for the SSS.

-Arrian

[The_Paladin]

Originally posted by fed1943
The Paladin:
Thank you for your lessons.If correctly understood,the alternate method doesn't require necessarily the stonehenge;found a religion,build the temple,divert one person to priest.Am I right?And,if afirmative,what is more costly and more compeling?I would like to ear from you.
Best regards,

Indeed yeah, Arrian beat me to it but using a priest is perfectly acceptable. If you can found a religion then building a temple and assigning a priest specialist would work just fine. I wouldn't really consider the case that you get an early religion spread to you. That works too but is too random to count on for my liking.

As to what is better? Getting an early religion has benefits of its own - probably the biggest one is the extra happiness on the harder difficulties. It also gives you a culture spreading boost (not unlike stonehenge itself) and the earlier you get a religion the easier it is to spread to your neighbours.

However that having been said, using the slingshot usually gets you code of laws for founding confucianism. So you'll gain the benefits of a religion anyway, except maybe for the spreading to other nations. I just mean that it can be a little harder to spread a late religion than an early one. So getting an earlier religion probably just gives you an extra, I don't know, 50 turns say of having a religion. Therefore it depends on your situation.... if you are on an isolated start thus negating the religious spread bonus, I wouldn't probably weight founding an early religion vs later one itself as a huge benefit. However if you have lots of neighbours and great growth to take advantage of the extra happiness then founding an early religion has decent benefits.

But ingoring the religion itself, the concept of using a priest to generate the great prophet for CS has merits in itself (vs a stonehenge approach):

Benefits:

1. The temple only costs 80 production. Compared to stonehenge that's definitely cheaper.

2. Once you have the religion there's really no danger of not getting the temple (again unlike stonehenge).

3. A priest assigned from a temple generates 3 GPP (in this case GPP = great prophet points) which is better than the 2 from stonehenge.

4. You don't have to corrupt your capital with great prophet points permanently. That can be annoying if you build stonehenge in your capital and later want to generate, say, scientists.

Costs:

1. Most likely you can build stonehenge before you can build a temple, even though its cheaper. This is because you must research priesthood first.

2. With stonehenge you only have to research mysticism early. With this method you have to found a religion and therefore you have to research at least one of meditation or polytheism. Note you cannot attempt to found Judiasm by researching monotheism. In order to get monotheism you need masonry and that destroys the whole approach.

3. You have to actually found a religion.

I would say that if you combine benefits 1 & 3 together they probably just about cancel cost 1. Since you can build the temple faster and generate a prophet faster it doesn't really matter that you can't get the temple done as quickly as you can build stonehenge.

Benefit 2 is actually nice. Cheaper temples that can be built whenever it is most convenient is nice. You can be expanding or building military or whatever you want. Though you still do have to build a temple fairly quickly to actually get the prophet soon enough. Though still I think it is a benefit.

Cost 2 is kind of a nuisance. You have to research at least one additional tech to the stonehenge method and you have to research it fast. Also the additional tech, besides getting you an early religion, does nothing for you. So at the beginning when you are say trying to research worker techs you need, instead, to research this religious tech. Since these techs are fairly cheap this isn’t a huge issue... but it is still an issue.

So far everything seems fairly comparable to the stonehenge method, except for a minor problem with cost 2. So all that remains is cost 3, the fact that you actually have to get a religion. This can be a huge problem.

If you don't start with mysticism... you may be in serious trouble trying to get one of the first two religions. On prince and below you are probably just fine. On monarch you still in pretty good shape though its getting a bit risky with a poor commerce start. On emperor and above I think you are in big trouble trying to found a religion without starting with mysticism. What's worse if you miss the going for one religion you won't have much of a chance getting the other one... some AI is probably already after it.

If you do start with mysticism you are probably in pretty good shape even on emperor. That kind of limits your nation / leader choices though. Incidentally those leaders tend to also be spiritual, which cuts the cost of temples in half. That's another benefit of the temple approach.

So ultimately I would say its a good approach. If you think you can found an early religion, especially if you start with mysticism, this is definitely worth a shot. If there's some serious doubt about a religion being founded then you best go back to the stonehenge method.

The really nice thing is though - they aren't mutually exclusive. You can go for a religion and, if you fail to get it, build stonehenge. You can determine whether you are going to get it or not before you actually need to start the henge so you can always do both. That's the safe route and probably a reasonable one. I think I will give that route a good try too - see what happens.

It may seem that Saladin is the best for this.. but he starts with the wheel... a rather useless worker tech (at least with one city). That's kind of an issue since he has mysticism and PHI, both great attributes for this, but has a bad worker tech. So there may be a better leader. I'd have to look at them closer though to be sure.

[Aeson]

Holding off on Masonry to be able to use the Prophet on CS is a nice touch. (A well-balanced option to the various Pyramids plays as well.) That sort of use of GP is the most interesting part of the game IMO. Plotting a path through the tech tree that will allow maximum effect for techs from specific GP.

(I see Arrian has already mentioned it...)

Have you tried generating the Prophet with Priests? Might work well with Saladin (Cheap Temple + GP) and any decent Food start. Generally 2 Specialists are pretty easy to set aside, and they'd only take 9 turns (on Normal) for the Prophet once the Temple was built. Could even go for 2 Prophets and take CoL with the first one while going for a "side" tech or two perhaps. If you get one of the first 2 Religions.

That way you could help avoid undesired Prophets later on, not run any risk of losing out on a Wonder race that would screw up the player (for really high difficulty levels) and free yourself from the required Tech timeline the Wonders require. The Stonehenge Production could then be diverted to a Temple, and a few more units out to keep the Barbs off, another Worker, or possibly another Settler.

The tradeoff is you need to get a Religion for the Temple to get the Prophet(s). (I don't remember if Caste System allows Priests... does it?) Confucianism is almost a sure thing, but either Buddhism or Hinduism are aslo possible along the way.

Then a Scientist for the Academy could be done at 100%, as could ones for Philosophy, Education, ect.

[The_Paladin]

One minor thing I forgot is that you actually have to divert one of your citizens working the land to be a priest for a certain number of turns (17 or 34 - depends on if you are PHI or not).

I don't know if that's really a benefit or a cost though. Yes it diverts your citizen from doing something else... but the priest himself gives a hammer and a gold (not commerce). That can be helpful to keep your science rate up 1 more notch (an extra 10%) so depending on your situation that's not a really big issue one way or another.

[The_Paladin]

Originally posted by Aeson
Holding off on Masonry to be able to use the Prophet on CS is a nice touch. (A well-balanced option to the various Pyramids plays as well.) That sort of use of GP is the most interesting part of the game IMO. Plotting a path through the tech tree that will allow maximum effect for techs from specific GP.

(I see Arrian has already mentioned it...)

Have you tried generating the Prophet with Priests? Might work well with Saladin (Cheap Temple + GP) and any decent Food start. Generally 2 Specialists are pretty easy to set aside, and they'd only take 9 turns (on Normal) for the Prophet once the Temple was built. Could even go for 2 Prophets and take CoL with the first one while going for a "side" tech or two perhaps. If you get one of the first 2 Religions.

That way you could help avoid undesired Prophets later on, not run any risk of losing out on a Wonder race that would screw up the player (for really high difficulty levels) and free yourself from the required Tech timeline the Wonders require. The Stonehenge Production could then be diverted to a Temple, and a few more units out to keep the Barbs off, another Worker, or possibly another Settler.

The tradeoff is you need to get a Religion for the Temple to get the Prophet(s). (I don't remember if Caste System allows Priests... does it?) Confucianism is almost a sure thing, but either Buddhism or Hinduism are aslo possible along the way.

Then a Scientist for the Academy could be done at 100%, as could ones for Philosophy, Education, ect.

Hehe... yeah it seems we mentioned about the same things (at about the same time).

The caste system unfortunately doesnt allow priests. Only scientists, merchants (the best effect of caste system IMO), and artists.

I could be wrong here but I think you can only assign one priest per temple so you could only generate 3GPPs (6 if PHI) taking 34 (or 17 turns) to generate a prophet.

You make an excellent suggestion though of generating an academy. You actually could generate an academy first then get the prophet second. Might have some interesting options there too. Both give +50% bonus though one is multiplicative and the other additive.

Anyways good stuff - glad you agree with me largely considering that you are quite well known around here .

[Aeson]

I haven't touched CIV for a few months now... so I'm not sure if my agreeing is worth what it used to be.

I could be wrong here but I think you can only assign one priest per temple so you could only generate 3GPPs (6 if PHI) taking 34 (or 17 turns) to generate a prophet.

You make an excellent suggestion though of generating an academy. You actually could generate an academy first then get the prophet second. Might have some interesting options there too. Both give +50% bonus though one is multiplicative and the other additive.

Maybe if you went with a Priest and Scientist you could speed up the first GP, then based on what you get, decide on how to approach the second.

[fed1943]

Reading what The Paladin,Arrian and Aeson wrote...
And what about if the first Prophet builds the Holy Shrine? Then,we can have until 4 priests (if we have the food and willing to pay the cost).
Well,I think the question arrives to the point that only numbers,not words,work.And I don't know mathematic.
Best regards,

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by The_Paladin

If you don't start with mysticism... you may be in serious trouble trying to get one of the first two religions. On prince and below you are probably just fine. On monarch you still in pretty good shape though its getting a bit risky with a poor commerce start. On emperor and above I think you are in big trouble trying to found a religion without starting with mysticism. What's worse if you miss the going for one religion you won't have much of a chance getting the other one... some AI is probably already after it.

If you do start with mysticism you are probably in pretty good shape even on emperor. That kind of limits your nation / leader choices though. Incidentally those leaders tend to also be spiritual, which cuts the cost of temples in half. That's another benefit of the temple approach.

So ultimately I would say its a good approach. If you think you can found an early religion, especially if you start with mysticism, this is definitely worth a shot. If there's some serious doubt about a religion being founded then you best go back to the stonehenge method.

The really nice thing is though - they aren't mutually exclusive. You can go for a religion and, if you fail to get it, build stonehenge. You can determine whether you are going to get it or not before you actually need to start the henge so you can always do both. That's the safe route and probably a reasonable one. I think I will give that route a good try too - see what happens.

It may seem that Saladin is the best for this.. but he starts with the wheel... a rather useless worker tech (at least with one city). That's kind of an issue since he has mysticism and PHI, both great attributes for this, but has a bad worker tech. So there may be a better leader. I'd have to look at them closer though to be sure.

I've tried the use of a priest for GP points a few times at Emperor level with Saladin. It worked fine, although I was very nervous about how much needed to be done after discovering priesthood. However, I don't think there is another philosophical leader that starts with mysticism. Without the philosophical trait, it would be quite tough.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Leifmk]

Originally posted by Aeson
Holding off on Masonry to be able to use the Prophet on CS is a nice touch. (A well-balanced option to the various Pyramids plays as well.)

Indeed; I did just this in the game I started yesterday. Didn't have stone, so the Pyramids were built by someone else -- conveniently enough that someone else was one of my neighbours, and their capital was next door to my #2 city, and I got Construction in fairly short order and had access to elephants as well, so I was able to take the Pyramids by force not too long after.