Alternate CS Slingshot

[The_Paladin]

Ok method number 2: The oracle + 2 prophet method. 1st prophet grabs code of laws, oracle grabs philosophy, and 2nd prophet helps with civil service.

4000BC - I tried this a few times attempting to go settler first as Blake suggested but the capital is just too poor in production (and there's not really a huge number of trees that we can spare without hitting unhealthiness problems). This slowed my production of the stonehenge, and the resulting prophet, too much thus making me loose the oracle. So I switched to Blake's other suggestion, to build stonehenge first then a settler after. That works much better.

Anyway we start by getting mysticism and a worker - the worker will chop up stonehenge with some trees outside the capital's radius so that it doesn’t hurt the health in the capital.

3640 - Mysticism done, start bronze working.

3400 - Worker done, figure we need at least 2 warriors so we build one more

3360 - Worker starts mining the grassland hill

3000 - Warrior done - start Stonehenge

2920 - Bronze working done, start meditation and revolt to slavery to save some upkeep money (once we get a second city)

2880 - Worker chops a forest outside cap radius (with 2nd warrior as guard)

2720 - Worker chops another forest outside cap radius (with 2nd warrior as guard)

2480 - Meditation done, start Priesthood

2320 - Stonehenge complete - lets get that settler now but it may be slow... we have some health issues in the capital since we cant actually use the cows below us to help that out

2200 - Priesthood is done - start on writing

1720 - Settler done - start the Oracle

1640 - We founded our second city (same place as the earlier example) and got our worker to start mining the gold mine. We also got writing done so lets start on polytheism as that's the last thing we need before the prophet we are getting from the henge can grant us code of laws.

1360 - Moses, our GP, is born... we can't quite use him yet but very shortly.

1320 - Everything is coming together... we can afford to speed up our oracle by chopping another forest outside our cap radius

1200 - Alright we got done poly so lets use our GP to get code of laws. We found Confucianism, of course, and we are starting to pre-research civil service so that once we get our second GP we can get it instantly.

1160 - Oracle done and is used to grab philo. Lets revolt to pacifism to speed up the second GP and get a bit of break on our upkeep. Also lets start a conf. temple in the capital... it helps with happiness and allows us to assign a priest to again further speed up our 2nd GP.

1120 - Revolt to Confucianism (without a religion we don't get the GP bonus from pacifism)

1080 - We are now getting a 2nd prophet at 12 GPP / turn (4 from henge + oracle + phil bonus + pacifism bonus). Our military is still just warriors... second city starts a settler anyway though since the enemies have mysteriously disappeared... I've got a nice chokehold above the 2nd city though blocking off that entire section of the island... pretty cool. Should be able to set it in the pic.

750 - Temple is done in capital, let start a library and also assign a priest

700 - Alright we got our second GP, lets burn em for CS (which we get right away) and revolt to bureaucracy. Again all our requirements are met... a little earlier . Lets take a look at the final numbers.

Final Stats:

Well we finished up in 675BC, 14 turns faster than the earlier method. We had just 2 cities this time of sizes 4 and 3.

Economically we had a total of 29 research, 18 of which was coming from our bureau capital (we don't yet have a library or academy)

Production wise we have 10 hammers, 7 of which are from the capital.

So there you go. And here's the pic of this ending:



I'm not going to analyze these methods since apparently its amusing... I'm going to leave that to the reader. Probably both could've been done a bit better - I only tried them each twice and took the best from both attempts.

Enjoy .

[gus_smedstad]

For a proper apples-to-apples comparison, it's best to take both empires to the same end date. At first blush, I'd guess that the Slingshot approach is inferior to cottages, because I doubt you can get to 93 research and 27 production in just 14 turns. The Slingshot will have a slight tech lead even so, but the difference in research will soon make it up.

I think it says that if you're financial and start on / near flood plains, cottages make more sense.

- Gus

[rjmatsleepers]

Originally posted by gus_smedstad
For a proper apples-to-apples comparison, it's best to take both empires to the same end date. At first blush, I'd guess that the Slingshot approach is inferior to cottages, because I doubt you can get to 93 research and 27 production in just 14 turns. The Slingshot will have a slight tech lead even so, but the difference in research will soon make it up.

I think it says that if you're financial and start on / near flood plains, cottages make more sense.

- Gus

I tried 2 approaches with the same save and played them through to AD 1. I moved left to found London rather than right. The cottage approach produced about 50% more research in 1 AD than the bee-line. On the other hand, I was only getting 63 beakers in AD 1 from my best effort compared with 91 in 325 BC by Paladin. I need to study his approach and learn a little!

However, the various tests do suggest that cottages give better results for a start with these characteristics. Paladin's analysis suggests that the benefit may apply in other circumstances as well.

RJM at Sleeper's

[Blake]

As with all things, the appropriate strategy to use depends greatly on the start. Make no mistake, I'd never use a slingshot with some starts, I don't believe there is a universal best strategy.

With floodplains, it's obvious to go with cottages. Especially if financial.

For a more neutral comparison I would suggest Peter (Philo/Exp) or Mao (Philo/Org) (lets by honest here, financial MANDATES building cottages) on a non-floodplain, non-goldmine start that does have a river and atleast one 5+ food tile (fish, pigs or grain). Furthermore the start should be high hammers, less than 3 hills is no-go. Altough I seem to get blessed with the odd foodless start, I think that this set of requirements (decent food, high hammers) is less unusual than a floodplain start.

edit: Or ofcourse, the master of slingshots, Saladin! But that's biased in the other direction.

[couerdelion]

I think I agree with Blake on this one. The bee-line strategy requires a diversion to get a worker and techs to get some improvements to help with further techs.

[Blake]

Of course said diversions can make it impossible to complete the oracle fast enough, which is where it becomes important to have a trumph card. Either Mao (Organized) or Saladin (start with Myst).

Either Indian might be able to pull it off too, thanks to spiritual, fast workers and great starting techs. Build the Stonehenge crazy quick then a temple and run a priest.

Just tried it as Ghandi with a clam/hills start. Built Stonehenge right away, didn't actually even need to run a priest but I did to make the prophet + polytheism coincide better (also built the temple to grow to size 6). Easily founded Budd, Conf and Tao in the capital. Then thanks to pacifism and a priest in no time at all got the prophet for CS.

I'm thinking that starting with myst might be even more of a benefit than Philo, building stonehenge while growing to size 4 works pretty good.

[couerdelion]

Still go for the early worker

Bee-lining bronze and building a warrior until the tech is within sight (9 turns). By then the city will be size two and a worker can be pop-rushed, the warrior finished and stonehenge and temple done through chopping.

Early pottery would probably allow the worker to set to with the cottages which would speed the meditation, priesthood and poly techs a little so that the temple could then by chopped or pop-rushed and hopefully in time for the GP to rush CoL.

Maybe too much of a diversion but I suspect not since Stonehenge will usually be enough to ensure CoL is there quickly.

Animals is probably not important early although health could be an annoyance with those floodplains and wide-spread deforestation.

If GP gives Phil then I'd be inclined to use the Oracle for CS first since the multiplier on the cottages will speed up to the way to writing and the route to the academy.

Animals next for the growth to start building more cities.

All theoretical really and needs to be played out. The worker repays for itself in two chops anyway and since they were pop-rushed they only cost you 52 food/production.

[The_Paladin]

rjmatsleepers:

You mentioned learning a bit from the cottage game I played. Not sure it would help you out but some general things I do that tend to help me get going a bit faster:

1) ALWAYS connect up your second city (via a road). You'll hurt your research so bad if you don't. On this difficulty you get at least -3 (-1 with organized) for a second city. If you don't want your research to drop below the 9 / turn is usally is then you need to connect that city up. That way the second city gets you +1 for its radius and an additional +2 (+1 for trade in the new city, +1 trade in the capital). With organized this actually gains you +2. So for research purposes... getting a second city with org is actually a bonus - not a penalty. So connect it up... via a river (great - no work), via the coast (you don't need sailing for some reason - just keep em close on the coast)... or get a road.

I find that, without a connection, settler first on emperor is a research killer because you'll usually drop to like 7 or 6 / turn...

2) Try your best to grab pottery around the time your second city is finishing. And, even if there are better things for your worker to do, set up a cottage first. Those cottages take time to grow... so get em going fast. I usually alternate... 1 cottage, 1 other improvement as needed. That way I don't totally sacrifice production / food for research.

3) Get a second worker fast. Again, by the same as 1) you need to connect up your additional cities or you are going to lose research... more than you should be losing.

4) Get a library ASAP... usually I grab it immediately after I get pottery, writing that is. Then around 1900 I start building it in my capital.

After the library is build, use two scientists immediately. The beauty thing here is you want at least 1, maybe 2, cottages being worked in your capital while this is happening... thus you didn't really need to improve much terrain in the capital - only 2 squares being worked - so you workers can do other things. If you have 2 floodplains this is ideal as they can both be cottaged and feed the population while you are going for that academy. The faster you get the academy the faster you can get CS... research wise, the academy is practically as good as CS.

5) Try to make sure your cities are "working well" before you go to the next one. Don't work unimproved terrain... having 2 cities that are working bare tiles is horribly compared to 1 working fully upgraded tiles.

Anyways some of these are obvious but this is generally my "rules of thumb"

To everyone else:

Yeah I agree that this start certainly didn't favour an oracle slingshot very well. It needed more production or more trees... As it was we were siphoning food at size 4 due to health... if I deforested anymore it wouldn't have been pretty.

Plus Lizzy doesn't start with the greatest of techs for this place. Fishing (well... I couldn't even find a fish on the island). Mining was good... gold mine (great!) and hill in the capital. However she really needed something else... Mao would've been good I think. Agr/Min for him. That would've helped. We could've farmed the floodplains and got our settler out faster. But at least one more hill, or a coastal start with seafood, would've been much better.

And I agree 100% with the financial = cottages thing. Others benefit from cottages... financial demands them. I'm not sure in this particular start that even a non-financial leader wouldn't have done better with cottages than the oracle simply because there was no production and no trees.

I tried to get some worker techs first but kept failing to get the oracle in time. Ideally I wanted to try to grab pottery first (or at least the wheel + agriculture) but I could never get done the henge in time... it kept pushing the oracle completion back to around 1000... and I lost it every time. So again we needed more production.

Unfortuantely, couerdelion, the GP does not grant Philo completely... But I think you can get it from him. A scientist is better though, if you can get him instead, as he will give it to you 100% (if you have mathematics too).

I'm still inclinded to agree though on the value of CS over Philo... It's not that pacifism is useless... quite the contrary... but if I only have to wait an extra say 25 turns to get some sort of method (scientist, prophet, just plain research) to get Philo... CS is better for me. I agree with Blake about the whole getting +21 GPP per turn with the oracle, stonehenge, and a priest... the problem is though that before I can actually get that 21 / turn, I need a temple! I can't build a temple until I found a religion... and that comes with CoL. So its gonna take me another how many turns to get that temple and then assign the priest. Up until that point pacifism is only giving me an extra +4 GPP / turn.

So pacifism = great... but it can wait 25 turns.

Personally, if I was doing this approach (and I haven't tested it but it seems good off hand) is to get somebody who starts with mysticism and try to found an early religion. That way you can build stonehenge (if you still want it) and a temple earlier to speed up your prophet as I found that to be the limiting factor. You may get away actually with just the temple + priest start... no henge... as they get 6 GPP per turn instead of 4. Plus the temple lets you grow bigger.

My kind of impression here overall is that if I was in a good production, low commerce area, going for some oracle to CS method is probably a decent idea. However if I was in an area that I needed / could benefit from early worker techs and cottages I would probably ignore the oracle (or get it but use it for something else... say metal casting). That was the funny thing. In the cottage method I actually could've built the oracle I think. I didn't bother cause I didn't want to mess up the example. I probably could've only got CoL with it though... or alphabet... not that great.

[Blake]

The main reason to get Philo ASAP (or sooner!) is to found 2 religions in one city, at least thats the clincher for me.

I've decided that Saladin is probably only the only leader who can reliably pull off the stonehenge-triple-slingshot on Emperor. He can pull the whole thing so blazingly fast. The only problem is barbarians.

Here is the almost exact beeline and build order:
Research meditation (all tiles on commerce), start on Stonehenge.
Meditation completes, for simplicity, assume you got buddhism (it's possible without Buddhism just fill in the gaps where the religious buildings go). Start researching Priesthood, then mining.
City grows to size 3, start on a worker. (delay stonehenge)
Mining done, start bronze working.
Worker trained, resume on Stonehenge.
Worker mines and roads until BW, then puts one chop onto Stonehenge to hurry it to completion.
After bronze working, research Writing then Polytheism.
Build a Buddhist Temple, chop it.
Chop a Monastary if you want, otherwise units.
Start on Oracle.
The following should all occur nearly simulataneously and at about 1320BC:
Polytheism research completes.
The prophet pops out, Lightbulb CoL.
The Oracle completes (chop to make it happen), select Philosophy.
Now start on a settler and grab a worker tech or 2 (previously restricted to Mining and The Wheel), or Archery if needed.
Start researching CS.
Next prophet pops out, lightbulb CS.

Triple slingshot done.

The Oracle gets done so quickly that it's highly unlikely an AI can build it first. Taking stock, the main asset you have is an vast tech lead, it's huge, you're actually FIRMLY IN THE LEAD. You WILL be able to trade for everything at least up to and including construction and monarchy, it's a free ticket out of the early game. You're running arguably the most potent religious civic in the game at a time when it has no penalties. You've bogarted 3 religions in your Capital, only having to compete with Juadism and Hinduism, chances are you can convert a neighbour.

The main thing which can go wrong is not getting Buddhism, then you can only grow to size 4 instead of size 6. However it's certainly doable without Buddhism, you just wont have quite such an uber capital, and will have more competition.
Also it probably wont work without a river or "goldmine" start, you kind of need at least +3 extra commerce to get polytheism done in time for the Prophet and Oracle. For coastal starts you could afford a detour to fishing for some nice seafood+mines action, by working ocean you can speed along Polytheism and make up the oracle time with chops. In any case I never reccomend slingshots for total garbage starts.

Here's a map to try it on. Emperor, Pangea, normal game speed. As you can see it's not a 1-in-a-million start; decent food, decent health, decent hammer start.

[The_Paladin]

Originally posted by Blake
The main reason to get Philo ASAP (or sooner!) is to found 2 religions in one city, at least thats the clincher for me.

I've decided that Saladin is probably only the only leader who can reliably pull off the stonehenge-triple-slingshot on Emperor. He can pull the whole thing so blazingly fast. The only problem is barbarians.

Yeah definately getting 2 religions in one city is huge. Your cash flow problems for the rest of the game are solved once you get the shrines. Also, as you suggested, if you can get an early religion you can build an early temple. That helps a lot and increases the value of philo/pacifism... hence allowing you to get CS shortly afterwards (maybe only a 10-15 turn delay). That isn't too bad a trade off since, as you indicated, getting two religions in the same city has great benefits. So yeah it sounds like Saladin can definatley pull it off nicely... perhaps also a SPI guy who starts with fishing might be good too (if there is such a leader?) if you have a coastal start as he could access the extra commerce from the coast thus ensuring you get an early religion.

I suppose if you wanted to be safe you could go for Polytheism for your religion... it seems easier than the other one... but I would probably be with you and go for the faster one.

[Blake]

Isabella is Spi with Fishing. Spi/exp could actually work since the city is going to be BIGGGG with all the religions.

I find that Buddhism and Hinduism are both equally easy/difficult, both are real crapshoots really. At least with buddhism you fail earlier. For a philo leader the only use of the temple is the +1 happy, I don't actually run a priest until much later. 300% of 4GPP is plenty (I don't know why you don't quite grasp that Pacifism allows to get away with less specialists rather than needing to make more specialists. And "only" 4gpp is 2/3rd as much as the 6gpp a non-phi, non-paci civ gets from running 2 scientists). Anyway there's no need to get the 2nd prophet any faster than 12gpp/turn, it's hard to pre-research enough of CS to have it insta-lightbulbable.

I'm going to try a game as Isabella-on-a-lake (or with seafood specials), it might just work.

[The_Paladin]

Originally posted by Blake
I don't actually run a priest until much later. 300% of 4GPP is plenty (I don't know why you don't quite grasp that Pacifism allows to get away with less specialists rather than needing to make more specialists. And "only" 4gpp is 2/3rd as much as the 6gpp a non-phi, non-paci civ gets from running 2 scientists).

Its not that I don't understand it. I understand that you can get away with less specialists (or none at all) with pacifism.

I'm not saying that its "useless" to get philo first. Its actually quite good. But in comparison to getting CS first I just think getting CS is better.

It takes 200 GPP points to get the second prophet. If you have pacifism it takes 200 / 12 = 17 turns to get. If you don't it takes 200 / 8 = 25. So all you really save with it is 8 turns. Now if instead you grabbed CS first, switched to bureau and caste (if you didn't have a library in any of your cities), you could instead assign two scientists and get +12GPP taking you again 17 turns and use the great scientist to get Philo you would have Philo then. Of course you have to research mathematics first to use the scientist but in the other case you have to pre-research CS so its kind of equal. I'm sure you'd still found Taoism.

So I'd prefer to have bureau earlier and wait 17 turns for pacifism. I value pacifism quite high as well... just not as high as CS.

Its good though that all us Civ players don't play the exact same way. It would make the game boring. Half the fun is just trying out the various things.

[couerdelion]

I think I have the perfect start

I remember a start I had once with Isabella on when I ended up with lots of seafood resources and with silver. I believe I ditched the game early because I was surrounded by tundra so the second and third cities were likely to suffer a bit.

Looks like one that I ought to try out for this game particularly since I know I will get Buddhism and all those buildings can easily be pop-chopped once the food is rushing in. Plenty of cash to fire the tech investment to and the only serious worries to be the hoards of Barbarians who would flock to the shrines.

[Blake]

Okay the Issy game I didn't start on a lake, but I did get a much better start, 2 floodplains, 1 riverrice and 3 hills on river. That's 6 great tiles all with +1 commerce. Got Buddhism, Built the Henge, ran a priest, it all came together and I got Philo at 1320BC. Got Bureaucracy in 725BC.

Here's something interesting, if you further delay Masonary you can go on to snag Monarchy with a Great Prophet.

I posted the intial save in the "Great Starts Thread". It might make for a good comparison save since it's a good balanced, fairly rich start, with a flexible leader.

[Blake]

So I'd prefer to have bureau earlier and wait 17 turns for pacifism. I value pacifism quite high as well... just not as high as CS.

As I said, the clincher for me is getting both religions in the same city, this is awesome for so many reasons, especially when it comes to quickly getting max benefit from markets, grocers and banks. The super-religion city will have good hammers too (thanks to prophets) and can build the gold multipliers very quickly, it's my experience that cities that get dead-end religions usually can't be so devoted to the gold. Another factor is that new religions prefer to "pollute" cities with no religion - which means burning a missionary to convert the city to the proper state religion.

The calculations are also obviously quite different when pulling this off with a non-philo, but spiritual+myst leader.