Alternate CS Slingshot

[The_Paladin]

Originally posted by uberfish


Because I think it really detracts from variety to be forced into going down the warmonger path every game.

Agreed. Yeah sometimes I like to go and knock some heads around with axes and swords... but sometimes I want to build up, beat the comp to gunpower, and red-coat em to death! Or sometimes I want to just be purely peaceful.

On emperor and above I have a hard time being purely peaceful as the comp either pummels your smaller military or your get beat to the spaceship by being locked on a small portion of your continent. I have beaten them though, pure peace, through the oracle CS Slingshot and now am having even better luck (tech lead in my current game at gunpowder - never went on the offensive) by using prophet CS slingshot, and 2 scientists to grab education ASAP.

[Shaka II]

Originally posted by uberfish

Because I think it really detracts from variety to be forced into going down the warmonger path every game.

I still build wonders at emperor, but not as many. I capture far more than I build. I agree that at the harder levels, being a warmonger or warmonger/builder is generally required. The size of your empire matters, just look at the Romans or the Mongols in history. They didn't get that way from staying in Rome or Karakorum. They expanded, and conquered.

But it's all about game play and having fun. If you want a fun building game, play at prince or monarchy. If you want to play at emperor or above, I think it's probably necesary to expand and take over some neighboring civs.

[Arrian]

Ok, last night I gave the superslingshot to CS + Machinery a try (on Prince). I succeeded, albeit barely.

I chose Lizzy, and on my third try found a suitable spot (river, cows, wheat, gold hill, several floodplains, bunch of forest). IIRC, my tech path went:

Hunting
Animal
Bronze
Mysticism
Meditation
Priesthood
Writing
CoL
Agriculture
CS, mostly rushed via prophet
The wheel
Metal Casting
Machinery-via-Oracle.

I built 4 cities while doing this. However, on my first attempt, I mis-micromanaged something and completed Metal Casting 1 turn before the Oracle... and bang, the Oracle was built by the AI. I had it timed up at one point, and had forgotten to keep on top of it. I went back a few turns and fixed that error, and got it right. It was that close.

Tech-wise, this was obviously extremely powerful. The downside was that I lost some good land to Egypt's REX and, being neither industrious nor aggressive, my war machine took a while to get going. The whole point was to use Macemen against Archers. Unfortunately, I spent too much time building up a good invasion force (spears, maces, cats and a smattering of WE's, crossbows and even a couple of knights) that by the time I launched my invasion, I was facing longbows. I still laid a smackdown on Hatty, but was unable to take Thebes (I actually ran into a bad run of combat luck in that war... and I didn't have the numbers to overcome it). Still, 3 cities taken, one razed, massive tech lead...

It didn't quite work as well as I'd hoped, but it was certainly powerful.

-Arrian

[The_Paladin]

Originally posted by Arrian
Ok, last night I gave the superslingshot to CS + Machinery a try (on Prince). I succeeded, albeit barely.

Good job getting it to work.

Yeah that was my impression with attempting to combine the oracle and prophet to get CS + some other tech. People already complain, rightly so, that standard CS slingshots leave you weak militarily. Thus attemtping to pull off an even further slingshot would strain your empire even further. You may end up with powerful military tech but not an actual military .

We've been throwing around a lot of ideas about super-slingshots on this thread but the original basic premise of prophet => CS is probably one of the better military options of actually putting this idea into practice. Forget the oracle, forget the constrained tech line, just grab a means of getting a prophet (whatever you like) and then grab whatever military techs you want, build an army, and invade. Now while invading grab code of laws and use your prophet you've gotten by now to get CS. So now you have both a nice army to invade, courthouses to keep your newly captured cities and a powered up capital to drive your research. That 'rebuilding time' after the war doesn't hit so hard draining away your pillage cash and research percent due to high upkeeps. The capital produces 50% extra cash (which probably means extra 150% + research) to help you through your cash strapped time till you can recover, and you will recover a lot easier.

Now while you're in recovery mode, go ahead and tech to macemen. You'll have you're slightly older army still but now be able, with your extra cities, be able to integrate macemen into that army (and probably catapults too by now). Save your pilliage cash if you want and upgrade. The capital will be able to power you through whatever you want. Ironically my one and only sucessful diety game has been based on this idea, so it works . It would work better if I would micromanage my units more but I love building too much .

So yeah good job. Very informative as a warning to would-be early warmongers against using a super-slingshot.

[couerdelion]

That must have taken a while.

Originally posted by Arrian
Ok, last night I gave the superslingshot to CS + Machinery a try (on Prince). I succeeded, albeit barely.

I chose Lizzy, and on my third try found a suitable spot (river, cows, wheat, gold hill, several floodplains, bunch of forest). IIRC, my tech path went:

Hunting
Animal
Bronze
Mysticism
Meditation
Priesthood
Writing
CoL
Agriculture
CS, mostly rushed via prophet
The wheel
Metal Casting
Machinery-via-Oracle.

-Arrian

It sounds like a late Oracle there. I’m quite interested to know why you chose hunting when “agro” would have got you to “animal” AND allowed you to work the wheat tile early? Personally I’d have liked a coastal+river start with Lizzie since she has the ideal traits, IM(h)O, for slingshot.

I’m still trying to figure out the rest of the whole plan and have a gut feel sense that it leave the civilisation a little “lop-sided”. Do you remember when did you got CS and Machinery?

[Arrian]

Paladin,

A couple of things:

a) My war was, overall, successful. Just not "knife through butter" like I'd hoped.

b) I probably could have played it better with more focus. After the superslingshot, I also built the Great Library, the Hanging Gardens (in London) and the Colossus (2nd city... York?). I built forges in my cities and *then* pumped some troops out. I went for construction for cats.

Imagine that I'd instead just trained up ~10 macemen and a couple of spears and attacked. I'd have faced archers and a few war chariots.

Of course, if I was SMART, I'd have saved the game right after completing the Superslingshot. Instead, I played on w/o saving. Oh well, I guess I just have to try again

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Re: That must have taken a while.

Originally posted by couerdelion


It sounds like a late Oracle there. I’m quite interested to know why you chose hunting when “agro” would have got you to “animal” AND allowed you to work the wheat tile early? Personally I’d have liked a coastal+river start with Lizzie since she has the ideal traits, IM(h)O, for slingshot.

I’m still trying to figure out the rest of the whole plan and have a gut feel sense that it leave the civilisation a little “lop-sided”. Do you remember when did you got CS and Machinery?

Hunting vs Agro: in retrospect, stupid. I was thinking "it's faster!!" Hunting is cheaper than Agr. Although for much of the early game, my happy cap was size... 6? I hit that pretty quick even w/o farms. I couldn't hook up gold (or my silver @ my 3rd city, for that matter) until I had the wheel.

By the way, I'm really not sure when I researched Agr. I wrote down my tech order, but the list is at home.

I too would've liked a coastal start. Workboats off the bat for vertical growth are great. I also would've liked more hills (my gold hill was my only hill).

I believe I completed the SSS somewhere in the 600s BC. Late, hence almost losing it on Prince.

-Arrian

[Jetmech]

Just succeeded the alt slingshot with greeks and I'm of the opinion it's a much better strategy than using the oracle...I met all the same reqs that Vel stated before hitting 1 AD and I had 4 cities with phalanx.

Off to put Mansas' head on a pole

[uberfish]

Got an exceptionally nice start at Immortal with Alex, sheep + 2 gold + river and next to Cyrus for a change instead of Napoleon which makes a lot of difference.

my build order:

Mining, AH, Mysticism
Stonehenge (and BW, chop stonehenge)
Settler, Meditation, Priesthood
Chop Oracle (takes CoL and convert to Conf)
Alphabet, prophet completes and sits around for a bit
Trade CoL for ancient techs
Polytheism, library in capital
Prophet helps with CS, cutting research time to about 5 turns
(Iron somewhere, I forgot exactly where)
Prophet -> Shrine
Literature, start chopping Great Lib
Maths
Construction
Scientist -> Academy
Machinery

All done pre-200 AD. The only problem is Cyrus built Chichen Itza and with me sitting on two cities I have no choice except to attack him in order to get resources and expand, but I have a huge tech lead on him at this point and switched both my cities over to military production so should be able to take a few cities easily with cat/mace/phalanx before longbows even have a chance to show up.

[gus_smedstad]

Originally posted by Arrian
Unfortunately, I spent too much time building up a good invasion force (spears, maces, cats and a smattering of WE's, crossbows and even a couple of knights) that by the time I launched my invasion, I was facing longbows.

I probably would have tried doing it with just Macemen. The losses would be higher against cities without the Catapults, but you could launch the invasion earlier, with no need for Math or Construction, and most of the time you'd still get favorable odds. Particularly once your troops made City Raider II.

Spearmen? Why buy spears to get strength 8 against mounted when Macemen are strength 8 against everything? Sure, Spearmen are cheaper, but a Maceman with Combat promotions is going to be useful in more situations.

Crossbows? Were you really expecting to face enemy Macemen? Because Crossbows are inferior to Macemen against any melee unit except Macemen. They're really only good for defending your stack in the open, since Macemen will get better odds against a mixed enemy stack if you're attacking.

War Elephants are pretty nice, though really only good for open field combat, since they can't take the City Raider promotions. If I had Construction before my invasion force was ready, I'd probably include one.

On the other hand, I'd probably research Theology before Construction, given your plans. The extra +25% from City Raider II is like having 3 free Catapults with your invasion force.

- Gus

[Arrian]

I probably would have tried doing it with just Macemen. The losses would be higher against cities without the Catapults, but you could launch the invasion earlier, with no need for Math or Construction, and most of the time you'd still get favorable odds. Particularly once your troops made City Raider II.

Spearmen? Why buy spears to get strength 8 against mounted when Macemen are strength 8 against everything? Sure, Spearmen are cheaper, but a Maceman with Combat promotions is going to be useful in more situations.

Crossbows? Were you really expecting to face enemy Macemen? Because Crossbows are inferior to Macemen against any melee unit except Macemen. They're really only good for defending your stack in the open, since Macemen will get better odds against a mixed enemy stack if you're attacking.

War Elephants are pretty nice, though really only good for open field combat, since they can't take the City Raider promotions. If I had Construction before my invasion force was ready, I'd probably include one.

Some good points. I probably should've just hit with maces and spears... and probably catapults too. Spears because they're cheap and I was invading Egypt. It took me a while to build some macemen and by then I'd researched construction, so I built some cats and I had machinery, so let's build a crossbow... oh, I have ivory, WE's are nice toys...

I lose focus. This is a known problem with me. I should've dropped the WE's and Xbows. Cats were going to be available by the time I had any number of maces, so they should be used too, since I was facing 40-80% cultural defense in Hatty's cities.

As for civics... yeah, I guess I could've gotten Theo, but I had other things going on. I ended up trading for it (Music for Theo) with an overseas civ partway through my invasion. I could use it for a buildup to a second, final, war.

-Arrian

[Dactyl]

I have tried this strategy several times. (I didn't play far beyond when I got CS because I was interested in seeing what kind of advantage it gave me.) I have come to the conclusion that the benefits it gives you are small and certainly not game-changing.

I have not had trouble getting the CS using the recommended method, but that didn't give me any big advantage. Though I went for Machinery to get Macemen, I found that I wasn't that far ahead of the AI civs. In addition, I had the choice of either trading my advanced techs to the AI civs for techs of lesser value, or spending a lot of research time filling in and, by the time I do that filling in, I'm again slightly behind the AI civs in research.

I won't be convinced of the special value of this strategy unless I can see a log, such as those in the Apolyton University forum, which will show how this strategy can be exploited to give one a significant advantage.

[The_Paladin]

Originally posted by Dactyl
I have tried this strategy several times. (I didn't play far beyond when I got CS because I was interested in seeing what kind of advantage it gave me.) I have come to the conclusion that the benefits it gives you are small and certainly not game-changing.

I have not had trouble getting the CS using the recommended method, but that didn't give me any big advantage. Though I went for Machinery to get Macemen, I found that I wasn't that far ahead of the AI civs. In addition, I had the choice of either trading my advanced techs to the AI civs for techs of lesser value, or spending a lot of research time filling in and, by the time I do that filling in, I'm again slightly behind the AI civs in research.

I won't be convinced of the special value of this strategy unless I can see a log, such as those in the Apolyton University forum, which will show how this strategy can be exploited to give one a significant advantage.

Unfortunately I do not have time to write up a full AU log style development of a game at the moment. Perhaps someone else does (is Vel around ?) and that indeed would be useful to many I imagine.

Ultimately this strategy, like all others, fall under the category of it depends. If you want a large research boost early on, a CS slingshot is probably one of the best methods of achieving that. To a lesser extent, but still generally true, I would say that if you want a strong production centre early on a CS slingshot is also one of the best methods of achieving that.

Personally I don't think a CS slingshot is great for getting a military advantage too early really. To me, military advantage = extra hammers and extra hammers = horizontal expansion. Expansion is somewhat hurt by all kinds of CS slingshots so that kind of hurts your military as well. Though others, such as Arrian, have shown it to be a reasonable approach to military as well. I suppose in that sense it kind of resembles the Imperial approach suggested in Vel's second strategy thread.

The reason I use this alternate strategy can be summarized because A, I am primarily a builder and B, I think it has a good opportunity cost. To me to cost looks like this:

Alternate CS Slingshot (via stonehenge)
----------------------------

Benefits:

- Extra research and production in capital
- Easier access to much higher techs in the tech tree
(my favourites being printing press & education)
- 1000+ research cut off civil service via prophet

Costs:

- Must research mysticism early
- Cannot research masonry before getting civil service
- Must build stonehenge (results in slower expansion)
- Must generate a great prophet

Traditional CS Slingshot (via oracle)
-------------------------------------

Benefits:

- Extra research and production in capital
- Easier access to much higher techs in the tech tree
(my favourites being printing press & education)
- Civil service granted for free via oracle

Costs:

- Must research mysticism, meditation, priesthood, writing, and code of laws early (strictly focused research path)
- Must build oracle (results in slower expansion - slower than stonehenge by a bit)
- On higher difficulties, need to get a library + 2 scientists to generate academy quickly

Other non-CS methods
-----------------------------

Benefits:

- Whatever they happen to be

Costs:

- Whatever they happen to be
- No early civil service so no early research boost or production boost in capital

So now comparing these approaches:

Alternate VS Traditional CS slingshot
-----------------------------------------

The benefits of both methods are practically the same with the alternate being a little worse as you still have to spend a few turns (usually 4-5 on normal) researching civil service.

The cost of the traditional method, to me, is higher. The requirements of so many early techs (and expensive one in the case of code of laws) really forces you down a certain tech path. Comparatively there is only one required early tech for the alternate method, mysticism, and this frees up your research a lot.

The second cost comparison is oracle vs stonehenge. In this case they are both resulting in the same end - the achievement of getting civil service. However stonehenge is cheaper and arguably provides a better side effect. Since both are giving civil service, the oracle really provides no additional benefit whereas the stonehenge gives you a mini-creative trait, which is as useful as the trait itself really (so don't bother playing creative if you build stonehenge IMO). Thus again point to stonehenge.

The extra costs of the alternate method are that you cannot research masonry and that you must generate and use a great prophet. The masonry thing is just a minor nuisance unless you wanted the pyramids... if you want the pyramids though and CS early there's really no reliable way to do that on higher difficulties anyway. At least I've never heard of a pyramids / CS slingshot . The other cost however is one to be considered. Having to generate a prophet slows down your ability to get an academy in the capital. If you are PHI, it doesn't slow it down much, but if you aren't it can have delay you quite that academy quite a bit.

On the other side the extra costs of the traditional method is the library + academy requirement to speed research. This isn't exactly a "cost" but it is in the sense that it is required early. Thus is adds to the production time of the oracle and forces you to use scientists while building the oracle, if its all done in the capital, which slows your research. This library + academy detour isn't always required but generally is on higher difficulties.

To me, the opportunity cost of the alternate is better than the traditional. Less restricted tech requirements are a definite plus. Slightly better production time of stonehenge and a wonder side effect are a plus (I mean its not an amazing side effect but its better than nothing). This allows better early military defence and expansion. The prophet thing can be annoying.. but with all the other restrictions being lifted in the alternate I tend to favour it. It seems in the traditional method, since you can't get too many worker techs, you are kind of requiring / forcing the land to do what you need it too. In the alternate method you can grab worker techs and thereby can build the land to help get what you want. I'd rather work to the land than force the land.

Alternate VS Other methods
-----------------------------------------

Now comparing alternate to "other" methods. This is tough of course since there are so many but the comment I wanted to make here was that, as I listed, other methods have the cost that there will be no early bureaucracy thus they lose the extra research and production benefits it provides. If the benefits of the other method are such that they are greater than that loss of bureaucracy then you should choose that but if they aren't then the alternate CS should be used. Again its just a cost analysis.

For me, my "other" method generally revolved around grabbing some worker techs, getting 4 cities set up, and starting to infrastructure / defend them while grabbing code of laws to allow cheap further expansion. Since I was going for code of laws anyway, thus allowing me to research civil service, it only makes sense to try to get it ASAP since its a great benefit. The extra benefits of bureaucracy is better than the costs of requiring stonehenge and getting a prophet so naturally I like the alternate method.

Others may have better methods than me (or alternate ones) and they have to do their own thinking.

So that's my 2 cents anyways. It seems that some people (e.g. uberfish, Arrian, and Jetmech) are having some fun / luck at least with this method and that's the reason I posted it in the first place.

I don't know if people are actually getting any benefits from my long winded analysis posts but here it is anyways... last one for a while - promise .

[Arrian]

Wait, don't you need to research CoL anyway? I mean, isn't CoL a prereq for CS?

edit: also, the alternative method has an additional downside: the AI may build the Oracle. That may or may not be a big deal (I've seen reports of the AI executing the traditional slingshot).

If you build it as well as Stonehenge, now you've REALLY curtailed your expansion & defense.

-Arrian

[The_Paladin]

Originally posted by Arrian
Wait, don't you need to research CoL anyway? I mean, isn't CoL a prereq for CS?

-Arrian

Yes for a CS slingshot you do have to research code of laws no matter what method you choose. However I just was meaning that for the oracle method you have to get it fast (really its the limiting factor in successfully achieving the slingshot) but with the alternate you do still have to get it... but not immediately / fast. You can detour to 3 or 4 other techs and be safe after getting mysticism.