Slingshots vs. Expansion: a comparison

[Arrian]

Ah, but a plains hill is such a nice tile to found on (2hammers/turn, as opposed to 1) that if it's on fresh water and I am guaranteed a special (the cows would still be in range), I'll pretty much always do it.

-Arrian

[Alkis2]

Answering some questions

Gus,

I managed to do all that without cottages because I got much money from huts. That I didn't get Pottery early was another mistake of mine. In all I didn't play well.

I think the only good thing I did was building the Stonehenge. That wonder is great, cheap, early, you get GP points, the radius of your city expands, and with that your defense too.

Without a religion I would have to build obelisks. You did observe, I guess that I didn't found any religion. That was another thing that hurt me a lot. If I knew I was alone on that continent I would go for Polytheism first. Instead I went for AH.

I moved the settler one tile to the left because I saw the pigs in your pics and couldn't resist, sorry.

I played that game a little more, till I got CS at 50 AD but I made some more mistakes, the main being that I found many cities and my maintainence costs are very high, dragging my research down. I have some cottages/hamlets but with Ghandi they are not enough.

In conclusion I think that your first variation gives the best results under the circumctances.

In any case I could have improved my expansion variation with :
1.Founding a religion
2.Researching Pottery earlier
3.Not expanding too much later on.

[gus_smedstad]

I'm a much bigger fan of founding a religion than I once was. IMHO founding a religion is almost as good as building Stonehenge, and a lot cheaper. Stonehenge's purpose is to give new cities a basic +1 culture / turn, and if you connect your cities via a road / river network, frequently they'll get religion for free. At worst, you build a Missionary in a developed city rather than an obelisk in a new city with low production. There's chance involved, of course, which isn't true of Stonehenge.

That doesn't mean I'll declare it as a state religion, though. On Monarch on a crowded map, the diplomatic hit if you have a neighbor who also founded a religion is high. In fact, I kind of like to stay neutral in that case and spread my religion to other civs so they will make enemies of the religious fanatics.

If I knew I was alone on that continent I would go for Polytheism first. Instead I went for AH.

Understandable. Of all the improvements, Pastures often seem like the best. Particularly for cattle (+1 food and +2 hammers) and horses (+2 hammers and +1 commerce). During early expansion Pigs (+4 food total with a pasture) can supercharge your Settler and Worker production.

- Gus

[Alkis2]

Last attempt to improve

The idea is to take AH and improve those land tiles. I also want to build two more cities. To do that I will use Oracle to take CoL and the Prophet to speed up CS.

4000 BC Capital starts on Stonehenge. Research Polytheism
As soon as capital is size 2 starts on worker. Then back to Stonehenge.
Here I lost track. I managed to get Hinduism.
After Polytheism I researched hunting and animal husbandry. Then the wheel.
Back to track.

2400 BC Stonehenge is already built. Capital, now size 4, needs one more turn to finish warrior and it will build settler. I research Priesthood.

2080 BC Capital finishes settler starts another settler. Priesthood researched start searching writing.

2000 BC Bombay found. Warrion enters city and fortifies. Builds barracks

1840 BC Capital finishes settler starts Oracle

1720 BC Mandras found. Scout (that I got from hut goes there and fortifies). Builds warrior.

1600 BC Finished researching writing. Start researching Bronze. Here there is another variation. Instead of Bronze I could go after meditation and get CS earlier.

1480 BC I finish the Oracle. I take CoL. New religion starts in Mandras. I am also given a missionary. Capital starts library. Missionary spreads Confu to the capital. Now as soon as the capital reaches max size I will convert to Confu.

1280 BC I had to change from library to warrior in the capital because of barb attacks. I lost that scout despite the fact he was fortified on forest. Oh well.

1240 BC Two more turns to Bronze. Then I will research meditation and use the Prophet to take CS. He will arrive in 8 turns. I will probably have researched meditation by then.

Result 3 cities 2 religions 5 warriors. Library in the capital in 2 turns, barracks in Bombay in 3,

CS in probably 8 turns.

My total output: 13 science 23 hammers/turn.

I played a little more.

1160 BC I researched Bronze, changed to slavery. Capital finishes library starts on temple. Or anything else you want. I start researching meditation.

1000 BC Moses born.

975 BC I discover meditation and use the Prophet for CS. Unfortunately I need another 7 turns for it.

I have 23 sciense per turn and 24 hammers per turn now.

[Alkis2]

After that, I tried another idea. Instead of researching Bronze at 1600 BC I went for meditation immediately and by the time I researched it I had Oracle and CoL so I started on CS. Eventually the Prophet came up and I had CS at 975 BC.

Not bad but I felt a bit insecure with the barbs coming. Variation 2 is more impressive but a little risky.

There is another idea but it's risky. Delay the Oracle untill the Prophet comes. You can change from Oracle to temple, build temple assign a priest and speed up that Prophet. As soon as he comes you use him for CoL and build Oracle to get CS. The problem is we are a bit late and we may lose the Oracle to the AI.

[gus_smedstad]

Re: Last attempt to improve

Originally posted by Alkis2
975 BC I discover meditation and use the Prophet for CS. Unfortunately I need another 7 turns for it.

Thats' why the other way around is more attractive, despite the fact that a Prophet gives about 550 beakers when he discovers Code of Laws, and 1000 or so when he tries for Civil Service. The Oracle gives a much better return when used for Civil Service.

On the other hand, I like the idea of building Stonehenge, expanding, and executing some kind of CS slingshot. That way you get the benefit of both aspects of Stonehenge. I was kind of disappointed when I tried it and found that I couldn't afford to expand if I wanted Civil Service through the Oracle. In this particular game, the AI will build the Oracle sometime around 1100 BC.

- Gus

[uberfish]

With this sort of start I tend to favour Pyramids over Oracle builds anyway, because -

1) cows being the only resource at the starting site really speaks in favour of getting Animal Husbandry fairly early, but this will seriously slow down the oracle. Also, the starting position isn't really that great so bureaucracy doesn't give that big a return.

2) Our prospective expansion sites have food resources but not much in the way of luxuries or commerce. Getting Representation from pyramids will let us grow larger early, and then feed some scientists to power our research and generate GPs.

3) As a bonus, being a spiritual civ we can make full use of police state and universal suffrage situationally, once our happiness and commerce resources are sorted out.

[trev]

You people must have been lucky in the game, not having significant barb trouble, I tried it and lost delhi to barbs having lost 2 archers and 3 warriors to barbs before your 1280 BC time slot, every battle to babs was a lost battle, the odds did not favour me at all. How did you avoid this trouble.

[gus_smedstad]

Originally posted by trev
I tried it and lost delhi to barbs having lost 2 archers and 3 warriors to barbs before your 1280 BC time slot, every battle to babs was a lost battle, the odds did not favour me at all. How did you avoid this trouble.

Forests and promotions. When I encountered Lions and Barbarian Warriors, I'd lure the enemy into attacking my Warrior in the forest. The +50% defense is enough to virtually guarantee a victory. I always chose the "Woodsman" line of promotions afterwards. I always had at least one Woodsman I and sometimes a Woodsman II when the Barbarian Archers arrived. That's Str 3.4 to Str 4 in forest, and gives you good odds even when defending against Archers.

- Gus

[gus_smedstad]

Originally posted by uberfish
With this sort of start I tend to favour Pyramids over Oracle builds

I thought I'd give it a shot, and discovered it's not bad.

4000 BC - Found City. Begin Settler, research Polytheism.

3480 BC - discover Polytheism, begin researching Hunting.

3240 BC - discover Hunting, begin researching Animal Husbandry.

3000 BC - finish Settler, start Worker.

2920 BC - found Bombay. Bombay starts Worker.

2760 BC - discover Animal Husbandry. Begin researching Masonry.

2440 BC - discover Masonry, start Bronze Working. Bombay finishes worker, starts Pyramids.

2400 BC - Delhi finishes Worker, starts Scout.

2160 BC - Delhi finishes Scout, begins Warrior.

2040 BC - Delhi finishes Warrior, begins Warrior. Barbarian city discovered to the northeast.

1920 BC - Delhi finishes Warrior, begins Barracks.

1880 BC - discover Bronze Working. Workers begin chopping forests for Pyramids. Begin researching the Wheel.

1560 BC - finish The Wheel, begin researching Agriculture.

1480 BC - finish barracks, begin Warrior.

1360 BC - Delhi finishes Warrior, begins Settler.

1320 BC - Bombay finishes Pyramids. Switch to Representation. Hire two Citizens in Bombay just to get the +6 research.

1280 BC - Discover Argiculture, begin researching Writing. Research 15 beakers / turn after paying upkeep, production 12 hammers / turn.

Going forward we're in a good position, though we're quite a bit behind in technology, missing things like Code of Laws and of course Civil Service. With the initial site so poor and little commerce, the +50% bonus from bureaucracy isn't buying us as much as just having a city with a big food surplus for specialists.

- Gus

[arvcran]

Very interesting gus, I never thought of great prophet method.
Good alternative. One thing I like with the library scientists approach is focussing on getting more science to speed Code of Laws research. Then when Oracle is built (Civil Service acquired) the 50% extra science is great! I'd have to say you *must* build cottages though. Science is very important to survive at higher difficulty levels. In your comparison I did not see building the Academy in your capital which also gives 50% science. I tend to build the Library before the Oracle myself. But you are building the oracle much sooner (apparantly) this way.

[drank]

Interesting thread, Gus. I tried an OCC game using the prophet-slingshot instead of the regular version. It played out similar to yours. I founded Hinduism, built a temple and assigned a priest specialist. My first prophet generated in 1480BC for Code of Laws, and the Oracle completed the following turn for Civil Service.

I think that is indeed a viable approach, compared to the regular slingshot. Here are a couple of observations from my game.

(1) Overall, this requires much less research than the regular slingshot. So it's probably easier for starts without a lot of immediate commerce potential.

(2) You have to be VERY careful about your research, though, to make sure the Great Prophet will indeed research Code of Laws. You must have researched both Meditation and Polytheism (or the prophet will do the missing one). You must NOT research Masonry, or the prophet will do Monotheism instead. The biggest implication is that you cannot start the Pyramids until after the Oracle is finished.

(3) Since one route is to found an early religion and build a temple, this approach is much friendlier to religion grabbing than the regular slingshot. I wound up founding 6 religions in my game without really trying.

(4) Taking point (3) in mind, I may try this in a game where I want a cultural victory. Since you tend to want lots of religions (for lots of temples and cathedrals) if you're going for culture, I've often had a hard time working a standard slingshot into that type of game.

(5) There is much less flexibility here compared to the standard slingshot, since you're trying to complete everything 500 years sooner. You definitely don't have as much time to research non-slingshot techs (i.e. Animal Husbandry, Agriculture, Pottery, etc.), whereas in the standard slingshot you can get two of those en route to Writing.

Anyhow, great opening gambit. Thanks for the carefully researched post.

[trev]

I have had a 2nd go at the game, using my usual technique of worker first, growth of initial city to size 4 at rapidly as possible (usually the size that allows rapid building of setllers, workers, without unhealthiness, unhappiness), in this starting location this is achieved much slower than is often the case.
Research Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Bronze working, The Wheel, Pottery, Hunting, Archery, Writing with writing completed in 1240BC, the end date for this experiment.
Once the initial worker is completed it is warrior continuously till city is size 4. During this growth phase food is always maximised, and commerce as 2nd priority. Therefore tile worked by city is now grassland by river for its commerce, this square is also now being farmed by the worker. The worker next moves to the cows for pasture, and then 2 more grassland squares. As I only build warriors until city is size 4, shields do not have major importance, enough warriors will come out for exploration and alos fortifying on potential city sites. About 5 warriors were produced in this game, most games it would be less.
Settler produced followed by another worker, then settler again, and worker again. Chopping of forests is used to speed this progress, health being maintained by completion of roads to cows, pigs, wheat.
Second city founded close by on hill to access wheat and pigs, a worker commencing the farming of the wheat on the founding turn, followed by pasturing of pigs, all being roaded as well.
2nd city produces 2 warriors followed by archers, 3rd city founded on plains next to deer and copper.
Result is 2 size 4 cities, 1 size 1 city, 3 archers, 6 warriors, 3 fast workers, 1 cottage, more cottages will be built very quickly as I generally begin to switch my focus to them about this stage of game, 15 hammers, 18 science (deficit spending 6/turn, but covered by money from huts. 3 food resources, 4th almost completed, copper mining commenced, so a civ that is ripe for further expansion and well defended, a barb city to north of city can be easily captured once axemen are built which can be done soon.
Personally I would progress the game by prioritising Code of Laws, and found confucianism as my religion, and continue building cottages in mass for the money needed to fund furher city expansion.

[trev]

In regards to the earlier game, when barbs warriors or animal locations are known I do take them on in forest, or sometimes hills, and did get woodmans2 early, but got defeated by barb i met unintentionally on plains. Because this map does not have as much forest as most, I did much better 2nd time around by using the combat promotion1 and 2, or combat1 followed by archery cover. These promotiions being useful on all terrain helped much more than the usual woodsman promotions.

[samspock]

I started one last night as Ghandi/Noble/Standard Pangea/normal speed. I ended up getting CS at 1280bc but had two cities, iron working, access to stone but did not have masonry yet. Two turns later I got alphabet and traded for most of the stuff I skipped. The short version of how I did it was I went for the worker first so I could get my food up, did a warrior then a settler while researching bronze, agriculture then the COL prereqs. The starting point was on a VERY long river that went all over the continent so my settler went much farther away next to a stone pile and a gold hill. The starting point also had a gold hill and iron in the fat cross. I built Stonehenge and a temple in the capital and a library in the second city. I burned the prophet to get COL, got the oracle on the next turn for CS.

I am up to 1340AD and have 9 cities, gottent to music and libralism first, circumnavigated first, founded 3 religions (missed islam by one turn!) gotten two prophets, two scientists for two academy's (that second city is just as good for science as the first!) and the free artist. I have build most of the wonders but missed a couple. I feel in control for the most part except the uneasyness of not having pruned down the compitition. When I don't do that they have the anoying habit of catching up.

What I should have done was take out Rome after I got iron working. Rome got a bad location. They have no copper or iron! Imagine fighting Rome around 1ad and they don't have any prats! I may just reload and try that or just sit back and build a cultural victory. I am set up very well for it.

The most interesting part of the map I got was the long river. Four of the seven AI's founded their cities on that river along with me. When I got budisim first they all picked it up really fast. It helped me found my second and third cities without needing the wheel to hook them up.

I think the strength of going the prophet-oracle CS slingshot is using three different methods to research stuff. You have the normal beakers to tech, then the build an oracle to tech and throw that together with a greatprophet to tech. I have not crunched the math but I would imagine the total beaker output spent up to CS from all three tracks to be huge and pretty much unobtainable until the 1400's ad otherwise.

One thing also was I founded a second city to get a pure science city for the academy. He came out of my capital though so not sure if that was needed.