Merchant Slingshot

[Cort Haus]

Civil Service can be discovered with a Great Merchant, if you head along the top branch towards Code of Laws.

The most direct way is using the Great Lighthouse to get the Great Merchant, but the snag is that you can't get Bronze Working without needing Metal Casting too, as the Gt Merch will take MC. This may not be too bad for Industrial Civs, who can throw up a Forge and Colossus quickly to help with the Gt Merchant points, but MC is an expensive tech, and the beeline needs to get Maths, Currency and CoL.

So this strat is probably best suited to island maps, where bronze is not so essential early on for survival, and perhaps for either Phi, Ind or Fin civs. Phi is nice for a faster GM, Fin to drive the tech rate through Maths, Currency & CoL, and Ind perhaps for a Great Lighthouse + Colossus version.

via Lighthouse you need :

Mining
Agriculture
Fishing
Sailing
Masonary
Pottery
Writing
Maths
Currency
Code of Laws

but *not* Bronze Working, unless you want Metal Casting too.

It can be done with the Colossus as well, or perhaps even instead of. Two wonders might make enough for two Gt Merchants, one of whom can get CoL.

The advantage of the direct route is that there is a chance (perhaps only sub-Monarch) of bagging CoL before the AI. Research can be speeded up with scientists in a different city to the Lighthouse build, but don't let a Great Scientist pop out before the Merchant is ready. Having a Great Scientist soon after to make an Academy in the Bureau capital is obviously an incentive to speed up research this way.

What I like about this beeline is that it skips the whole religious block entirely. No Oracle, no Prophets - the only thing that has to be done before the AI is build the Lighthouse - and that should be do-able even on Monarch. You can even research Masonary, in fact you have to for the Lighthouse, so this route is Pyramid-friendly, unlike most Gt Person slingshots.

[Cort Haus]

Oh, and the Great Lighthouse isn't a bad wonder to have either.

[Blake]

It looks like there's enough research to chew through that you could easily generate a GS first for an academy. Then use Caste Sytem (no BW for slavery) to run multiple Merchants in addition to Great Lighthouse, or even without. Philo civs could probably generate a GM in time without merchants.

The possibility of a GM slingshot was something I explored a few days ago, as part of a discussion at RBCiv concerning changing Masonry to be part of the GP's lightbulb path, thus making it unusable for CS slingshot. According to Sirian the Prophets are meant to be for religion and the non-religious GP slingshots are in fact an uninentional side effect of another change.

I'm not really sure what the advantage is over a straightforward prophet slingshot, used for either CoL or CS, with Oracle picking up the other. The idea of being able to ignore religion and research masonry does make it interesting though, so I'm going to try this out in a game and see how it goes.

[Blake]

Hmmm, I have to say that going through Currency is unwieldly - it takes way too long, and once you've cranked through all that tech you have a developed enough economy to research CS the old fashioned way fairly quickly.

It occurs to me a more direct route would be to go straight to Code of Laws via Priesthood, and use Caste to generate a fast Merchant. I know this defeats the idea of skipping the religious techs, but those techs are not bad ones.

Merchants can lightbulb CS via priesthood as long as you avoid Bronze Working and research Monarchy - Monarchy is a very useful tech so this is not a big deal.

By avoiding Bronze Working it's possible to use Caste System to accelerate progress towards CS and other goals, for example:
Build Oracle ASAP (like 2000BC even), pick CoL, revolt to Caste System.
Run as many scientists as you can afford in the oracle city, most likely 2.
-- If the Prophet is generated (~33% odds) then research Polytheism and lightbulb CS, get a GS for the Academy however you wish.
If the Scientist is generated (~66% odds) then create an Academy, start researching Monarchy and change the scientists to Merchants.
If a prophet is generated, researching Polytheism and lightbulb CS.
If a merchant is generated, complete Monarchy then lightbulb CS.

What this allows is running extremely high GPP levels, it's mixed, but you can make anything which pops out work for you in a very positive way. I believe this would be more useful for non-philo civs, since Philo can generate GP's more quickly than the distracting techs can be researched.

I don't believe that a "Pure" merchant slingshot is more useful than a prophet slingshot, there might be some merit to the idea, though, especially like with a start with wines which strongly supports getting Monarchy ASAP.

edit: Something which might work for Philo leaders would be generating both a Merchant and Prophet, use one to bag Monarchy and the other to bag CS. It would also work with a single city and mixing Prophet and merchant points, since both GP types do the trick. The advantage is no need for a temple (for a priest), just run Caste System.

[Cort Haus]

I like the caste system variant, I'll have to try that.

Interesting discussion on BRCiv about the Prophet sling being unintentional for the designers, but for me its all good fun. I haven't had the chance to read all that thread yet but I will.

Merchants can lightbulb CS via priesthood as long as you avoid Bronze Working and research Monarchy - Monarchy is a very useful tech so this is not a big deal.

What I didn't quite understand about the priesthood route there is that you still need the upper branch, as all those techs have a higher gold 'flavour' than CS.

The Gold Flavour Priority List:

Currency
Banking
Economics
Corporation
Metal Casting
Mining
Code Of Laws
The Wheel
Constitution
Pottery
Sailing
Paper
Railroad
Industrialism
Agriculture
Writing
Mathematics
Monarchy
Machinery
Civil Service

[Cort Haus]

I don't believe that a "Pure" merchant slingshot is more useful than a prophet slingshot, there might be some merit to the idea, though, especially like with a start with wines which strongly supports getting Monarchy ASAP.

Perhaps not more useful, but its fun to explore the options. What I liked is how I emerged into Bureaucracy with a ton of foreign trade routes from the Gt Lighthouse, markets available to build, calendar & construction only a few turns away, powerchops after picking up a very cheap BW etc. In fact, as you say, the economy is so well advanced that researching CS by hand is not so expensive - which I suppose lessens the appeal compared to, a standard Oracle-CS sling, or Prophet sling where CS is beyond the horizon for conventional research.

[dregor]

Ok, can someone explain to me what exactly Binary Science Rate is? I get that it's moving the science rate between 0% and 100%, but my feeble mind isn't quite grasping the real benefits of this.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by dregor
Ok, can someone explain to me what exactly Binary Science Rate is? I get that it's moving the science rate between 0% and 100%, but my feeble mind isn't quite grasping the real benefits of this.

I will take a flying guess and wait to be humbled by the right answer ....

My guess is that to avoid losing out to rounding losses on the commerce multipliers, it's best to run either max science or max gold, in the relative proportions that you want. So maybe three turns at 100% gold, then seven turns at 100% science gives you the equivalent of 70% science without the rounding losses.

[Arrian]

Hmm, interesting stuff. It's been a while since I've used Caste and I've gone cottages over farms, so maybe it's time I switch back the other way and try out lotsa farms+specialists with a PHI civ...

-Arran

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
What I didn't quite understand about the priesthood route there is that you still need the upper branch, as all those techs have a higher gold 'flavour' than CS.

I see now that going via priesthood is to get CoL quickly (perhaps with Oracle) rather than waiting for the high road through currency, so the specialists can be run under caste system. (But you also have to get Monarchy.) [/clarification]

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Blake
By avoiding Bronze Working it's possible to use Caste System to accelerate progress towards CS and other goals, for example:
Build Oracle ASAP (like 2000BC even), pick CoL, revolt to Caste System.
Run as many scientists as you can afford in the oracle city, most likely 2.
-- If the Prophet is generated (~33% odds) then research Polytheism and lightbulb CS, get a GS for the Academy however you wish.
If the Scientist is generated (~66% odds) then create an Academy, start researching Monarchy and change the scientists to Merchants.
If a prophet is generated, researching Polytheism and lightbulb CS.
If a merchant is generated, complete Monarchy then lightbulb CS.

What this allows is running extremely high GPP levels, it's mixed, but you can make anything which pops out work for you in a very positive way.

Last night using Lizzie I got CoL with the Oracle, and ran scientists in the second city to drive research, while the first accumulated priest points from the wonder. I had to switch the scientists off for a while to allow the slower prophet to complete first.

As I hadn't got Masonry (no Lighthouse this time) I could take CS with the Prophet. The capital now ran scientists and the second city switched to merchants.

The second city turned out a Merchant, and the capital another Prophet. The Prophet took Philosophy and the Merchant took Paper. Had one or both been scientists, Philosophy and / or an Academy were both good options.

So blending GPP points for faster gestation or changing economic requirements is cool when there are good options available with either outcome. Perhaps strats based around this approach could be called 'Grapeshots'.

[Arrian]

So blending GPP points for faster gestation or changing economic requirements is cool when there are good options available with either outcome. Perhaps strats based around this approach could be called 'Grapeshots'.

Nice, I like that one.

-Arrian

[Cort Haus]

Update : I said in the OP that using a Gt Merchant for CS would best suit an islands map, as BW has to be avoided - with security implications. It also worked fine on a highlands map at Prince, using Caste System to build the GM.

The vast amound of land gives a lot of space, and the mountains somewhere to hide behind, so that the AI threat is low enough to allow a delay in getting Bronze. Also, the vast spaces and ridges inhibit trade for a long time, so even with Currency there were no foreign trade routes to make CS a quick research, making the lighbulb an attractive option.

I ended up being able to build about 20 cities, and the land wasn't filled until the late Renaissance. I even built Versailles for the first time ever. I was also able to lightbulb some of Astronomy with a Great Artist, which was pretty cool. There may be a strat there for an Isolated start, as Astro is a biggie.