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As a French person I feel like it's my duty to explain strikes to you. - AdrienIer |
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Epic 7 - CS slingshot vs pyramids
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Coincidentally, I played this epic with a CS slingshot and reported in detail on the opening moves, then the debate on whether Oracle-CS is overpowered came up. So as a bonus I shadowed myself with Pyramids-Representation afterwards to compare the two economies. But the report on the first page is the real game.
Read the report here - http://uberfish.atspace.com
Regarding your first game:
A very early domination win. Congrats! Your southern island iron mine was not connected with your mainland. You would need a harbor there (crappy city) to ship the iron to the rest of Egypt. Even if it was in the big fat cross it needs to be connected to your trade network. No early war and Alex asking for open borders? Wow, very peaceful opponent there! :-)
"You have been struck down!" - Tales of Dwarf Fortress
--- "moby_harmless seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that madly seekest him!"
Ok re-uploaded the mirror, it should work now.
I think I have claimed resources on non-connected islands which were within the fat cross of a city before, thus the confusion with cultural borders. The real gambit here was not doing the CS slingshot - I think that was a sure thing at the date I completed it given the settings and I'm pretty sure I would have won faster with Pyramids anyway - but waiting till Construction at ~200AD to get any decent defensive units. Once I had elephants available there was no chance of Alex being able to do any damage. But I'm afraid given the choice to gamble on not being attacked till construction, or wrecking my development by settling a horrible city site on a tiny map, I'm going to gamble 90% of the time, and it seems everyone else did too. uberfish Wrote:I think I have claimed resources on non-connected islands which were within the fat cross of a city before, thus the confusion with cultural borders.Mirror works fine now, or at least for me  . I like the mirror game idea. I have tried what you did with the iron, it does not work, the water breaks the "trade route" (which I think is what Mostly Harmless meant by harbor)uberfish Wrote:To be honest, if there's something that's the right choice almost 100% of the time when going for peaceful non-cultural economic buildup, it's not the CS slingshot or pyramids, but the Great Library and its 8 GPP.I could not agree more!! This is what I find myself doing all the time, Lit. is so cheap and if you don't plan on winning in the Medieval Age then ignoring the Great Lib. is maybe not the best path (IMHO). It seems that both paths left you very exposed militarily, I think had you been on the same landmass with Alex (or possibly anyone), you would have been going to representation/CS about the time you were getting overun, maybe this is were the risk really comes in, not in missing the Pyramids/Oracle?
On League of Legends I am "BertrandDeHorn"
I'm not so sure that's a fair comparison; in how many games are you running 40% science at that point? I generally play multiplayer - which is generally set to Noble - so it's entirely possible that this is a typical singleplayer science rate for this point in the game.
Anyway, nice report .
Gogf Wrote:I'm not so sure that's a fair comparison; in how many games are you running 40% science at that point? I generally play multiplayer - which is generally set to Noble - so it's entirely possible that this is a typical singleplayer science rate for this point in the game. It's a tiny map, so expenses are nasty. 6 cities would not cost anywhere near that much on a normal map. You're right though, it's not an exact comparison. Atlas Wrote:It seems that both paths left you very exposed militarily, I think had you been on the same landmass with Alex (or possibly anyone), you would have been going to representation/CS about the time you were getting overun, maybe this is were the risk really comes in, not in missing the Pyramids/Oracle? Yeah, it's a universal question/gambit in this sort of game - How much economy can you get away with at the expense of defence? But Blake was shockingly able to defend with just warriors, so perhaps zero defence was the right answer!
Well played, that's a really early win!
When I do the CS slingshot, I usually bee line for Writing and run two Scientist Specialists to speed up the CoL research time. It has the side effect of generating an Academy, so you are at (1.5)*(1+0.25+0.75) = 2.25X research bonus. After I revolt to the Big B (as Blake calls it) I then drop the Scientists and work cottages to get more out of the commerce bonus. The interesting thing is my completion date is more in the 1400-1300 timeframe vs. the 1500-1400 timeframe your cottage approach seems to yield. I'll have to run a few comparison games (non Financial of course) to see if the Writing first path is consistently slower. Your opening: Research Path: Pottery -> Mysticism -> Polytheism -> Mining -> Fishing -> Priesthood Build Queue: Worker -> Workboat -> ? -> The Oracle Second City: SW of Pigs, 715 B.C. Anyone who discounts the opportunity cost of the CS slingshot should pay attention to the second city dates. That is pretty typical of a CS slingshot. Like Blake says, it is a strong move with a good capital site, but not always the best move. In this setup I also think your mirror and Blake's game shows a Pyramdis + specialist economy is probably the stronger move. Darrell Quote:Anyone who discounts the opportunity cost of the CS slingshot should pay attention to the second city dates. That is pretty typical of a CS slingshot. Well, as I argued in the main thread, the opportunity cost is illusory. Yes, the second city comes slower (although since research is the limiting factor, you can often squeeze in a settler before the Oracle). But cities three through six all come 50% faster once in Bureaucracy, and ultimately do make up the lost time empire-wide.
I built worker, warrior, fishing boat, warrior, warrior, oracle I think it was. Possibly another warrior in there.
The 1500-1400 figure I quoted for immortal was assuming there was gold which normally I don't try it without - that allows me to get either a settler or library usually. I didn't have time to get either in this game I think. And you can build settlers from your capital post-slingshot, but doing so comes at the expense of slowing down growth / cottages / infrastructure there so I prefer not to do that if possible. I'd rather pump them out of a second city. |
