CS Slingshot - Is it overpowered?

[Gogf]

Since Sullla isn't the happiest person in the world with us spamming up his Epic VI report to discuss the various incarnations of the Civil Service slingshot, I thought I should start a new thread for it.

I feel that it is an overpowered move, especially when coupled with the AI's incompetence at dealing with it. In multiplayer, giving up Masonry means not having the critical catapults for defense, and it's virtually impossible to get the Oracle late enough to grab the tech with is. That makes going for it a huge gambit, but one that can pay off. It's not much of an issue here, except perhaps in Classical era starting games where you can research Code of Laws right off the bat and quickly build the Oracle. In single player, however, it's a bigger issue. The AI doesn't understand to immediately attack someone who adopts Bureacracy early on, or to build the Oracle early to close that door.

Uberfish argued that getting Representation from the Pyramids is equally powerful, but I would dispute that. I'm a firm believer that the Pyramids is vastly overrated, and 90% of the time I'd rather have Hereditary Rule than Representation, at least early on. Before Mercantilism it's rare that you'll be running a lot of specialists (barring an attempt at a so-called "specialist economy," in which case this entire discussion is irrelevant because Bureacracy won't have any effect), and the happiness bonus is comparitively tiny. Six extra beakers from the Great Library is a pretty mediocre effect for an extremely expensive wonder that requires a significant investment to get.

Someone mentioned Kylearan's "Nepotism Slingshot," which consisted of getting Hereditary Rule in order to have a high population count at 0 AD in Epic III. As someone who plays multiplayer, this seems blatantly obvious to me: the way to get your population count up without wrecking your economy is to remove the happiness cap. It might be that single player is generally played differently, but I rarely see good players revolt to anything but Hereditary Rule after our teams gets the Pyramids.

Bureacracy is a hugely powerful civic; so much so that people often forgo a third promotion on their knights and cavalry from Vassalage in renaissance era ladder games just to stay in it. That may not sound like a strong argument, but in an era where combat is dominated by knights and cavs, access of formation can be huge. I've seen situations where people revolt to Free Speech in an attempt to boost their town-fueled GNP and end up switching back five turns later because they actually lost GNP. Bureacracy's effect is massive and it's game lasting. In any era where commerce is important, Bureacracy is usually a no-brainer. How is getting it far earlier than it was intended to be through a series of gambits which often wouldn't work against a conscious human opponent not an exploit?

Anyway, that's my opinion. Feel free to respond and move this discussion to a new place .

[Sirian]

Anyway, that's my opinion. Feel free to respond and move this discussion to a new place .

This location is fine. Thanks for taking some initiative on it.

I think I need to add my Epic Six results, and pre-controversy thoughts, to the mix before I contribute more here. I'll be back when that's done. 8)


- Sirian

[Zeviz]

Thanks for starting a separate thread on this.

All of your arguments center on multiplayer games, but that's just a tiny subset of the kinds of games played at RB. How many successful MP players go for spaceship victory? How many play "honorable" variants? Even if CS slingshot is as overpowered as you say for MP games, there are much better things to do in a space race against AI.

I'll repost my reasoning from the other thread:

Let's take a look at how Oracle was used by "winners" of RB events so far. (I took fastest finishers as "winners" in unscored events. I also haven't looked at Gentle adventures and events whose results haven't been tabulated yet.)

Oracle->Metal Casting
Adv. 2
Adv. 3

Oracle->Monarchy
Epic 3

no Oracle
Adv. 4
Epic 2
Epic 4
Epic 5
Epic 6

unknown
Adv. 5

CS slingshot won 0 events, while Metal Casting slingshot won 2. So if anything, we should be banning the Oracle->Metal Casting route.

This slingshot can give a significant advantage, but so can other approaches. The reason so many people used it in this event (Epic 6) is because it was the right choice for builders in this situation. This is just another example of the idea that no choice is perfect for all situations, but there is a perfect choice in any given situation.

The cost of going for CS slingshot isn't the risk of missing the Oracle. The costs are:
- Your first GP is very likely to be a prophet, so no early academy for you.
- You will get Currency much later, and with foreign trade Currency can give you +2 cpt per city, and resource-for-gpt deals, and ability to get cash in deals with AIs. Under normal circumstances, these 3 things combine to give much stronger economic benefit than Beurocracy would.
- You will get Construction much later, so no early Catapults for you.
- On water maps, you are likely to miss out on Colossus-Great Lighthouse combo. (Which was the winning strategy in a couple of events.)

I could go on, but I think that's enough to show that CS slingshot is far from being "The One Right Choice".

PS For a slightly deeper analysis, there are 3 paths through the ancient/classical tech tree:
1. The top path emphasizes economy and is good for builders. (Alphabet, Currency, CoL, and CS)
2. The bottom path emphasizes military and production and is good for fighters. (BW, IW, Metal Casting, Machinery)
3. The middle path emphasizes religion and is initially weaker than the other two. This path misses Alphabet, Currency, and Math, but it also misses Iron Working and Metal Casting. In fact, CS is the first really good thing you get on this path, so CS slingshot is the main thing that makes the middle path viable.

[T-hawk]

The near total silence from our oldest members, the ones who've been through the tribulations of the Civ3-rule-making, is not what I was expecting.

:zzz: :zzz:

If you're looking for opinions, here's some...

The Civil Service - Bureaucracy slingshot is indeed too powerful. I've only done it twice, but both times it zoomed my economy far above all my rivals. There's no substantial difference between the Oracle version and the Great Prophet version. The latter is slower, but excels in reliability: avoid Masonry, get Stonehenge (more reliable than the Oracle because you can complete it ASAP rather than delaying it) or just build a temple to hire a priest, and the slingshot is guaranteed. You can even divert off the beeline if you decide you need something like Bronze Working or Pottery quickly.

The opportunity cost is illusory. The Bureaucracy bonus will make up for the hammers spent on the wonder and research spent on Code of Laws within 30 turns, and it's pure payoff after that. You might lose a land-grab spot by delaying a settler, but on anything lower than Emperor, you can conquer it back at your leisure with your boosted production. The slingshot also happens to place you not far from Macemen, though I haven't yet taken advantage of that aspect.

The only real opportunity cost is missing the Pyramids. The Pyramids to Great Library plan (rushing the latter with the Engineer) is the only opening plan close in economic power to a fast Bureaucracy, and even that's only really at full strength if you're Philosophical or Industrious.

Is the CS slingshot an exploit that needs modification for RBCiv events? I'm not sure. In Civ 3 terms, I think it's quite akin to the problem of dedicated worker farms. Both strategies are supremely powerful to the point where anyone not playing them is at a real disadvantage. Both strategies push a game subsystem to an extreme that was not intended (and the AI can't duplicate), garner benefits that should bear an opportunity cost but don't, and break with a real-world historical representation of a civilization. They are the One Right Choice at least eight times out of ten. But they don't actually break any rules or do something fundamentally illogical (Civ 3 example - abandon your capital for the free palace jump), so they're not truly exploitive.

And like the worker farms, there's not going to be a gentleman's agreement in the community. In the absence of official rules to the contrary, it'll continue to be the one right option. I support a restriction on the strategy, and the simplest solution is probably the best: acquiring Civil Service via Great Person or Oracle is an exploit disallowed in RBCiv games. Beelining normal research to it (and even popping Code of Laws for free before researching CS) is OK as it comes with a proper opportunity cost.



Regarding Pillage-and-Park and Seed Corn worker stealing, I haven't tried either in Civ 4 so can't make an informed position statement there. I'd probably support well-written restrictions on both, though.

[uberfish]

Moved this post, as I only spotted the thread now.

Here's my comparison between various builds at around 1 AD to illustrate why I don't believe Oracle-CS is overpowered compared to the other Wonder openings, feel free to dispute the numbers of course as there's quite a bit of estimation involved, but I have tried my best to be fair to all the builds.


Oracle-CS slingshot:

8 would be a typical city size for me doing this opening, working let's say three food/hammer tiles and 5 cottages. Not all the cottages will be fully grown yet, so let's say we built some very early and give the city a generous 20 commerce from cottages and rivers, plus 8 from the palace. Academy and library push this out to 49 beakers if we're still running 100% science, and bureaucracy is multiplicative with this so it gives us 24.5 beakers.

Net gain from from bureaucracy: 24.5 beakers and a few hammers in the capital. Also, we are closer to Maces having claimed a high value tech from the oracle. We also founded a religion, but the fourth religion is of considerably lower value than the first two as adopting it is more likely to get us into trouble diplomatically.


Pyramids/Representation:

In a pure builder stance by 1AD I could have 4 libraries up running 2 scientists off each off food specials. I may or may not have an academy. Let's say I don't because I wanted to get an Engineer out first for great library. Each scientist is generating 3 extra beakers from representation which goes through the libraries for 3x8x125% = 30.

Net gain from representation: 30 beakers and +1 free happiness/city (I'll be nice and give everyone else hereditary rule with 1 garrison.) Add 8 more beakers to that when we use the Pyramids engineer to build Great Library. We didn't get a free tech, but are generating a sizable number of GPP which we can use to get free tech.


The often overlooked Great Lighthouse:

This wonder doesn't slow expansion much, because the resource investment is lower than its rivals. We ought to have 6 cities by 1 AD. Let's say two of them were founded inland to claim resources on a Continents type map, so we have 4 coastal cities each getting an extra two foreign trade routes generally worth between 2 and 4 commerce at this stage (averaging out at 24 commerce) and a couple of the better cities have libraries.

Net gain: 28 commerce. Doesn't have side benefits like the other two, but is also a cheaper and easier wonder to build, and the value of the trade routes automatically and passively scales up without having to build any more cottages or hire specialists.


I also think that the 0% event win record posted by the CS slingshot so far is a pretty strong argument against its always (or even 80% of the time) being the "one right choice."

[Kodii]

I do not think that the Oracle --> Civil Service is overpowered. I was just happy to see that "the thing that gave you (a) free tech(s)" didn't have just one direction. Both the Oracle and Liberalism have multiple techs that you can choose, and each one with their own advantages. In Civ3 it was ToE --> Atomic Theory and Electronics. In Civ4, the Oracle can go to Metal Casting, to Civil Service, or anything else that might be essential at the moment. Liberalism does the same, going to Steel, Nationalism, Astronomy, or something else.

[Qwack]

One thing about representation pyramids combo is that you will be emphasizing scientists in alot of your cities with that. What this means is that you will not only get extra research courtesy of +3 beakers per specialist, but extra great scientists which at the end of the day turn into tech's like philosophy and education, which are extremely expensive and have extreme trade value(In other words, turning into many other tech's). Generally speaking, the games where I am going CS asap, I usually dont get enough scientists to burn them on tech's until the late stages of the game, the pyramids/representation/great library combo has almost always given me enough scientists to burn 2 of them on philosophy and education. These 2 tech's can make a huge difference on higher levels.

Is CS slingshot too strong? I dont believe the oracle version is too strong, because on any level above prince there is a significant chance it will fail. The Prophet version, however... where you are not researching masonry by purpose to pop CS from a prophet is IMO too strong, becuase the chance of failing is next to none. So my suggestion... sorry if I sound like a broken record player... is to move slavery over to masonry or to make masonry on the great prophets path...

I think uberfish has made a great point about the great lighthouse however. This is an often overlooked wonder which can make your game on maps with alot of coast. I can even say that it is overpowered on archipelago maps.

[Sullla]

I have little experience with the Civil Service slingshot, but I would lean towards saying it's a bit too strong. The one game I went down that route, I won my most crushing victory ever, on Emperor (you can read about it here). Sirian and I can't really talk about this in any detail, but... there's a reason why the Bureaucracy boost comes at Civil Service and not sooner. Trust me on this. I don't think we anticipated it hitting the board so fast with the Oracle or Great Prophet grab. If I were suggesting changes, I would change Civil Service from needing Code of Laws OR Feudalism, to Code of Laws AND Feudalism. That might even (gasp!) see people use Vasslage civic outside of Multiplayer.

Let's take a look at how Oracle was used by "winners" of RB events so far. (I took fastest finishers as "winners" in unscored events. I also haven't looked at Gentle adventures and events whose results haven't been tabulated yet.)

I mean no offense Zeviz, but this entire comparison is deeply flawed. Most of the events listed didn't even have scoring, and many of the ones that did bore little to no relevance to normal gameplay (that's why they're known as "variants") We can discount Epic One and other ultra-early events - Speaker's very early UN win took Alphabet tech with the Oracle in that game - because no one even knew about things like the Civil Service slingshot at that time. Adventure Two's unique start had zero tiles that could support cottages, and certainly can't be used as a barometer for a "normal" start. Adventure Three's scoring had little to do with standard play either; Sirian won the game because he had an insane Priest total (a Hindu shrine income of 120 cities!) and did massive, massive endgame warring. Ditto for Epics Two and Three, the scoring had absolutely nothing to do with normal gameplay whatsoever (unless you think Kylearan's Monarchy grab from the Oracle was something that anyone would do under the usual circumstances!) Epic Four's Deity Raging barbs was hardly typical either. Epic Five.... uh, again, ditto. sooooo turned in the fastest results in both Epics Five and Six by NEVER building a settler and producing units ENDLESSLY out of the capital. That has nothing to do with the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of the Civil Service slingshot whatsoever; using them as evidence for your viewpoint is definitely a bit of a strawman tactic. Sorry, but this line of analysis just doesn't support what you're trying to make it say.

So what DOES serve as a good example on the issue? Adventure Four! Adventure Four was a game where the Civil Service slingshot was clearly the right way to go, and sure enough uberfish's CS grab with the Oracle resulted in a 2nd place finish. Every early finisher in that game pushed aggressively towards Civil Service/Bureaucracy and an early Academy in the capital as soon as possible, including your winning effort, Zeviz. To say that the results of that game disprove the strength of Bureaucracy is misleading at the very least. If ALL of the fast finishers are pushing for Bureaucracy civic as fast as possible, doesn't that suggest that gambling on the Oracle is a no-lose solution?

Our games are usually wacky variants, so there are plenty of them where an early Civil Service doesn't matter, or is only one out of many potential viable paths. But have you checked the Game of the Month forum lately? They've pretty much established that the CS slingshot is THE power play for the early game. Their games would be the ones to look at to get a better picture of the issue.

I don't know whether we should write a rule on this or not, I'll leave that up to Sirian. But an early Civil Service grab via slingshot is much closer to One Right Choice ™ than some have been presenting it here.

[Suedars]

Oracle-CS slingshot:

8 would be a typical city size for me doing this opening, working let's say three food/hammer tiles and 5 cottages. Not all the cottages will be fully grown yet, so let's say we built some very early and give the city a generous 20 commerce from cottages and rivers, plus 8 from the palace. Academy and library push this out to 49 beakers if we're still running 100% science, and bureaucracy is multiplicative with this so it gives us 24.5 beakers.

Net gain from from bureaucracy: 24.5 beakers and a few hammers in the capital. Also, we are closer to Maces having claimed a high value tech from the oracle. We also founded a religion, but the fourth religion is of considerably lower value than the first two as adopting it is more likely to get us into trouble diplomatically.

IMO you seriously undervalue this. First of all, you're getting a 1500 beaker tech for free. Second, as your capital grows so does the bonus. When you first get it, it's nice, but not huge. However, unlike Pyramids/Great Library, it scales with you. You fail to factor in trade routes as well. Courthouses are unlocked along the way, and Code of Laws is a nice trading tech.

[Zeviz]

Looks like the forum ate my post again. Here is a summary.

...
I mean no offense Zeviz, but this entire comparison is deeply flawed. Most of the events listed didn't even have scoring, and many of the ones that did bore little to no relevance to normal gameplay (that's why they're known as "variants") We can discount Epic One and other ultra-early events - Speaker's very early UN win took Alphabet tech with the Oracle in that game - because no one even knew about things like the Civil Service slingshot at that time. Adventure Two's unique start had zero tiles that could support cottages, and certainly can't be used as a barometer for a "normal" start. Adventure Three's scoring had little to do with standard play either; Sirian won the game because he had an insane Priest total (a Hindu shrine income of 120 cities!) and did massive, massive endgame warring. Ditto for Epics Two and Three, the scoring had absolutely nothing to do with normal gameplay whatsoever (unless you think Kylearan's Monarchy grab from the Oracle was something that anyone would do under the usual circumstances!) Epic Four's Deity Raging barbs was hardly typical either. Epic Five.... uh, again, ditto. sooooo turned in the fastest results in both Epics Five and Six by NEVER building a settler and producing units ENDLESSLY out of the capital. ...

This is exactly my point. CS slingshot might be The One Right Choice in vanilla games on default continents map, but there is a lot more to CIV than that, and most RB events play very differently.

Our games are usually wacky variants, so there are plenty of them where an early Civil Service doesn't matter, or is only one out of many potential viable paths. But have you checked the Game of the Month forum lately? They've pretty much established that the CS slingshot is THE power play for the early game. Their games would be the ones to look at to get a better picture of the issue.

And that's why I play RB events, instead of GoTMs.

So what DOES serve as a good example on the issue? Adventure Four! Adventure Four was a game where the Civil Service slingshot was clearly the right way to go, and sure enough uberfish's CS grab with the Oracle resulted in a 2nd place finish. Every early finisher in that game pushed aggressively towards Civil Service/Bureaucracy and an early Academy in the capital as soon as possible, including your winning effort, Zeviz. To say that the results of that game disprove the strength of Bureaucracy is misleading at the very least. If ALL of the fast finishers are pushing for Bureaucracy civic as fast as possible, doesn't that suggest that gambling on the Oracle is a no-lose solution?

The fact that the only person who completely ignored the religious techs won the event by a large margin would suggest to me that Oracle and/or GP CS slingshot wasn't the right move there. I went for CS through the long road of Writing->Math->Currency->CoL->CS and every tech on that path was important to my strategy. You and Uberfish are better players than me, so the difference in our tech strategy probably played a large role in the outcome of that event.

I don't know whether we should write a rule on this or not, I'll leave that up to Sirian. But an early Civil Service grab via slingshot is much closer to One Right Choice ™ than some have been presenting it here.

I agree that CS is very important. I just don't think Oracle and/or GP is always the best way of getting there. (Just like critical tech Paper is seldom obtained throught Theology->Paper path.)