CS Slingshot - Is it overpowered?

[Benno]

This leads to another issue, that the AI even on high techs goes mostly for the same tech paths and we can easily exploit it. Techs such as alphabet are easy to use as great trading material.

While reading all the responses to Sulla's report, I was thinking exactly this. I imagine every person here researches certain techs (Alphabet, Literature, Paper etc) as a tech-parity-lever. Is this not as great an exploit of the AI as a CS-Slingshot/Archer park???

[uberfish]

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.

I should respond to this because I think the power of CS slingshot actually fades in the midgame. I didn't think trade routes went through bureaucracy; I might be mistaken but even with them factored in it's still uncommon to have a capital producing much more than 100 or so beakers per turn prior to education, and if you are emphasizing commerce you aren't getting as much bonus production. When you expand, you have to drop the science rate a bit so some of your commerce isn't going through the academy anymore.

Your research rate advantage also disappears when everyone else researches CS, typically in the early AD's or late BC's since it's on the way to Maces, the main line medieval units. This is much earlier than they can get Constitution or Corporation. Over the course of an epic game you get maybe 3000-4000 beakers extra counting the initial free tech from Oracle before other strategies have CS too. That's comparable to what you can get from a lightbulb-and-trade. I did the fullblown oracle-CS slingshot with early academy in adventure 4, and Zeviz still beat me by a significant margin without it and Sulla caught up from a much slower start. That's because in a peaceful space race there is plenty of time to make up 3000-4000 beakers in the late game where it's only 1-2 turns' worth of research.

Of course the 'total beakers' analysis discounts time and military advantage; you should be trying to make use of the tech lead in the mid-game. The most direct application of this is getting Macemen early and having free turns of beating up on some outdated troops. This, for me, is the most powerful consequence of the CS slingshot. But, your initial attack gets bottlenecked by production for a while - you won't have Heroic epic - and you have given up your shot at taking out someone in Bronze/Iron age to do that. Numerous games - not just on RB - have demonstrated that if you want a fast domination/conquest, early attacking is in most cases the optimal way to go because you're off to a headstart and tend to stay one war ahead in terms of eliminating opponents. What about AW? I think the jury is still open on that.

And pyramids does scale, but it's via horizontal rather than vertical growth. The economic models are different, but the effects are comparable.

There are scenarios where the CS slingshot is clearly the most powerful choice - for example 2 gold at starting position with all AIs distant. But you can say that of practically every other opening. Great lighthouse + colossus was practically forced in epic 3 to be competitive. The same with jaguar rushing in epic 5. I think the varied scenario design in itself should prevent any one opening from dominating overall.

[Atlas]

I am currently at work and cannot check, but is there a tick box for "no wonders allowed" in the custom game settings? An adventure or epic with wonders ruled out altogether either for just the player or for all civs would be interesting I think.

An adventure with this rule set would be awesome !!!!

Perhaps as a precursor to an outright ban we could apply it occasionally as a game-specific variant, which would also allow us to adjust it from game to game, and thus avoiding the need for explicit wording to cover EVERY situation. We have no rules about which rules can be used for a game.

I support this idea, too. It is a stop-gap measure and experiment all in one !!!

I almost never build the Oracle (*gasp*), so one way or another makes no difference to me. I prefer a more conservative style of play, just personal taste I guess. I have almost zero chance of landing a religion, so I can never seem to justify the 2 or 3 religious techs necessary to get to Priesthood. I find myself (outside of our variants) favoring worker techs (for my resources), Bronze Working, and then the top of the tech tree almost all the way to Liberalism (builder at heart).

(IMHO(everyone loves a caveat!)) These are overpowered-
1. Bronze Working-Whipping/Chopping Axes (whip bug or not) is like "choking" an AI, except to you get their cities too!
2. Alphabet- You must have this tech, otherwise you get left behind (Edited for sheer stupidity, insert any foolish thing you like and credit to me, but you better have the the MLA citation format ).
3. Some of the Ancient Age UUs, especially those designed to take out archers-Immortals, Quecha, and War Chariots (this is essentially a cheaper version of the axe rush, just more effective b/c Quecha are so cheap and the other two are 2 movement units).

In any event, the CS slingshot has been discussed, my sense is that there are those that agree with banning it and those that don't, each with their own arguements, I don't see alot people being swayed by others arguements, so I figured that I would toss out some other strats that are "canned" (and overpowered) for discussion (however BW has been discussed, but I feel there are things to be said about Alpha and UU). In any event, it seems unlikly that a rule can be crafted to deal with the three things I have listed (ban BW or Alphabet or a Civ's UU- just won't work).

[pling]

2. Alphabet- You must have this tech, otherwise you get left behind. Witness Epic 5-a all out military attack from the get go and you still need Alphabet.

But then Adventure 4 was 'never research Alphabet' and I seem to recall that the take home message from most of the reports was surprise at how little it seemed to matter (though maybe a facet of the map which had plenty of space between player & AIs). (I could of course be mis-remembering ... (why yes, caveats are loved round here as are parenthetical statements ))

[dathon]

I've been lurking around the Realms Beyond since Civ 3, oh, Epic 6 or so. Do to master's/first job time constraints and a REAL distaste for micromangement, I never actually competed here in any of the Civ 3 epics, but I did play several of the Epics offline (finished a few even!), mostly after the actual competition ended. I'm up to about Noble/Monarch level in CIV (whatever that's worth) with about 5 completed games under my belt, but once again, RL concerns have prevented me from taking place in the tournaments here. Basically, I rarely have the time to both play and write the kind of report I would like within the reporting time frame. At least while trying to plan a wedding Now that that's over, maybe I'll try my hand at a few of these 8) Anyway, enough rambling...

While I haven't participated much, I have actively lurked here for awhile, and it's provided a fascinating look at the effect of competition. When I compare my style (a non-competitor to date) with those here who participate regularly, I find that the different goals drive different actions. I would probably never use the CS-slingshot more than once or twice in a single player game. Why? It would get boring! Been there, done that, let's look for a new way to have fun. The same goes for many of the other potential exploits that people have mentioned. In single player, I don't much care when I win. So what if a slightly (or even significantly) sub-optimal path made me when the game 15 turns later than I might have done? I still won the game, and had fun doing it. But in the tournament setting, winning the actual game is no longer enough. No matter how relaxed the community, anybody who competes has some desire to perform well. But now the standard isn't just if you can beat the AI, but who can do it the fastest/with the most points/etc. Now that 15 turns probably matters, and even if I've done it 12 times, I'll still be tempted to go the power route because I'd rather be slightly bored and successful than lose. Even so-called "unscored" events often get ranked by fastest finish; it's the unconcious desire to compete and have a winner.

Now, it seems to me that the goal of this community is to try and re-create a lot of the fun of exploring in single player, just in a group setting. That way, when you come to a critical fork, and wonder how each of 3 strategies might turn out, you can find out! You pursue A, somebody else pursues B, and you can then compare without having to play through the same scenario twice. The competition aspect seems to be secondary.

My suggested fix to the whole rules thing would be to ignore the rules and turn the whole competition thing on its head! Fastest finish, most points, can them for most events Instead, put in its place a "rating" system that rewards creativity and style. Maybe enable voting so that people can vote for their favorite game, with the understanding that style and unusual strategies are valued over fast finished. Honerable mentions for the first time a new startegy is tried. Kudos to the player that took a sub-optimal path in the spirit of "role-playing" a particular game. That sort of thing. Mind you, I don't really know much about how to actually implement such a system, but there are enough ardent gamers here that I imagine a creative scoring system could be devised. Fastest finsih/points criteria should be saved for truly wacky variants, that deviate the gameplay so far from the norm that creative thinking is required.

Thoughts? Comments? No pitchforks and torches please 8)

dathon

[Dreylin]

2. Alphabet- You must have this tech, otherwise you get left behind. Witness Epic 5-a all out military attack from the get go and you still need Alphabet.

Huh!?

You needed Alphabet in Epic5 why? To get Drama for the Culture Slider, is I suppose what you're meaning, but I know that not everyone who won Epic5 needed Alphabet since I didn't! (And I researched deeper into the tree than most) Is there something else I'm missing here?

I have not raised my voice so far during the CS-slingshot debate, and I guess that's because I haven' really formed an opinion either way - look out a Floating Voter, send in the Political Spin-Doctors!

At the moment, I think I favour more data-gathering (although I recognise that Sirian is further along this curve than the rest of us), and the suggestion to legislate on an event-by-event basis I believe is a good one. Without knowing what the schedule for upcoming events is; I would like to have a chance to look at the data from Epic8 - which should be the largest so far judging from sign-ups - before this is legislated on.

[Atlas]

But then Adventure 4 was 'never research Alphabet' and I seem to recall that the take home message from most of the reports was surprise at how little it seemed to matter (though maybe a facet of the map which had plenty of space between player & AIs). (I could of course be mis-remembering ... (why yes, caveats are loved round here as are parenthetical statements ))

True enough, but that variant did not deny tech trading you were just forced to wait until the AI had Alphabet for that. Besides the player started with the best lands in that game + plenty of space, in addition the player was forced to win by space. There were a number of things gravitating againist ancient, classical, and medieval aggression in that game.- but it is exactly aggression in these areas + alphabet that "seems" (quotes indicate another caveat) necessary to win at higher levels. But the point is well taken .

On the Alphabet topic I am curious, I almost always find myself trying for alpha early for the potential tech trading, but I almost always follow this up with a stab at the Great Library. Do others find that they end up building the Great Library more than other wonders? I think this is the wonder I end up with the most (due to three things, 1. Literature is cheap, 2. I already "need" Alphabet, and 3. I like to spam Great Scientists for academies).

Huh!?

You needed Alphabet in Epic5 why? To get Drama for the Culture Slider, is I suppose what you're meaning, but I know that not everyone who won Epic5 needed Alphabet since I didn't! (And I researched deeper into the tree than most) Is there something else I'm missing here?

No, no, no, not the culture slider, just a simple case of me being an idiot . In fact on closer examination tech trading was turned off . A terrible example, thanks for pointy that out Dreylin .

[theGrimm]

On the Alphabet topic I am curious, I almost always find myself trying for alpha early for the potential tech trading, but I almost always follow this up with a stab at the Great Library. Do others find that they end up building the Great Library more than other wonders?

Almost never. The AI usually beats me to alphabet.

[T-hawk]

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

I'd like to point out that comparing the Oracle-CS path with other highly focused, synergistic wonder paths might not be the right basis. We need to consider Oracle-CS against all alternatives, including a wonderless "normal" build strategy.

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.

IMO, 20 commerce is under-generous. If you're going for the CS slingshot, you'll heavily be focusing on cottages early. A river alone is often worth 8 commerce for a size-8 city, and if your civ is Financial you'll have 5-7 more. Add five Villages (30 turns of working cottages) and you have up to 30 commerce for a financial civ, plus the palace. And it's not just about the situation in 1 AD. Thirty turns later, your capital will often be pushing size 11 with five Towns and three more Villages. Bureaucracy is now operating on a base of 50 or more commerce, and it just goes up from there.

[Atlas]

for a size-8 city

How do you get a city this big in the begininng? I top out at about 5 (6 if I have a hunting/mining happy). I am thinking of CS slingshot as mystism, meditation, priesthood, writng (and whatever prerequistes you used to get it), CoLs. I don't normally see size 8 cities untile HR, am I overlooking some way to get cities this big?

Edit: Outside of the Oracle debat maybe it is worth going back and examing Uberfish's compilation of Adv. 9 results here http://realmsbeyond.net/forums/showthrea...ge=1&pp=10 to get an idea of strat. diversity?