Pre-Mining, what do I mean with that statement :confused:

Basically its a slant on the pre-chop stratergy, where you chop forests to withing 1 turn of completion, and move onto next.

Now granted this only works on forested hills, and you need the surplus population to work that hill.

forested hill, gives 2 H +1 F for grassland, 3H for forested plains, no food on Jungled hills.

your building a wonders in this city, so extra pop is asssumed. Workers PRE-MINE hills as needed, ideally 1 or 2 extra if available (Techs: Bronze working and Mining).

How do I do this?

You just instruct worker to build MINE ONLY on forested hill, takes the same time as chopping/mining maybe 1 turn saved.. but do to within 1 turn of competion, (Hover mouse over worker, *Turn to complete*) and move on, Roads pre-made make it quicker to move and mine.

You achieved the tech for the wonder, and want max hammers for this NOW!!:eek:

Worker or workers groups, as required to finish mine in 1 TURN (Very important), now constuct mine in 1 TURN.

Now you have Hammers for chopped forest, and extra hammers from a worked mine.


Jungled hills, Just chop the Jungle (Tech: Iron working), and mine the hill, don't bother with pre-mining. Result; Extra hammers from mine, no spread of Jungle from hill.

Obviously, it works best in Capital/ heavy forested hills/ extra food. Your usually WONDER SPAMMING CITY SITE. Works only once, unless you allow hills to re-forest, but it can mean the difference in quickly gaining a wonder.

This will get Wonder built, Increase base production of city, and get city back to producing units/building QUICKLY IN EARLY PART OF GAME.

Usual other requirement, Marble, stone, copper, iron etc help.

If not WONDER SPAMMING, it increases production in a city Immediately.

But if you need UNITS NOW, CHOP FOREST, THEN MINE.

I did exactly this in a recent game. It was crucial to pulling off the mc slingshot where you need to get a forge going in a second city asap to make sure you pop an engineer for the mids.

I did exactly this in a recent game. It was crucial to pulling off the mc slingshot where you need to get a forge going in a second city asap to make sure you pop an engineer for the mids.

Make sure you have an engineer for the mids?

wth are you talking about?

Completing the mids doesn't require an engineer to rush it, basicallly 1-2 settled great preists + some chops is all that is needed, stone and/or ind trait are simply bonuses. I used to waste engineers on rushing wonders, but I now I see that if you settle your GP instead you don't need to waste them on other things.

I almost always build the Pyramids only through engineer rushing.

As to the OP, unless you're in a big rush to chop (but since you're pre-chopping, you're probably doing it because you have little else to do), you should be pre-building everything on forested hills. If it's a forested grassland, then pre-farm or pre-cottage rather than pre-chop since that will leave you with a 2F tile hanging there until you upgrade it.

I'd like to add, that a big penalty with using Engineers to Rush buildings is you don't get ANY overflow. OUCHE....

Anyhow, by the time you run off that crazy forge MC gambit, you could have made the damn Pyramids already LOL. And you wouldn't have had to gamble on the slingshot either.

Yes this is highly usefull and most advanced players know about it already. Also work with pre-farming precottaging etc.

the only time i use GE's to rush a wonder now is if i want a wonder in my GP farm. Actually, the pyramids are an example of a wonder I would want in my GP farm, along with the hanging gardens, because they pop GE's. I used to put all my GE wonders in one city while hiring an engineer so that it would create "pure" GE points. The problem with that was I got about one GE and then my actual GP farm would just outrun that city and I'd never get a GE ever again. So I put GE points in the main GP farm now. Sure, I only get a GE maybe 1/5 or 1/6 of the time...but there's a GP popping every few turns anyway.

The Oracle-->MC-->GE--->Pyramids strategy is highly situational - but it's handy when called for.

The biggest benefit is that although you probably could have built it outright, if you're not industrious and have no stone, this allows you to use 500 hammers on something other than building the pyramids (say... a pile of units) and still end up with the pyramids.

It has the added benefit of giving you a very valuable tech to trade to the AI.

To be honest, I use it only extremely rarely, but it has its place.

The Oracle-->MC-->GE--->Pyramids strategy is highly situational - but it's handy when called for.

The biggest benefit is that although you probably could have built it outright, if you're not industrious and have no stone, this allows you to use 500 hammers on something other than building the pyramids (say... a pile of units) and still end up with the pyramids.

It has the added benefit of giving you a very valuable tech to trade to the AI.

To be honest, I use it only extremely rarely, but it has its place.

I know this thread is going totally off-topic but I couldn't agree more. I don't use it often either but it shouldn't be disregarded as "waste", as some players are trying to imply here. All is situational.

Sorry about continuing the off-topic thing, but I like how if you have Marble nearby, that means you're going to get the Pyramids :lol:

I love the GE - mids gambit myself. Its not a simple thing to pull off, even Monarch and below, so its good practice for "strict attention to detail".

I usually end up popping a Prophet though, or building the mids myself and using the GE for Colossus.

Pyramids is one of those wonders I dont bother with unless I want to play an SE, or have stone, or am IND though. I just think theres better things to spend those build-turns and hammers on.

The Oracle-->MC-->GE--->Pyramids strategy is highly situational - but it's handy when called for.

The biggest benefit is that although you probably could have built it outright, if you're not industrious and have no stone, this allows you to use 500 hammers on something other than building the pyramids (say... a pile of units) and still end up with the pyramids.

It has the added benefit of giving you a very valuable tech to trade to the AI.

To be honest, I use it only extremely rarely, but it has its place.

A settled Engineer gives you IMMEDIATELY the power of a cottage up to 3 commerce, and a mined grass/hills. This is FREE, and grows in power as the game goes on, not because of the accumulation of past output, but because of added modifiers. You will be netting well over a thousand in both hammers AND beakers from that engineer. So you see where this seems to really hit the player below the belt.

Furthermore, as for oracle slingshot, I see people recomending to play industrious to get the forge bonus. Well, that is yet another catch-22, because if you are industrious, then why are you wasting a GE on the pyramids in the first place? Ughhh.

Other problems here I won't get into too much, but it can really steer you away from good tech paths and cost you too much in the long run. And that is even ASUMING you can get it all to work out right for you. You DO realize that on any decent level the AI will have the pyramids already built in the BC era right? In fact, I've seen oracle built in 3000 BC already.

Sorry to continue the off topic debate about the MC slingshot, but....
As obsolete has shown settling gps in the capital can be very powerful. Since reading his games I have definitely increased the number of gps I settle. Still, one doesn't have to be so strict about it, especially if you think you will get another of the GP in question. The MC slingshot is definitely situational but I recently did it really effectively with pericles.

I was working on an SE and wanted the mids (not industrious and no stone) but I had nearby copper for a phalanx rush on my neighbor. If you are not trying to rush with a sweet early game UU then sure, invest 1000 years slow building/chopping the pyramids.

The Oracle-->MC-->GE--->Pyramids strategy is highly situational - but it's handy when called for.

The biggest benefit is that although you probably could have built it outright, if you're not industrious and have no stone, this allows you to use 500 hammers on something other than building the pyramids (say... a pile of units) and still end up with the pyramids.

It has the added benefit of giving you a very valuable tech to trade to the AI.

To be honest, I use it only extremely rarely, but it has its place.

I can appreciate how in some circumstances how this might work - different situations/styles call for different strategy.

I am curious however how you could actually accomplish this, the timeline really doesn't seem to add up.
After completing the oracle for MC around lets say 2000BC, you then start work on a forge in your second city (assuming you build oracle in capital and don't want to 'pollute' the GE farm.) ~10 turns later you are finally able to hire an engineer in city#2, in the meantime you pop a priest from city#1, which means you have to accumulate 200 :gp: in city#2. Since a hired Engineer gives +3:gp:, this means you then wait out 200/3 = 67 turns for the Engineer to pop, then move him to your capital and rush the pyramids (1-2 turns)

So in total this approach is taking you approximately:
10 turns (To build forge in second citiy)
+ 67 turns (To 'farm' the Engineer to rush the pyramids)
+ 2 turns (to move the enginner to capital)
Totalling 89 turns to build the Pyramids. Which means if you have more then +6:hammers: output in your capital its faster just to build them.

So if you're fast and build the oracle around 2000BC, this means around 700AD you can 'rush' the Pyramids.

Back in warlords I'd sometimes use a GE from building the great wall to rush the Mids, but I don't see how its really feasible in BTS to rush them from farming a GE from building a forge in your second city, how does it work exactly?

So in total this approach is taking you approximately:
10 turns (To build forge in second citiy)
+ 67 turns (To 'farm' the Engineer to rush the pyramids)
+ 2 turns (to move the enginner to capital)
Totalling 89 turns to build the Pyramids. Which means if you have more then +6 output in your capital its faster just to build them.

You are forgetting the turns needed to grow the settler.
Assume, you can chop the settler, then you need to furthermore add time of chops + time of growing first worker.

Time to move the first settler, and we haven't even begun to add any defensive units for the settler/city in that time-frame.

I suppose you can whip/chop the forge in 2nd city ( shaving some turns ), but I don't think that with Finish Oracle in 2000 BC you can get the GE for the mids in feasible time ( in spite of BtS wonder construction speed is somewhat wierd..... I've seen mids open in 1300 AD in a Monarch Agg AI game of mine and oracle done in Turn 57 of epic.... ). But the GE can have other uses:
-Rush another wonder, like the Great Library or the Hanging Gardens ( I know, it's a waste of :hammers: but it may be the only way of getting the desired wonder )
-If chinese, to bulb Machinery and unlock their UU

I am curious however how you could actually accomplish this, the timeline really doesn't seem to add up.
After completing the oracle for MC around lets say 2000BC, you then start work on a forge in your second city (assuming you build oracle in capital and don't want to 'pollute' the GE farm.) ~10 turns later you are finally able to hire an engineer in city#2, in the meantime you pop a priest from city#1, which means you have to accumulate 200 :gp: in city#2. Since a hired Engineer gives +3:gp:, this means you then wait out 200/3 = 67 turns for the Engineer to pop, then move him to your capital and rush the pyramids (1-2 turns)
I dont think you can do it in a 2nd city, not any higher than Noble, anyway. Just just kind of hope to get a GE in your first city, pollution and all, and the faster you get the forge up, the closer to 50/50 you get.

I can appreciate how in some circumstances how this might work - different situations/styles call for different strategy.

I am curious however how you could actually accomplish this, the timeline really doesn't seem to add up.
After completing the oracle for MC around lets say 2000BC, you then start work on a forge in your second city (assuming you build oracle in capital and don't want to 'pollute' the GE farm.) ~10 turns later you are finally able to hire an engineer in city#2, in the meantime you pop a priest from city#1, which means you have to accumulate 200 :gp: in city#2. Since a hired Engineer gives +3:gp:, this means you then wait out 200/3 = 67 turns for the Engineer to pop, then move him to your capital and rush the pyramids (1-2 turns)

So in total this approach is taking you approximately:
10 turns (To build forge in second citiy)
+ 67 turns (To 'farm' the Engineer to rush the pyramids)
+ 2 turns (to move the enginner to capital)
Totalling 89 turns to build the Pyramids. Which means if you have more then +6:hammers: output in your capital its faster just to build them.

So if you're fast and build the oracle around 2000BC, this means around 700AD you can 'rush' the Pyramids.

Back in warlords I'd sometimes use a GE from building the great wall to rush the Mids, but I don't see how its really feasible in BTS to rush them from farming a GE from building a forge in your second city, how does it work exactly?

The way it "should" be is to chop/whip the forge in your second city so the EP overtakes the PP .. 3 vs 2. Resulting in the first great person to pop is a GE. After the oracle you can construct w/e you want in the capital.

It can be used in many ways. For example rush the Parth in a hammer weak 2nd city to prevent pollution in the capital. Bulb machinery for CNK. Use the "freed" hammers for an early rush. Or just to build a wonder you wouldn't be able to get otherwise (mids).
Anyways this isn't a 100% proof strat, the GE is going to pop pretty late and you might still miss the mids. Sometimes the AI just builds wonders very early.

The thing is if you play ind+stone, it's obvious you're not going to do this. If you're not ind and you got marble, it's an option.

A settled Engineer gives you IMMEDIATELY the power of a cottage up to 3 commerce, and a mined grass/hills. This is FREE, and grows in power as the game goes on, not because of the accumulation of past output, but because of added modifiers. You will be netting well over a thousand in both hammers AND beakers from that engineer. So you see where this seems to really hit the player below the belt.

Furthermore, as for oracle slingshot, I see people recomending to play industrious to get the forge bonus. Well, that is yet another catch-22, because if you are industrious, then why are you wasting a GE on the pyramids in the first place? Ughhh.

Other problems here I won't get into too much, but it can really steer you away from good tech paths and cost you too much in the long run. And that is even ASUMING you can get it all to work out right for you. You DO realize that on any decent level the AI will have the pyramids already built in the BC era right? In fact, I've seen oracle built in 3000 BC already.

Only "different" tech is getting pottery, assuming you needed the wheel to hook up a strategic resource. (marble/copper/whatever)

You're aiming at the snowball effect of not researching pottery and settling the GE. But consider the snowball effect of not having mids and early forges as well. I don't think I need to explain.

No one is saying it works 100% in all games. It's a valid opening strat given the right circumstances.


/Officially threadjacked.

I do this on emperor regularly.

With philosophical leader you have *maybe* 4 or 5 turns to get the engineer working in a second city in order to get the engineer for sure. This relies on 1) having the second city up already and 2) crucially timed whips, chops and pre-chops or yes, even pre-mining which, coincidentally was what the thread was originally about.

City #2 must be at population 4 to enable whipping down to 2. Then the city just works the highest food tile plus an engineer pops in, I think, 17 turns (assuming philosophical,standard speed. not sure of the regular numbers) As some have said, it is possible to still lose the race if there is an AI with industrious and stone, for example, but it works about 80% on emperor.

They don't call it a gambit for nothing, though.

burn beat me to it, hope my thread is still helpful for those not sure about how to do it.

The way it "should" be is to chop/whip the forge in your second city so the EP overtakes the PP .. 3 vs 2. Resulting in the first great person to pop is a GE. After the oracle you can construct w/e you want in the capital.
I guess I am not following this, SECOND city? Your building the Oracle in the 2nd city too? Otherwise, there is no Prophet points polluting the GPerson pool, its all GE points.

Also, I thougth the points themselves didnt matter. We just had this discussion in your game BurN. Its turns. So even if you had 20 GProphet points for 10 turns, and 3 GE points for 10 turns, the chances are 50/50.

I would have to see it done in a 2nd city though. First city builds the Oracle, fast-chop/whip the Forge and get a Engineer Specialist running ASAP to get as close to 50/50 as possible. Even if you fail to generate a GE, you still got a VERY fast GP to settle, thats plenty of "gambit" for me.

EDIT: Wait, I re-read and I get it now. 2nd city is generating 3 GE points per turn, 1st city is generating 2 GProphet points per turn, so you will get your very first Great Person in your 2nd city.

I gotta see it done on Emperor. I have enough trouble getting it to work in a single city on Monarch, but I am an admitted rookie.

We just had this discussion in your game BurN

EDIT: Wait, I re-read and I get it now. 2nd city is generating 3 GE points per turn, 1st city is generating 2 GProphet points per turn, so you will get your very first Great Person in your 2nd city.


Exactly, the point is to build a forge in the 2nd city asap. ;)

I think you got the wrong conclusion out of my thread Bleys. I thought I made it clear what the original gambit was. In that online game, I'm doing the "unorthodox" version of it. I sacrificed the 100% chance for a faster great person.

I think you got the wrong conclusion out of my thread Bleys. I thought I made it clear what the original gambit was. In that online game, I'm doing the "unorthodox" version of it. I sacrificed the 100% chance for a faster great person.
Sigh, no wonder I suck at it, I been doing it wrong, LOL.

It was clear, bro, I just read it too fast and went right into the game to start trying it.

Either way, its a blast to play, so its all good.

Only "different" tech is getting pottery, assuming you needed the wheel to hook up a strategic resource. (marble/copper/whatever)

You're aiming at the snowball effect of not researching pottery and settling the GE. But consider the snowball effect of not having mids and early forges as well. I don't think I need to explain.


I don't know why people keep mentioning marble with this gambit. Marble means nothing. It costs too much in time & investment to hook up your marble and THEN use it for the oracle. The oracle has to be done FAST.

Again, seeing Oracle build around 3000 BC is not uncommon to me. What levels are people playing at that they can get all this time for that? I understand if you're playing settler mode, but such tactics are useless to me.

I'm not sure where this snowballing effect is going, but using oracle to choose metal-casting seems absolutely horrible. You should be taking a very viable tech like mathematics or Aesthetics. They are big and usefull. And when you're done with them, you can trade them with no worries.

But with the Metal Casting, you don't dare trade, because it makes all your partners much stronger, which is something you DON'T want.

I'm also very weary on gambits that are really a whole set of different gambits all wrapped up in one, where all of them need to work to pull it off.

I've been trying to think of cases where this strategy could be viable... but so far it seems to fail on every account I can think of. I'd much rather bulb 2 GS's on Education for a liberalism race on Deity, than use a GE for pyramids.

How about using the MC slingshot with China? Getting to that awesome UU faster cant be bad. I doubt you can get a Machinery slingshot above Prince, but with MC your into it pretty fast.

Yes, I know you need iron, Archery, etc, but the time to research MC and Machinery is long, its one of the balance-things with such a powerful UU. Shortening it cant be totally wrong. I play on Monarch, and I can usually get a pile of CKNs out pretty fast compared to the relative speed of my neighbors.

I don't know why people keep mentioning marble with this gambit. Marble means nothing. It costs too much in time & investment to hook up your marble and THEN use it for the oracle. The oracle has to be done FAST.

Again, seeing Oracle build around 3000 BC is not uncommon to me. What levels are people playing at that they can get all this time for that? I understand if you're playing settler mode, but such tactics are useless to me.

I'm not sure where this snowballing effect is going, but using oracle to choose metal-casting seems absolutely horrible. You should be taking a very viable tech like mathematics or Aesthetics. They are big and usefull. And when you're done with them, you can trade them with no worries.

But with the Metal Casting, you don't dare trade, because it makes all your partners much stronger, which is something you DON'T want.

I'm also very weary on gambits that are really a whole set of different gambits all wrapped up in one, where all of them need to work to pull it off.

I've been trying to think of cases where this strategy could be viable... but so far it seems to fail on every account I can think of. I'd much rather bulb 2 GS's on Education for a liberalism race on Deity, than use a GE for pyramids.

I said twice in the same post that it's gamble, a risk, a gambit. So why are you arguing about the point that it can fail? No one is saying it works 100%. I used it .. 4 times out of +-35 games or something. Three times successful, one time I failed. As for difficulty level, I rarely lose a game on immortal. I think you have a problem thinking out of the box of your own strategy obs, there's plenty of ways to win the game. And I don't know about deity, I lost my two tries. (and those were not with mc gambit ;))

But I can agree that mc isn't the best for trading.

Anyways I play vanilla but I don't see how mc slingshot for mids wouldn't work in bts. I got bts but I won't install it till I finished my online vanilla game. ;) (where I "wasted" a GE on mids!)

As BurN said, this is a gambit and doesn't work in all circumstances. Seeing Oracle built in 3000 BC would seem to shut down any possibility of getting the oracle at all but I've never seen it this early. I play mostly on emperor where I win maybe 60-70% and I have only won once on immortal out of maybe 4 or 5 tries. I have definitely seen oracle built pretty early by the AIs but this circumstance doesn't negate the validity of the MC slingshot - it eliminates the possibility of doing anything with the oracle at all.

I think obsolete's strategy is more about getting wonders done early so that other wonders can be started immediately. The MC slingshot is about getting two wonders (oracle and mids) before the AIs but not necessarily any earlier. Yes, obsolete can probably build both in fewer turns but that is not the point. The engineer rushes the mids, not to get the mids particularly "early," but to get the mids without investing any hammers in them. Instead, the hammers go into military (for me) or whatever else you want to build. It is a great gambit for any warmonger SE, I can tell you that.

And yes, it works on BtS.

Later on this week I'll try and run some comparison tests.

If you are a philisophical, non-industrious leader without stone, but the scouted land around you screams tons of food for a SE, then it's a gambit worth taking.

The settled engineer without pyramids = 3 science per turn (and some sweet, sweet hammers - I usually settle my engineers). Netting the pyramids means an extra 3 hammers from every specialist in your empire for a long, long time.

As far as using two scientists for education before using a GE on the pyramids - that's obviously untrue - you used a GE for pyramids in one of your walkthroughs. Why? Because, based on your own words at the time, the payoff was worth it in that specific scenario.

The gambit (which is nicely detailed in one of the ALCs, though I don't remember which one) isn't about getting the pyramids faster than usual, it's about concentrating your production into other things and getting the pyramids anyway.

Industrious? Build 'em.
Have stone? Build 'em.
Not philosophical nor industrious and don't have stone? Skip 'em.
Philosophical, but without stone? Consider the gambit.

As a side note, I'll state that I go for the pyramids *maybe* once in every 15-20 games - so it's not like I'm all hot and bothered for them - but the gambit is still viable, and it's fun and exciting when you pull it off, to boot!

I just ran a test on this, normal speed/deity. What a disaster. I quit before the BC years were even over.

I suppose, if I kept reloading eventually it would work sometime. But I gave it a shot, and now I'm going back to my roots.

Diety? Who the heck said anything about Diety?

Obsolete, I have an incredible amount of respect for you and your insightful views of this game at the higher levels, but I wonder if you havent lost sight of some of those exact roots.

Root 1: HAVE FUN!!

This gambit is a BLAST to play. It hones chopping and hammer management skills to the extreme. It has all the earmarks that make people enjoy games, risk, anticipation, and almost zero level of certainty.

Why dont you try it a few times on Immortal. Heck, play China, too, so you can justify it a LITTLE by convincing yourself its a quicker way to CKNs. Or . . . just keep taking boring old CoL with the Oracle. After all, winning Deity MUST be all about the Chicken Pizza! (LOL, that was one of the best comments ever in one of your games, heh, so amusing to see people say "you're kidding, right?)

By the way - it's ALC 7 where the gambit was detailed.

Again, seeing Oracle build around 3000 BC is not uncommon to me. What levels are people playing at that they can get all this time for that? I understand if you're playing settler mode, but such tactics are useless to me.


Just curious, is that on deity? I've followed your games and you aren't building the Oracle much earlier than I am (prince mostly and I usually build it 1500 - 1200 BC), still you always seem to get it. I've had noble games were the Pyramids was built 750 BC so it seems there is a lot of variation here, I guess the other leaders beeing a big factor determining how early wonders are built.