Concept proven. It can be done and is quite easy. In my current game, I had feudalism by 350 BC and I could have had it sooner, but I forgot I needed writing to get feudalism. A good mix of combat and drill promotions do the job. Conquered Ramesses very easily by 1010 AD. I will continue to play this game through to see what else I can learn about this tactic.

That seems rather late... With a philo leader you can already have gunpowder units at 350 BC.... The idea is to get feud from oracle and then use uber early highly promoted longbows... You can then use the prophet for theology so you can can get 10 xp longbows right out of the gate for drill 4 or something...

Could you post a link to a turn by turn replay of such a game?

That seems rather late... With a philo leader you can already have gunpowder units at 350 BC.... The idea is to get feud from oracle and then use uber early highly promoted longbows... You can then use the prophet for theology so you can can get 10 xp longbows right out of the gate for drill 4 or something...

please go on. i am intrigued as to how you could get gunpowder this early.

please go on. i am intrigued as to how you could get gunpowder this early.

I've heard of liberalism in the early 100's AD, like 200 or 300 or something. That's some careful bulbing :rolleyes:.

My guess on the ultra-early gunpowder would be very careful manipulation of GPP to beeline it. I'm not sure how powerful that really is compared to the basic "more cities" approach.

For quick janissaries (using Suleiman for the philosophical trait).

Avoid these techs:
meditation, fishing, pottery.

Get theology from the oracle.

get four great scientists (i usually run caste system and get them from 3 different cities).

Bulb paper. Bulb Education x2, Bulb Gunpowder.

trade and backfill while building janissaries. DO NOT TRADE FOR MACHINARY trade for meditation and if possible philosophy at this point. Use next great scientist to bulb liberalism. Take nationalism. Continue building janissairies with the draft.

Move out huge janissary army in 300AD.

(EDIT: Then you don't have to worry that they are not a gunpowder era unit anyway- you might get to use them against regular archers for a bit depending on what your opponents prioritizes and on the game settings and tech trading options)

:)


Works best with the turkish philosophical leader but you can do something similar with non-philosophical leaders also.

I've never tried it myself.

Magma, did you beeline Feudalism, or use some fancy oracle/ bulbing?

I was able to get to feudalism in 1400 bc or so with an oracle slingshot as sitting bull.

nothing like hitting someone with a stack of swords and longbows that start off the totem poll, barracks, vassalage to have 7xp :D and they're protective to boot.

hugely powerful.

will be trying it with the koreans next since they start with mysticism and mining.

NaZ

The extremely careful planning for janissaries in BC era sounds like a genius idea, but I wonder how one can keep the economy out of a strike with a draft jan army in 300 AD, bearing in mind:

Pottery is not researched = No cottages
Fishing is not researched = No water tiles are worked and no coastal traderoute + no calendar resources worked which sometimes provide additional commerce
5 Scientist specialists for bulbing (paper, education, gunpowder, liberalism) = No merchant specialists to avoid risking diluting GP points

:commerce: seems to be missing completely...

How many cities should I build with such a strat in mind?

code of laws/Civil service might take awhile to tech. And you might have problems, not having granaries.

Having Ivory, it would serve one better to beeline to Construction and Horseback Riding as nothing can stop a stack of 'phants and horse. A Longbowmen is an Elephant's prime victem. Maybe Oracle to give HorsebackRiding and slow tech it from there to Construction. And then find a Fuedalistic neighbor with Longbowmen to trample upon.

beeline to Construction and Horseback Riding as nothing can stop a stack of 'phants

But you gotta play as the Khmer for this to work!

Troytheface is trolling, codewarrior.

;6933624']Troytheface is trolling, codewarrior.

Sort of. Occasionally he posts useful advice, although sometimes I wonder if it's by accident ;).

Early construction/HBR when you have ivory is indeed ridiculous (attackos naval elephant nonsense aside). THERE ARE NO CLASSICAL UNITS THAT BEAT SHOCK ELEPHANTS. ZERO. Hell, formation requires 3 promos, so even with great generals 2 promo spears wouldn't be enough without aggressive. Also, there is NOTHING in MEDIEVAL times that can reliably attack a stack of elephants and axemen (pikes would lose to axes, everything else would lose to elephants given their typical promo advantage vs melee).

In other words, If you somehow get them in the BC era you're looking at more than 1000 years worth of attack window. I'm guessing warmonger players can think of a few ways to spend such an advantage...

FYI, Nobles' Club 7 (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=275928). It's a Prince-and-below scenario without the higher-difficulty tech and units, but still might be interesting for some. I managed the feudalism slingshot but, as usual, flittered away to other games.