The benefits of avoiding bronze working

Oh I agree, I'd rather have done BW first > slavery + chop chop chop.

But I was highlighting the point that I quoted that you can definitely settle more than 3 cities without BW on Deity. I'd never skip BW, I just tried doing so for the fun of it. At the same time I have nothing against the OP for trying this out unlike the usual 'Deity brigade'. Im most definitely a fan of playing and trying any strategy that people say is absolutely terrible, even if it is so, similar to when people always say you cant found every religion on higher difficulties when I can just to show that they are incorrect.

However on Immortal, I can often delay chopping until after Mathematics, but not whipping. I want 7 cities set up with Libs, Granaries, Aqueducts within the BCs and I can still do that with Writing > BW > Whip whip whip > Chops after Maths.

I tend to skip BW until after Writing if I'm playing a CRE leader though. Library first = everything else faster.

My honest opinions on the OPs strategy are:

1) I would never skip BW / Slavery / Chopping, however I will often delay it until after Writing.
2) I would never waste a GE on a bulb for any strategy when I can have a free wonder. I'd even consider settling it for the production boost to be more valuable than bulbing.

Zx Zero Zx said:

You're still going to lose due to no slavery. >.>

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Yes, but I still got 7 cities without BW! No BW at all is doomed from the start on higher difficulties, but that wasnt the point of what I did.

bhavv said:

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I loled.

Nice job getting started without BW. Too bad it seems doomed.

bhavv said:

Sure, heres my 4000 BC save. I decided Cathy makes the best leader for trying this for fast settlers + libraries without chops.

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Thanks, bhavv.

Peer Review:

The author of this guide allways plays with huts/events on.

vranasm said:

I think a lot of people know that sometimes you delay BW until you get Writing for example, never heard about delaying until Alpha, but well maybe it works.

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This generally only happens in HoF or XotM games where your going Culture from turn 0, as an example, I had a deity pangaea game with wet Corn, 7 Floodplains, afew unforested hills with Gandhi, I went Agriculture > The Wheel > Writing > Alphabet, and traded Writing for alot of worker techs (Writing+Myst got me BW iirc). Only warriors for barb defense was a risk but HoF games generally take more risks since it about finishing as early as possible.

In a 'normal' game I doubt I would of played the same since I wouldn't of decided on Culture as my VC that early

I agree with 1 more than most people, sometimes you don't have forests, and if you don't have a lot of food the opportunity cost of regrowing is higher than what people anticipate.

I don't know about 2, since I don't do a lot of wonder based GP gambits.

However, the thing that makes me begrudgingly go into slavery, is bad luck and barbs. Lose an unlucky defender, and you could cripple your game.

The cost of regrowing before you reach Monarchy is not high at all. You have a base happy cap that only allows pop 4-5 cities, in the early stage of the game you surely can get every early building whipped with ease and regrow comfortably before setting up HR + Caste. There's nothing bad or negative about whipping granary, library, lighthouse, aqueduct and courthouses in your core cities before leaving slavery, there is absolutely no way you can get all of that done reliably without whipping, and you get your core cities set up significantly faster. If a city is sat on the low early game happy cap, you whip something. Settlers in the capital and buildings everywhere else. Avoiding slavery to grow large is a good idea post HR + Caste, however up until this point it is vital for success on higher difficulties.

If you get caste fast enough, you only need granaries and not libraries, and you can skimp on aqueducts/courthouses. If you get HR, sometimes you want to grow pre-emptively so you can instantly run max specialists when you get caste.

I tend to build workers/settlers at happy cap. Before HR, whipping in say your capital often prevents you from running 2 scientists and your 3rd/4th good tile. Basically, slavery is more hammers, but usually less commerce/beakers, and commerce/beakers is often your limiting factor.

However, some cities are incapable of building even a granary in a timely manner.

bhavv said:

The cost of regrowing before you reach Monarchy is not high at all. You have a base happy cap that only allows pop 4-5 cities, in the early stage of the game you surely can get every early building whipped with ease and regrow comfortably before setting up HR + Caste. There's nothing bad or negative about whipping granary, library, lighthouse, aqueduct and courthouses in your core cities before leaving slavery, there is absolutely no way you can get all of that done reliably without whipping, and you get your core cities set up significantly faster. If a city is sat on the low early game happy cap, you whip something. Settlers in the capital and buildings everywhere else. Avoiding slavery to grow large is a good idea post HR + Caste, however up until this point it is vital for success on higher difficulties.

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I am not sold on this logic. I remember me let's playing on youtube the rexercise challenge posted in S&T and couple of people commented that they had similar amount of cities infrastructure without whips.

each whip costs you natural production and if you miss out on hills production for too long due to slow regrowth the hammers gained could be less then the same number of turns running the hills.
I am far away from calling whipping being always superior.

the dangers of unlucky defeats and the needs for emergent whips stands though...

krikav said:

Peer Review:

The author of this guide allways plays with huts/events on.

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I am sorry but I don't see the relevance of that. Events on are a legit in-game, and fun one, option. They should be avoided in competitive games and in shadow games since they are just another RNG element you can't control. But why wouldn't someone play his private games with huts/event on?

I can also tell that from my own experience since I also enjoyed huts and events that events can make slavery a lot worse. You literally have slave revolts all the time. And if you already have low happy cap , slavery is a no go. That is why I never went for slavery before I joined this forum.




Things I don't like about strategy are:

You depend on an expensive wonder, estimation about how many starts can employ this strategy (Brennus stated it is 30%), also think that thresholds for avoiding BW should be higher (meaning less forests and less food are needed to go for BW for me than for Brennus), also think (didn't test it) non great scientist bulbs are not worth it since you give up on empire development and lose turns of your development and ''natural bpt'' of developed empire by avoiding BW that far into the game. However BW can sometimes wait on food poor (''brown'') maps for as long as you don't hit Civil Service when chain irrigations are available.

So details are what bothers me. Which leads to another thing this article lacks and that is case analysis and suggestions (which is wonderfully covered in the best strat article ever: vicavoo's guide for HA rush). I basically think this no BW strategy is released too early, in its alpha version and with many child diseases. Unfortunately it provoked too many ad hominem attacks which turned the focus from strategy itself.


I think whole argument should be about cost/benefit and covered with many examples since without them it all comes only to opinions.

I also want examples and many of them to be done by author of the strategy. I will not work for someone else's glory for free.


BTW, I respect how Brennus remained more or less gentleman despite the ganging up on him.

bhavv said:

Oh I agree, I'd rather have done BW first > slavery + chop chop chop.

But I was highlighting the point that I quoted that you can definitely settle more than 3 cities without BW on Deity. I'd never skip BW, I just tried doing so for the fun of it. At the same time I have nothing against the OP for trying this out unlike the usual 'Deity brigade'. Im most definitely a fan of playing and trying any strategy that people say is absolutely terrible, even if it is so, similar to when people always say you cant found every religion on higher difficulties when I can just to show that they are incorrect.

However on Immortal, I can often delay chopping until after Mathematics, but not whipping. I want 7 cities set up with Libs, Granaries, Aqueducts within the BCs and I can still do that with Writing > BW > Whip whip whip > Chops after Maths.

I tend to skip BW until after Writing if I'm playing a CRE leader though. Library first = everything else faster.

My honest opinions on the OPs strategy are:

1) I would never skip BW / Slavery / Chopping, however I will often delay it until after Writing.
2) I would never waste a GE on a bulb for any strategy when I can have a free wonder. I'd even consider settling it for the production boost to be more valuable than bulbing.



Yes, but I still got 7 cities without BW! No BW at all is doomed from the start on higher difficulties, but that wasnt the point of what I did.

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So it is true my hunch that my post to you was unnecessary proved to be true.

My arguments against founding every religion were because of diplo, safety and opportunity cost issues.
Still think that is a bad strategy but you can enjoy your civ4 in any way you want.

2) I would never waste a GE on a bulb for any strategy when I can have a free wonder. I'd even consider settling it for the production boost to be more valuable than bulbing.

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I somehow think hurrying wonder is usually a waste. I find early GE should be used for Machinery bulb if China or Engineering bulb. Trebs+Pikes+Xbows+8str units army can win conquest on deity or get you one or two vassals at least. One of the most popular misbeliefs is that you can't wage medieval wars on deity. Well, you can. I did that on some very tough games here with a lot of success and AZ does that all the time in even more impressive ways.

shakabrade said:

I somehow think hurrying wonder is usually a waste. I find early GE should be used for Machinery bulb if China or Engineering bulb. Trebs+Pikes+Xbows+8str units army can win conquest on deity or get you one or two vassals at least. One of the most popular misbeliefs is that you can't wage medieval wars on deity. Well, you can. I did that on some very tough games here with a lot of success and AZ does that all the time in even more impressive ways.

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Well to be honest using an Eng to bulb Machinery is a bit of a waste. You're better off bulbing Fued with him, and then using a Merchant to bulb Guids, and abusing Knights in the BCs. Along the lines of people thinking medieval war is bad on deity is mostly because the vast majority of people got to be able to beat deity by using Lib-> MT so they don't understand other ways to leverage tech explosions in the early game. Thus they are stuck in if it's not Lib it's not possible on deity.

shakabrade said:

events can make slavery a lot worse. You literally have slave revolts all the time.

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This is the reason why I think that it should have been mentioned in the article in the first place.

And since the author of this "guide" obviously had hindsight that most players here DO play without events, I think it was dishonest of him to keep this a secret for the weeks from when he wrote the "guide" untill he showed a test-game.


I also don't agree that he is acting like a gentleman, I feel that he continiously try to diminish arguments presented against him, and that he belittles everyone who doesn't agree on his point.

Will any XOTM staff be interested in generating a map for this strategy? Great plain, no food resource, no forest, cattle and horse and stone and marble all over the land.

I saw a lot of deity games won without a turn of slavery, with a fancy start and tender AIs. Some players even argue that slavery is not needed when adopting the strategy of REX+beelining LIB. It was a dominating playstyle several years ago.

shakabrade said:

I am sorry but I don't see the relevance of that. Events on are a legit in-game, and fun one, option. They should be avoided in competitive games and in shadow games since they are just another RNG element you can't control. But why wouldn't someone play his private games with huts/event on?

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Thanks for the defense, Shaka. I would just add (without trying to turn this into an events/huts discussion) that I think the better competitive game approach would be to standardize huts (for a certain gold value) and slave revolts (every certain number of turns) rather than eliminating them. Eliminating huts falsely hurts Civs that start with Hunting and eliminating events falsely empowers slavery. The other way would be to just let the extra randomness enter, understanding that the overall better player will emerge over time as the randomness will even itself out. Even in sports, each game has a lot of random/chance elements, but the better team emerges over the course of the season.

shakabrade said:

Things I don't like about strategy are:

You depend on an expensive wonder, estimation about how many starts can employ this strategy (Brennus stated it is 30%), also think that thresholds for avoiding BW should be higher (meaning less forests and less food are needed to go for BW for me than for Brennus), also think (didn't test it) non great scientist bulbs are not worth it since you give up on empire development and lose turns of your development and ''natural bpt'' of developed empire by avoiding BW that far into the game. However BW can sometimes wait on food poor (''brown'') maps for as long as you don't hit Civil Service when chain irrigations are available.

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The estimation of ~30% is not in the article, just in the thread. Your "concerns" here are also most welcome and will be thought about. And only the GE bulb requires a wonder. The GS and GM bulbs do not.

shakabrade said:

I basically think this no BW strategy is released too early, in its alpha version and with many child diseases.

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I had no intention of releasing a strategy article. It emerged from the Serfdom discussion, and then I decided to write it up. Feedback to help improve the article is welcome. Not sure what "child diseases" means.

shakabrade said:

BTW, I respect how Brennus remained more or less gentleman despite the ganging up on him.

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Thanks. And you and I even had our disagreements, but it's all good. There are certainly some people here that just like to throw around insults on every thread (even ones where they feign no interest!) and liberally use the "troll" word when they read something they don't agree with, but there are enough thoughtful, cordial individuals to make it worthwhile.

krikav said:

And since the author of this "guide" obviously had hindsight that most players here DO play without events, I think it was dishonest of him to keep this a secret for the weeks from when he wrote the "guide" untill he showed a test-game.

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It was never a secret. It was your assumption. I have already thanked you for your suggestion and added to the article that having events on is another element that makes slavery less attractive.

krikav said:

I also don't agree that he is acting like a gentleman, I feel that he continiously try to diminish arguments presented against him, and that he belittles everyone who doesn't agree on his point.

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You seem to think that disagreeing, or being in the minority opinion, is somehow "arrogant" and "belittling." Not my take.

krikav said:

I also don't agree that he is acting like a gentleman, I feel that he continiously try to diminish arguments presented against him, and that he belittles everyone who doesn't agree on his point.

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I said more or less like a gentleman. There are just too many people literally insulting him so why wouldn't we tolerate some poison darts from his direction here and there. Also, he is usually doing that in more refined manner making everyone attacking him look like children. I can't help myself but I like that. Seeing more refined attacks would make me equally satisfied.

Brennus.Quigley said:

Thanks for the defense, Shaka. I would just add (without trying to turn this into an events/huts discussion) that I think the better competitive game approach would be to standardize huts (for a certain gold value) and slave revolts (every certain number of turns) rather than eliminating them. Eliminating huts falsely hurts Civs that start with Hunting and eliminating events falsely empowers slavery. The other way would be to just let the extra randomness enter, understanding that the overall better player will emerge over time as the randomness will even itself out. Even in sports, each game has a lot of random/chance elements, but the better team emerges over the course of the season.



I am not defending anyone since that'd imply that I am subjective while I just stated objective fact. If it is in your favor it only means you have stronger case on this one.

Well, problem with huts is that many times they can't be leveled. Getting BW from hut would not only screw your strat , but would also make your game superior in every way to anybody elses. You'd get at least 10 turns on victory date by that. And good events can stack. Someone else can have his volcano destroy improvements around it every once in a while. Early RNG game elements just have too much impact. Barbs on the other hand can be dealt with and I rarely lose more than a warrior to them with proper spawnbusting positions. You can always retreat to archery if you realize they could pose a problem. Barbs are predictable. What I hate are barb galleys. GRRRR! They spawn too much. Why do they spawn at all? Where is their port? Why aren't they built in barb cities? Only one unfogbusted tile is enough for a galley to pillage your capital's seafood. And yeah, that galley you whipped for defense will often lose and MC is usually too much out of the way.

You don't have to level the leaders and civs in the game if all people are playing the same leader, right? And that's always the case on S&T. When someone feels like challenging himself, he can always choose crappy leaders since there are crappy leaders out there.



The estimation of ~30% is not in the article, just in the thread. Your "concerns" here are also most welcome and will be thought about. And only the GE bulb requires a wonder. The GS and GM bulbs do not.



I had no intention of releasing a strategy article. It emerged from the Serfdom discussion, and then I decided to write it up. Feedback to help improve the article is welcome. Not sure what "child diseases" means.

It is an idiom in my language. It seems it isn't present in other countries. It means that everything you do always has some obvious flaws at first, good example would be computer games which always come with lot of child diseases and then get cured by patches.

Thanks. And you and I even had our disagreements, but it's all good. There are certainly some people here that just like to throw around insults on every thread (even ones where they feign no interest!) and liberally use the "troll" word when they read something they don't agree with, but there are enough thoughtful, cordial individuals to make it worthwhile.

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Of course it is all good. This is a game after all. Even if it wasn't a game would be all good.
Some people don't consider that there are people behind user names, but I wouldn't take it to the heart. What is a forum without a good troll or flame. It breaks the monotony.

I'm wondering why the slave revolt is the only event anyone is talking about when discussing how events impact slavery and by extension BW....
A lot of positive events are improved by slavery (free unit promos, building boosts and quests that give you extra troops all benefit from more production) , and numerous negative events can be mitigated by slavery (i.e. random unhappiness causes, barb uprisings), and BW itself allows you to chop forests and avoid that annoying forest fire event. Theres a lot more to it than simply saying 'ooh bad event on slavery = slavery/BW bad...'

shakabrade said:

I said more or less like a gentleman. There are just too many people literally insulting him so why wouldn't we tolerate some poison darts from his direction here and there. Also, he is usually doing that in more refined manner making everyone attacking him look like children.

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I have from the start been supportive of this entire venture.
I welcomed the test-game when he posted that.
Once I found out that huts/events was on, I objected on grounds that you seem to fully understand. The magnitude of the random effects events bring into the game are the problem, not their existance.

This was apparantly not a acceptable objection, since from that point on, Brennus has done little else but to engage in the behaviour you describe as "hurling poison darts".


I'm extremly frustrated that he refuses to discuss the strategy from a objective standpoint.
These alternative bulb-paths that delaying BW opens up are no doubt interesting.

This thread did it better though:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=456656

* Numbers
* Testgames
* Less randomness

shakabrade said:

BTW, I respect how Brennus remained more or less gentleman despite the ganging up on him.

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Agree! This is an interesting discussion, especially for those of us who are only familiar with the more obvious GScientist bulb options.

krikav said:

And since the author of this "guide" obviously had hindsight that most players here DO play without events

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Some very vocal posters play with events off.

Others prefer events on, even if we don't post as often as they do.

Dr.Null said:

Agree! This is an interesting discussion, especially for those of us who are only familiar with the more obvious GScientist bulb options.

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Thanks. Glad you find it has value.

And for anyone who is interested: a new Deity Isolated save has been posted.