Immaculate
unerring
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2003
- Messages
- 7,623
I want to outline another little slingshot available in the game. I sort of stumbled on it by accident.
I was playing a custom continents game (3 continents, 10 opponents, large map, monarch difficulty) and wanted to see if i could get to machinery and optics early to make contact with the other civilizations earlier.
So i was playing as Ghandi and decided to avoid fishing and meditation so i could light-bulb machinery later on (see below).
I teched some basic worker techs and even grabbed Hinduism when i went to priesthood through polytheism.
I built the oracle after founding my second city and took code-of-laws. I kept founding cities (to five eventually) and switched to caste system. I ran merchants in my oracle city and quickly got a great merchant to light-bulb metal casting (i had not yet researched math but did have bronze working and pottery).
Meanwhile i built granaries and an anti-barb defense in my cities and started on forges while running scientists in two other cities. Eventually i popped a great scientist and used him for machinery (i had not taken fishing, meditation and i had researched math).
When i soon got a third great person (my second scientist), I had a look at the great people tech preferences and realized i could choose between teching fishing, sailing, compass and using him for optics, meditation and using him for philosophy, or construction and using him for engineeering.
So i researched construction and light-bulbed engineering and started whipping trebuchets in my little SP-type cities. This was just before the turn of the BC->AD flip. The round i whipped, the french attacked me and soon i had their trebuchet-battered cities.
The best part is that with trebuchets, you can rip cultural defense down very quicky and i didn't take a single loss in taking the french cities. Archers, even fortified and on a hill (but without cultural defense) are not much of a match for CR3 trebuchets (they get experience quickly).
When i get back to the game (either tonight or next monday), it shouldn't be too hard to get compass (already got fishing and sailing) and light-bulb optics with my next great scientist so it may have slowed getting to optics, but i doubt it slowed it by much. Who knows?- we might still be able to light-bulb philosophy. I doubt the french (or anyone else on my continent) will be.
You could probably get the engineering tech much earlier then i did (approx 1ad) but i wanted to have 4 cities with granaries, forges and barracks (and a fifth that just needed barracks to catch up) so i could produce enough trebs to take advantage of the early tech.
So yeah, another little trick available for anyone who wants to try it out (its probably been out-lined before, but for me it was new)
I was playing a custom continents game (3 continents, 10 opponents, large map, monarch difficulty) and wanted to see if i could get to machinery and optics early to make contact with the other civilizations earlier.
So i was playing as Ghandi and decided to avoid fishing and meditation so i could light-bulb machinery later on (see below).
I teched some basic worker techs and even grabbed Hinduism when i went to priesthood through polytheism.
I built the oracle after founding my second city and took code-of-laws. I kept founding cities (to five eventually) and switched to caste system. I ran merchants in my oracle city and quickly got a great merchant to light-bulb metal casting (i had not yet researched math but did have bronze working and pottery).
Meanwhile i built granaries and an anti-barb defense in my cities and started on forges while running scientists in two other cities. Eventually i popped a great scientist and used him for machinery (i had not taken fishing, meditation and i had researched math).
When i soon got a third great person (my second scientist), I had a look at the great people tech preferences and realized i could choose between teching fishing, sailing, compass and using him for optics, meditation and using him for philosophy, or construction and using him for engineeering.
So i researched construction and light-bulbed engineering and started whipping trebuchets in my little SP-type cities. This was just before the turn of the BC->AD flip. The round i whipped, the french attacked me and soon i had their trebuchet-battered cities.
The best part is that with trebuchets, you can rip cultural defense down very quicky and i didn't take a single loss in taking the french cities. Archers, even fortified and on a hill (but without cultural defense) are not much of a match for CR3 trebuchets (they get experience quickly).
When i get back to the game (either tonight or next monday), it shouldn't be too hard to get compass (already got fishing and sailing) and light-bulb optics with my next great scientist so it may have slowed getting to optics, but i doubt it slowed it by much. Who knows?- we might still be able to light-bulb philosophy. I doubt the french (or anyone else on my continent) will be.
You could probably get the engineering tech much earlier then i did (approx 1ad) but i wanted to have 4 cities with granaries, forges and barracks (and a fifth that just needed barracks to catch up) so i could produce enough trebs to take advantage of the early tech.
So yeah, another little trick available for anyone who wants to try it out (its probably been out-lined before, but for me it was new)
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