The benefits of avoiding bronze working

This reminds me of religion. "You can't prove that my belief is incorrect, therefore it is true". Sun Tzu this is your thread and your idea. It goes against the majority view, it goes against the consensus. It's not up to us to prove you wrong, it's up to you to prove that you are right. I could claim that Klingons are real because one beamed down into my kitchen and ate all my food last night. Prove me wrong.

noto2 said:

Low food and low production and low forest starts? I've never seen one, and I've played over a thousand games easily, maybe even two thousand.

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I just said enough green mines to saturate the food. Yes, that implies low food, but relatively high production.

Anyway, you are confused in thinking one or two thousand games are a good sampling of potential maps generated. My guess is that the generator rolls about the order of hundreds of random numbers for each map (about one or two per tile). To have a good chance to spot special case maps you would have to see some tens of thousands of maps (in the order of about 100/random number generated) ...

No one would prioritize BW just to see copper.

Example of a map where you can avoid BW:
Imagine you are Lizzy and start by coast with 4 gold mines and 2 clams, a length-1 river. (zero Forests) Around you the land is mostly dessert with a few flood plains, two oasis and a gold or two. You have a sheep as well for your fourth city, before boxed in.
Do you think BW will fit in your first ten techs?

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Correction: It is your opinion he is wrong. Where is your proof that the strategy fails for 100% of all maps?

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It is also my opinion that there is no Santa Claus and unless you provide me some proof to the contrary that will remain my opinion.

It is not up to me to prove a negative; that's impossible. The onus is on you to provide an example of a map where this makes sense. Quigley tried and failed. You haven't even tried. Instead you go around demanding the impossible from people. It simply doesn't wash.

RagingHordes said:

I just said enough green mines to saturate the food. Yes, that implies low food, but relatively high production.

Anyway, you are confused in thinking one or two thousand games are a good sampling of potential maps generated. My guess is that the generator rolls about the order of hundreds of random numbers for each map (about one or two per tile). To have a good chance to spot special case maps you would have to see some tens of thousands of maps (in the order of about 100/random number generated) ...

No one would prioritize BW just to see copper. Do you avoid AH when there is nothing to pasture? You should. You won't go AH just to see horses because there are many other techs that benefit more.
And if you can get a bulb you want, you would avoid Fishing/Sailing/Calendar/Compass/Optics. Would you avoid AH/HBR with nothing to pasture to bulb, say, Engineering (hypothetically, if it was needed)? Sure you would.
Would you avoid BW when you need it for nothing else but to see Copper, in order to rush Lib -> Mil Trad? I bet you that would be the smart play.

Example of a map where you can avoid BW:
Imagine you are Lizzy and start by coast with 4 gold mines and 2 clams, a length-1 river. (zero Forests) Around you the land is mostly dessert with a few flood plains, two oasis and a gold or two. You have a sheep as well for your fourth city, before boxed in.
Do you think BW will fit in your first ten techs?

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I don't know why you quoted me, I was talking to the OP. Anyway, as for your example... 4 gold mines and no forests, on a coast? I've never seen a map like that. In all the years I've been playing Civ4... I got it when Warlords came out, and I've played many games, I've only seen a 4 gold mine start once.

Anyway, to indulge your hypothetical question, would I fit BW into my first 10 techs? Umm, yes. Lizzie has fishing and mining to start, right? So I can build workboats while researching and then later work the gold mines. I'm not trolling you, I'm being honest, I might even go for BW first. Actually, I'd probably go wheel, pottery, BW, so BW would be my third tech. I'd go workboat, worker (to mine the gold), workboat, granary. Yes, I'd have a granary ASAP and BW and start whipping out workers/settlers/units as is my standard start in most games. So I'm not sure what you were trying to prove with your example.

Abegweit said:

It is also my opinion that there is no Santa Claus and unless you provide me some proof to the contrary that will remain my opinion.

It is not up to me to prove a negative; that's impossible. The onus is on you to provide an example of a map where this makes sense. Quigley tried and failed. You haven't even tried. Instead you go around demanding the impossible from people. It simply doesn't wash.

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Opinions require no proof. I simply object to an hypothesis (all maps require Bronze Working early) expressed as a statements of fact without proof.

It is my opinion that some maps (low food, low forests,often low production = ~6%) do not benefit from early Bronze Working.

If it is your opinion that there are absolutely 0% such maps, I'm fine with that. However, if you want to state that as a proven fact, then please provide the proof.

Cluttering up this thread with unproven assertions as opposed to opinions benefits noone. Anyone is welcome to express an opinion; however, stating an opinion as though it is a fact requires proof.

A proof that early Bronze Working is optimal on 100% of all maps would require a complete understanding of all map scripts to the extent that one can ensure that not a single map will be generated where the thesis of this thread is optimal. That would be a huge mathematical task that would likely take months to complete. A thesis that ~6% of maps benefit from the strategy is not as hard to prove, given a moderate +-2% deviation; just run map finder and play the marginal maps using a BW strategy and non-BW strategy. Eventually one will narrow it down to the true % for each map script.

Sun Tzu Wu

Hmm, I didn't realize the post ended up looking to be directed at you, noto2. That wasn't intended, sorry.

Maybe I was wrong to pick the ideal starting techs... It gives some freedom and doesn't outright forbid BW, though it is still imho a worse choice (compared to Sailing or Oracle techs for instance). I didn't think you would whip away a gold early on.
I thought you'd go some form of Oracle and rush CS with such a start.

With a start like that I would only whip for a short period of time but I would still whip. I find that if I don't whip at all I end up getting boxed in to like 3 cities, save for those rare examples of very hammer heavy and food poor starts. But yes, with 4 gold mines I would stop using the whip much earlier than normal.

BW is too versatile to be skipped on higher diffs. You can learn about copper and skip archery, anything beyond food surplus of 4 is more than whipabble, and with IMP leader, even +4. Not everything is in efficiency. You can efficiently lose city spots if you avoid early whipping. If you happen to find out there is no copper nearby, you can chop a forest or two for some quick fogbusters before archers start spawning in huge numbers or at least in time to get to forested hilltops where warriors have decent odds against archers. Although economy and food to hammer conversion should be enough to make BW unavoidable, I will stress safety side of the game. Avoiding BW usually leads to usual barbs killed me or poor me was DoWed early and killed rants. With early BW you should never lose to barbs and almost never to early DoW. And I am speaking about Deity.

Also, not considering anything beyond 90% to be 100% is somply overcomplicating and brutally innefficient with ones time. I am aware what I said isnt ALWAYS true, but dont bother replying with something having less than 10% chance to happen. You can spend those 5 minutes learning something about other 90% which is more intelligent approach in my book.

This thread never advocated avoiding Bronze Working on all maps. Clearly on the majority of maps, a strategy that includes early Bronze Working will be superior to a strategy with delayed Bronze Working for the reasons you stated.

If you choose to ignore strategies with less than 10% applicability, this strategy is not for you. I estimate it to be applicable to ~6% of all maps. By your own admission, you are not interested in any strategy with less than 10% applicability. Did I misunderstand you?

Sun Tzu Wu

Sun Tzu Wu said:

If you choose to ignore strategies with less than 10% applicability, this strategy is not for you. I estimate it to be applicable to ~6% of all maps. By your own admission, you are not interested in any strategy with less than 10% applicability. Did I misunderstand you?

Sun Tzu Wu

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You understood me correctly. However, this strategy is flawed even on starts it was intended for. Those 6% by your estimation. There was a showcase map where that was demonstrated (however, I could have found a better map to prove OP's point). I agree this strat can work on 10% of great plains maps (when you get only one or two cows with all the other tiles unforested and brown). We know Great_Plains are almost never used for a mapscript and 10% is one tenth of almost never. That's my estimation.

We have a two test games published in this thread that was played through by the OP to a victory using the strategy proposed. We have a few players using the same starts using an early Bronze Working strategy, but no one finished the game to the victory screen (at least one player claimed victory by being first to Liberalism, but that is really not adequate, since the victory dates of the two competing strategies can not be compared).

There are strong opinions coming from both the pro and con group regarding this strategy, but not much hard data. From the hard data that exists, the strategy has been shown to work, just not proven optimal, due to the lack of same starts played to similar victory conditions using an early Bronze Working strategy.

For the Great_Plains map script, I believe that more than 10% of the maps would benefit from a delayed Bronze Working strategy. We just need to agree on a map finder definition of an appropriate map, and run it to determine the actual percentage occurance of this type of map.

I don't believe it is fair to ignore the 10% of starts where the delayed Bronze Working strategy is better than the Bronze Working strategy, unless one is content with winning the 90% of maps where early Bronze Working is optimal. For example, I do not believe that one can say that a level and map script have been mastered and at the same time ignore 10% of the starts generated (where delaying Bronze Working is beneficial).

Sun Tzu Wu

We have a two test games published in this thread that was played through by the OP to a victory using the strategy proposed. We have a few players using the same starts using an early Bronze Working strategy, but no one finished the game to the victory screen (at least one player claimed victory by being first to Liberalism, but that is really not adequate, since the victory dates of the two competing strategies can not be compared).

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I believe I was one of the few who tried both approaches. I can declare something won due to experience.

If I set a goal of getting Liberalism (which is the point of this strategy: faster Lib due to skipping BW related techs), then why on Earth would I need to go any further. No BW approach libbed 450AD Nationalism while BW Libbed 375AD Steel which lead to ~900AD domination, iIrc. Also, BW approach had more infra and better economy to support the war. There is simply no point in proving the obvious truth, better known as trivial. Do you crack your head around 1=1 equation? If you do... well..., you shouldn't really.

I have said everything on the matter for the next year and a half.

Just for under 10% of all maps is so generous, try 1% if not lower..
unless you are picking only isolated and weird map scripts where this might break even more often (still nowhere proof that it makes things better), but funny enuf this was nowhere mentioned in the original post.
Yet what a big surprise, his example game was Iso.

I would also add, that lucky culture where AIs could have taken you out at any given time, or beat you to any other victory screen, does also not proof much. Not sure why anyone would mention this all the time, unless his strategy is so weak that it's his only chance for arguing.

Obviously one can't compare Liberalism dates, since a great Liberalism date does not by itself win a game. Also, it is meaniless to compare the win dates of different victory conditions, especially comparing a traditional cultural victory to a domination victory. Of course a domination victory can be achieved much earlier than a traditional cultural victory.

Of course the data supporting either side has never been conclusive and bringing up old data will change nothing. To prove or disprove this strategy, new comparable data is required.

Sun Tzu Wu

I am really surprised that this thread still lives...


just wanted to say that 4 gold mines is definitely not good production and you will very hard scratching your head how to use such start and not fall in the settler race...

usually you will end with ignoring 3 out of those 4 trying to work the 1 all the time, while planning for city 2 for work the rest


I would be surprised if you wouldn't need some strong whip factory nearby... and if you can't get... well you're for sure for long and painful game...

and don't forget that coast starts are slower games anyway,
while we're on topic of coast starts... isn't there some strategy for mining civilizations which involves teching BW directly to whip first worker? or something like that?

I very vaguely remember being it more optimal then slow building worker and work boat

edit:
from my experience I didn't see a map where I would not like to have BW, even some of the great plains map I offered ended like "dude you have there that flood plains cows, you're crazy not to whip there"

I remember 1 game from AbsoluteZero where he deliberately delayed BW to get Oracle before t50 (or t40 was it?), but nowhere near the amount of waiting OP suggests....

Yeah, you always want BW early to whip the worker/work boat if there is even one 3-food tile or better in your city. It's just a question of whether you have time to research it.
Sometimes you just have to go for other worker techs and BW gets delayed.

With the four gold, two clams start I thought Deity players would go for Oracle CS, since it's such a unique chance to do it and play OCC style. But Obviously one can play with BW first and attempt to rex. Maybe it's a bad example anyway.... (I agree the gold tile is a pretty bad production tile - it's a rather average resource tile later in the game when the happy cap goes up and food becomes very valuable)

I'm kind of over my threshold with this discussion as well. It's silly, both the topic and the reaction to it.

RagingHordes said:

Yeah, you always want BW early to whip the worker/work boat if there is even one 3-food tile or better in your city. It's just a question of whether you have time to research it.
Sometimes you just have to go for other worker techs and BW gets delayed.

With the four gold, two clams start I thought Deity players would go for Oracle CS, since it's such a unique chance to do it and play OCC style. But Obviously one can play with BW first and attempt to rex. Maybe it's a bad example anyway.... (I agree the gold tile is a pretty bad production tile - it's a rather average resource tile later in the game when the happy cap goes up and food becomes very valuable)

I'm kind of over my threshold with this discussion as well. It's silly, both the topic and the reaction to it.

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Discussing alternative strategies for special maps is never silly IMO, but in this case the OP (apparently not being a fan of Slavery) failed to present a map or situation where his strategy (or one of his strategies) would be a viable option. Also, it was never clearly stated what could be gained by using it apart from bulbing something that would otherwise be blocked by BW. The problem is the tech it allows you to bulb is probably less useful to you than BW. Then again, it's really up to the OP how he wants to play his games.

As for the 2 clams + 4 gold Oracle CS start on Deity: I wouldn't recommend it, unless you can immediately find a fantastic second city site. If you try to Oracle CS with this start you will not only lose CS in the majority of cases but also get boxed in almost instantly. It's a bad start for rexing anyway and forcing CS will only set you back even more.

^_^

Of course I had to try it now. It's much worse than I thought. First of all, I overlooked the bad health situation. You run into -1F at size 4. You can't work more than 3 golds even after Sailing first, which was my opening.
I managed to Oracle CS at 1780BC after which alpha becomes a 6 turns tech (you can research a turn and trade for it against Math). You can get three sites simply from the culture blocking of you capitol. It's meh... You can get a pretty early Lib date if you follow up with Philo and run Pacifism/Cast Scientists while the two sites work the golds.... it's still, meh. No military resources, might as well break out at Rifling...
The Oracle is pretty safe, because I start putting hammers into it well before anyone else could have been close to Priesthood, then switch back to building a Lighthouse.

My conclusion: BW first would probably work better. I'm done with this.

Bulbing Feudalism early is less useful than Bronzing Working? One can trade for a lot of Technologies for Feudalism, including Bronze Working, so I don't agree. The real question is what price must be paid to avoid Bronze Working long enough to bulb Feudalism and for which type of starts is it beneficial?

Sun Tzu Wu

That's not the right question, is it? It's not that you bulb Feu vs getting BW. You bulb Feu instead of bulbing something else. I don't get why Feu would be so much more useful. I would save the GS for Philo or Edu. (or Machinery, Eng, Astro - all sound more useful in any common game)

Edit: must be drunk, for Feu you need an Engineer not Scientist... where would you get that with no chops and most likely no stone... and all for Feu instead of MC bulb...