Early Maces??!!

I'm gonna test this strategy later in the week... (Just somethings I thought Up) Your welcome to try this strategy out if you want, I'm not sure if anyone has posted this yet... so sorry if I've stolen your idea. I just want someone to try this out because I don't have enough time to enjoy Civ4 as much as I should lol...

Basically....

Research Metal Casting by Way of Oracle Tech Jump, Remember to research Bronze Working, Wheel, Fishing or Agriculture & Pottery before completing the oracle

Once you gotten Metal casting, Build a forge and add a Engineer Specialist to a city (The city that has NOT built the oracle in it)

While you're waiting for your Great People to Pop Reseach Codes of law, & Iron Working If you don't have copper.

once you have Both a GP and GE use them you researach
GP = Civil Service, GE = Machinery (remember NOT to research mansonary or you will go down the Religilious Tech path Eg -Moth > Theorcarcy > Divine Right)

now you're Capable of building Maces and your AI Civ rivals are no way near Feudalism (longbows) so You can mow down everyone on your continent lol

Keep what you need and raze everything else unless your "Organised" then you can whip cheap courthouses

The best Civs for this Strategy would be The Phil Ones with Starting techs that can build the Oracle and research Metal casting Quickly.

Personally I think the best Civ leader fr this strategy would be Gandhi (warlords) Phil/Spiritual. With his fast workers and Starting techs BW and Myst you'll be quickly improving you tiles and chopping that Oracle quickly.

Anywayz Happy Warring lol

looks like it could work lol

I'd rather use my GE on the pyramids actually.

A quicker way is CS Slingshot to get civil service via oracle, which will accelerate your research (finish Metal Casting in 4 turns). As you stated, GE = Machinery (almost always) and you can finish Machinery in a few turns (1 - 2).

If you are willing to run a risk of failing, you can accomplish this feat much faster by building the forge in the same city as the Oracle. If you chop/whip the forge, you'll have ~60% chance of popping the GE, and it will arrive nearly twice as fast. If you pop the GE, get a temple built and run a Priest. If you pop the GP first, you'll have another 60% shot at getting the GE again.

If you get unlucky and end up with two GPs, built the Confucianism shrine with one and grab CS with the other. Between Bureaucracy and Shrine income, Machinery will arrive quickly. Alternatively, if you get two GEs, there is always a good use for early GEs.

If you manage to get one of each, you'll have maces much faster than if you split the Oracle and forge.

dutchfire said:

I'd rather use my GE on the pyramids actually.

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Piramids or Conquering an entire conentinent early for yourself to expand on your pace???

kinda hard to choose between the two... but I think you'd be at a much larger advantage if you had an entire continent to yourself then just the piramids

cv431410 said:

A quicker way is CS Slingshot to get civil service via oracle, which will accelerate your research (finish Metal Casting in 4 turns). As you stated, GE = Machinery (almost always) and you can finish Machinery in a few turns (1 - 2).

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Yea I guess you could but on higher levels Monarch and higher it's quite risky delaying the Oracle while you wait to complete researching Codes of law... by that time some otha Civ may have gotten it

A really risky but spectacularly fast way is this:

Research Metal Casting yourself while building the Oracle, then use the Oracle slingshot for Machinery. Then research Code of Laws while the Oracle accumulates its Great Prophet points, and use the GP to lightbulb Civil Service (remember to avoid Masonry.)

BTW, a Great Engineer will always lightbulb Machinery if it's available -- that's the number one tech for that type of Great Person.

Imagine what you can do with Toku in vanilla Civ! Early Samurais, Aggressive & Organized. Go a-conquering and nothing will stop you! This might make Japan the new Rome. Too bad about the starting techs. Unless you start near a lake or a seafood resource they're not that great.

carl corey said:

Imagine what you can do with Toku in vanilla Civ! Early Samurais, Aggressive & Organized. Go a-conquering and nothing will stop you! This might make Japan the new Rome. Too bad about the starting techs. Unless you start near a lake or a seafood resource they're not that great.

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LOL you could do the same with the Vikings in Warlords, the problem is it's generally only truely effective with Philosophical Civs as they can pump out Great People Faster.

No offence or trying to show off carl but just giving you an idea… ( I think I’ve written too much sorry…)

I'd estimate it'd take 50 - 60 turns with a Philosophical Civ to pump out a GP and GE,

GP = Oracle 4GPP per turn 100/4 = 25turns (1st Great Person),
GE = Engineer Specialist 6GPP per turn 200/6 = 34turns (2nd Great Person).

That's only if you split the GPP in seperate cities.

You could get the GE 1st and the GP 2nd but you'd have to build the forge in the 2nd city within 7 turns & Assign a Engineer Specialist, you need at least a pop of two and surplus food. (before the Priest GPP reach 32GPP) if you can time it just right. Then You Could get your GP Quickly (after the GE is born) if you have a Religion (If your Gandhi Phi/Spiritual Starts with Myst) you could build a Temple and Assign a Priest which would Speed up the creation of your GP:

GE= Engineer Specialist 6GPP per turn 100/6 = 17turns (1st Great Person)
GP=Oracle + Priest 10GPP per turn 200/10 = 20 turns (2nd Great Person)

Realistically you’d get the GP Sooner assuming that you built and assigned the Engineer Specialist on the 7th turn, after the GE is born you’d already stored up 96 GPP towards the Great Prophet so it’d actually be:

GP= Oracle +Priest 10GGP per turn (200-96)/10= 11 turns (2nd great person)

This is the fastest way without combining both GP and GE GPP points and relying on chance. Taking 38 turns assuming you finish and assigned a Engineer Specialist on the 7th turn after you completed the Oracle.

You could also build Stonehenge (after the Oracle) for it’s GPP but it’d be difficult and a waste of resources better spent on other things (eg- Barracks, Forges) because you’d have to complete both a temple and Stonehenge between 17th and 38th turn and it’s usually too late to build that wonder at that point in time.

With a Philosophical Civ and combining Both Engineer and Priest Points Together into one City (10GPP per turn) it'd take:

100/10 = 10 turns for the 1st Great Person (actually it'd take a little longer because it's impossible to build a forge and Oracle in the same turn in the same city) 200/10 = 20 turns for the 2nd great person, I'd estimating just over 30 turns to get Maces that way if your lucky enough to get a GP and GE (but two GP and two GE ain’t bad either, with shrine income and religious techs and there's always a use for GEs)

You could build Stonehenge in that same also speed up Great People Being born But I’d personally like to keep the odds 40% GP and 60% GE just because GEs are more useful.

With a non-philosophical Civ It'll take Twice as long so the advantages of early maces is shortened by 50, 40 & 30 turns depending which method you use to get your 1st two Great People, Even if you use an Industrious Civ where you have 50% Production in wonders and Half price forges you'd only Cut the time by 5-10 turns which isn't much, You'd be better off using a Philosophical Civ

The MAIN OBJECTIVE is to over power your rival Civs with technological advance military (Maces) and mow them over before they get Feudalism (longbows) or even Construction (catapults) if your time efficient.

Best Traits for this Strategy?

Philosophical (obviously)
Organized ( Cheap courthouses to whip on the other side of the coninent once you conquer it)
Industrious (Faster Wonder Production and Cheap Forges)

Best Starting Techs?

Primary:
Mysticism
Mining

Secondary:
Fishing
Agriculture
Wheel

Best UU for this Strategy:
Samurais
Berserks
Cho-ku-nus (Machinery – To bad Moa Isn’t Phil/Org In Warlords)
Fast Worker

This strategy would be over-powered if there a Phil/Ind (there never will be one) or a Phil/Org Civ that Starts with Myst & Mining with Maces as a UU LOL.

kniteowl, very good points. I know that without Philosophical it would be harder to obtain an early advantage, AND that forge is going to cost you like mad if you're not Industrial. I was only day-dreaming of a Samurai killing machine.

I can't wait to try this, even with Japan, to see what happens, how much of an advantage if any it would give me. As you've said, it's too bad that Toku isn't going to get a religion too, so you could run a priest in the Oracle city after getting the GE - if you decide to keep pools separated. Oh well.

And don't worry about writing to much. As long as it's well explained and to the point (and it is) I don't mind.

carl corey said:

kniteowl, very good points. I know that without Philosophical it would be harder to obtain an early advantage, AND that forge is going to cost you like mad if you're not Industrial. I was only day-dreaming of a Samurai killing machine.

I can't wait to try this, even with Japan, to see what happens, how much of an advantage if any it would give me. As you've said, it's too bad that Toku isn't going to get a religion too, so you could run a priest in the Oracle city after getting the GE - if you decide to keep pools separated. Oh well.

And don't worry about writing to much. As long as it's well explained and to the point (and it is) I don't mind.

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If your the 1st to research Codes of law and get Conf, you could use the free missionary on your Oracle City

True. Have played some variants lately in which I've always missed getting Confucianism, but, going this way, it is indeed likely that I'll get it before others do.

hey Carl if you want to try Destroying Civs Quickly, Why Don't you try using Alex (Phil/Agg) he doesnt' hav very good starting techs (Fish/Hunt) but you'll still get Maces relatively early and with the Agg trait producing 8.8 Str Maces right out with no Xp, it'd be a walk in the park LOL

I would NEVER burn a great engineer on a tech! What about all of the wonders to be built? Like The Pyramids or The Great Wall? If you have those, save him until you need another one.

wioneo said:

I would NEVER burn a great engineer on a tech! What about all of the wonders to be built? Like The Pyramids or The Great Wall? If you have those, save him until you need another one.

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Would you really choose a wonder over having a technological military advantage that is capable of allowing you to take over your entire continent before the beginning of the industrial age???

Personally if I want to win a game, having more land then your rivals compared to a single wonder is a generally better unless your on a small continent where your stranded.

wioneo said:

I would NEVER burn a great engineer on a tech! What about all of the wonders to be built? Like The Pyramids or The Great Wall? If you have those, save him until you need another one.

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that's the builder in you crying out
it's not just burning a GE on a tech. It's burning a GE on the tech you need for the ultimate weapon of the era.
Somewhere between burning a GE for a conquest win and burning a GE for a happy landgrab.

There is no contest about the pure "GE for pyramids" and "GE for tech", but this one is a killer. If you have copper or iron, of course.

cv431410 said:

A quicker way is CS Slingshot to get civil service via oracle, which will accelerate your research (finish Metal Casting in 4 turns). As you stated, GE = Machinery (almost always) and you can finish Machinery in a few turns (1 - 2).

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Yeah, civil service is the best use for oracle, taking other techs from oracle feels like wasting this wonder.

comrade7, don't let that blind you; as others have said before, waiting to get Civil Service from the Oracle may be too late. On higher levels it's a race between getting a good tech and completing the Oracle before someone takes it from you. Metal Casting is more expensive than Code of Laws and it's also easy to get the prerequisites for. Civil Service is most likely too deep in the tree to get to it in time.

CS slingshot at monarch is doable, but is a gambit (if you're not in a very good situation like floodplains everywhere and 2 river gold mines, you won't have CoL before an AI builds the Oracle)