Delayed Caste System

[Artichoker]

Even with the 1st GS spent on Philosophy, though, I see one scenario where delayed caste system may do better than non-delayed.

Say, for example, you wanted to win the Music race, but with minimal risk. Then to open the Philosophy bulb you take Drama instead of Code of Laws. Once Drama is finished (hopefully you've timed your 1st GS to come out at the same time), whip out a Theatre in a border city and switch to Pacifism (the 2nd civic in the pair is yet to be discussed). Then run 2 scientists and 2 artists in the border city. With Pacifism, it should come out in 9 turns. During the last few turns, if no one has Music yet, tech Literature.

Now, there are 3 possiblities:

1) You get a Great Scientist. In this case, proceed with the game plan you would have taken had you not tried this gambit.

2) You get a Great Artist, and no one has Music yet. Now is your chance to reap your reward. Since Music is only 3rd on the preferences list, after Literature and Drama, you move it up to 1st by teching Literature. You can bulb Music and get another Great Artist for free, effectively gaining yourself a free tech.

3) You get a Great Artist, but someone already has Music. This is the worst case scenario...but it's not that bad, actually, as you can save the Great Artist for a Golden Age.


Now, the tricky part is deciding which civic to use instead of Caste System. If there are some fast-teching AI neighbors, you might be able to gain Feudalism in trade, opening up Vassalage. The default option is Hereditary Rule, which you can unlock by trading for Monarchy.

Once you have Music, you can use it as trade fodder to get some more useful techs, while keeping your free Great Artist ready to start a Golden Age when the time is right.

Willem van Orange may be the best leader for this strat. Creative gives cheap Libraries and Theaters, and Financial gives a head start in the early tech race. Plus, more cottages means less whipping on average, so Slavery will not be as big. That means delaying Slavery until Pacifism may not be a bad decision after all.

Now, there is a variation on the number of specialists you run in your Theater city. Instead of 2 scientists + 2 artists, you could also do 1 scientist + 2 artists. This would have the effect of increasing the probability of popping a GA from 1/2 to 2/3, but the drawback would be to lengthen the time to finish the GP from 9 turns to 12 turns. Both variations could be used in different situations, depending on the level of risk of the AI stealing the Music race.

 

[Artichoker]

Willem van Orange may be the best leader for this strat. Creative gives cheap Libraries and Theaters, and Financial gives a head start in the early tech race. Plus, more cottages means less whipping on average, so Slavery will not be as big. That means delaying Slavery until Pacifism may not be a bad decision after all.

Now, there is a variation on the number of specialists you run in your Theater city. Instead of 2 scientists + 2 artists, you could also do 1 scientist + 2 artists. This would have the effect of increasing the probability of popping a GA from 1/2 to 2/3, but the drawback would be to lengthen the time to finish the GP from 9 turns to 12 turns. Both variations could be used in different situations, depending on the level of risk of the AI stealing the Music race.

I'll try to post a demo game for this strat sometime soon...although I don't promise to finish.

Pericles (PHI + CRE) is another good one to try besides Willem van Orange (FIN + CRE).

 

[Artichoker]

I'll try to post a demo game for this strat sometime soon...although I don't promise to finish.

Pericles (PHI + CRE) is another good one to try besides Willem van Orange (FIN + CRE).

Here is the game (Deity/Fractal/Normal):

Spoiler :

3 mini-phases:

1) pre-pacifism, while waiting for religion...run 2 artists

2) during pacifism, when Music race is safe...run 2 artists

3) during pacifism, when Music race is contested...run 2 artists + 2 scientists





Great Library in capital, built with the help of Marble trade w/Wang Kon.



Music race result.

Now time to return to the Boudica game...

 

[The Rook]

@Artichoker

Interesting play!

 

[Artichoker]

@Artichoker

Interesting play!

There are other ways to win the Music race, of course...1) Caste/Pacifism may work, but this requires you to get Code of Laws, Drama, and Literature--which may be difficult if AIs are unwilling to trade those techs, 2) Normal research, but this poses a high risk if you lose the race.

 

[Artichoker]

Pericles (CRE + PHI) may actually do better than Willem (CRE + FIN) with Delayed Caste System in general. Although the former may be a bit slower leading up to the Drama beeline--due to the lack of the Financial trait--the Philosophical trait can easily compensate for the following reasons:

1) The 2nd Great Person is less dependent on Pacifism. When racing for the Music bulb, this becomes a significant factor because the prerequisites of the Philosophy bulb (Meditation, Alphabet, and Mathematics) are no longer critical. The inherent +100% bonus from PHI alone may be enough to speed up the Great Artist.

2) The 2 scientist slots provided by the Library will easily be sufficient during the period leading up to the Golden Age (i.e., no need for extra buildings such as the Market to boost specialist slot capacity). This is because 6 base GPP with +200% bonus is equivalent to 9 base GPP with +100% bonus.

3) The hammer bonus for Universities will give a signficant advantage in bringing up Oxford University.


I will try to get a similar demo game up with Pericles (apologies to those following my other series!).

 

[Artichoker]

1) The 2nd Great Person is less dependent on Pacifism. When racing for the Music bulb, this becomes a significant factor because the prerequisites of the Philosophy bulb (Meditation, Alphabet, and Mathematics) are no longer critical. The inherent +100% bonus from PHI alone may be enough to speed up the Great Artist.

Correction...Mathematics is still required, as it is a prerequisite of Music. However, Alphabet and Meditation are not necessary.


Here is the Pericles game, with slightly different settings (Deity/Continents/Normal):

Spoiler :

Like Willem van Orange, Pericles is also CRE. So there is a +100% production bonus with Libraries and Theatres. But he is PHI instead of FIN...this means a slower tech advance on the Drama beeline. The advantage is that we don't need Pacifism to speed up GPP rate for the Great Artist (although we can certainly use it later).



Since Libraries were available before Theatres, the 1st GP farm (the capital) got a head start towards generating the 1st Great Scientist. Since I wanted a Great Artist instead, I temporarily stopped GPP flow in the capital in favor of cottages and other high-yield tiles.



Mathematics is a mandatory prerequisite of Music, as well as several other techs. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to trade for Mathematics at the time I needed it. So I researched it instead--which slowed down the timing the Music bulb by about 6 turns.



I traded Drama and Literature to Montezuma for Calendar + some gold. From the tech screen, it is obvious that he is ahead in tech, benefiting from an early Philosophy bulb. Since I won't be able to get a monopoly on Philosophy, I may in fact depend more on Music for its trade potential.

Also, this game is different from the previous one in that it is on a Continents map, so there are 3 AIs that haven't been met yet. When going for the Music race, it is important to monitor the tech progress of the AIs. If using normal research, it is essential to see the tech progress of the AIs in the tech screen...but this is not possible if you haven't met some of the AIs yet. Using a bulb approach instead avoids this problem because you can simply monitor whether a Great Artist has been generated somewhere--thus signalling the end of the Music race. If that Great Artist hasn't arrived, it means that the Music race is still on and you can use your Great Artist to bulb Music and gain another Great Artist.



A map of the current layout of the territory. City placement is not optimal, but I have settled 6 cities with access to many resources, including Stone. Because I was reluctant to settle too close to Shaka, some resources in my territory cannot be worked at the moment (e.g., the plains Cow, Copper, and Iron). The good news, though, is that Shaka chose Churchill as his first target in war.

 

[Artichoker]

More comments on the demo.

Spoiler :

The current territory setup still allows settling a 7th city at 1NW of the grassland Iron, just in the right location to gain access to the coast and a fresh water lake, while being able to share 1 Fur and 1 Grassland Cow. There is also room for a possible 8th city on the western border with Shaka to work a single flood plains, but this city would have limited productivity (unless I can push the cultural borders via culture gain or war).

Since cultural borders with Shaka are tight (and he is currently at war with someone else), I may consider the option of settling the Great Artist instead of using it for a Golden Age. There are 2 advantages of doing this: 1) I will have a chance of gaining more culture, allowing me to productively settle an 8th city on the border with Shaka. 2) I will be able to afford generating a 3rd Great Artist for a Golden Age. If I settle the Great Artist, I will probably decide to settle it in the 8th city rather than the capital, so that it can have greater impact on the critical tile culture.

 

[Artichoker]

Since cultural borders with Shaka are tight (and he is currently at war with someone else), I may consider the option of settling the Great Artist instead of using it for a Golden Age. There are 2 advantages of doing this: 1) I will have a chance of gaining more culture, allowing me to productively settle an 8th city on the border with Shaka. 2) I will be able to afford generating a 3rd Great Artist for a Golden Age. If I settle the Great Artist, I will probably decide to settle it in the 8th city rather than the capital, so that it can have greater impact on the critical tile culture.

And while we're still on the topic of culture buildup, I might as well take the time to recommend using Zara (CRE + ORG) for this strategy as well. Although ORG does not stack up to FIN or PHI in terms of speeding up the Music bulb, the civic bonus alone does provide about half (according to my count) of the income gain of FIN, at this approximate point in the game. The real synergy, though, is the Stele (UB replacement for Monument), which provides a +25% culture bonus that combines well with the base culture from the settled Great Artist and cheap culture buildings.

 

[Artichoker]

I decided to continue with the game. (commentary added)

Spoiler :

Because Shaka was winning the war against Churchill and already captured a city, I made a deal with him to stop the war, to prevent vassalization of Churchill, while picking up some spare change in the deal.



Here is the "8th city" I mentioned in my earlier post...although it is actually my 7th city, as I have not yet settled a city next to the Iron. I decided to settle the Great Artist in this city for a few reasons:

1) I didn't anticipate starting a Golden Age anytime soon. The combined bonuses of PHI and Pacifism would carry my GPP rate for quite some time, and keeping the Great Artist idle for the Golden Age would give me no gain in the interim.

2) The 3 from the Great Artist would make a decent showing as an early GP, which is half the amount of a Great Merchant.

3) The location of the 8th city made it ideal for housing a settled Great Artist. This location would maximize the effect of the 12 . After not too long, Shaka's nearest city on the western border will be exposed to my own culture, allowing for a lightning fast attack on that city, when the time finally comes.




The capital at 450 AD. Notice the following:

1) Culture bonuses from the Library and Theater have doubled already.

2) The main function of the Market at this point in time is to provide specialist slots. Apart from that, the timing of Currency made it a convenient building to work on at that time, with only minimal help from a chopped forest (1 forest chopped).

3) If, by small chance, the next GP is a Great Merchant, it can be used for a trade mission that will provide bonus gold for unit upgrades and research. If this gold is spent after Oxford is built, the research benefit will be enhanced.

4) The abundance of forests at this point in the game help counteract the negative health impact of flood plains.



The tech screen...I am not used to following this tech path, as I typically trade for Feudalism quite early. Since Shaka and Montezuma have hidden bonuses with each other, they are both Friendly with each other, but their tech trade threshold is the lowest for non-Friendly status.

If I am fortunate enough, Churchill will be able to research either Guilds or Engineering in the near future, allowing me to trade for one of them.

For some strange reason, both Shaka and Montezuma got Music without my help. I'm almost sure that it wasn't stolen, as there is no log message that says so. The only explanation seems to be that one of them researched the tech. If that is so, then the Music bulb paid off by slowing down their tech progress.

 

[Artichoker]

Recently, my games have taken on a "Delayed Slavery" approach, in which Caste System is adopted before Slavery.

How does it work? Even though Code of Laws comes well after Bronze Working in the tech tree, there can be many reasons to preserve extra population in our cities. When we preserve extra population in our cities, we have the potential to produce more hammers, food, commerce, or gpp.

Why would we want to delay Slavery? Well, it's basically the same reason we would want to delay Caste System. In a normal speed game, we can essentially save one turn of anarchy each time we make two intended civics switches at once. Every time we make a civics switch involving a single civic, we miss the opportunity to make an additional civics switch at the same time.

Both Caste System and Slavery operate on the concept of allocating population. Slavery is a means for us to spend our population, whereas Caste System is a means to employ our population. By having unlimited specialist slots, we have less need for workers, as each new extra population can immediately become a specialist, provided there is enough food. This ability is extremely useful in cases where our cities are close to each other.

Whipping during Slavery operates on a principle similar to "potential energy", where higher population represents higher potential energy. The act of whipping a city expends that city's potential energy. This means that each city's capacity to whip is limited. If we are fresh from a long period of population growth under Caste System, then our cities will have high potential energy to whip during Slavery. This means that the transition from Caste System to Slavery at a later point in the game comes with strong effect.

Any trait that allows us to save hammers in the early game gives us opportunities for delaying Slavery, thereby opening up the possibility of saving a turn of anarchy by switching directly into Caste System. The Creative trait is one example, as it allows us to save a signifcant amount of hammers on Monuments and Libraries.

 

[Grashopa]

Skipping bronze working saves a lot of beakers as well. In the last immortal cookbook game with Washington we had a 14+ food city, so I went straight to caste pacifism in order to generate Great Scientists for bulbing out to liberalism, and then Great Merchants for upgrading my Horse Archers to cavalry. I could then switch to slavery and whip cavalry out at that point. Or if I've workshopped enough I trade for chemistry and stay in caste.

 

[Earthling]

It's a bonus that came with Beyond the Sword. Most of the people on this forum are familiar with Beyond the Sword.


Looking back, it was a good rule change because Caste System was a much weaker civic in earlier versions. Not only did Caste System lack the +1 hammer bonus, but Golden Ages also didn't provide anarchy-free civic switches, before BTS.

Now that the rule changes have been made to Caste System and Golden Ages, Caste System is a very powerful civic in BTS.

It was actually a kinda poor change (and the Golden Age change is also disappointing in the end, because it messed with the Spiritual trait unduly) but not worth worrying too much about. Caste System was never a weak civic - it was at least at good as Emancipation and most likely better, and compared to other civic categories it was always quite solid.

It was that Slavery was and remains overpowered, and this didn't fix that problem at all - it only created a further problem with workshops and State Problem which was also a bit of an overpowered strategy to start (the introduction of corporations did help quite a bit here though)

 

[Artichoker]

Skipping bronze working saves a lot of beakers as well. In the last immortal cookbook game with Washington we had a 14+ food city, so I went straight to caste pacifism in order to generate Great Scientists for bulbing out to liberalism, and then Great Merchants for upgrading my Horse Archers to cavalry. I could then switch to slavery and whip cavalry out at that point. Or if I've workshopped enough I trade for chemistry and stay in caste.

Expansive has excellent synergy with Delayed Slavery, even more than Creative. I didn't realize it until after I used it with Zara Yaqob. Although Creative helps with establishing culture and building libraries, Expansive is better in the long term because of the +2 health bonus. And once a switch to Caste System has been made, libraries become less important.

Creative is flexible though, in that it helps when using both Delayed Slavery and Delayed Caste System approaches. The big help is that the 1st switch into either Slavery or Caste System can be combined with a switch into another civic (such as Hereditary Rule).

Expansive perhaps doesn't contribute as many early bonus hammers as Creative does, but the long term benefit from extra health has excellent synergy with Delayed Slavery. It doesn't have as much synergy with Delayed Caste System, though, because whipping tends to keep down population levels, thus reducing the benefit from the bonus health.

It was actually a kinda poor change (and the Golden Age change is also disappointing in the end, because it messed with the Spiritual trait unduly) but not worth worrying too much about. Caste System was never a weak civic - it was at least at good as Emancipation and most likely better, and compared to other civic categories it was always quite solid.

It was that Slavery was and remains overpowered, and this didn't fix that problem at all - it only created a further problem with workshops and State Problem which was also a bit of an overpowered strategy to start (the introduction of corporations did help quite a bit here though)

There's a bright side, however...the changes from BTS gave each civic a better chance to shine, at some point in the game. Though the effectiveness of each one was not reduced, the usage of each one is better balanced in BTS, I believe.

 

[Ichabod]

Artichoker,

In my current game, whose settings are deity, standard size, normal speed, fractal (ended up being a crowded pangea map) with mehmed, I decided to give the delayed slavery strategy a go.

It's my first time doing it, since I always revolt to slavery early, to get the 3rd or 4th settler faster, so I may need to test it some more. But I'd like to share my early conclusions and doubts.

Early game, I mostly use the whip to rush settlers, monuments (if not creative), granaries and libraries. So, waiting to revolt to slavery ends up making building these things slower, so we have to compare the cost of one turn of anarchy with the cost of the mentioned delays.

Not being able to whip settlers is risky, because you risk losing key spots to the AI by doing so. You can always chop some forests to help, but this will depend on the start and you'll be forgoing the bonus health, wich, otherwise you could keep. Also, you'll be losing some hammers by chopping pre-mathematics, if you could keep the forests until then.

But that doesn't mean you won't be able to have a good number of cities without slavery. Trying to block land will be more important (wich is also made harder due to slower monuments).

Slowing down the library build means a slower 1st GP. Since I tend to use the first Great Scientist for an academy, that's some turns without having the 50% benefit. But that implies the way wich I tend to play, by having the second or 3rd city generate the 1st GP, while the capital focus on worker/settler production. You can always build the library (wich is advisable even if you're not running the scientists specialists) in the capital and run the scientists there, while using other cities to produce worker/settlers. And you can also plan your second city accordingly, planning to chop the library as soon as possible to start running the scientists.

A "no academy" approach is also in order, using the first GP to bulb philosophy or getting a GA first to bulb music, like you did.

But, what seems to be the worst about delaying slavery is that it makes you waste potential hammers due to a small happy cap. You won't be able to grow your cities very large before HR So, you need to stagnate your cities, wich emplies not working the food special tiles most of the time. That means you are wasting early hammers from slavery, wich could be use to whip basic infrastructure on your first cities (monument/granary/library).

A possible counter to this is having early happiness resources or researching Monarchy faster (wich also means you'll be adopting slavery with the same anarchy period), something I'm not used to do. Maybe you could go after Aesthetics (IMO, almost a must on deity for alphabet and Iron working trades, maybe mathematics if you're lucky), but that means delaying currency/risking the music race, if you planned to go that way.

So, I'm not sure if the benefits of delaying slavery offset the ones of adopting it early. But I have to try it some more.

 

[TheWilltoAct]

Interesting analysis Ichabod. I think you may have made a typo, which I attempted to bold.
(I think you may have meant build the library "in the capital.")

Slowing down the library build means a slower 1st GP. Since I tend to use the first Great Scientist for an academy, that's some turns without having the 50% benefit. But that implies the way wich I tend to play, by having the second or 3rd city generate the 1st GP, while the capital focus on worker/settler production. You can always build the library (<snip>) on the library and run the scientists there, while using other cities to produce worker/settlers. And you can also plan your second city accordingly, planning to chop the library as soon as possible to start running the scientists.

 

[Artichoker]

But, what seems to be the worst about delaying slavery is that it makes you waste potential hammers due to a small happy cap. You won't be able to grow your cities very large before HR So, you need to stagnate your cities, wich emplies not working the food special tiles most of the time. That means you are wasting early hammers from slavery, wich could be use to whip basic infrastructure on your first cities (monument/granary/library).

A possible counter to this is having early happiness resources or researching Monarchy faster (wich also means you'll be adopting slavery with the same anarchy period), something I'm not used to do. Maybe you could go after Aesthetics (IMO, almost a must on deity for alphabet and Iron working trades, maybe mathematics if you're lucky), but that means delaying currency/risking the music race, if you planned to go that way.

There are 4 basic solutions:

1) Try to get Monarchy, as you suggested.

2) Try to chop a Library in critical cities that really need it. Then while stagnating, use the extra food to support more specialists.

3) Use the extra food while stagnating to help produce Workers and Settlers.

4) Build your cities closer to each other, enabling them to share food resources.

 

[Artichoker]

A possible counter to this is having early happiness resources or researching Monarchy faster (wich also means you'll be adopting slavery with the same anarchy period), something I'm not used to do. Maybe you could go after Aesthetics (IMO, almost a must on deity for alphabet and Iron working trades, maybe mathematics if you're lucky), but that means delaying currency/risking the music race, if you planned to go that way.

I think early Monarchy is a good idea, as it helps both Delayed Slavery and Delayed Caste System strategies. But I recommend trading for it, rather than researching it, in most cases.

If you have early Monarchy, then the choice is very open whether to use Delayed Slavery or Delayed Caste System. With Delayed Caste System, your target civics for the 1st switch are usually Hereditary Rule + Slavery, whereas with Delayed Slavery, your target civics for the 1st switch are usually Hereditary Rule + Pacifism.

This means that Delayed Slavery usually involves going for an early Philosophy bulb and switch into Pacifism (or early Music bulb when using a Philosophical leader). On the other hand, Delayed Caste System doesn't try to go for early GP Farming since the idea is to utilize whipping from the time you switch to Hereditary Rule + Slavery.

 

[Ichabod]

@TheWilltoAct:

Yes, you're right. Thanks!

There are 4 basic solutions:
4) Build your cities closer to each other, enabling them to share food resources.

Never thought of doing this, it's indeed a very nice suggestion.

About trading for monarchy: Again, you're right. My problem is that I tend to delay going for priesthood or monotheism, so I miss a lot of good oportunities to trade for it.

But, while using delayed slavery, if your first switch is to HR + pacifism, wich specialists are you going to run, since you aren't adopting caste system? 2 scientists from libraries are okay. But building markets is difficult in non-capital cities without slavery. Theaters may be easier, but it makes it likely to get a GA (well, you can always use it for a golden age for a vassalage + caste switch).

Maybe the extra GPP generation for using makes running 2 scientists in a couple of cities enough to get you to liberalism first. Again, I need to test it.

 

[Artichoker]

Glad to see that this strategy has generated some interest...

Never thought of doing this, it's indeed a very nice suggestion.

This approach has additional synergy with Caste System, as specialists do not occupy any tiles.

About trading for monarchy: Again, you're right. My problem is that I tend to delay going for priesthood or monotheism, so I miss a lot of good oportunities to trade for it.

There are two good opportunities to trade for Monarchy: 1) using Aesthetics, and 2) using Drama or Code of Laws.

But, while using delayed slavery, if your first switch is to HR + pacifism, wich specialists are you going to run, since you aren't adopting caste system? 2 scientists from libraries are okay. But building markets is difficult in non-capital cities without slavery. Theaters may be easier, but it makes it likely to get a GA (well, you can always use it for a golden age for a vassalage + caste switch).

One of the reasons to combine Hereditary Rule and Pacifism into the 1st switch is that you still have allowance of making the 2nd switch, allowing another switch into Caste System and Bureaucracy or Vassalage. There is usually no need to burn a GP this early towards a Golden Age, as GPs are still cheap enough to gain through light GP Farming.

However, if you are slow in starting Caste System, or have reasons to use Serfdom, then you can try bulbing Music with a Great Artist to win another Great Artist. To do this, you can build a Theatre in addition to a Library in your first GP Farm. In this GP Farm, the combination of 2 scientist slots and 2 artist slots gives you 4 slots total. As long as the Music race is still open, popping a Great Artist poses no danger, and is actually your preferred outcome, since you can use it to bulb Music and win another Great Artist. And of course, popping a Great Scientist is no harm at this stage of the game.

Maybe the extra GPP generation for using makes running 2 scientists in a couple of cities enough to get you to liberalism first. Again, I need to test it.

You almost never need to wait that long before a switch into Caste System is naturally available. After all, the 1 turn of anarchy saved earlier puts you ahead in terms of anarchy turns.