Martin Alvito
Real men play SMAC
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2010
- Messages
- 2,332
So by now we all know that Scythia is broken six ways from Sunday right now. Since early rush strategies get better the earlier you pull them off (it expands the window where you have a tech lead, and therefore overwhelming force in the field), I decided I'd figure out just how fast I could get the engine up and running.
In order to pull off the rush efficiently we have the following to-do list:
Science
Animal Husbandry (25 Science)
Horseback Riding (120 Science) - Eureka: Build a Pasture
* Mining * (25 Science)
* Bronze Working * (80 Science) - Eureka: Kill three Barbarians
* Mining and Bronze Working are necessary if you only get one unit of Horses, in which case you're going to need an Encampment to train Horsemen.
Depending on how things go, you could need as little as 85 Science or as much as 190 (since you're making a Pasture for the Horses), so this is generally the limiting factor if you fail to find two Horses. You can get the full Eureka on Horseback Riding at any point until you complete research halfway, so you have some time to get a Builder down.
General Science ordering should be: AH -> Horseback Riding if you find two sources of Horses early, and AH -> Mining -> Bronze -> Horseback Riding if not (so you have time to get the Encampment down before you finish Horseback Riding). If you started a Mine/Quarry start without Horses, you may want to go Mining first. Do take advantage of Eurekas and only research halfway if possible on Bronze/Horseback Riding, but be sure to leave enough time to get that Encampment built if necessary.
Civics Tree (Culture)
Code of Laws (20 Culture)
Craftsmanship (40 Culture) - Eureka: Improve 3 tiles
Military Tradition (50 Culture) - Eureka: Clear a Barbarian Outpost
Getting to Military Tradition unlocks the 100% boost policy (Maneuver) for building Horsemen, and trust me when I tell you that you want that. Badly. It's more or less better than anything you can possibly do to accelerate Science in terms of getting the ball rolling, though not dramatically so.
The tricky bit here isn't clearing the Outpost - I'll get to that. The problem is getting three tiles improved fast enough that you don't waste Culture on the Craftsmanship Eureka, because you're on a straight beeline. If you get a Culture bonus by finding a Cultural city-state first or through tile yields then keeping Culture from falling behind Science isn't as large of a problem and you can worry less about the Eurekas.
From a production standpoint that implies that we need the following:
Production
Scout: Yes, you can get a Scout from a hut and it's amazing. But huts are scarce and you can't depend on them, so you're kind of stuck at least starting a Scout build unless you want to save scum.
Builder: As noted, you need this fairly early in order to pop the Craftsmanship Eureka in order to avoid wasting Culture. As you add Culture bonuses this becomes more of a problem to pull off but it also becomes less pressing because you clear the Culture you need naturally even without Eurekas.
Slinger: The Archery Eureka isn't strictly necessary, but these are useful to lure a Spearman out of its camp to its doom for the Military Tradition Eureka. Your starting Warrior and a Slinger can clear an outpost easily enough. If you put the Slinger two tiles out, the Spearman will come out to hit it. Ideally, you lure the Spearman onto rough terrain, then pound it with the Warrior and Slinger. The Spearman runs, you hunt it down with the Warrior while popping the camp with the Slinger, problem solved. You can still get the job done with the Warrior and Slinger even if the Slinger has to absorb a hit, it's just a bit messier.
Generally speaking, this is the third build. As you add AIs that are all up in your face on Deity and barb encampments that you haven't cleared, you'll want more of these (possibly as the second build to clear a nearby encampment) and you'll want to upgrade them in order to deal with all the Warriors that will be coming your way.
*Settler*: You don't strictly speaking need to found a second city, but it's one way to get the second Horse tile and dodge the need for an Encampment. Or the first, if you aren't rerolling for Horses. It is possible to steal these , but it's not all that common to have your Scout/Warrior get into a good steal spot early (basic units come online slower than CiV and they move slower), so you can't bank on it.
*Encampment*: If you didn't get the second set of Horses on the map, you're stuck building this guy. Unless you get a weird Science start like I had one time starting four tiles from the Galapagos Islands (where I was able to see the tile yields after the Warrior went west), needing this slows things down a lot.
*Monument*: If you can get any kind of a Science bonus going from tiles or city-states and lack a Culture bonus, you're going to want to push Culture a little faster to keep up. In general Culture isn't the limiting factor and I don't build this.
Stables would be really nice to have, especially as map size expands, but aren't strictly speaking necessary. If you want them enough to slow down given your settings, your best bet is probably to disband one or both of the first pair of Horses you build and buy it. You're eventually going to be forced to disband some Horses just to stay in front of the gold degen from unit maintenance, so be aware of that.
Other Stuff
Luxuries: If you get Camp/Mine luxuries, sell them to your first victim then kill them dead to get them back. The AI isn't as stupid about this as it used to be in CiV; it'll give you some money to fund early development, but a lot less than it used to.
Civics: I haven't settled on whether Survey is better than Discipline. Scouts suck until you get them their first promotion, at which point they become quite good. However, healing is slow so unless you kill the target (say, you find a mostly dead Barb Scout and off it) you're stuck healing for a while which sort of negates the movement advantages. As with Stables, Survey probably gets better as the map size grows larger.
I will say that God King isn't worth it for this approach unless you pop a Faith hut, in which case it becomes quite good for pushing extra Culture from Pastures. You're looking to get this machine up and running between turns 30 and 40 and you don't really need Faith, so the only real utility of a Pantheon is some Culture acceleration or a mild production boost on units that you already spit out like crazy anyway.
City-states: Scientific is usually amazing if you can find them first or quest them to a single Envoy, and Cultural is highly useful. Trade and Militaristic are OK. Industrial and Religious are pretty useless.
Special tiles: Similarly, Science tiles from Natural Wonders are fantastic and Cultural tiles are pretty good. Whether or not you want to run a Science/Cultural yield luxury usually depends on how good the underlying tile is.
What tiles to work: In general, it's still the case that you want to push size 2 hard. After that it gets a little more complicated. I find that if you have some crazy 4/5 Food tile then you generally want to work it, then focus on better tiles like 2 Food/2 Production tiles. If you have a bunch of 3/1s then that's a somewhat less efficient way to get growth, but it still gets you there. Gold is completely useless due to the disband ratios, so you never want to produce it unless it's a byproduct of working an otherwise good tile.
It's worth slowing growth down to get Science or Culture if (but only if) they're going to limit you. Once you trip Horseback Riding/Military Tradition, you'll want to push production as hard as you can without starving. Growth is fairly unnecessary; either Amenities or Housing is going to wreck your day on that front anyway, so once you get to around size 4-5 (depending on your situation) you may as well just eliminate growth and push hammers to spam Horses. Eventually you may want to switch back to growing, but during the spam period you're probably just making life harder for yourself.
Execution:
Once the engine is online, spam Horsemen and kill as many civs as you can until you can't. At the end of this sequence, you should have a winning position. Use unit kills to keep your own units healthy. Disband a Horse unit if your treasury is running out. In general, it's about as braindead as Companion Cavalry rush was in the release version of CiV.
Keep in mind that (at least in the initial release) the disband formula means that you should never build anything other than Horsemen in any city that can build them. You get 320 gold for disbanding both units, which is equivalent to the 80 production invested. What breaks this is that Maneuver doubles your hammers when you're producing light cavalry, so you're effectively doubling your production AND permitting yourself to export it to any other city while you're at it. Which is clearly unfair, so don't be surprised when this gets patched out in the near future.
Enjoy the laughably easy win(s). It's not as blatantly unfair as cooking the settings such that you beat Kongo via religion...but it's still a ludicrously easy win right now even on Deity and it's the strongest evidence that the balance situation is not currently in a good place. (The AI is a separate problem.)
In order to pull off the rush efficiently we have the following to-do list:
Science
Animal Husbandry (25 Science)
Horseback Riding (120 Science) - Eureka: Build a Pasture
* Mining * (25 Science)
* Bronze Working * (80 Science) - Eureka: Kill three Barbarians
* Mining and Bronze Working are necessary if you only get one unit of Horses, in which case you're going to need an Encampment to train Horsemen.
Depending on how things go, you could need as little as 85 Science or as much as 190 (since you're making a Pasture for the Horses), so this is generally the limiting factor if you fail to find two Horses. You can get the full Eureka on Horseback Riding at any point until you complete research halfway, so you have some time to get a Builder down.
General Science ordering should be: AH -> Horseback Riding if you find two sources of Horses early, and AH -> Mining -> Bronze -> Horseback Riding if not (so you have time to get the Encampment down before you finish Horseback Riding). If you started a Mine/Quarry start without Horses, you may want to go Mining first. Do take advantage of Eurekas and only research halfway if possible on Bronze/Horseback Riding, but be sure to leave enough time to get that Encampment built if necessary.
Civics Tree (Culture)
Code of Laws (20 Culture)
Craftsmanship (40 Culture) - Eureka: Improve 3 tiles
Military Tradition (50 Culture) - Eureka: Clear a Barbarian Outpost
Getting to Military Tradition unlocks the 100% boost policy (Maneuver) for building Horsemen, and trust me when I tell you that you want that. Badly. It's more or less better than anything you can possibly do to accelerate Science in terms of getting the ball rolling, though not dramatically so.
The tricky bit here isn't clearing the Outpost - I'll get to that. The problem is getting three tiles improved fast enough that you don't waste Culture on the Craftsmanship Eureka, because you're on a straight beeline. If you get a Culture bonus by finding a Cultural city-state first or through tile yields then keeping Culture from falling behind Science isn't as large of a problem and you can worry less about the Eurekas.
From a production standpoint that implies that we need the following:
Production
Scout: Yes, you can get a Scout from a hut and it's amazing. But huts are scarce and you can't depend on them, so you're kind of stuck at least starting a Scout build unless you want to save scum.
Builder: As noted, you need this fairly early in order to pop the Craftsmanship Eureka in order to avoid wasting Culture. As you add Culture bonuses this becomes more of a problem to pull off but it also becomes less pressing because you clear the Culture you need naturally even without Eurekas.
Slinger: The Archery Eureka isn't strictly necessary, but these are useful to lure a Spearman out of its camp to its doom for the Military Tradition Eureka. Your starting Warrior and a Slinger can clear an outpost easily enough. If you put the Slinger two tiles out, the Spearman will come out to hit it. Ideally, you lure the Spearman onto rough terrain, then pound it with the Warrior and Slinger. The Spearman runs, you hunt it down with the Warrior while popping the camp with the Slinger, problem solved. You can still get the job done with the Warrior and Slinger even if the Slinger has to absorb a hit, it's just a bit messier.
Generally speaking, this is the third build. As you add AIs that are all up in your face on Deity and barb encampments that you haven't cleared, you'll want more of these (possibly as the second build to clear a nearby encampment) and you'll want to upgrade them in order to deal with all the Warriors that will be coming your way.
*Settler*: You don't strictly speaking need to found a second city, but it's one way to get the second Horse tile and dodge the need for an Encampment. Or the first, if you aren't rerolling for Horses. It is possible to steal these , but it's not all that common to have your Scout/Warrior get into a good steal spot early (basic units come online slower than CiV and they move slower), so you can't bank on it.
*Encampment*: If you didn't get the second set of Horses on the map, you're stuck building this guy. Unless you get a weird Science start like I had one time starting four tiles from the Galapagos Islands (where I was able to see the tile yields after the Warrior went west), needing this slows things down a lot.
*Monument*: If you can get any kind of a Science bonus going from tiles or city-states and lack a Culture bonus, you're going to want to push Culture a little faster to keep up. In general Culture isn't the limiting factor and I don't build this.
Stables would be really nice to have, especially as map size expands, but aren't strictly speaking necessary. If you want them enough to slow down given your settings, your best bet is probably to disband one or both of the first pair of Horses you build and buy it. You're eventually going to be forced to disband some Horses just to stay in front of the gold degen from unit maintenance, so be aware of that.
Other Stuff
Luxuries: If you get Camp/Mine luxuries, sell them to your first victim then kill them dead to get them back. The AI isn't as stupid about this as it used to be in CiV; it'll give you some money to fund early development, but a lot less than it used to.
Civics: I haven't settled on whether Survey is better than Discipline. Scouts suck until you get them their first promotion, at which point they become quite good. However, healing is slow so unless you kill the target (say, you find a mostly dead Barb Scout and off it) you're stuck healing for a while which sort of negates the movement advantages. As with Stables, Survey probably gets better as the map size grows larger.
I will say that God King isn't worth it for this approach unless you pop a Faith hut, in which case it becomes quite good for pushing extra Culture from Pastures. You're looking to get this machine up and running between turns 30 and 40 and you don't really need Faith, so the only real utility of a Pantheon is some Culture acceleration or a mild production boost on units that you already spit out like crazy anyway.
City-states: Scientific is usually amazing if you can find them first or quest them to a single Envoy, and Cultural is highly useful. Trade and Militaristic are OK. Industrial and Religious are pretty useless.
Special tiles: Similarly, Science tiles from Natural Wonders are fantastic and Cultural tiles are pretty good. Whether or not you want to run a Science/Cultural yield luxury usually depends on how good the underlying tile is.
What tiles to work: In general, it's still the case that you want to push size 2 hard. After that it gets a little more complicated. I find that if you have some crazy 4/5 Food tile then you generally want to work it, then focus on better tiles like 2 Food/2 Production tiles. If you have a bunch of 3/1s then that's a somewhat less efficient way to get growth, but it still gets you there. Gold is completely useless due to the disband ratios, so you never want to produce it unless it's a byproduct of working an otherwise good tile.
It's worth slowing growth down to get Science or Culture if (but only if) they're going to limit you. Once you trip Horseback Riding/Military Tradition, you'll want to push production as hard as you can without starving. Growth is fairly unnecessary; either Amenities or Housing is going to wreck your day on that front anyway, so once you get to around size 4-5 (depending on your situation) you may as well just eliminate growth and push hammers to spam Horses. Eventually you may want to switch back to growing, but during the spam period you're probably just making life harder for yourself.
Execution:
Once the engine is online, spam Horsemen and kill as many civs as you can until you can't. At the end of this sequence, you should have a winning position. Use unit kills to keep your own units healthy. Disband a Horse unit if your treasury is running out. In general, it's about as braindead as Companion Cavalry rush was in the release version of CiV.
Keep in mind that (at least in the initial release) the disband formula means that you should never build anything other than Horsemen in any city that can build them. You get 320 gold for disbanding both units, which is equivalent to the 80 production invested. What breaks this is that Maneuver doubles your hammers when you're producing light cavalry, so you're effectively doubling your production AND permitting yourself to export it to any other city while you're at it. Which is clearly unfair, so don't be surprised when this gets patched out in the near future.
Enjoy the laughably easy win(s). It's not as blatantly unfair as cooking the settings such that you beat Kongo via religion...but it's still a ludicrously easy win right now even on Deity and it's the strongest evidence that the balance situation is not currently in a good place. (The AI is a separate problem.)
