[BTS] Sitting Bull: Oracle Feudalism?

[Wondercrush89]

Lately I've been practicing using the Oracle to land Feudalism after popping Stonehenge in my capital. Is this ultimately worth doing or is it more efficient to gun for Machinery to get Crossbowman instead?

This is from a game on Monarch, triggered Feudalism at 485 BC

 

[MAvL]

Why are you going for feudalism? Longbow rush? IMO Stonehenge and Oracle sounds way too greedy.

Stonehenge is good if you REX, ie if you have much more than 2 cities. Totemed PRO archers everywhere makes you rush proof (though I don't know about monarch and higher diff level).

Oracle into feudalism into Longbow rush is good if you can build longbow ASAP, which means building a regular totem and possibly a barrack then strait producing Longbows (maybe even don't do a second city).

That being said, dog warrior is formidable at countering Axemen and Swordmen, which are usually Longbow rush counter, so maybe you have more time and can afford to be greedy.

Horse Archer and archers sitting behind a city wall are the only ancient/classical units which stand a chance at scaring crossbows, so they should be really powerfull.

On the other hand, crossbows come significantly later, due to monarchy coming just after priesthood and being cheaper than metal casting. Thus reducing your window of opportunity until AI get to longbows. The other big plus of feodalism is +2XP, meaning you can either skip the barrack and still have lvl2 archers (totem), or have them close to lvl 3 with barrack.

I don't have the experience to tell which one is best, I would say both hav there merit. But since native american also have dog soldiers, I would say crossbows are really useless compared to longbows+a few dog soldiers.

Also, with the map you have, bad food, elephant, close neighbours, I would probably have gone for war elephant rather than longbows. With the possible insertion of REX and stonehenge, I don't know if both or any fit. I guess you went for it consciously since you're practicing a strat, but still, worth mentioning.

 

[ArchGhost]

Going much higher in difficulty will make this Oracle timing much less reliable to pull off, especially going for Stonehenge first. In fact I'm surprised it worked here, on Monarch, but I don't have the timings on this difficulty as familiar in my mind as where I normally play at. 485BC is extremely late for the AI to not build Oracle, and if you have AIs like Pacal or Izzy (the highest propensity to build said wonder of all AIs) in the game that's pretty much not gonna be an option. The map type and sometimes affiliations (lots of split religion) can affect this, with more water heavy maps slowing the AIs down in everything and animosity from religious difference slowing their tech rates, though that only really matters after one of them gets Alphabet.

With this in mind, and the fact that SB is also PHI for easier GS out of Libraries (or even GE if you get Mids or Oracle Metal Casting for a forge instead), Machinery bulb is a much more reliable option, or even the full blown Engineering rush. Crossbows are also slightly better than Longbows on offense as Longbows don't counter anything offensively, whereas PRO Crossbows will do just as well against archery units and wreck anything melee that defends OR tries to counterattack.

Faster Machinery means faster Maces too once you get CS, which are way better than Longbows. Because of their CR promos, the only thing before Cuirs that are better than Maces are Elephants (since they are so quickly gotten by comparison, with only HBR + Construction, and are same base power).

Oracle > Feudalism could be an option if you don't have/don't want to check for Iron (no Xbows then), or if planning to follow up quickly with fast Knights (using GS for Machinery), where Feudalism will also let you capitulate fools earlier. But for longbows alone? Not feeling it as much. And i wouldn't worry too much about Stonehenge either (I assume for the free totems for your longbows?) if it delays expansion or the Oracle. Of course they can do well when all they have is Archers and maybe up to Swords/HA themselves, but they don't have the power to carry you much beyond attacking one or two people (if that) close by, especially with no Construction support. And on that note, Archers alone (especially PRO archers) can do just fine with Catapult backup until you see enemy Longbows, and can attack a bit faster.

It's not that the idea doesn't have merit at all; Absolute Zero on Youtube has shown it can be done even on Deity. It's just it's quite a risk on the Oracle going for a tech that doesn't add as much utility going forward compared to an attack based on different units like Elephants/Xbows/Axes/even archers + Catas, or anything + trebs. I feel like if you were going for an Oracle gambit, Metal Casting or CoL (even CS, if you can manage it) pay off more for the detour of hammers/tech in it.

 

[MAvL]

Oracle > Feudalism could be an option if you don't have/don't want to check for Iron (no Xbows then)

Oh yeah, I completely forgot that Xbow requires iron. That fact alone would make me very reluctant to aim at Xbows with a strategy requiring saccrificing one or two cities for a slingshot. Though I guess Oracle into metal Casting is not too bad even ignoring Xbows.