alco75 said:I wasted two hours yesterday trying a CS Slingshot on Prince.The AI built the Oracle about 12 turns before I'd researched CoL.
It's not for the units, but for the economic benefits of Bureaucracy - especially with an Academy in it. It sounds like it took too long to discover CoL. This usually has to be moved along with scientists & an academy for the strategy to work. There's a synergy between running the scientists to create the Academy, and the subsequent economic slingshot of Bur + Academy that is at the heart of this strat. Pull it off on Prince, and as long as you can quickly get a military together (which you can in the uber-capital) you'll have the infrastructure for a tech lead well into the game. Your capital can often blast out settlers every six-or-so turns too with the production boost.
It's not easy at first - I had a few frustrating runs before I understood it, but by trying to master it I learned a lot about the early game. I recommend doing it in test games first, where you're not spending too long on exploring in detail or pondering city placements. If it fails try the same map again and see how it could have been better.
There are several documented examples, on the first AU game over at Apolyton - check out the Apolyton University forum for comparative game DARs with several CS Slingshots fully described.
I think I spent too much time catching up on basic Worker techs before starting on CoL. While I did have two scientists working in the capital's library, I didn't even get half way to 100GP, so perhaps I built the Library too late.
