If you can get it it's almost always the BEST option
Screw expansion, if you have double promoted LBs+Catas you won't even need metal and still get all the land you need, just remember that there's simply no direct counter to archers on offensive (well, okay... war elephants, but they're superior to everything in that era, and they're not a direct counter). Don't forget that you also have the option to trade monarchy, and if you can do a fast slingshot to feudalism you can have a superearly vasall. Have i mentioned that Vassalage is also a nice economy tech when you go to war? With LBs in the ~1400 BCs you can also forget about the catas and simply smack up the AI with double promoted LBs... yes, they're pretty expensive early on, but especially with PRO trait you won't need much of them. They have winning odds vs. flatland citydefenders pretty often, can't be encouraged in the field and, most important, are resourceless (!) which means they can be whipped in conquered cities right away.I don't see too much flaws in offensive LBs, except for the single fact that you HAVE to oracle feudalism (selfteching takes way too long), and that's a gamble on immortal - on deity i wouldn't consider this slingshot, but maybe i'll be proven wrong here some day. You'll need:
a) high commerce right away, preferable 1-2 gold/gems
b) the land, means: high production even without BW because you'll need your beakers elsewhere and in the optimal case food that you won't have to tech for (e.g. you start with agg and have corn)
c) ofc the sorrounding, there's no use in LBs if you'll get overrun by barbs... but on pangea it can be a strong move
d) the right AIs, if there are tons of religious/whonderwhores in game you'll most likely won't be able to hold off the oracle long enough to get feudalism from it. This includes a nearby rushtarget, ofc ... no use in feudalism if there's noone near to fight.
Also, you'll be able to just ignore every warmonger and any kind of threat for a looong time with early double promoted LBs, there's simply nothing before maces show up that'll give LBs a hard time, and you know about the stupidity of the AI when warring ~
I'm not saying that oracling feudalism is any kind of übermove that'll give you essentially the ability to do anything you want, but it can be great in the right circumstances... you shouldn't underestimate it at least
Even if you don't chose to go with LBs as your main attackers, you'll have double promoted swords/cats/elephants - that's a HUGE benefit. Paired with the economical advantage out of vasallage, that makes early wars extremely hammerefficient. And then there's still the ability to bribe AIs on each other with feudalism ... It's hard to pull off, but if you can pull it off it's great. Have done it twice in recent forumgames, which both times resulted in great winning positions. OTOH, if you don't get anything from the oracle you'll be screwed in almost every way, so this is neither a recommended way to use the oracle nor a save way.
@topic: 90% of the time i take alpha, 8%MC and 2% CoL (roughly) ... and sometimes feudalism
. MC only if i want to build colossus (or for X-bow rushes), it's just not a good tech to trade away imo, so using it as a tradebait is something i want to avoid that early. CoL only if i have a UB there, i usually prefer to let the AI tech CoL first for religious hatred. Usually i get CoL pretty late, after music, currency and monarchy - the times where i need CS are extremely rare that early, courthouses are too expensive that early compared to the return you'll get out of them. There are rare cases where i have a huge capital and therefore civil service comes in handy, but beelining it before currency just takes too long..For me it's Alphabet, that way you can get a ridicolous amount of techs very early which makes oracle extremely worthwhile.
