The Alphabet Trick

[yatta77]

pretty much go straight for Alphabet to back-trade for everything else

IMHO this is not completely wrong.

I can confirm that, standard settings, you can get a decent % of victories this way in Emperor.

Probably this doesn't make it as remunerative as other strategies, neither a good strategy to adopt for the majority of the players, and likely teaching the game it might not be the best approach so not worth be included in a basic guideline. But, academically talking, it is far from being completely illogical IMO.

That said, maximum respect for who spends his time writing tutorials to explain the game to others, in the most possible generic and theorically correct way: just my two cents on the subject, I don't mean to teach anything to anybody.

What do you do if you have a double plains cow start?

That's wonderful, best possible scenario!
AH* -> Writing -> Alphabet
*(assuming you start with one between Hunting or Agriculture, if not research it)
1 city, first production: settler.
2 cities (one for each cow) -> City x: worker / City y: settler or worker or warrior
Again, just my two cents, I don't mean to teach anything.

Greetings.
yatta.

 

[AbsoluteZero]

On some starts with some leaders ( not applicable in all cases ) You can skip everything ( except maybe mining if you don't have it ) and go myst->med->priest and build the oracle and choose alphabet. Korea is probably the best civ to pull this off ( mining + myst ). You can grow enough to work mines if you have a few 3 food tiles.

That gives you a super early alpha ( in some cases 2200 BC or earlier ). No AI even on deity will beat that on a normal map, in fact most won't even have writing by then. So now you have writing + med + priest to trade for the cheap techs, and alpha to trade for better stuff like IW.

However I would almost never self-tech alpha later then 1800 BC as most games I play someone gets it around that time or slightly later.

 

[yatta77]

@AbsoluteZero
Gandhi seems a good leader to try that!

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

So there. The large number of warriors earlier is a by-product of the broader strategy. I mean, if I'm bee-lining Alphabet, I don't have anything better to do: hence warriors and settlers.

OK, some serious advice.

If you want to be taken seriously, advancing a strategy that violates conventional wisdom, then you're going to need to step up and walk the walk.

It is becoming apparent that many on this forum are having problems thinking out-of-the-box. While this is not an issue newbies tend to have (they think any strat can work), a lot of the slightly more experienced users do suffer from this.

Feel familiar?

The result of this was The Impossible Walkthrough, and its sequels. Executive summary: he beat the critics into submission with demonstration after demonstration.

So my suggestion would be - show, don't tell.

 

[yatta77]

So my suggestion would be - show, don't tell.

I don't know if you are going to credit me, be offended, blame me or hate me for saying this, but just for love of the truth, I think that my game, played on Emperor level in the "[BTS] Nobles' Club LXXII: Ragnar of the Vikings" proves that up to Emperor Level the strategy is "viable".

Being the first game ever I played on this forum, I had not experience on selecting the Screen Shots to take, and I ended up publishing more than 100 Screen Shots of that game, one of them (from the file ragnar.zip relative to the first session on that thread) is attached also here.

Sure, it is just an easy (and probably lucky) Cultural Victory, on an Archipelago Map where for AIs it is harder to attack, but no matter was a game overall bad played with a lot of arrogance from my side, I defeated the AIs and I also got first to Liberalism.

I can assure you I have played better and more rational games than this one (where I made many errors, starting from mathematical one counting points), and well, from my modest experience (I'm not a good player, but I think I'm decent and I play since when the vanilla version was published) I never felt getting Alphabet early being a strongly bad strategy.

That said, I cite myself from the above post:

Probably this doesn't make it as remunerative as other strategies, neither a good strategy to adopt for the majority of the players, and likely teaching the game it might not be the best approach so not worth be included in a basic guideline. But, academically talking, it is far from being completely illogical IMO.
That said, maximum respect for who spends his time writing tutorials to explain the game to others, in the most possible generic and theorically correct way: just my two cents on the subject, I don't mean to teach anything to anybody.

and, by the way, after seeing on this forum a couple of games on Immortal played by better players than I am, I am perfectly aware that the way I play it is far from being the most remunerative and not the most correct way the game should be teach to newcomers. It's a long while I have an account here, and I've been reading with interest many reference guides on "game mechanics" (example: combat system) in the past years, but never spent too much time on strategy guides or articles. So I interpreted the game mechanics differently: I thought in SP, facing AIs, the important was be the best "somewhere" (example: military, science, culture, ...), now I learn that some other better players think the most rational way to play is to grow harmonically "everywhere".

So, I'm reading what you write with interest.

Hope this post won't be interpreted as trolling. It is really not my intention.
You invited someone else to show something, I did address you to a modest example.

Greeting.
yatta.

 

[Fatality_Slim]

The most interesting thing about this thread is how long serious players are going to debate Marigoldran's latest masterpiece.

Over/Under is 4 pages, I'm taking the over.

 

[Benginal]

Executive summary: he beat the critics into submission with demonstration after demonstration.

Where is obsolete these days?

MarigoldRan: you have a tall task ahead of you in proving yourself half the player obsolete is. But VoU is right. You'll have to show us, not tell us. (at a level higher than emperor, if that wasn't obvious yet).

 

[MarigoldRan]

So at least we can agree on one thing: up to Emperor it works?

 

[MarigoldRan]

On some starts with some leaders ( not applicable in all cases ) You can skip everything ( except maybe mining if you don't have it ) and go myst->med->priest and build the oracle and choose alphabet. Korea is probably the best civ to pull this off ( mining + myst ). You can grow enough to work mines if you have a few 3 food tiles.

That gives you a super early alpha ( in some cases 2200 BC or earlier ). No AI even on deity will beat that on a normal map, in fact most won't even have writing by then. So now you have writing + med + priest to trade for the cheap techs, and alpha to trade for better stuff like IW.

However I would almost never self-tech alpha later then 1800 BC as most games I play someone gets it around that time or slightly later.

It appears that this is somewhat of an endorsement. It also appears that he's contradicting what some of the other posters are saying.

 

[ahcos]

If one would manage to pull off a warrior opening with alpha beeline and come out as a winner on regular immortal/deity maps a few times, i'd be really deeply impressed, especially as i consider it to be impossible out of my own experience on Immortal and even more Deity level. I'd really love to see that.

 

[Benginal]

So at least we can agree on one thing: up to Emperor it works?

Sure.

Many things work up to Emperor.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

My understanding is that this variant requires one to delay building Workers... but for how long?

A certain number of turns? A certain number of build items (i.e. not until the 4th build item)? Until after Alphabet comes in?

Are stolen Workers valid to use?

Is one required to delay Worker techs or is one free to research in whatever method they feel best, as long as they get to Alphabet relatively early?


Until the conditions are well-defined, it's hard to attempt any sort of a walkthrough.

 

[ahcos]

It appears that this is somewhat of an endorsement. It also appears that he's contradicting what some of the other posters are saying.

Nah. Read carefully what he wrote:

*SOME* starts
You will have a worker
Alpha from oracle

That's something completely different from what you've stated in the OP. If what he wrote is what you meant, you'll need to make yourself alot clearer next time. Personally, i wouldn't bother to argue against this particular opening as i've done that myself already several time. But i still have to see the opening you described succeeding , so feel free to go on just like VoU suggested.

So at least we can agree on one thing: up to Emperor it works?

Yes, apparently it does, but sometimes it also might go wrong.

 

[ABCDPuppies]

So at least we can agree on one thing: up to Emperor it works?

Well sure, but no one ever disputed that. Up to Emperor it works to rush your neighbor with domesticated hippos on pogo sticks (only a slight exaggeration.) You still seem to be missing the main point. When people say a strategy isn't good, they usually don't mean it's impossible to win with it; rather, they mean it is inefficient or unacceptably risky compared to the alternatives, or maybe (depending on the difficulty) that it makes it harder or less likely to win. That a strategy works, period, may be a good argument for it on Deity simply because Deity is hard enough that relatively inefficient strategies will often in fact made it impossible to win. But not below that -- or certainly not on Emperor.

It appears that this is somewhat of an endorsement. It also appears that he's contradicting what some of the other posters are saying.

Nope; notice that AZ's recommendation involves building a worker and utilizing your starting worker tech (mining) or researching it. No one in the thread said it's never good to skip some/most worker techs until Alpha. But your argument was that because you are beelining alpha you should avoid workers/worker techs entirely, which means not even exploiting a worker tech you start with. That is what is crazy. Try growing/building the oracle using only unimproved tiles and no chops and you will see how insanely inefficient it is.

 

[yatta77]

If one would manage to pull off a warrior opening with alpha beeline and come out as a winner on regular immortal/deity maps a few times, i'd be really deeply impressed, especially as i consider it to be impossible out of my own experience on Immortal and even more Deity level. I'd really love to see that.

Since you asked, if also a Space Race or an easy Cultural Victory like the one in the link above counts, I could try. But:
(a) as first thing I want to build a settler, not a warrior, and after that I'm allowed to build (in anyone of the two cities) a single worker for the whole rest of the game (and I can rebuild it if it dies);
(b) I'm allowed to research Masonry for The Pyramids before The Alphabet; after that I'll take the cheaper (in needed) way to The Alphabet, no matter what.

If we keep this just as an academical talking on a video game, not a Religion War (we leave those to Isabella and Montezuma ), I could start a random game (standard settings; random or fractal map, as you prefer; no Huts; no Events; Tech Trading ON or OFF, as you prefer), picking a leader who starts with Mining and either The Wheel or Mysticism (to make sure I don't have Technologies before getting to The Alphabet): I don't promise I would succeed on Immortal, of course, but since I'm used to this opening, I believe to have a chance. If I fail you have an extra prove it doesn't work on Immortal, while if I succeed you just said:

I'd really love to see that.

If you still interested, let me know.

Greetings.
yatta.

 

[MarigoldRan]

Well, did learn that going for culture win on Epic speed is mind-numbingly boring. It was an semi-isolated start.

 

[Kaosprophet]

It appears that this is somewhat of an endorsement. It also appears that he's contradicting what some of the other posters are saying.

"On some starts with some leaders (not applicable to all cases)" - ie. his very first words - is exactly what most of the other posters are trying to say.

Also note that, even under those conditions, he advocates doing it through an Oracle slingshot and "almost never" (exact words) tries to self-tech it.

Also note that there's still at least one worker implied in his approach - building mines. One *could* try to obtain that with a worker-steal instead of building their own, but that's a bit of a gamble unless you've got reason to believe the map will cooperate with you. (IE. Pangaea map, no coast in sight.)

 

[vranasm]

"On some starts with some leaders (not applicable to all cases)" - ie. his very first words - is exactly what most of the other posters are trying to say.

Also note that, even under those conditions, he advocates doing it through an Oracle slingshot and "almost never" (exact words) tries to self-tech it.

Also note that there's still at least one worker implied in his approach - building mines. One *could* try to obtain that with a worker-steal instead of building their own, but that's a bit of a gamble unless you've got reason to believe the map will cooperate with you. (IE. Pangaea map, no coast in sight.)

what is more ironic that even though AZ plays mostly Pangeas, he still builds his worker first...

I am tinkering with the thought of generating some Immortal Pangea map with Justy (wheel+myst start techs - bad worker techs) and throw it here to see the approach or make it a challenge who will be first with Alpha.

 

[yatta77]

Well, did learn that going for culture win on Epic speed is mind-numbingly boring. It was an semi-isolated start.

A Cultural Victory, besides kind of easy, it is in the end-game somehow boring, of course. When I play peacefully, I always try for a Space Race victory at first. But now I fear I don't get your point anymore: are you claiming that Alphabet first is the best also for wars?

In my games be first on Alphabet it is usually to be in the in the best possible conditions to be first on some other Technologies as Aesthetics, Literature, Music, Philosophy, Education and, most importantly, Liberalism and Computers. All this targeting a _peaceful_ Space Race Victory (plan A) or a _peaceful_ Cultural Victory (plan B, if in the mood to continue to play).

While playing aggressively, it is useful to have soon some military units technologies as The Wheel, Hunting, Archery, Animal Husbandry, Bronze Working, Iron Working, Horseback Riding, Construction, and waiting to have Alphabet to be able to build some decent units might take too long, so it is likely that even research Construction before Alphabet might be a wiser choice IMO. And as well, later military Technologies as Civil Service, Gunpowder, Rifling, Military Tradition, gain even more weight, compared to the others Technologies, that btw might also come from Peace Treaties, if you are military strong enough*.

*EDIT: to ask for them.

yatta.

 

[vicawoo]

I don't know why some people are semi-flaming the poster. Post your reasons, and leave it at that.