The CoL slingshot - please explain

[Iblis]

Hi all - I've seen this phrase used a lot and I'm not clear I understand what it is. My understanding is that you research meditation/priesthood and build the oracle, which gives you a free tech which allows you to go to straight to code of laws giving you confucianism and courthouses, and then allows you to go to civil service for bureaucracy and macemen/irrigation spread and putting you into the medieval period.

So:

1. Is this correct?

2. Why would I want to do this? Is it bureaucracy I'm aiming for or macemen? I'm guessing not the latter as that requires engineering too. Does being in medieval suddenly give you some reduction in the costs or earlier techs that I'm not aware of?

3. Does the slingshot require you to build the oracle, or is that just an added bonus?

4. Am I doing this as an early priority or am I doing this a bit further into the game (after BW/alphabet etc)?

The way the term is used it seems like it's a fundamental part of everyone's strategy and I'm worried that I'm missing something really obvious. Thanks,

I

 

[drkodos]

For Civil Service Slingshot you want to research the path INCLUDING Code of Laws and also build the Oracle AS CoL is discovered (Same turn! or very next turn) so that the free tech from the Oracle is used to grab Civil Service.

In order to do this, one needs Med/Myst/Priesthood/Writing/Col techs to unlock Civil Service.

 

[Pogel]

The slingshot simply gives you a relatively expensive tech early if you are able to build the Oracle. At lower levels it's relatively easy to research CoL and use the Oracle to give you CS. At higher levels it is much harder to research CoL before you (or anyone else) can build the Oracle.

CoL early gives you the advantages of religion (if you need/want it) and courthouses, which can really help early expansion. CS early is extremely powerful as it opens up Bureaucracy, which adds 50% production/commerce to your capital. This is especially powerful early as your capital will be contributing a large proportion of your overall commerce and can usually use the production. Macemen are a nice side effect, though you also need machinery. There are no direct benefits from hitting Medieval era per se.

An Oracle slingshot needs to be done early - before anyone else builds the Oracle.

There are various strategies around slingshots - Sisiutil documents some of them in one of his guides, I believe.

 

[Cam_H]

^ Good replies

There are various strategies around slingshots - Sisiutil documents some of them in one of his guides, I believe.

I guess just as a slightly complicating footnote, building The Oracle puts towards a Great Prophet, and if you've founded Confucianism or have another religion in your Oracle city, you can build a Temple and assign a Specialist Priest for further points. You can then 'lightbulb' the bulk of the for Civil Service with the emerging Great Prophet (depending on game speed) provided you've arranged your technologies right (e.g. avoided Masonry, or avoided Monarchy but have Theology).

As Pogel notes that there are some other slingshot strategies around, and another CoL > CS one also worth mentioning is the Stonehenge slingshot that works in a similar manner by generating towards Great Prophets; the first Great Prophet to 'lightbulb' Code of Laws, the second to 'lightbulb' Civil Service (or just self-research {or Oracle} to get CoL and then 'lightbulb' CS).

 

[flamingzaroc121]

not to confuse you or anything, but another really popular slingshot is(if you have warlord)build the great wall get a great engineer and build the pyramids, or if you dont have warlords, build the oracle, get metalcasting , build forge, get engineer and build pyramids

these two are pretty hard and i wouldnt suggest doing them on high levels, but its fun if you can suceed at least once

 

[Rathelm]

A more realistic slingshot (Monarch+) is don't research masonry. Use the oracle to LB CoL and use the great prophet that you get from the oracle to get 1K reserach on CS. You'll have to make sure you have polytheism researched otherwise the GP will try to LB that instead. But with that order you can easily have CS before 500 BC. The real power of it is not to have maceman, but to have Bueracracy. I think going for pyrimads is much more risky.

 

[Iblis]

Thanks guys, this is really helpful. I currently neglect early wonders and GP on vanilla as I'm trying to crack Monarch difficulty right now and it just doesn't seem worth it. Maybe I'll revisit sometime (if nothing it would give me a religion in confucianism without needing to resort to conquest, something I tend not to have at Monarch as I'm out-researched).

 

[krozman]

I'm running a game where I had marble in my fat cross, set up 2 cities, improved the marble after I got masonry, and then prechopped 3 forests. I got masonry, then mysticism, then poly. During the time between Poly and priesthood I was building parthenon. As soon as I hit priesthood, I chopped all 3 forests in one turn each, one right after another, basically immediately rushing the oracle, and getting metal casing. I finished parthenon very quickly after that, built a forge, and got very very lucky on a great engineer, which built the pyramids and representation. Since nobody was close to metal casing, the colossus on my coastal city was cheap and easy (i had copper), and shortly thereafter I had a tech lead, trading for math while i researched literature. I got hanging gardens and great library, and immediately thereafter the national epic. +150% GPP from buildings. +100 from being philosophical. Then +100% from pacifism later.

THIS IS ALL ON EMPEROR skill level. I play immortal, but I can get the above strat 100% of the time on emperor, with the only luck being the great engineer and the pyramids. The rest is just simple planning. It's creating a huge GPP factory (not to mention the culture). I play on marathon, and i get a new Great person within 20-40 turns. It's crazy how much advantage Great people are when you get so many of them. the above strat just takes knowing how the AI works,

For example, theres a list of wonders you'll have to work your butt off to get because the AI loves them, namely the great wall, stonehenge, the oracle and the great lighthouse. Theres others that you can take your time to complete, the pyramids, parthenon, the great library and the hanging gardens.

Oh, another tip if you have stone or marble. Your initial cities usually take a lot of time to grow to have any useful potential in the early game, and they're a financial liability. So if you have stone, have your second city build the great wall. You're going to lose big time, but once it's built quickly by the AI, you'll get your double hammer bonus converted into wealth, and you can bust out the 100% research for a while and maximize your tech lead.

krozman

 

[Meatbuster]

AI don't prioritize Parthenon eh?

This is on Prince BTW. I kept the world at war for a long time using bribes and I "eventually" built the Parthenon.

 

[carl corey]

Wow, that's insane! I must rethink my diplomacy... I'm not really the one to make AIs hate each other, but there seem to be quite some benefits in dividing them from the early stages. Good work, Robo Kai.