Hopefully this long war story from a late night 2v2 huge cont random civs game will suffice to say that slinger attacks can be effective. It will also show why I honestly now vote for Palmy as the WORST civ (even worse than Greece)
Anyhow.. I was getting ready for bed when plghh zm'ed me and we set up a 2v2 after 10 minutes of advertising for expert opponents 2 good players showed up (both post occasionally) I get Egypt at 12 and Plghh gets Palmy at 3. Enemies are brown(Palmy) and yellow(Bab). My spot has a close forest, but a relatively wide search shows no berries and no meat. The coast has two SF together north of TC and there is one Ocean fish to the west and one SF to my east. In short, fishing doesn't look as good as I'd like.Unwilling, to lose much time in peon production, I simply pit the 2 SF. Although this only provided 500 food, it got me started fine and I soon had wood for a granary (having found berries finally). I was still planning on speed bronzing w/one dock and then hitting w/Egypts tough Char/CA's, perhaps preceeded by a scout and some camels. I have been tooled so often w/Egypt and it was 2v2 so I wasn't going to boom and tool in the 11's.
I get a late 9's tool w/21 vils and a few boats(1 dock) Meanwhile my 2 explorers still haven't found my bronzing food. I put up a 2nd dock but the fishing wasn't good enough that I could see a fast bronze. My spot was easily wallable(safe from quick counter attack!)and I said as I crossed the shallows, "Let's see if we can tool rush someone!" Sure enough I find the Palmy and he is booming too !! I started my rax just after I tooled and thus didn't have the benefit of queueing clubbers during my tool transition. Thus, I said, "let's try slingers" and hit stone mining research. Up went a second rax.. and once I had only 3 slingers it was time to disrupt the woodies. I could tell he had many FB's and as I had just started a scout ship, I really needed to disrupt his woodchopping and fishing before he boomed to a healthy Palmy bronze.
However, Palmy vils have 1 piercing armor so my slingers only did 2 damage. I was running them around and disrupting every woodie I could while checking to try to hit the most wounded vils. He still wasn't tool yet ! .. my two builders died putting up a stable, but he lost two vils killing them. Soon, he lost a couple more vils and my first 3 slingers had been boned. My next two slingers only inflicted wounds before dieing.. however, my next two killed three "walking wounded Palmyrans".
Now my 2 scouts ships hit a large fishing fleet which dispersed quickly as I chased them to a second dock. Palmy clubbers showed up so I realized that he must have clicked tool (doubting that he'd delay his tool to make them) and soon I'd be fighting tool units. My next two scout ships found him with a scout ship and sunk it while the first two chased what was left of his fishing far away. Plghh gave me his stone so I could make a few more slingers and by the time his axers and slingers showed up I had 5 slingers together and killed two of his slingers several more vils(aided by a few scout ship arrows) and a couple of axers, before it was obvious that I had done plenty of damage and only needed a short wait to bronze and finish him off.
Meanwhile, Plghh had reported that he was bronzing unmolested and indeed he had a BIG boom. I managed to bronze in the mid 17's just as Plghh's first attack wave hit the Bab enemy,keeping him busy. The Palmy was 2/3 dead and I kept after him w/CA's and Chariots and some war galleys. I sent more war Galleys after the Bab and found that the Palmy had a few peons over their near 6 and a dock with his last FB's.
My galleys, beat back Bab galleys and then killed several Bab goldminers. The palmy somehow bronzed weakly at about 23 but could make enough camels to save himself. Three more of my galleys sailed by a Palmy granary and sent two more of his "walking woundeds" to their graves. Plghh then ironed and finished off the Bab w/scythes and cats and they gave up.
My point here is that I used a SLOW civ (Egypt) with a minor slinger rush vs Palmy and severely messed him up. I attacked when I only had 3 slingers and did no offensive towering and yet, aided by scout ships(but his chopping was disrupted so he could not fight back at sea!), wreaked his game. I made only 10 or 11 slingers in all. Since, my slingers only inflicted 2 damage while upgraded/armor clubbers would inflict 4 damage on Palmy, that clubber/axer approach my be superior. However, I used LESS food my way, and the slingers range was very useful as I could shoot and then back up and then shoot.. and then he'd go back to the wood and I'd attack again... etc.. etc..
I certainly am not the best tool rusher around ! Yet, I have never seen the enemy side win a 3v3 or 2v2 when they have had Palmy and I have tool rushed that Palmy. I have beaten on Palmy w/yam scouts/shang scouts/ several civs' clubbers/axers... phoe bowmen w/clubbers once.. and now an Egyptian slinger attack. I'd happily trade 10 or 11 40 food slingers for 10 or 11 75 food Palmy peons any day !.
When you attack and kill 8 of 16 palmy peons you kill HALF his economy. When you attack and kill 8 of a normal civs likely 24 peons you only kill only 1/3 of his economy. The effect of the tool attack on Palmy is worse than that however. Peons that are attacked and either fleeing or fighting back aren't working. Palmy's super workers lose more gathering time due to disruption than do other civs workers. Once, you kill a few there only remains a significantly smaller percentage of them.. resulting in even a greater percentage of economic damage even if they sucessfully bone you. Also, the loss of several Palmy peons means that they need a significant portion of their workers to stop gathering to build any needed buildings. The higher your gathering rate, the greater the effects of time lost not gathering.
Even my mediocre slinger rush was enough to severely damage the Palmyran civ whose Achilles Heal is it's inability to deal with an early tool attack... neilkaz..
[This message has been edited by neilkaz (edited 04-19-99).]