If we get Saladin, we should without a doubt RUSH MYSTICISM! Free Religion, free happines, free culture in capitol city, plus future benefits! I'm already gettin my mantras ready! Ga-te Ga-te Pa-ra-ga-te Pa-ra-sam-ga-te bodhi-svaha!

Does anyone think there is an advantage to going for Polytheism right off the bat instead of Meditation? I've noticed in SP games that the computer almost always goes Meditation first and I can >95% of the time get Polytheism often even if I don't start with Mysticism.

This will obviously depend on who we get and who the other leaders are. Do we find out which leaders we are playing against before the game or only in game?

I think we should wait till we know if any other Civs have Mysticism like us. If they do, you can bet they're going to go for one of these two religions as well.

Other factors to consider: If we have our capitol on a river, we can immediately work tiles with extra gold, which means at 100% research, noone will be able to research faster than us.

I think turn order would then play a factor. If we "complete" our turn ahead of them, and are working a tile on a river, IMO I think we should go for Meditation immediately because we know noone can beat us to it.

Since there won't be CPUs playing, I don't think there's an advantage to going toward Polytheism first. Only if we are behind in the turn order or don't have access to the additional gold.

I think polytheism would be a better choice because others might be going for meditation, and most importantly if we don't manage to research it first, we will already be well on our way to monotheism.

I think other teams will think that as well and go for polytheism. As a matter of fact, the general strategy of players I've seen is polytheism. I personally believe its better to just rush MED. If one team is going to do it, it should be us. But if you guys all want to go for POLY im down for that too. I just prefer med.

Even though everyone always seems to go for POLY, the only benefit besides hinduism it provides it the Parthenon wonder, which is of no value so early in the game. Meditation provides buddhism and monastery and takes less time to research. That way, assuming we get it, we can move directly on to the techs we need for our workers.

We need to know what our opponents start with, and we also need to know what our commerce potential is in the starting position. If we go down the religion path and win, then we get an advantage, but if we lose the race then we get no benefit plus we're behind on other tech paths.