The Great DoC URV challenge

ales_ said:

Maybe India.

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India has the Mughal-Problem. And getting 5 different GP before 1205 AD could get difficult. Also I don't have much experience with them.

Arabia could collect the great people and take the holy city just before fulfilling the 2nd UHV-condition -> 1st golden age, then Taj Mahal -> 2nd golden age, leaves one for either leftover-GP or Versailles/Olympia.

Persia would only need 2 GAs and has time untill 1500AD plus they could try to get some of the classic wonders.

China is powerful, right next door to the holy city (or can found hinduism itself) and also has a chance to get some classic wonders.

Byzantium might also be an interesting choice: they usually start with lots of classical wonders, should be able to conquer the Mausoleum from the Persians and then take the Indian holy city...and they have big cities so probably 3 out of the 5 will be theirs anyway (similar to China)

Why does Persia only have time until 1500 AD?

I didn't know that Iran was a conditional spawn

still, I figure Arabia is the easiest, if not the earliest.
It's now 810 AD and I controll the shrine and have the first 2 GP ready. I'll have to cede it to the Mughals for a while but that shouldn't be a problem.

I just never know how to deal with the Moors, I don't want to fight them but they won't become my vasall either

Chep said:

I didn't know that Iran was a conditional spawn

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Iran is actually the same civ as Persia in the game code (or something like that), if I remember correctly, so it's impossible to have both Persia and Iran at the same time.

Ok let's go :

136 AD (turn 455), Polytheism, Greece, Viceroy, Marathon, 3000 BC, score : 354 (norm : 5172)

Began with founding Korinthos as my capitol, and Epidamnos. I built every wonder I was able to build, except the Hanging gardens and Ishtar Gate (Egypt built the first before my spawn and the second with and engineer), and the Pyramids in Babylon (they built it just after my spawn). When I built my ninth wonder, I decided to declare war on Egypt (they collapsed when i did it) and captured Niwt-Rst. As there was more than 15 pagan temples in the world, and that no religion came in my cities (I had to settle my two last great prophets, cause they were going to bulb Theology and found Catholicism in my cities), I won just at this time ! (Catholicism was founded the following turn, in indy Per-Wadjet
My biggest problem, was Rome who declared war on me without getting the conquerors, before getting them about 100 years later (!). So I had to build many hoplites and some cata to counter the legions, then I used them to take Egypt. But Rome never wanted to talk to me, so I have never been able to make peace with me...

nice, could you add a save from the end?

and I'm glad I have some competition here

OK, here they are : the turn before I declared war on Egypt, and the turn just after I won.

Thank you! The OP is updated to post #25.

So far, this is my third attempt to win Islam victory with USA:


Immediately, I sent a galleon with two minutemen and a cannon to Djenne and conquered it. It took a while to get out the missionary, since Djenne has horrible production and I couldn't buy a missionary, but I eventually got one into Washington, and spread Islam to the whole US that way.



I spread Islam to some parts of Japan, Mexico, South Africa and most of Brazil. Unfortunately, Argentina, Russia, Britain and France, who have the largest cities, are not willing to open borders with me.



I've stationed a large army just outside of the Arabian Gulf. With Turkey being so huge, my expectation is that it collapses, and then I immediately go and conquer Mecca and Jerusalem, then declare war on Iran to conquer Shiraz.

It would be extremely fortunate if either Britain or China collapses as well, since it will be very difficult to conquer the Buddhist Hindu holy city with Britain protecting the Mughals.

So far, Islam is 24% of the population. My fear is that there will not be enough time to make it 50%. I could either keep sending missionaries overseas, or develop nuclear technology to decrease the size of all non-Muslim cities once I have five shrines.

I have seven great people in Washington now. Getting the Great people was the easiest part actually, but now I need to take Mecca.

So yeah, any advice would be great. Wish me luck.

I stated that Romans is the best option for a pagan URV. This is my first URV victory.

Score: 21582 (normalised)
Winning date: 95AD
Difficulty: Viceroy
Gamespeed: Normal
Version: SVN 611
Scenario: 3000BC
Victory: Unique Religious Victory, Polytheism

Choice:

Among all the civs that have pantheon as state religion Romans is the best option. The reason is that their UHV game is similar to the URV game.
A polytheistic URV game can be easy only in mediterranean. Moreover you need 10 wonders and 15 cities. This means war against other wonder-builders like Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greeve. The strongest civ in mediterranean sea is the Romans.

Strategy:

Conquests:

Conquered Cathrage, Greece and Egypt ASAP. The reason is that they didn't have built their armies. If I waited a couple of turns more, I would need double the army I used. I rushed a granary to Roma to be able to rush legions quickly.

I made sure not to capture a zoroastrian city. Zoroastrianism and catholicism later are your real enemies in the pagan URV. I declared war on Persia without attacking to make sure that zoroastrianism won't spread in my empire. Unfortunately, zoroastrianism had srpead in Jerusalem and Sur, so I captured only Ancyra.

I was planning to raze some cities, but all cities were productive, so no razing needed.

Wonder building:
Only Egyptians had built the sphinx and the temple of Artemis was built in the zoroastrian Babylon. I discovered all the appropriate techs (construction, aesthetics, literature,...) and started building the wonders. Sparta and Tanis were my most productive cities.

Temples:

Since I killed all pagan civs, I should build all the 15 temples on my own. I build settlers, conquered France and a pagan temple in Roma to speed up the construction. In fact I built the roman empire excluding some western parts and Levant. Persia collapsed and gave me Babylon (and its wonder, the temple of Artemis) and Shusha. I was afraid of a zorostrian spread, so I was prepared to gift these to Assyrian Empire which respawn on Persian collapse. Fortunately, zoroastrianism just sat in middle east.

After I built the last pagan temple I won the URV.

Shots:

Nice game, citis.

Do you have to play as one civ all the way through, or can I switch civs? Will it still count?

I don't think switching counts, as that can be heavily abused, I really don't know why this feature even exists.

I suppose to allow someone to not have to autoload a civ and instead play to the spawn date.

Chep said:

I don't think switching counts, as that can be heavily abused, I really don't know why this feature even exists.

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It was enabled in the vanilla RFC and an essential component. For example, it was almost impossible to win a Mayan UHV without playing as Babylonians at first to prevent them from Building the temple of Kulkukan. An other exmample is the Ethiopians, if you wanted to found christianity you should gift them a great prophet as the Egyptians.
Moreover, there wasn't a 1700AD, so it was impossible to chose to play as the Americans from the starting screen.

After many modifications, the current RFC DoC is balanced enough, so you can win a URV or UHV without having to play from the start. There is the possible exception of Brazilians, you may have to make sure that there are the slave plantations in Brazil as Portugal.

A notable attitude from vanilla RFC is that the AI tryed really hard to win their UHV and some of them managed to do it. I lost a japanese game once, because Netherlands won a UHV! Other example is that Babylonians did 2/3 of their UHV many times.

I forgot to upload the save

You can't swith civs, unless for playing as Iran, Mexico or Colombia.

even for them I wouldn't allow switching but it's your challenge
(still, it might be interesting to see which civs would be considered the best "buildup-civs" for these 3)

Anyone motivated to try a Zoroastrian or maybe even Muslim URV with Tibet?
I think they could pull those 2 off.
For Zoroastrianism you just have to conquer Shiraz and Heraz with your starting units (plus the Indian cities, as usual) and then I think the Incense in Ethiopia is your best bet.
Islam could be more difficult, here I think I'd go for a dagger in the back by sending some Kampas towards Mekka and then declaring war and taking it on the same turn.

Since my Chinese Secular URV is no longer possible due to a bug (and I'm afraid I'd have to restart from scratch), I'm currently trying to win some more URVs with Byzantium, namely Hinduism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism. With Hinduism I encountered another problem so I'm now on the other Christian ones, though Zoroastrian might be possible as well....

If anyone is interested, here's my starting save with Byzantium, it is awesome.
You have almost all Greek and Roman wonders in Athens and Constantinople and the Persians are still around and give me bonus units by declaring war on me
(I recommend suing for peace almost immediately and gifting them Calendar and Marble so they can build the Mausoleum for you)

Maybe I should introduce a rule that you can only use Congo (or the 1700 AD scenario) for switching to Iran and only Argentina for switching to Mexico and Colombia?

ales_ said:

Maybe I should introduce a rule that you can only use Congo (or the 1700 AD scenario) for switching to Iran and only Argentina for switching to Mexico and Colombia?

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Yes you should.

Just make sure that Argentina may not kill any of its own units. If it does, it makes Columbia's expansion a lot easier.

okay, so after some bugfixing here it is:

Hinduism with Byzantium (3000BC), 1415, Monarch/Normal, normalized Score: 12585



This is a bad result, I'm sure it can be improved by at least one or two centuries.
I had a virtual victory sometime around 1310-1330 (just had to wait for the golden age to end) but since the third condition suffered from a bug I can't say exactly and I have to say from ~1170 onwards I played it very...well I wasn't very motivated to give my best since the goal was unclear/undoable.

My strategy, if you want to call it that:

- get a decent start with Byzantium and either Persia alive or the Mausoleum already built (sometimes Rome does it for you but I wouldn't count on it)
- get the Mausoleum built (gift Calendar&Marble to Persia)
- tech towards Gunpowder (remember the 600AD-tech-cost-bonus)
- take Rome after you've built the Apostolic palace (for the holy orthodox city + shrine)
- take Persias land (usually by taking some of Arabias lands first, here however I didn't start at war with them and never really felt like attacking them) and then move towards India when they collapse/are weak.
-I saved up 4 great people (1 great general) since there often already is a great prophet in the holy city
- spread hinduism to your most important cities after taking Mumbai and some other Indian city (Rome, Athens, Constantinople plus a city in Iran and one in Egypt can easily become the worlds top5 if you don't feel like messing with China)
- build Versailles and switch to Hinduism just before it is finished, now either use 2 GP or build the Taj Mahal for the 2nd golden Age (or fulfill UHV 2+3, don't go for UHV1 it will only slow you down)

Voila