Sacred Sites policy choice

I agree with Tab: libery till free settler - and to reformation. oracle is a must, so get philo soon and build it (you need it to build temples anyway).

For expos, only build shrine/monument/temple (order can be changed). Don't build library, for example. If you got enough hammers, build units and use them to do barb quest/attack other civs.

For building choices, I think mosque+pagoda is a safe bet, and mosque+monastary for risky but fastest one.

Try current gauntlet if you are interested in SS strategy.

joncnunn said:

Tall version of SS is dependent upon science as there isn't enough tourism from only 8 total religious buildings and so you need to add science to get to standard Hotel / Airport / National Visitor Center / Internet.

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why would you ever do this?? i cannot imagine a scenario in which completing the piety tree for only 16 tourism would ever be worth it...

Abraxis said:

Too late? You could start building them turn ~100 if you wanted to, that's not late at all.

I'm not sure having an early advantage to piety generation really outweighs this.

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It is very late. You aim to win by t150, if you are doing sacred sites. If you cannot win by t180, it is likely that the game is already messed up.

joncnunn said:

The title of the thread was SS strategy; not SS city-spam strategy. These are different; it's quite possible to use SS with only 4 cities. (It's not as good as standard Tradition policy on Immortal though; but I think this says more about how over powered tradition is.)

Tall version of SS is dependent upon science as there isn't enough tourism from only 8 total religious buildings and so you need to add science to get to standard Hotel / Airport / National Visitor Center / Internet.

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Frankly speaking, I don't understand why one would ever use SS if he builds only 4 cities. Just increase your spt by tradition and rationalism and build eiffel tower fast, if you really need that tourism. The whole point of SS strategy is to spam.

If you got more beakers from being influential from other civs it might be possible to bail out of a SS and play it out since you'd be pulling 10 to 12 beakers per trade route.

glory7 said:

Frankly speaking, I don't understand why one would ever use SS if he builds only 4 cities. Just increase your spt by tradition and rationalism and build eiffel tower fast, if you really need that tourism. The whole point of SS strategy is to spam.

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This and other simliar posts:

I was running my own experiment to see for myself how viable Sacred Sites for a 4 city empire would be:

The result was I still won culturally; but victory took about 25 turns longer than standard Tradition.
(I've mastered standard Immortal but am not interested in Deity so I'm been running experiments to see how bad some non-standard options would be)

Some additional analysis:
Even with only 8 slots, this was still about 200 turns of having them all, so it's worth about 3200 tourism points. (That equates to about 6 late game turns of tourism)
City growth rate was abysmal until Civil Service.
It took a heck of a lot longer to catch up and pass the AI in science than normal but
Cargo ships leaked more science to me than normal
Science costs for most techs were cheaper than normal due to the discount if known civ already discovered.
Research Agreements were worth more science each to me than normal and in addition I was able to sign more of them without era penalties.
Happiness was a long running concern, I was actually considering building Stadiums (I ended up not building them as the problem got solved for good just before I reached that tech)
While Sacred Sites didn't cause this, the two sets of religious buildings + rest of Piety bonuses did allow several more faith great guild people than normal.
It sucked not being able to faith spawn a GE at all.

I'm all in favor of conducting experiments like that. Rather than assume it will be slower, set up a game and test it.

joncnunn said:

The thing about going Piety with plans on getting SS is that you first need to beat all the AIs to Reformation because it's extremely popular for the AI.
Which means full Piety; while Liberty's free settler might be better if you were still able to select SS, it introduces a high risk of failing to get it at all.

After full Piety is very late to be dipping into other intro trees (unless you are Poland), and so after full Piety it would normally proceed to Aesthetics. Following this open Exploration for the Louve. And you if are forced to take additional policies before Ideology I'd go with Rationalism ones.

Going this approach you want 2 sets of religious buildings (unless you're Byzantine in which case you want 3)
My rank order of these depends on presense or absence of Wine/Incense:

With Wine/Incese:
#1 Monastery
#2 Pagoda
#3 Cathedral
#4 Mosque

But if you don't have Wine or Incense:

#1 Pagoda
#2 Cathedral
#3 Mosque
#4 Monastery

Religious building follower beliefs go really quick and so you need to enhance your religion ASAP going this approach as well (even though it will result in you having already enhanced your religion when you get the free GP from completing Piety)

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Was gonna start a new thread to ask this, but this thread looks like a good one. Is there a way to make Sacred Sites work without opening Piety at all? Kill whichever AI takes it and use their religion. You might even get 3 buildings that way w/o being Theodora: found your own religion to grab one building. Buy those buildings instead of saving up for a GP to enhance. Give open borders to the SS religion and let them start converting your cities.

I think this might be a good way to use SS to enhance a normal culture or domination game. But the more I think about it, the stupider it sounds For one thing, you'll lose your pantheon and founder belief. But you will still be able to build a Grand Temple if you capture their holy city.