Byzantium Sacred Sites Culture Victory Guide (T170 pangaea all standard)

Sclb · Aug 11, 2015

Redaxe said:
Are you referring to the Songhai DCL?

That map is brutal. And yes that "building too aggressively" is perhaps the most punishing penalty to playing wide. Your best bet is to find any choke points and block them off to prevent the AI from being able to surround you.

SS piety strat is quite difficult on deity, and I could never get it to work. I either miss the buildings, or get reformed too late and lose SS. Even if you manage to get it, getting past the massive cultures of deity ai is a challenge. I think I only seen it done once.
About that Songhai map, I went 5 city trad and still got Dow from Liz, pretty crazy neighbors. I was only lucky because my city was easily defensible and she made peace easily.

stormtrooper412 · Aug 11, 2015

holyvin said:
I tried this with Songhai and had attila and eliz as my neighbour. I was happily spamming cities and when my faith starts kicking in I realized I was "building too aggressively' and was Dow by both of them despite being friends. I was shocked I did not expect a backstab at all. I did not have enough money or luxury to bribe attila due to pumping cities. I was wiped out soon.

GG no re

Liz and Attila are pretty much always like that. Your best bet would be to have them go kill others, but despite all my bribes they simply didn't want to go away all game. It was a struggle

Plumfairy · Aug 11, 2015

Sclb said:
SS piety strat is quite difficult on deity, and I could never get it to work. I either miss the buildings, or get reformed too late and lose SS.

FYI: If you're willing to savescum, you can always reload if an AI chooses SS; the AI don't seem to be following a strategy when they choose their reformation belief. So as long as you have the "reseed random number" option selected when the game starts, they'll choose another reformation belief after the reload.

BTW, even using the savescum technique, I haven't gotten SS to really work, and I only play on Immortal. Even if you generate lots of early faith, you need to found a religion, enhance that religion, and only *then* can you start buying the religious buildings. By that time, at least one of the AIs has usually generated enough culture that my early tourism doesn't really have a hope of culturally dominating them. It doesn't help that choosing piety policies + focusing on early faith means I often expand kinda slow, which means I don't have that many cities where I can put the religious buildings.

consentient · Aug 11, 2015

I think that if you have only warmongers in your game then SS on Deity is quite feasible, though I've not achieved it yet myself. But it's the Morocco/Egypt/etc. types you have to watch out for

Acken · Aug 11, 2015

holyvin said:
I tried this with Songhai and had attila and eliz as my neighbour. I was happily spamming cities and when my faith starts kicking in I realized I was "building too aggressively' and was Dow by both of them despite being friends. I was shocked I did not expect a backstab at all. I did not have enough money or luxury to bribe attila due to pumping cities. I was wiped out soon.

GG no re

This diplomatic penalty can (sometimes) happen as soon as you hit 5 cities if you do them really fast, if you have more than 1.5 the average (of other civs) it triggers.

It's called the reckless expander and is a huge diplo hit to all your neighbours, giving almost as much negative points as a backstab.

This binary, all or nothing, diplo modifier is VERY annoying which is why I overhauled it in my mod to give it 4 stages instead of 1.

claudiupb · Aug 12, 2015

So basically you need to wait for the AI to have 4 cities before building your 5th?

holyvin · Aug 12, 2015

Sclb said:
SS piety strat is quite difficult on deity, and I could never get it to work. I either miss the buildings, or get reformed too late and lose SS. Even if you manage to get it, getting past the massive cultures of deity ai is a challenge. I think I only seen it done once.
About that Songhai map, I went 5 city trad and still got Dow from Liz, pretty crazy neighbors. I was only lucky because my city was easily defensible and she made peace easily.

Redaxe said:
Are you referring to the Songhai DCL?

That map is brutal. And yes that "building too aggressively" is perhaps the most punishing penalty to playing wide. Your best bet is to find any choke points and block them off to prevent the AI from being able to surround you.

Spoiler :

Acken · Aug 12, 2015

claudiupb said:
So basically you need to wait for the AI to have 4 cities before building your 5th?

If you don't want the penalty ever, yes. Or have a huge military

The logic is as such:
Every turn the AI makes the following tests for a Player

1. Calculate the average number of cities owned by civs (Player excluded)
2. If player far then false
3. If player cities < 4 then false
4. If player cities < 1.5 average then false
5. If player strength > civ strength then false
6. Else true

Then during its diplo calculation it applies penalties if the above returns true.

beetle · Aug 12, 2015

Ouch! I have definitely triggered this often playing wide! This is disappointing news, and it explains much of my problems with that Songhai map. But better to hear the bad news than to be ignorant I suppose...

I have to assume that the < 1.5 test uses a floor function, and that the average number of cities owned is rounded down too. I probably know how many cities my neighbors have, but the average number would be just a guess. I have little chance of player strength > civ strength -- and nor did I realize the penalty was so harsh. Definitely means I need to work Liberty differently!

Acken · Aug 12, 2015

No the average is a float (decimal number).

As a side note it explains why early conquest can get you this penalty. You will increase your city number while decreasing the average.

Beorn-eL-Feared · Aug 12, 2015

Player strength countering it is a very interesting tidbit though. Never would've guessed that part.

beetle · Aug 12, 2015

Acken said:
You will increase your city number while decreasing the average.

Oh, that explains too why I have sometimes seen this red warning 100 turns after my last founded expo. Most recently, I was not conquering that much either. Really surprised me, but I am certain circumstances would have met your filter.

Beorn-eL-Feared said:
Player strength countering it is a very interesting tidbit though. Never would've guessed that part.

That bit does not surprise me, but isn't score a good proxy for player strength relative to civ strength? I frequently find myself kicking the tar out an AI, but they still think I should be giving up cities for peace (I guess because my score is lower, and they are producing units as fast as I am killing them). So I don't see the player strength check helping much.

Codered999 · Jun 16, 2018

I found a way to beat this cheese directly with counter culture. Polynesia, Large Islands map, spam Maoi heads. Spam island cities before Byzantine does.

beetle · Jun 29, 2018

@Codered999, is that with Sacred Sites, or are you just talking about CV / anti-CV generally?

At the risk of being off topic, if you like Polynesia for Deity CV (and who doesn’t), check out DCG26.

Byzantium Sacred Sites Culture Victory Guide (T170 pangaea all standard)

Sclb

Emperor

stormtrooper412

Peacemongering Turtlesaur

Plumfairy

Prince

consentient

Domination!

Acken

Deity

claudiupb

King

holyvin

Chieftain

Acken

Deity

beetle

Deity

Acken

Deity

Beorn-eL-Feared

Idiot riding pedals

beetle

Deity

Codered999

Chieftain

beetle

Deity

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