Molon Labe
I committed the faux pas.
Because I'm stubborn, I tried the AP victory again with Justinian who I chose because he's Spiritual and I hadn't played him yet.
I won the AP diplo victory this time, but it wasn't that much fun really. Genghis got Buddhism, must have been from a hut, and Monty got Hinduism. I got Judaism and Confucianism and built the AP as Jewish. Catherine was originally Jewish but converted quickly to Hinduism and buddied up with Monty, my neighbour. My other neighbour was Frederick who went Buddhist. I was able to get Judaism to Frederick, and it went on its own to a couple of Monty's cities.
I had to go no religion for the rest of the game to get Genghis to open his borders and keep Cathy happy with me. I needed Cathy because she had enough cities to thwart me if she abstained.
After optics I finally found Darius, who had founded Islam and Christianity. Oddly enough he was on a continent by himself where he built only two cities with his capital?! Come on, Darius, you're organized! He built the Great Wall and apparently never ventured out again because there was an undeveloped continent with two barb cities at 10 and 11 pop.
Shaka was the last contender and he was all alone on an island and backwards as hell. He had no religion, but wouldn't open borders to me. I didn't have astronomy so couldn't try to trade to spread it. I ended up giving him a ridiculous amount of techs just to open his borders and get a missionary in.
Monty declared on Cathy and she asked me to join in. I was ahead of Monty in the power graph and wanted to use my new Cataphracts so I joined her. Weirdly, her disposition with Monty never went down even after he declared on her so I got a +2 mutual military struggle modifier and a -1 declared war on a friend. Weird.
I got the victory in about 1140 AD I think. Everyone abstained but Cathy, and if she had done so as well, I would have lost. Everyone else didn't matter because they only had a couple votes, but she had about half of mine and could have stopped me.
If I hadn't won, the game would have been pretty well screwed. Genghis was teching like crazy and would have been difficult to catch up to. Having no state religion for 90% of the game hurt, so I would say that the Shwedagon Paya would have good synergy because you can go free religion early.
All in all, it's kind of an anticlimactic victory in my opinion.
I won the AP diplo victory this time, but it wasn't that much fun really. Genghis got Buddhism, must have been from a hut, and Monty got Hinduism. I got Judaism and Confucianism and built the AP as Jewish. Catherine was originally Jewish but converted quickly to Hinduism and buddied up with Monty, my neighbour. My other neighbour was Frederick who went Buddhist. I was able to get Judaism to Frederick, and it went on its own to a couple of Monty's cities.
I had to go no religion for the rest of the game to get Genghis to open his borders and keep Cathy happy with me. I needed Cathy because she had enough cities to thwart me if she abstained.
After optics I finally found Darius, who had founded Islam and Christianity. Oddly enough he was on a continent by himself where he built only two cities with his capital?! Come on, Darius, you're organized! He built the Great Wall and apparently never ventured out again because there was an undeveloped continent with two barb cities at 10 and 11 pop.
Shaka was the last contender and he was all alone on an island and backwards as hell. He had no religion, but wouldn't open borders to me. I didn't have astronomy so couldn't try to trade to spread it. I ended up giving him a ridiculous amount of techs just to open his borders and get a missionary in.
Monty declared on Cathy and she asked me to join in. I was ahead of Monty in the power graph and wanted to use my new Cataphracts so I joined her. Weirdly, her disposition with Monty never went down even after he declared on her so I got a +2 mutual military struggle modifier and a -1 declared war on a friend. Weird.
I got the victory in about 1140 AD I think. Everyone abstained but Cathy, and if she had done so as well, I would have lost. Everyone else didn't matter because they only had a couple votes, but she had about half of mine and could have stopped me.
If I hadn't won, the game would have been pretty well screwed. Genghis was teching like crazy and would have been difficult to catch up to. Having no state religion for 90% of the game hurt, so I would say that the Shwedagon Paya would have good synergy because you can go free religion early.
All in all, it's kind of an anticlimactic victory in my opinion.