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

I haven't been able to pull it off on Immortal yet, and not for lack of trying.

i'm in the middle of re-trying shoshone on emperor to try to improve my time, but i guess i can try immortal next. never had much success with anything on immortal though so no promises

also, i think the random chance of a great prophet spawning is super annoying. it took me a whole nine turns to get my religion founded after reaching 200 faith @_@ i'm roughly 5 turns behind my previous game right now, because i had to wait for so long and of course the extra faith doesn't carry over towards the next prophet. i mean i didn't miss any beliefs i wanted, but i lost a lot of time that could have started my building snowball sooner. whatever, that's how it goes i guess. faith victory is luck-based all around lol

Call it hubris but I am actually retrying my immortal 4000bc start

-AVOIDING the pyramids
-worker stealing x2 (only after meeting most CS with 2 scouts + war, I don't think they give gold after)
-and building Stonehenge so that the AI don't get it.
-Grabbing Oracle and possibly Grand Temple.
-hard-build 2-3 settlers before liberty bonus for "blocking cities" using gold to purchase blocking tiles, and units to fill gaps
-fill in remaining x cities after reformation, to avoid the huge culture cost penalty.
-Apologisettle™ next to the two rexing neighbors, move caravans to avoid early war. Park 2 archers in each city in case.

Build order: Scout > Monument > Scout > Stonehenge > Shrine, etc.
Tech: Pottery > Calendar (Stonehenge) > Mining
Socials: Piety > Organized Religion > Liberty > Republic > Collective Rule > Mandate of Heaven > Religious Tolerance > Reformation

At T88, I got my second GP, and got the second building (mosque and cathedral)! At T100, I am two policies from Reformation, with 30 FPT from 4 cities. From T100-150, I am going to park settlers at all the remaining contended city spots that don't benefit from my Pantheon (behind and between my blocking cities), and possibly get Grand Temple along with Reformation. I am designating 3 cities to be 6 pop for the 3 guilds. So far so good!

Edit: Adolphus DoW at T122, took out most of his army but he managed to take a city. I had it coming though, blocking his expansion. I probably would have won in about 30 more turns.

I tried this as Byzantium and got steamrolled by Assyria around turn 50 on King. Decided to try again as Poland and had a terrible faith start. My best option was quarries and I had a total of 3 stone and 1 marble uncovered with non in my cap and the "best" city option having two stone far from cap. A very favorable map allowed me to control my area with a small army and I ended up winning on turn 203.

Now, if I had a better pantheon options, I could have done this much quicker. Still an interesting strategy.

trying immortal with the spain duel size map. played poorly with a decent map, found 2 natural wonders first, one of them being el dorado so 1500 total gold, and 10 culture per turn for settling near it. got reformation on like t60 but that early in the game i didn't have any buildings yet lol. almost no faith income though, it's picking up a bit now that i have a few monasteries but it was really low for a long time

however my opponent babylon is currently getting a little over 30 culture per turn to my 10 tourism so i don't see this being won anytime soon. probably will end up being even slower than my standard settings game and duel spain shouldn't be nearly that slow

goodolarchie, how much faith do cathedrals cost? i've started using monastery mosque because monasteries are only 120 (after mandate of heaven). the problem that i have (in this and more notably in the other game) is that i don't have enough happiness to settle more cities for more tourism. if cathedrals are also 120 then i should probably start using them. does the happiness work with the +1 from mosques in a size 1 city? (if my understanding is correct a pagoda for example wouldn't give +2 to a size 1 city, someone let me know if that's wrong please)

porygon3 said:

trying immortal with the spain duel size map. played poorly with a decent map, found 2 natural wonders first, one of them being el dorado so 1500 total gold, and 10 culture per turn for settling near it. got reformation on like t60 but that early in the game i didn't have any buildings yet lol. almost no faith income though, it's picking up a bit now that i have a few monasteries but it was really low for a long time

however my opponent babylon is currently getting a little over 30 culture per turn to my 10 tourism so i don't see this being won anytime soon. probably will end up being even slower than my standard settings game and duel spain shouldn't be nearly that slow

goodolarchie, how much faith do cathedrals cost? i've started using monastery mosque because monasteries are only 120 (after mandate of heaven). the problem that i have (in this and more notably in the other game) is that i don't have enough happiness to settle more cities for more tourism. if cathedrals are also 120 then i should probably start using them. does the happiness work with the +1 from mosques in a size 1 city? (if my understanding is correct a pagoda for example wouldn't give +2 to a size 1 city, someone let me know if that's wrong please)

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cathedral price is same as pagoda and mosque. Pagoda and mosque are recommended as 1st choices as with them you can counter happiness easily.

You are correct that those buildings provide local happiness - so buying pagoda at pop 1 city will only increase your happiness by 1. If that city increases to pop 2, you don't get unhappy from the increase.

With Spain, all you need to is settle whatever natural wonder you found and choose one with nature. If you get 2 NW, working on those two tiles give 16 faith. I have no idea how you could not get enough faith. With these OP natural wonders, you can found and enhance your religion pretty quick and by the time you enhance your shrines and temples are up so you get 5 faith from main cities (assume piety policy). This will be enough for you to buy pagodas and mosques and mass expand.

because i'm bad and forgot about one with nature, i saw a little desert and thought "gotta get folklore". you're right, i should have done that and i would've done much better

Principal reason Pagodas are most favored is that they have 2 happiness as part of a total 6 yield (2 faith, 2 culture, 2 happy). Mosques are next most favored, as they also have 6 yield (3 faith, 2 culture, but only 1 happy). Cathedrals have the lowest yield and are more situational and appropriate for culture generation; in BNW they provide only base 3 yield (1 faith, 1 culture and 1 happy), but have a Great Work slot that can later provide 2 culture and 2 tourism, for total 7 yield. Finally, Monasteries are the least favored, since they provide no happiness and only 4 base yield (2 faith and 2 culture), but they are less expensive and wine- and incense-heavy cities can make Monasteries incredibly powerful.

And, last but not least, the strategy discussed in this thread is based on the fact that each type of building can yield 2 tourism with the Sacred Sites Reformation belief.

The problem with that is that its REALLY easy untill emperor lvl and gets allmost impossible at immortal/deity ...

This is pretty epic. But yeah... you need to have Pangaea and a lower difficulty level to make it work. Still, this is pretty epic.

Just won on turn 197 as the Mayans. I had a war with Sweden about halfway through which slowed me down a bit (almost lost a city) and wasted some money on a RA that I should have spent on a settler.

My land situation was much more congested than my Poland game. With Maya, you can put archery off for a bit because you have Atlatists from the start. Maya feels a bit better than Poland with this strategy. I don't see that Byzantium would be better to be honest. There were a few times I wished I had a 3rd faith building, but overall the quicker start with Maya coupled with a free GA, GW, and musician more than makes up for the 3rd building. Don't forget with the Mayans you will start actually building your buildings faster which will also get you through your policies faster.

tommynt said:

The problem with that is that its REALLY easy untill emperor lvl and gets allmost impossible at immortal/deity ...

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It is possible on deity for sure. You should not take Byzantia until you want to restart game 1000 times. Just cause on deity AI found religions very fast. Even Maya can not take fast pantheon. And generally you need to enhance before third religion (first should be yours) is founded, otherwise you risk to miss second building.
You need desert start and a lot of space. I manged to win in 220 turns by Ethiopia, used great musicians for most cultural civ. End up with 40 cities.
Anyway I made several important mistakes, so I believe it can be done under 200 turns.

Did this with Celts and also bagged a Longest Name Ever achievement whilst at it

I've got an Immortal Celts game going right now but the opposing AI's Culture generation is too substantial to get a sub-150 result. I'm planting cities every 4 tiles as best as I can and my pressure flips them in a blink. Tree Faith and Desert Folklore let me enhance before most even founded.

Tried this as Theodora on king and although I was able to win fairly smoothly however i was a little slow due to a nice start from Polynesia.
Tried this again as Egypt and just got crapped on. I got all the religion things however I was unable to settle cities fast enough due to a DoW from William after I settled two cities too close to his capital. In the end I was able to destroy his army however it really slowed me down and I eventually just quit after America was doubling my tourism w/ culture at turn 230

Just tried twice to do this on Immortal. By the time I got a religion, all the faith buildings beliefs were gone. Funny how the AI quickly snaps these up, but neglects the most powerful beliefs like Tithe, CB and just about every other top-tier belief. Have to admit, I got some meh start locations and didn't re roll.

Another difficulty was that my neighbor began settling in one of my gaps.

Consensus seems to be that this doesn't work with Byzantium on Immortal. I bet it would work fine on immortal with Ethiopia.

Do you re-roll until you get a site for a faith pantheon?

I think the whole "tactic" is ok.

It is well situational and I think therefore qualifies for a valid winning condition. (you need dessert folclore, the buildings, natural wonders, beat the AI to it,...) there are so many things that can go wrong (e.g. AI popping faith huts) that this is not a unconditional stream roll guide.

I think Desert folklore is overpowered. I use a dessert civ, get Desert folklore, settle a petra city and settle every prophet after the first (fighting around prince level) and faith is free - I do not even need to work the tiles.

My problem is that there is very little to spent the faith on after you have bought all buildings. There is little gain for a 6th, 7th or 8th prophet if you already gain 50 faith pt - and loosing some 5k faith for a new prophet makes me cry - 1x artist, 1x writer, 1x musician... all for some prophet.

FrostK said:

It is possible on deity for sure. You should not take Byzantia until you want to restart game 1000 times. Just cause on deity AI found religions very fast. Even Maya can not take fast pantheon. And generally you need to enhance before third religion (first should be yours) is founded, otherwise you risk to miss second building.
You need desert start and a lot of space. I manged to win in 220 turns by Ethiopia, used great musicians for most cultural civ. End up with 40 cities.
Anyway I made several important mistakes, so I believe it can be done under 200 turns.

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Larger map significantly increase the odds of this strat being successful at higher difficulties. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it can be done on standard maps but it would be much more challenging.

Deau said:

Larger map significantly increase the odds of this strat being successful at higher difficulties. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it can be done on standard maps but it would be much more challenging.

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Yep, on large map cities cost less smiles and tech cost increase is smaller. Also total AI culture divided on your city count is much larger on smaller maps. However, on smaller maps taking required religion and reformation is easier.