AI Occasionally Selects Sacred Sites Despite Having No Faith Buildings

'Nuff said.

I just had this happen to me... was playing a dominating religion game with Indonesia, took the bonus happiness for gardens belief so I could spam cities with candis and got pagodas as well, but China beat me to a reformation and of course chose sacred sites despite not having any purchasable buildings through their religion. I did get Jesuit education which I've abused to purchase some 25-50 or so science buildings in my massive empire so it has been a blast, but I was hoping to finally enjoy the sacred sites experience.

I tried a handful of Byzantium games as well trying to get three faith buildings (which I could) but the AI consistently beats me to sacred sites because it seems it will always choose it as the #1 reformation regardless of whether it's beneficial for them or not.

What strategy has been the best way for people to actually get sacred sites? I'd love to have a game with this reformation just to see how it plays but I refuse to beeline the piety finisher out of the gates and gimp the rest of my empire's infrastructure. I have only recently been dabbling in piety (with Byzantium, Poland and now Indonesia) and, though the tree does seem weak, it's definitely fun for a liberty style empire. At this point, I'm figuring the beeline (or near-beeline) is what must be done.

Play as poland to blitz through piety. That or lower the difficulty. Otherwise I don't bother with piety. Too much work and gambling with the AI to make it worth my time. Tradition is much safer.

It's perfectly viable for the AI to do this to deprive someone else. If that is actually their intention.

Also, those +faith bonuses from Sacred Sites apply to buildings bought from foreign religions spread to your cities?

AFAIK any of the belief buildings will give a tourism bonus. Even if they aren't your faiths.

Quineloe said:

It's perfectly viable for the AI to do this to deprive someone else. If that is actually their intention.

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You know damn well it isn't. I wish people would stop raising this idea to justify it's stupidity when the AI does something ******ed like this.

What else should it take? The rest suck.

If or some reason I ever filled out the piety tree I'd take sacred sites even if my religion didn't include any buildings.

Beaver79 said:

What else should it take? The rest suck.

If or some reason I ever filled out the piety tree I'd take sacred sites even if my religion didn't include any buildings.

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To your statement I bolded: FALSE.

Jesuit Education makes science buildings appear at quite reasonable Faith costs in your cities. It's really, really good. Try getting Universities instantly at ~400 Faith instead of lots of gold/production. And then your Public Schools/Research Labs at like 600/800. It saves a lot of production time, or a lot of money, both of which are valuable and can now be committed elsewhere.

To the Glory of God lets you buy any kind of Great Person you wish, massively increasing the flexibility of your purchases. (I.E. Liberty players can get Great Engineers, Tradition/Rationalism can still buy GWAM to match theming bonuses at the right time, you could buy Scientists without finishing Rationalism entirely, etc)

Unity of the Prophets is great for spreading your religion, and all the benefits that confers, because people can't just wipe your religion out instantly. Their Prophets and Inquisitors might not even remove your religion from dominance in a city.

There are some weaker ones, but that's three right off the top of my head that are great.

I disagree that reformation beliefs suck.
There are lots of decent choices available (I agree that some are a little weak) and they are tailored towards particular strategies.
To the glory of god is very appealing (you don't need Tradition or Rationalism to get engineers or scientists from faith)
Unity of the Prophets works very well with Byzantine as you can use your bonus belief to get 2 founder beliefs; Tithes and Pilgrimage is very powerful.
Charitable Missions is good for diplomatic victory

Magma_Dragoon said:

You know damn well it isn't. I wish people would stop raising this idea to justify it's stupidity when the AI does something ******ed like this.

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No, I actually do think that the AI is trying to deprive others of sacred sites.
I think it was developer intended, after noticing that the human player 50% of the time will get sacred sites otherwise.

gunny like u guys argue like their is some intention behind ai actions.

They cant judge what sp are good for them so they pick randomly ..

GoStu said:

To your statement I bolded: FALSE.

Jesuit Education makes science buildings appear at quite reasonable Faith costs in your cities. It's really, really good. Try getting Universities instantly at ~400 Faith instead of lots of gold/production. And then your Public Schools/Research Labs at like 600/800. It saves a lot of production time, or a lot of money, both of which are valuable and can now be committed elsewhere.

To the Glory of God lets you buy any kind of Great Person you wish, massively increasing the flexibility of your purchases. (I.E. Liberty players can get Great Engineers, Tradition/Rationalism can still buy GWAM to match theming bonuses at the right time, you could buy Scientists without finishing Rationalism entirely, etc)

Unity of the Prophets is great for spreading your religion, and all the benefits that confers, because people can't just wipe your religion out instantly. Their Prophets and Inquisitors might not even remove your religion from dominance in a city.

There are some weaker ones, but that's three right off the top of my head that are great.

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The Jesuit Education and Glory of God (which might by OP) motivate me to get a religion even if I'm not going to spread it that much. The ability to buy any GP is amazing and let's you cherry pick the policies and Jesuit education lets me amp up science without having to divert hammers to those buildings. "Would I like a free University? Yes, yes I would!"

Dr. D said:

......What strategy has been the best way for people to actually get sacred sites?....

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You'll need to be the first to have a reformation belief which means you'll have to focus on Piety early game. This will come at a cost, however.

Why did this get moved out of the "bugs" section? It's clearly a programming oversight.