With the extra 250 gold, I bought a quick shrine after going Pottery first. This allowed me to pick the 2nd pantheon. I chose Dance of the Aurora. After discovering the religious CS nearby, I decided to open Piety which I haven't done in a long time. The fact that none of the other pantheons chosen at that point were faith based also comforted me in that choice.
Something weird happened early on in my game. In the T20s-T30s, I captured a Netherlands settler near where I placed Sigtuna in my game. As I would later find out, this was Netherlands' original starting settler. Netherlands stayed for a very long time on one-city all early game, because of it. When it finally settled its 2nd and 3rd city near Germany, Bismark DoW'd William not long after and took them. This started an almost game-long perma-war between Netherlands and Germany since Amsterdam is in a difficult to reach area. Amsterdam fell not too long before my game ended. Germany also settled the Western coast/river spot which would also instill a game long rivalry between Germany and England.
I had a real slow beginning this game. I am not sure if its because of the Tundra start, the sparse resources, the Piety opener of maybe a combination of all three. I also focused on production early on to get buildings and make my low pop cities adopt my religion passively faster. Does anyone know of a guide/resource where I could learn exactly how the passive religious pressure works? ie is there a way to estimate/calculate when a city will convert to a religion? For some reason, most (but not all) my cities seem to convert when they grow. For example, if a city is pop 5 with 2 followers and it grows to pop 6, followers will also grow to 3 and the city will convert to my religion. Bismark looked a bit dangerous early on with the largest army, but Netherlands occupied him early on which gave me the time to convert his cities so he would become naturally friendly.
My religion was
Pilgrimage - Pagodas - Monasteries - Messiah - To the Glory of God
Netherlands and Poland also opened Piety. Netherlands was however confined to only one city most of the game and didn't spread their religion. Poland was on another continent and sent a lot of GP toward the Shoshones early on. However, they were only removing my religion from the Shoshone cities and not them converting to their own with multiple spreads for some reason. Poland Catholicism never got a foothold on the main continent. The Iroquois also founded, but mainly spread it to its own 20+ cities. England founded with the Hagia Sophia GP and only spread it to her own city. This left pretty much the whole continent for me to spread my religion with the German and Shoshone spamming cities. I got a 100+ faith output really soon around T100. After purchasing, faith buildings in all my cities, I generated 5 GP before reaching the industrial era (at which point, I stockpiled my faith). I didn't plant them, but used them to spread my religion 3 times and then gifted them to a CS. At first, I wasn't sure if it would work, but it did. So you get (most of) the benefits of the GP and can gift it too for IP! I ended with a 11K faith stockpile at the end (personal record). With it, I faith purchased 10 Great people (8*1K + 2*1.5K) thanks to To the Glory of God. So never before was it so easy to ally all CS in the game (even if there were 20, four more than standard). My lowest allied CS was at 175 IP.
In summary, I went 4-city Piety into NC. I settled 2 cities after mainly to get coastal access and to fill out my territory and get one more river GP generating city. I took the Small-Piety approach, but maybe you could call it the Medium-Piety approach in this case
I was late most of the game (compared to a normal one). I was lagging behind maybe 90% of the game. However, the AIs loved me. Neighbors adopted my religion. I always proposed the most popular resolution including Art Funding which everyone except Germany wanted. I didn't even attempt to win WF and settled for Silver. I was 4th to Ideology. Germany went Autocracy, Shoshone Order and the Iroquois Freedom. Even if Freedom would have made more sense, I chose Order to secure a least one friendly neighbor. It was the first game where I aimed for a Diplo victory that an AI actually reached the Info era first. The Iroquois who were a major runaway with 20+cities and Rationalism actually reached it a few turns before me.
Also, I encountered this bug at some point.
Achievements
A. The Gift of Genius: Gift at least X Great People to CS
e) 10 Great People
5pt
I gifted 25 great people total. I wrote political treatises with all my natural GW. I started golden ages with most of my GA. I also bulbed 5/6 GS to research Globalization in time (even if not necessary). Otherwise, I gifted all my Great People. I generated a bunch of GMu solely for gifting. I gifted my 5 GP that I got pre-industrialization. I also got 3 great people from CSes, because of the Patronage finisher that I also gifted. And, as I wrote previously, I faith purchased 10 great people with my 11K faith stockpile at the end.
B. Hack On: get at least X Hakkapeliitta and keep them alive until the end of the game (they can be upgraded)
c) 10 Hakkapeliitta
5pt
C. March On: train at least X Caroleans and keep them alive until the end of the game (they can be upgraded)
c) 10 Caroleans
5pt
D. A Friend in Swede: at some point in the game be friends with X civilizations
d) 4 Civilization
4pt
I was friend with 5 civilizations at one point: Shoshone, Germany, Netherlands, Poland and Iroquois. England was a sworn enemy of Germany and didn't like me allying Kiev. So I never got to friend them. Netherlands got wiped out by Germany. Germany was a good friend until the very end when I allied Sofia and Hong Kong with Great People gifts. At which point, Germany denounced me. Poland didn't renew DoF after going Autocracy. I stayed friend with the Shoshones (my Order buddy) and the Iroquois (Freedom) until the end.
E. Special: have a Hakkapeliitta with a stacked Great General take a city
0pt
Played peaceful all the way.