What did I do wrong? Egypt ICS/Sacred Sites Early Culture Victory [KING]

the rapid expansion doesnt start with getting to Reformation. you need to strategically claim some territory asap (choke points for AI spreading, key new luxes for happiness, more pantheon faith) then settle in the gaps later when you cant find good spots anymore. getting cities down before getting to Reformation is key. it will start your fpt snowball sooner so that each city later (10th+ city) only has to wait to convert to your religion then rush faith-buy both of the buildings in those cities. you will not be building NC, Pyramids, or many of the typical BO. The first 2-3 cities can grow and build but your cap will be making nothing but settlers after about pop 5-6. buildings-wise, my cap only has shrine, granary, library, temple, Oracle, market, and writers guild (GWs for bulbing to Reformation faster - usually 1 GW). and later i'll put an Artists guild in another 5-pop city because the cap wont have enough pop to support working it and WG. i'll burn two artists for golden ages. i wont have any buildings beyond the palace to support works of art unless im stuck with Cathedrals as one of my buildings, then i'll use GAs for that.

also, getting initiation rites (100g for when city first converts) is best of the gold beliefs. the plan is to win sub-200 and tithe/world church wont add up to that 100g-per-city boost. plus its immediate. i used the convert gold to buy up the culture/mercantile CSs asap too (or to avoid gold debt penalties -- something i encountered with no real trading partners on King diff).

also, this is the faith-buy order that you'll have to follow first anyway, GP (found) - missionary (spread to 2 cities) - GP (enhance) - faith buildings. that's roughly 700 faith before you start buying buildings. you could try for Hagia if the timing is slow for your enhancer or your pantheon fpt is low. In my Dido game, I got to reformation before I got to enhance for my 2nd building (only had 10-12 fpt from quarries/shrines) so there was some timing involved. i also had to buy two GP because all my faith buildings were done and still waiting on new cities and conversions. i settled one of them and used the other to convert CSs for the gold. sometimes you cant avoid those GP purchases.

tech isnt too important as it helps keep the building faith costs down. monasteries at 120f and the rest at 160f increases as you move into new eras. no NC helps keep you from getting there too quick. this strategy relies on getting to social policies and religions faster, not techs after medieval (or astronomy if playing continents/archi).
 
In my game I never built a single library. I only made it to Renaissance because it went on so long. I bet as Mayans you could keep up in tech on Emperor even without libraries. If I had met Sweden and Austria earlier the game would have been 40-50 turns quicker as they both had over twice the culture of the other civs (shows how important it is to find all of the civs early).

If you want room for expansion then using low sea level works quite well. I fit in 30 cities no problem on a standard pangaea map and there were still many potential expansion sites left. I was swimming in faith, way more than I needed. I think I ended up with 7 or so GP generated total and I built countless (20-30?) missionaries, with no problem to faith buy both buildings immediately after settling a new city (with a missionary there ready to convert). I had 2 cities at 6 pop (including my cap) which cranked out settlers and the rest I kept at 2-3 pop. I built the Writer's Guild kind of late and only generated one GW. Didn't bother with the other guilds. Rushed Macchu Pichu with the GE I got from SH GE point, and used free Great Musician from Liberty finisher to help with culture bombing Austria near the end.
 
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