The Immortal Challenge 1: Apocalypto

go for hinduism!
you'll want the HE sooner than later, so it's not wasted anyway

After that the pigs are high priority. then BW, then?
UB requires CoL, UU requires IW, slavery is much better with granaries which require pottery, temples (happiness for a spi leader!) need priesthood.

I'd forget pottery for a while if you don't research agri before AH. So it would be priesthood then writing then CoL, provided you have copper.
If you don't, it may be better to go for IW.

[problem corrected]

Winston Hughes said:

HGE? Did you mean the HE, or am I missing something?

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right, my finger slipped. I edited my post.

My arguments about going for poly:
- you may get a religion
- it leads to priesthood which is a prereq for writing and for CoL which is needed for your UB. You may even have a shot for the oracle, but that's not really important (always good to have, but not necessary). Priesthood is also needed for temples, which you should whip
- it is a prereq for literature, that you want soon enough to build HE and have a good use of it. You may even have a shot for the great library, but I wouldn't do it (it is a good capturable wonder)

Mutineer said:

I am not sure you are correct in your assumption how religion is rolled out.

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Suppose I tell you that it isn't an assumption, but a memory of how the code works from having looked at it several times to answer this question? No, suppose I tell you that I checked it fifteen minutes ago? Edit: Suppose I come back an hour later and tell you I'm starting to have doubts myself?

The algorithm favors lowest score, rather than highest, with a +10 penalty added to the non-humans, it happens after the last players turn rather than before the next players turn... what I mean is I explained everything backwards but the basic idea is right. CvGame::doHolyCity for those of reviewing the code at home.

I have heard reports of single play games where the human player did not get Judaism, but I haven't seen a demonstration of this issue, so I'm cautiously optimistic that this interpretation of the code is correct.

There's always the possibility that the delivered SDK doesn't actually match the delivered binaries, that I'm failing to read the code carefully, etc.

Mutineer said:

I allways based my calculation on assumption that religion rolled out the same way as Wanders.

I know that wanders based on Max overflow from wander building in case if bouth are going to be build the same turn.

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Tangent: I keep hearing this, and can't find any justification to support this claim in the code. Among other things, it completely contradicts how training of units works (whipped units are immediately available to defend), and I believe it contradicts how other buildings are constructed (whipped walls are immediately available in defense?)

Mutineer said:

It is resonable assumption, as civ was designed as multiplayer game and creators needed to find a fair way to do this. Civ try to avoide lines like
If human then
I do not look on sdk, just base on general assumptions.

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I agree that it is a reasonable assumption. It doesn't appear to hold in this case, but that doesn't make the assumption unreasonable.

I had thought as well that religion founding works like building: when a player's turn ends, beakers are added, tech discovered, and religion immediatelly founded with holy city placed.
That it doesn't work this way is surprising to me. I guess the holy city founding code is full turn + random because of the starting era thing - it's possible that all players have the necessary founding tech and thus are eligible for founding the religion at the beginning of the game.

Always something new to be learned. Thanks for the explanation VoU.


In any case, getting a religion relies on no AI starting with mysticism and going for the same religion. I really hate gambling, so I would base the decision on going for Polytheism on the assumption that I do NOT found Hinduism that way. If researching Polytheism still sounds a reasonable choice, good - getting Hinduism would be a nice bonus.

Elandal said:

I really hate gambling, so I would base the decision on going for Polytheism on the assumption that I do NOT found Hinduism that way.

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Would there be any reason to go for Polytheism as the first tech unless we have a chance of getting Hinduism? As far as I can see, Polytheism first is a gamble, with the guaranteed advantage of a quicker worker tech (or techs) being staked against the possibility of grabbing an early religion. It sounds to me like the logical conclusion to your thoughts would be to play the conservative choice and go for worker techs from the off.

On the other hand, perhaps your choice would be affected by a better appreciation of the odds. Would, say, a 60% probability of grabbing Hinduism be enough? Or would it have to be 70%+? (And, perhaps more to the point, can anyone be bothered to work it out?)

You say you hate gambling, but surely there must be odds at which you'd take the chance (assuming you saw the religion as a worthwhile goal anyway).

As interesting as this religion-gamble conversation is getting, I still stand by my argument that the +1 hapiness is not even worth the delayed second city. You'll spread your religion to your closest neighbours first, but those are the very neighbours you want to destroy first, making this diplomatic manouvre totally pointless. Soon you'll have to adopt someone else's religion for diplomatic modifiers anyway: what a waste of a holy city. And why aren't you thinking of capturing one instead?

Elandal said:

I had thought as well that religion founding works like building: when a player's turn ends, beakers are added, tech discovered, and religion immediatelly founded with holy city placed.

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I had thought so too, especially since that is how it works if you lightbulb the religion....

Actually, I'm starting to lose confidence in my earlier answer: there are a lot more references to this thing than I had recalled. It may be that doHolyCity applies only for the predealt religious techs. My reading right now suggests that CvTeam::setHasTech() calls CvPlayer::foundReligion, with yet another copy of the same !@@#$@#$ selection algorithm in it.

In which case, the religion should always appear immediately after the tech is discovered (so comparing the research overflow still doesn't come into play). Yup - following the chain up, the other call to foundReligion is nested inside of CvPlayer::doTurn. I wonder why I ever thought it was anything else. OK, maximum appologies for burning cycles goofing this up - I'll probably write up another religious article as penance.

Indeed I would play conservatively.
What I don't like about going for religion here is that it depends only on whether some AI civ goes for the same or not. There's no difference in working oasis or not, for example (although working oasis is a good move in any case - food + commerce is powerful combination). And there are just too many civs with Mysticism for me to gamble on being the only one, or at least only one that goes for the particular religion.

On lower difficulty levels I could see oasis as a lucky tile. In that case only civs that start with mysticism and some luck can compete on the religion. And eg. HC or WK with oasis means that I have a very good chance on getting the religion - a civ that doesn't have 2c-tile to work can't get it before me.

It's of course possible to consider also the risk in going for Polytheism first and not getting Hinduism. If that isn't too bad, nothing really to worry about, then why not.

When you work the oasis right from the start (I still tend to settling on the spot), it will take:

12 turns for poly
8 agri
7 mining

This would mean to build a warrior (12 turns) and grow to size 2 before starting the first worker (12 turns) or the worker would end up hanging around and beeing bored.

When the worker is finished then, you can immediately work the corn (grow the city to 3 after this is done) and build a mine.

Researching bronze will take 16 turns then and your worker can start chopping with only a little periode of waiting and your size 3 capital can produce/chop/whip units/workers/settlers at a decent speed right from the start...

Doesn´t sound to bad to me and is in my opinion worth the gamble of having the bonus of an early religion

On the other side, playing save is also very nice with this start and with this starting techs, since:

Settle on the spot and work the oasis
produce a worker first (15 turns)
research agriculture (9 turns) then archery (7 turns)
So when the worker is finished you can (except of one turns) skipp warriors and build archers directly...

Keep in mind the barbarians tend to come for your borders +/- 1780 BC on immortal, if you go for a religion you have to have a good plan for dealing with the barbarian issues. In my games even without founding a religion it can be hard to connect copper/horses in time if i miss out on the first resource i went for. If you go for Poly/Bud you get delayed by 600 years. If you miss your first resource you'll have to build a lot of warriors or go for archery.

Good grief, please play the turns ASAP so I don't have to wade through so many posts

Darrell

I think its very likely you'll get buddhism if you research it. The AI almost never goes for it as its first tech after the warlords patch.

Settler to SE. You get small boost to production, however without fresh water. From my higher lever experience, there are so many improvments that your city will never be completely useless. If plains make it production city and wait till Civil Service.

Do not waste time for an early religion. Rush Stonehenge an get first Theology.

If you decide placing most of your cities on hills and Stonehenge succeds you can simply skip Archery and Hunting. Your warriors will get bonus from hills, bonus from culture and bonus from Combat1. It's enough to defend from barbarian archers.

Go Mining and BW. Knowing important resurce will make your game easier. If lack you can go back to archery, or better Iron Working.

I ran a series of test games (fresh starts; not the save aelf posted) to see how likely it was that we could grab a religion. I'm in two minds as to whether I should post the results at this point, so I'll leave it up to aelf's decision whether or not he wants to know them before he makes the tech choice...

If I'm going after an early religion, I always go for Polytheism for Hinduism these days. Mainly because it's a pre-requisite for Literature, so I don't feel I completely wasted the hammers if I fail to snag the religion.

After the early religion chase is done for good or ill, I'd recommend pursuing techs to reveal strategic resources: Agriculture -> Animal Husbandry for horses, especially since those techs are both justified by the visible resources, then Mining -> Bronze Working.

There's ~25% additional bonus when defending cities vs barbs. Warriors can hold the capital no matter what. However, they can't protect the irrigation or the mine.

Chances are there will be another civ with Mysticism, about 3 in 4. Immortal AIs grow fast and they will work two tiles for a while before Polytheism is researched.

What are people talking about holding up a second city to get religion. The research of Poly has very little effect, aside from holding up BW for chopping. I think that the research of religion actually encourages getting a second city quickly as you can grab some land with culture and increase happiness.

Galileo44 said:

What are people talking about holding up a second city to get religion. The research of Poly has very little effect, aside from holding up BW for chopping.

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In this case aelf can't improve either of the food resources without a tech, which may slow growth enough to hold up the first settler (and, as a result, the second). Whether or not it would do so depends upon the exact amounts of time needed for the requisite builds, techs and growth.

However, I do with agree with you that, in many cases, going for an early religion doesn't have a serious negative effect on your expansion (and that it can even help). Imo, early wonders are often the real expansion killer; though this seems to be less of an issue on higher levels, where maintenance costs rule out a settler-spam opening.