Early religion rush + Spiritual: why?

[vranasm]

Originally Posted by AbsoluteZero

Pretty sure that only applies if the coast is covered by your culture. Otherwise you need either fishing or sailing, I forgot which.

well the land is fully covered by his culture, the coastal tiles not, but I think it should work and the cities should be connected.
Should be easy to check with WB once I hit home with civ access.

Sailing is the universal one. Fishing opens to work coast and lake tiles

[ecuwins]

He's connected via the river to the North East of the capitol. The river does not need a direct connection, it just has to be in the BFC.? This was covered in a recent thread, I'll try to find it.

edit: Here is the thread - http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpo...59&postcount=9

[Um the Muse]

Bhavv, while I am still unconvinced that the multiple religion route is necessarily the best way to win, I was still interested in the highly focused game (by which I mean that you built only four cities and as little as possible that doesn't directly relate to your chosen victory type).

Have you tried using either CS's unlimited Artists ASAP or very early cottages to win? I was just thinking that if you can do it early enough, you might not need all of the production that I try to get.

Edit: Back on the question of whether you can land Buddhism. I was trying to copy Seriael's idea of getting a single religion and controlling the AI through it via early auto spread. Anyway, when I play as Isabela, I can pretty much count on landing it as long as I have a coastal start even on Deity. I'm guessing that the same would be true of any civ with mysticism and any source of commerce. Still unconvinced that it's good play, but at least it seems possible.

[Seraiel]

It depends on the map and the settings Um. On Huge Marathon maps, a Shrine generates tremendous amounts of profit and autospread is trippled. Anyhow, I think that it's still good play on smaller maps and especially faster settings because the benefits lie on the hand:

• Easier Diplomacy, because Religion will first spread to your neighbours, therefor you'll easily maintain peace with them.
• Cheaper espionage (the reduced costs are huge) .
• 100% science from the Shrine onwards.
• The GS doesn't get delayed that much because one can produce great Prophet points in the Capital and GS points in another city.

However, building the AP imho is a waste. Giving Theo to Civs that have ones own Religion and letting them build it is a lot cheaper and a lot easier.

Sera

[Heathcliff]

I agree with Absolute Zero here. Rushing a religion is a strategy. But it isn't the best strategy, that's building worker first and researching workertechs.

[Seraiel]

No, it isn't, it really depends on the map. you can believe me, on Huge Marathon, you can achieve some insane results with founding a Religion and building a Shrine.

[Um the Muse]

Originally Posted by Seraiel

It depends on the map and the settings Um. On Huge Marathon maps, a Shrine generates tremendous amounts of profit and autospread is trippled. Anyhow, I think that it's still good play on smaller maps and especially faster settings because the benefits lie on the hand:

• Easier Diplomacy, because Religion will first spread to your neighbours, therefor you'll easily maintain peace with them.
• Cheaper espionage (the reduced costs are huge) .
• 100% science from the Shrine onwards.
• The GS doesn't get delayed that much because one can produce great Prophet points in the Capital and GS points in another city.

However, building the AP imho is a waste. Giving Theo to Civs that have ones own Religion and letting them build it is a lot cheaper and a lot easier.

Sera

Good points all around, Sera. I probably should've mentioned that I do still play some Huge/Mara games. Part of the reason why the setting matters is that not everything scales perfectly; for example, while getting a source of gold from the beginning of the game still has a huge impact on research speed, it's not quite as big of a difference as you'd experience on other settings because it's not as big of a jump in overall commerce. Ditto with settled GP's, Academies, Scotland Yards, etc.

Espionage benefits, on the other hand, are always empire-wide bonuses/ cost reducers. Shrines, hopefully, scale well too.

What I'm looking at, though, is if the early shrine is worth giving up resource trades (assuming that you lose city spots by going this route). When you can routinely trade resources for 15 gpt+ and sometimes much higher, there's a huge cost to giving up any resources.

[Heathcliff]

Shrines are overpowered on Huge maps.
Rhye capped the gold income from Shrines to 20 in his mod, because of this.

[iggymnrr]

No, it isn't, it really depends on the map. you can believe me, on Huge Marathon, you can achieve some insane results with founding a Religion and building a Shrine.

Shrines are overpowered on Huge maps.
Rhye capped the gold income from Shrines to 20 in his mod, because of this.

Curious. I play a fair number of huge marathon settler maps. I agree that founding religion can lead to some great results but not with a shrine. Even with Gandhi I found a shrine to be underpowered. Bulbing Divine Right and the Spiral Minaret was stronger. Throw in a later AP ...

On the other hand smaller maps are not so great for religion founding. With fewer AIs, alphabet essentially makes the AI vassals who will research religions for you.

[Quibblesome]

I recently played a huge marathon. Captured all 3 main shrines. Income was something like 55, 75, 88 off them. Add in banks, grocers, markets and you see how broken that is .

[iggymnrr]

I recently played a huge marathon. Captured all 3 main shrines. Income was something like 55, 75, 88 off them. Add in banks, grocers, markets and you see how broken that is .

On settler by the time the AI gets a shrine the spaceship will be launched. What 55, 75 or 88 gold is there? Who's got time to build markets, grocers and banks much less spread 3 religions? Mining Inc and Wall Street happen faster. Shrine? What's that?

[Quibblesome]

Well tbf it was marathon so space was miles away at this point. I captured the last shrine around rifling. I also didn't build any of the shrines or banks. I just captured them. Still it made a huge difference in being able to support my 45 city empire. It was on Emperor.

Just consider the 13 or so city empire of the civilization I took the last shrine off. Their tech rate was very high.

[iggymnrr]

^
I agree that shrines can mean something on emperor. Costs are low on settler and, by comparison, trade routes will be internal and like worth 1 or 2 gold for a long while. Currency is more useful for building wealth not the extra 1 gold per city. So if the immediate hit of an extra 1 gold per city via currency isn't a major deal, then is the effort of another gold per city via missionaries worth it? (You have to do the effort. The AI won't.) I can attest to 4 or 5 cities building wealth financing a 44 city empire running environmentalism and a food corp without Wall Street. Costs are that low.

[plasmacannon]

If in your games, you tend to tech quickly and fight mostly with mid to later units, then it might be time to add in Raging Barbs.
I play with them in, on Epic game speed, Large maps on Monarch and I can tell you that spreading your religion to get those shrines/OR/Theo/Pas benefits rack up, especially with the Spiral, banks and Sankore.
I know not everyone goes with this strategy. Personally, I'll take the gold anywhere I can get it, especially early in the game. Yes, a lot will depend on the leader and the land around me.

[Seraiel]

Originally Posted by Um the Muse

Good points all around, Sera. I probably should've mentioned that I do still play some Huge/Mara games. Part of the reason why the setting matters is that not everything scales perfectly; for example, while getting a source of gold from the beginning of the game still has a huge impact on research speed, it's not quite as big of a difference as you'd experience on other settings because it's not as big of a jump in overall commerce. Ditto with settled GP's, Academies, Scotland Yards, etc.

Espionage benefits, on the other hand, are always empire-wide bonuses/ cost reducers. Shrines, hopefully, scale well too.

What I'm looking at, though, is if the early shrine is worth giving up resource trades (assuming that you lose city spots by going this route). When you can routinely trade resources for 15 gpt+ and sometimes much higher, there's a huge cost to giving up any resources.

Loosing ressource trade isn't worth getting a shrine, but you don't loose ressource trade on Huge Marathon. If you know how to REX properly, you always get at least 6 cities, all securing at least 3 ressources (I had sometimes cities having as many as 12 ressources) so you'll still have enough to trade. Going Meditation first with a Mysticism Civ often not even means loosing 1 city, if you take the Incans for example, starting with Agri, and stealing the Workers, but coastal starts with Isabella work very well too. With other Civs, it's more complicated, if the start doesn't fit the techs one has, I wouldn't go the Shrine route either.

Originally Posted by Quibblesome

I recently played a huge marathon. Captured all 3 main shrines. Income was something like 55, 75, 88 off them. Add in banks, grocers, markets and you see how broken that is .

In my current game on Huge Big & Small, I have 160 cities of which 120+ have the religion I captured from my neighbour Hatty who spread it to me, so that's 130 * 3 = almost 400 only from 1 Shrine. The 2nd and 3rd shrine, which are again between 80 and 100 (including multipliers) are on top of that, so I know what you're talking about . I'll post a picture by the time I finish that game from the time where I captured it to show what impact it had on the economy.

Originally Posted by iggymnrr

On settler by the time the AI gets a shrine the spaceship will be launched. What 55, 75 or 88 gold is there? Who's got time to build markets, grocers and banks much less spread 3 religions? Mining Inc and Wall Street happen faster. Shrine? What's that?

1. In a spacerace game, Shrines don't have that much impact as in Domination games, because you will stay small with your empire while when going for Domination, you'll grow very large.
2. Autospread plays an enormous role on slower settings. Otoh though, spreading the religion to your own cities will be worth it, because it's better than building Wealth (due to multiplier buildings) and because OR is so extremely powerful. Just think that a Missionary costs 80 but saves you about 65 if you only build 1 Library that gets fastened up by it. A city getting a Forge is always worth getting the right Religion before that, because OR saves already more than the missionary cost on that build.
Spreading 3 Religions though is only worth it if you go for Cultural.
3. Regarding Markets, Banks and Grocers, I want to ask you, do you build Universities when you go for space? if you do, you can understand building Banks if you go for Domination, but if not, you surely can if you go for Corps i. e. if you play for highscore.

[iggymnrr]

2. Autospread plays an enormous role on slower settings. Otoh though, spreading the religion to your own cities will be worth it, because it's better than building Wealth (due to multiplier buildings) and because OR is so extremely powerful. Just think that a Missionary costs 80 but saves you about 65 if you only build 1 Library that gets fastened up by it. A city getting a Forge is always worth getting the right Religion before that, because OR saves already more than the missionary cost on that build.
Spreading 3 Religions though is only worth it if you go for Cultural.
3. Regarding Markets, Banks and Grocers, I want to ask you, do you build Universities when you go for space? if you do, you can understand building Banks if you go for Domination, but if not, you surely can if you go for Corps i. e. if you play for highscore.

I build enough Unis for Oxford. I usually run OR to set up pacifism and spread it mainly to the core cities. The last game I played with Darius the GP counter was at 4200 at game's end in 140 BC. OR was mildly useful. If you ever play an enviro-style game every hill is a money bag. 300+ windmills is a lot of money bags. They make a shrine look like nothing.

[UncleJJ]

Spiritual is very good for a combined religion and espionage game. Spiritual allows you to switch between religions and civics to get the most out of each situation, diplomatically and economically.

On marathon these effects are magnified since you can still change things every 5 turns (which is in effect equivalent to switching every 1.3 turns on normal speed). Also the effective costs of missionaries (needed to spread multiple religions) and spies is less on marathon and they effectively move faster making them more efficient at doing what they're needed for.

So I'd say that a religious strategy and particularly one using espionage works better on marathon than on other speeds.

[bhavv]

Originally Posted by Um the Muse

Bhavv, while I am still unconvinced that the multiple religion route is necessarily the best way to win

I never said its the best way to win, I said that winning with founding religions is not hard at all and possible for me up to immortal given the right map.

Originally Posted by Heathcliff

But it isn't the best strategy, that's building worker first and researching workertechs.

No thats not the best strategy either. Imperialistic 15 turn Settler first is a better strategy. You open up a much faster and significantly stronger starting game by having two cities at turn 17-19.

[QuixotesGhost]

I just gave bhavv's strat of early religion founding + settler first w/ Imperialistic and I liked a lot. If you settle riverside and put your second city along the same river it gives a shot in the arm of some early commerce with the trade route and the extra city square so you'll have your worker techs researched by the time you get your workers out. It's probably the very quickest way to grab the oracle, on a perfect map it might even be the fastest way to Alphabet. Plus the early border expansion from the holy city gives you more tiles to work with your 2nd city.

It also makes early religion low-risk, since if you get beat to it - you went settler first so don't need the worker techs immediately and you'll be going for the oracle anyways (it'd be silly not to).

TBH, I think it's the strongest early religion opening.

*Drools thinking about super-early forges with Oracle'd Metal Casting and Organized Religion*