ALC Game 18 Pre-Game Thread: Playing as Isabella

My first ALC post from the start!! Great series. This should be an interesting game because alot of posters and advice on this forum steer away or do not mention the religion aspect much (or at least founding it). I love when I can found religions and play that angle, no one better than Isabella. So my advice

1) Be conservative on founding religions, go after polytheism first so if you are unlucky and HYuna Capac gets an Oasis to nad meditiation first you have a good edge on getting monotheism first. One comment, the AI techs slower in BTS at Monarch level so I think your chances are good to get monotheism first, espcially if AIs start meeting each other and investing in espionage.

2) Get stonhenge and oracle if you can. The GP points are valuable to get theology for the AP. The monuments and state religion (assuming you get it) will turn you into a creative civ temporarlily.

3) Once religion is secure get some defensive techs, starting with fishing/mysticism and founding an early religion leaves you in the hole. hunting/archery I think is preferable to mining/BW right off the bat.

4) Beeline engineering for the citadels. I think it is +5 XP to seige weapons. Delay economics as mush as possible.

5) Other wonders, sisten chapel, Sankor/Spiral Minuet in addition to the AP are the preferred ones. Max the use of cheap temples.

6) Backup plan to the AP. If you cannot get yourself elected, look to a cultural victory and utilize the culture corps. You should have a bunch of catherdrals to help go that route.

Just my 2 cents.

Regarding early religion, I agree that Polytheism should be the target if the plan is to go for the Apostolic Palace. I like the idea of Oracle->Metal Casting to try and generate an Engineer for it, although that delays a shrine that could help your economy. Also, Metal Casting would push you along toward Engineering for Citadels.

With an early religion and Izzy not Charasmatic, I don't see the point of Stonehenge.

The UU is almost pointless now because pikemen are less prevalent when the Conquistador comes around. The UB is still nice because you can get Level 4 Catapults, Trebuchets, or even Cannons with a barracks, Citadel, and either Theocracy or Vassalage. With the difficulty in BtS of promoting siege units, this is a major boon to the war machine.

Yes, you can build Cannons with a Citadel. Do you want to? That's a different question, and relies on delaying Economics quite a bit. Mercantilism becomes a major option in that case.

Looking forward to this one and the Apostolic Palace leverage.

illram said:

This ties into my second consideration- the Shwedagon (sp?) Paya and Pacifism. As a spiritual leader, the caste system/slavery switch and the ability to leverage the XP producing civics is great, but if you can have early pacifism your early Great Priest production can go into over-drive, assuming you make aesthetics a priority.

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I have become a big fan of Shwedagon Paya, but I think Isabella is completely the wrong leader for that wonder. SP is best leveraged by a non-religious leader who has a religion spread to them. All you need to research is Meditation, Polytheism, and Asthetics to build SP and get all religious civics. You can avoid Monotheism and Theology.

However, this game appears to have the Apostolic Palace as a goal, which requires Theology. With that in mind, the SP only grants you Pacifism before you get Philosophy, and Free Religion, which is useless if you build the Aposolic Palace. You still want Philosophy anyway as it opens up Angkor Wat, which boosts the prophets Spain will be working.

Chrispy said:

I have become a big fan of Shwedagon Paya, but I think Isabella is completely the wrong leader for that wonder. SP is best leveraged by a non-religious leader who has a religion spread to them. All you need to research is Meditation, Polytheism, and Asthetics to build SP and get all religious civics. You can avoid Monotheism and Theology.

However, this game appears to have the Apostolic Palace as a goal, which requires Theology. With that in mind, the SP only grants you Pacifism before you get Philosophy, and Free Religion, which is useless if you build the Aposolic Palace. You still want Philosophy anyway as it opens up Angkor Wat, which boosts the prophets Spain will be working.

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I have to agree the SP is going to be a rather useless wonder. Build it for the GP points if you access to gold and can trade for Aesthetics otherwise you will have opened up OT and Theology through teching/bulbing before you likely get Aesthetics. Build the great library in a second city for a GS to bulb Phil early (another religion!!!) and free religion is useless to you in this game.

Scarredroman said:

Going for Theology and christianity from the get go, means these are the techs that could be researched:

Mysticism, Polytheism, Mining, Masonry, Monotheism, Priesthood, Writing, Theology

Trying to take Divine Right from the Oracle requires Monarchy.

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Izzy starts with Mysticism so that's one tech saved straight away.

There's also room for at least 3 other techs in there before Priesthood.

Since you need mining anyway, it makes sense to get bronze working too, so that you can chop and whip. Then you need to find a way of opening up writing, which fits nicely with needing AH or the wheel and going the pottery route depending on the start you roll. Having more prerequisites makes the tech itself cheaper, so you don't lose that many turns by picking them up. On normal speed, Monarch BtS AI is exceptionally unlikely to build the Oracle before 1200AD and you can usually get it a fair bit later than that, so there's plenty of time to accumulate all the beakers you need to pop Theology.

Hopefully the start will be Spain-on-a-lake™ or coastal allowing you to focus on workboats and city growth early to make up for the lack of worker techs. Failing that you can always get the first few warriors built while you're waiting for something for a worker to do, then whip the worker (getting the expansive bonus) and chop a settler to follow.

Polytheism > Mining seems like a solid first couple of techs with others slotting in depending on availability of religion and copper. Popping Theology with the Oracle, you're guaranteed one religion, it's a question of how many others you'd like to hoard as using a prophet to bulb most of DR can potentially snag you 4 on this tech path. AI Izzy would be proud!

KMadCandy said:

that's the really weird thing about the AP vote. you don't even have to beat up the world to vote yourself in. the vote count is based on the number of cities (i think the population in the cities, actually) with the religion of the AP. the AP religion never ever changes, even if you change your state religion. so spreading it to the other guys too much can hurt you.

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Which is why I would not try to get as many religions as possible when aiming for a religious (AP) victory. It can easily lead to other civs having no religion yet when you come to spread the AP's one, and them spreading it heavily among their cities and making it their state religion. It's much better if the majority of their cities has another religion and you spread yours only to one or two, and they don't adopt it as state religion. Gives you much more influence in the AP.

The imperative must of course be to get Theology asap.

Mesousa said:

Which is why I would not try to get as many religions as possible when aiming for a religious (AP) victory. It can easily lead to other civs having no religion yet when you come to spread the AP's one, and them spreading it heavily among their cities and making it their state religion. It's much better if the majority of their cities has another religion and you spread yours only to one or two, and they don't adopt it as state religion. Gives you much more influence in the AP.

The imperative must of course be to get Theology asap.

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If everyone has christianity as the state religion, wars are unlikely, or at least can be voted to stop one teh AP is built. So spreading it is preferred. Also, all AI do not need the religion in all cities, just enough to get them to to adopt christianity as the state religion, spread the useless heathen religions to the other cities. Example, Louis XIV next door, an opporunistic backstabber. Adopt heritary rule, spread chirstianity into his 5 core cities, spread judaism into his three border cities (do this fast enough before religions spread themselves) and he's your best buddy. When elections come up you built the AP, plus you have the most cities with christianity, noone is against you. Spread only christianity and there is a chance an AI has 1 more city than you and is against you in elections, spread too little and they could be a military problem, or worse get enough cities anyway to NOT vote you to victory. B

est most of the AIs see the true faith in their cities, but not that many where you are not view as the true holy matriarch of the world!!!!!

I was re-thinking the Divine Right Strategy and say shouldn't risk it unless you have High commerce tile in your Capital.

You'll use at least your first Great Prophet to bulb a tech regardless of which method you beeline to Divine right.

So I Say you should Oracle Slingshot to Theology and Bulb Divine Right with your first GP, the only difference is a few turns of researching, because the Great Prophet will only give you 1000 beakers more or less.

After that your GPs will bulb will more useful techs, unless of course you want to use them for shrines, it'll really depend on the game but I bet you could use your 2nd Great Prophet to bulb CS, you should have COLs and Maths by that time.

I do not try for divine right much but when I do I can usually tech it before the AI. Not sure it's worth wasting a GP to partly bulb it. Depends how close the AI is though, but they do tech slower in BTS.

Sisiutil said:

Once we have a religion... actually, will one be enough, or should we play like the AI Isabella and try to found as many as possible? It may not seem optimal, but it does keep them out of the other Civs' hands. What I'm thinking, you see, is to leverage another new Beyond the Sword feature, the Apostolic Palace, and possibly pursue what I call the new "Religious Victory"--i.e. a diplomatic victory won via the AP.

How does this sound: I found a religion and spread it to myself and the neighbours (which makes Sailing an important follow-up to Fishing, as it will enable early trade routes on coasts and rivers). I found as many of the other religions as possible but keep them to myself. Bee-line to Theology (lightbulbed by a Great Prophet, perhaps?), build the AP, keep spreading the faith and see if we can't get voted an early diplomatic victory. Sound like a plan?

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It really depends how "cheap" a victory you feel you can put up with. If you want to win an early religious victory, you don't want a widely spread religion. Your religion needs to be present in every other civ, but nothing more. Ideally you want a size one arctic dump city in each civ with your relgion, and every other city with some other religion to prevent spread.

Hence, if you're going for a religious victory it's harmful for you to hoard other religions. They're useless to you and are weakening your position in the vote.

Obviously this is a rather "cheap", if not downright exploitative victory, but unfortunately the way the AP is set up, this victory always is. If you want to play it in a more realistic way (spread your religion to everywhere that'll take it, and restrict the others), then it makes more sense, but you won't win the religious victory.

My only other comment would be on the UB, which is unfortunately a bad one. The window between engineering and economics is small at best and even with stone, Castles don't give a very good return on the hammer cost. Highly promoted siege engines really aren't that stunning. Certainly not worth delaying the economics - corporation branch.

MrCynical said:

My only other comment would be on the UB, which is unfortunately a bad one. The window between engineering and economics is small at best and even with stone, Castles don't give a very good return on the hammer cost. Highly promoted siege engines really aren't that stunning. Certainly not worth delaying the economics - corporation branch.

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Here's a question, castles are obsolete at economics so you cannot build anymore citadels. Do already build citadels still give +5 XP? Monestaries cannot be built after scientific method but you can still build a missionary.

only the castle trade routes are obsolete at economics, the rest of the castle functions until rifling.

As far as strategy goes:
1. Found christianity before christ
2. axe rush someone
3. rex and spread your religion, beeline theocracy and build AP
4. beeline optics and send missionaries off in caravels to convert some heathens (only spread it to one small city in every enemy if possible so you get the most votes)
5. vote yourself ruler of the world.

Provided you don't run into anything bad, you can win before 1000AD with this strategy.

Kietharr said:

only the castle trade routes are obsolete at economics, the rest of the castle functions until rifling.

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So then build citadels in most cities (at least the military production ones) before economics, tech steel before rifling, mass build cannons, then tech rifling. Sounds like that should be the plan.

Madscientist said:

So then build citadels in most cities (at least the military production ones) before economics, tech steel before rifling, mass build cannons, then tech rifling. Sounds like that should be the plan.

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You shouldn't really need to get as far as Steel or Rifling if you're going for the AP win. The final tech you need is Optics, for overseas spread.

I'd like to point out that since you're enabling custom religions and want Christianity, you may want to grab Meditation first rather than Polytheism. There are a lot of AIs who have Christianity as their default religious choice and Meditation is quicker to research than Polytheism, so one of those may get it and grab Christianity. I'm not sure which of those who default to Christian start with Mysticism, but it's a potential risk.

I think that the Polytheism route is the way to go if you want a religious strategy, since you can just pop up to Monotheism if you miss it, but there is a chance that you'd miss Christianity by doing this.

MrCynical said:

It really depends how "cheap" a victory you feel you can put up with. If you want to win an early religious victory, you don't want a widely spread religion.
[...]
Hence, if you're going for a religious victory it's harmful for you to hoard other religions. They're useless to you and are weakening your position in the vote.

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Yup, despite how much "in style" with overzealus Izzy, a religious victory as currently implemented in BTS feels cheap. If thats the aim any early religions are best avoided. They wont prove hazzardous as the only thing they do is reduce the chance of spreading your final religion (the one granted by theology) in your cities. But merely locking most others out of a religion doesnt feel enough advantage to pursuit them ASAP.

Dont forget that going religion techs all the way will require much sacrifice in terms of military capacity, and that may prove risky depending on the map setup.

I dont see the necesity for all that GPriests settling planning and DR either. Theres little point in getting all the religious wonders as the game will likely not drag long enough for them to pay off.

The UU has seen a bit of nerfing in BTS, as lets face it when conquistadors show up melee units are well on their way out. Rifling being just a couple techs away doesnt help things either.

The UB is more promising, as the +5 sieges exp could provide a decisive advantage. Ofcourse making use of them means changing plans from a religious victory to more offensive playing.

Then again all such solid looking plans could be overturned by the map layout. Switching back to fractal maps means various possible land layouts, and starting next door to Monty will surely have dire implications against a mostly peaceful beeline to theology.

To take this thread in a totally different direction, people need to realize that commerce may be in very short supply. Izzy doesn't start with any Worker techs, and the religious focus means that we won't have any for a while. Combined with the fact that the Expansive Worker bonus is only 25% (and not double like in Sisiutil's first post), a Worker-first approach obviously won't happen. Unless this is a coastal start, we might not have ANY extra commerce for quite a while. All this talk of a Gold-boosted Divine Right slingshot - I just don't see how you can get the religions and enough Worker techs to work enough useful tiles to be competetive. This is the problem I always end up with when I start with a religious path.

madscientist said:

If everyone has christianity as the state religion, wars are unlikely, or at least can be voted to stop one teh AP is built. So spreading it is preferred.

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The aim is to win an AP victory, not to keep any wars from happening.

Also, all AI do not need the religion in all cities, just enough to get them to to adopt christianity as the state religion, spread the useless heathen religions to the other cities. Example, Louis XIV next door, an opporunistic backstabber. Adopt heritary rule, spread chirstianity into his 5 core cities, spread judaism into his three border cities (do this fast enough before religions spread themselves) and he's your best buddy. When elections come up you built the AP, plus you have the most cities with christianity, noone is against you. Spread only christianity and there is a chance an AI has 1 more city than you and is against you in elections, spread too little and they could be a military problem, or worse get enough cities anyway to NOT vote you to victory. B

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Unnecessary effort. Don't hort religions and they'll have some well spread among their cities. Spread the AP religion to one city of each civ and vote yourself winner because even if the rest opposes you, they don't have nearly enough votes to stop you. The end.

Mesousa said:

The aim is to win an AP victory, not to keep any wars from happening.



Unnecessary effort. Don't hort religions and they'll have some well spread among their cities. Spread the AP religion to one city of each civ and vote yourself winner because even if the rest opposes you, they don't have nearly enough votes to stop you. The end.

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Well, that brings up some earlier post, does this ALC want the cheap AP victory, or a more legitimate one (getting a fair vote, as a UN diplo victory). I don't know, shoving one city with religion per AI doessn't do these style of games justice.

I like spread the religion as much as possible, keep everyone happy, get votes for being a liked religious leaders, burn all the heathen AIs. I would also show a diplomatic side to these games.

Also if the AP fails for whatever reason (like overseas run theocracy all game or do not open borders, i.e. Tokugawa) the cultural route is pretty easy with more religions than less.

If you actually do pull off a religious win, you won't have any need of Curiassers. If you're going to try for the AP win, go whole hog.

You need Alphabet for spies to force religion changes in case someone decides to not be Christian.

You need Optics for Caravels so that you can actually get your Missionaries to their targets.

You need either Meditation for Monasteries or Monotheism for Organized Religion.

You need Worker techs to improve the tiles around your cities.

You need Theology for the Apostolic Palace.

That's it. You don't need anything else. You don't need Liberalism. You don't need Nationalism. You don't need Civil Service. You don't need Philosophy.

I suggest that you plan out a technology path ahead of time and only add in the techs necessary to improve and defend your cities appropriately once you see the map.

Don't build a ton of scouts. Don't build a ton of warriors. You don't need to explore too much of the world early and you will need to spend that time getting your cities built, lands improved and religions founded. Just build the number that you need to get the job done.

As for founding one of the two early religions, if VoiceofUnreason's analysis is correct (and I haven't seen him be wrong in one of his posts yet), then you can found Christ-duism or Christ-ddism if you choose (assuming you have a 2 tile available. If you have a nice juicy tile in your BFC waiting for a worker tech to improve it, you can also go for the worker tech first and then go for Monotheism. You're going to try to discover Monotheism anyway for Organized Religion to make spreading your religion easier, so just keep it in mind when you see the land around your city. If you happen to have Stone in your BFC (especially Stone on a River), going for Masonry first while building a Worker to grab an early Stonehenge for the Priest points might be worthwhile. Also, Corn, etc, might tempt you into researching Agriculture before a religion.