Deity: how to do everything?

cbucks said:

Sell your strategic resources for 2gpt is huge! Also, ai loans 25 gold per one gpt, which will help rush buy your science buildings. Try to get roads connected ASAP.

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This is probably on the stingy side, but the AI will actually go a tiny bit over 25 for 1gpt. If you sell 5gpt, you get around 127 gold (2 more!), 10gpt for 255 (a whopping 5 more!) and 20 gpt for 510

I'm still not bought on early shrines. Let's say you get 4 shrines by turn 50. Game will be over by turn 300 at best. So that's 250 * 4 faith per turn. In other words, that's just ONE great person. You are essentially trading 4 * 40 hammers (about 8 turns of production early on) to get that one great person at the very end of the game.

Meanwhile, you could have gotten 2 workers, 2 libraries, or 3 granaries, which in turn accelerate growth/science and snowball, whereas your faith per turn is flat at does not snowball anywhere.

Alleria said:

I'm still not bought on early shrines. Let's say you get 4 shrines by turn 50. Game will be over by turn 300 at best. So that's 250 * 4 faith per turn. In other words, that's just ONE great person. You are essentially trading 4 * 40 hammers (about 8 turns of production early on) to get that one great person at the very end of the game.

Meanwhile, you could have gotten 2 workers, 2 libraries, or 3 granaries, which in turn accelerate growth/science and snowball, whereas your faith per turn is flat at does not snowball anywhere.

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Alleria, there's nothing wrong with your math, but you are applying it in a linear fashion. In a vacuum, you'd be correct, but you are ignoring the other half of opportunity cost.

-IF you build shrines early, you are likely to get earlier pantheon/religiion AND you will enhance/spread much earlier.

-IF you build shrines early, you are more likely to build temples and therefore Grand Temple.

-IF you build shrines, temples, GT AND have a good pantheon, you've got a shot at CS requests.

-IF you build shrines, you are more likely to grab a few tenets in Piety, which can double their value (or more).

-IF you build shrines early, and get some sort of religious building, you are much more likely to pay 200 or 300 faith for those buildings than 400+. That's a huge savings.

The value of shrines cannot be measured in a vacuum and it differs every game (depending on who your neighbors are mostly, but also on your strategy that game).

Given that shrines are so cheap and available very early, I'm fine delaying something like NC by 5 turns in most games. By the time you have your 2nd and 3rd expo up, you'll know if you are going to have a decent religion or not. At the very least, build one in the capital as the pantheon boost almost always pays for the hammers even if you are going to have a weak or no religion.

There are very few starts/civs where you know ignoring religion is the right idea immediately. And a strong religion, in the right hands, can make a huge difference (In a recent DCL, I pulled out a SV late mainly because I could afford one last GS. In that game, I never spread my religion, but the extra faith all game is the only reason I won).

Just my 2 cents.

Some stuff that has helped me start winning Domination victories on Deity/Pangaea pretty consistently:

1. Using early trade routes to keep up in tech - Sure, the gold is nice, but the real advantage of these trade routes is the +4-5 bpt. This can nearly double your science in the early game and makes having someone you can be peaceful with nearby a priority.

2. As others have said, bribe any nearby warmongers - Be assured, they will attack you if you don't divert their attention. Plus, the diplo consequences for the bribed civ can often create hostilities that last for the rest of the game and buy you the space you need.

3. No need to war early unless you have to. Wait for an overwhelming tech lead - The benefits of taking out a neighbor early are not as great as they may seem. You blow your good diplo and with tradition you aren't getting many of the good bonuses in those new cities anyway. My most typical Deity domination win comes in modern era after teching bombers/paratroopers. Use saved GSes for bulbs for bulbs, as well as properly timing the free techs from completing rationalism and from Oxford to take Radar and electronics/ballistics. Then go from zero army to 10+ bombers and a couple paras for the win. Alhambra is great for blitz paras, but not essential. If you can't make the tech lead happen this early, then go for nukes/stealths/xcoms.

4. GS only, people - I rarely say anything in civ should be done every time, but this is pretty much the case with GS. Unbeknownst to many, GS/GM/GE are all on the same counter, so producing GM or GE increases the time until your next GS. This is bad! Buy GE with faith to avoid this and don't produce GMs at all. You need the GS for academies (maybe 3 or 4 for me usually) and for bulbs to power you to Radar.

Alleria said:

I'm still not bought on early shrines.

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You only need early shrines to get a pantheon, and hardly ever more than two early shrines at that. Usually just one in the cap is enough. If you don't get a good faith generating pantheon, then things get tricky. I usually wait on more shrines and all temples until after NC and I have open piety. Shark Diver outlines all the nice benefits from getting faith rolling sooner than later.

JBossch said:

Some stuff that has helped me start winning Domination victories on Deity/Pangaea pretty consistently:

4. GS only, people - I rarely say anything in civ should be done every time, but this is pretty much the case with GS. Unbeknownst to many, GS/GM/GE are all on the same counter, so producing GM or GE increases the time until your next GS. This is bad! Buy GE with faith to avoid this and don't produce GMs at all. You need the GS for academies (maybe 3 or 4 for me usually) and for bulbs to power you to Radar.

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This is something I definitely need to keep reminding myself. I almost never bother with the GM slots, but always try to fill the GS and GE. It does seem that I like to go Freedom and use the bonus for specialists from the Statue of Liberty. But I guess I need to kick my GE addiction.

cairnsy44 said:

This is something I definitely need to keep reminding myself. I almost never bother with the GM slots, but always try to fill the GS and GE. It does seem that I like to go Freedom and use the bonus for specialists from the Statue of Liberty. But I guess I need to kick my GE addiction.

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Maybe not. I go Freedom often and almost always max out my GE slots as soon as I can. I still rarely get GE's. There are just more GS slots that are filled early, then you add in the Rationalism bonus, and GS's are much more frequent. Also, you can monitor the GE's and stop working the slots to avoid popping a GE until the next GS pops if that makes more sense for a few turns. GE slots are pretty nice with Freedom/SoL, and if you have enough population, work them all day long. Just monitor the Great Person screens so you don't get the wrong one when you don't want to.

Also, I do work GM slots, especially when they are rewarding me with +2 hammers and +2 science. I just make sure not to pop a Great Merchant.

I don't usually like to play Devil's advocate for the sake of it, but I'm of the belief that it is FAR better NOT to found a religion on Deity than to attempt it. Sure, if it works out, it can be a good thing, no question. But, post-patch, it's even less likely than it was, and it wasn't that likely. The hammers spent on shrines can much better be spent on other things.

The most reliable way to a religion (assuming no faith pantheon (rare), faith wonder (rocking horse do-do) or Maya/Celts/Ethiopia) was if you had 4 or 5 forests in your first 2 rings and you had a CS you could steal a worker from. Then you could go Pottery -> Mining -> Calendar, use a BO of Monument, Worker, and Stonehenge, and use first one worker, then the other to part-cut the forests and get them to 1-turn, then go full-production (STAGNATION) and hope you will get the Wonder. But on Deity post-patch I've seen Civs get it on T23. The T37 Stonehenges are over.

Conversely, when I don't found, I have a better-than-average chance to have my neighbour choose Jesuit education, and then I'm happy-as-Larry.

While we're on to the topic, why should you take the most faith per turn pantheon instead of a food/culture one?

Alleria said:

While we're on to the topic, why should you take the most faith per turn pantheon instead of a food/culture one?

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First, you need to decide if founding is important to you. If it isn’t, or you have another strategy for early faith generation, then absolutely don’t worry about getting faith from your pantheon.

Early shrines are to have your pick of a good pantheon benefit. (But are not enough on their own to get you a GPr in time to found.)

Faith-generating pantheons (that suit your dirt) are good for founding, and are really the option for founding (if you are not playing Maya/Celts/Ethiopia). I have not been able to get Stonehenge since the patch (tried twice), and like consentient observed, it seems to go very early.

It is a bit of catch-22, because the only pantheon benefits you can count on having game-long are those that generate faith. But early game, it would be better to have that pantheon giving you food or culture.

consentient said:

The hammers spent on shrines can much better be spent on other things.

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Can you reliably get an early pantheon (for stuff besides faith, which every fits your dirt) without two or three shrines? Is not the early game pay off from that pantheon worth the shrine hammers?

Conversely, when I don't found, I have a better-than-average chance to have my neighbour choose Jesuit education, and then I'm happy-as-Larry.

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I don't see how founding could significantly influence the chances of your neighbor having Jesuit Education. But even if I found, I will adopt a neighbor's religion with JE belief for most of the game. If neighbors with early JE happened in my games more often, I would certainly put less effort into founding!

beetle said:

I don't see how founding could significantly influence the chances of your neighbor having Jesuit Education. But even if I found, I will adopt a neighbor's religion with JE belief for most of the game. If neighbors with early JE happened in my games more often, I would certainly put less effort into founding!

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What I meant is that whoever reforms first will generally pick this; the AI isn't completely stupid. So if I'm playing Pangaea (most of the time), there is a good chance that I can adopt their religion. It's far from guaranteed, but lately I've had a run of good luck taking it. So it's not that rare.

Agreed, some AI will reform early, and JE is a likely pick. I mostly play continents, so that accounts for our different habits/opinions on this point.