Trying a new idea: Religion-based Domination OCC ICS. Thoughts?

So I'm experimenting with this. I'm relatively new to both religion and ICS, and not much of a Domination kinda guy, so I need help.

Ok, let me explain the idea. I want to keep policy costs low while expanding wide. Puppet cities don't count towards cost, but they generate extra unhappiness and on top of that, they tend to grow out of control. Also, it's not really one-city because I will annex capitals with lots of wonders. Usually they give enough culture to compensate for the extra policy cost.

My plan is, carefully pillage and come through with workers to reduce food output, to keep my puppet city population low. Annex only the cities that I really need to. Use Holy Warriors to compensate for having only one unit producing city.

I've been experimenting with ignoring everything out of Tradition except the opener and free garrison unit recently, and otherwise going full Honor. The happiness and culture per garrison, and the free unit maintenance helps compensate for the puppeting. +1 happiness and +2 culture is better than a free monument in every city. (Although I'm not sure if that +2 culture is local culture... ie contributes to tile expansion, but I usually don't care when it's an occupied city)

So far, I can generally stagnate occupied cities at 3-4 citizens, or even less if I'm lucky, which helps keep the happiness under control. I'd like to raze cities that don't give me good luxuries, to further help with the happiness issues, but I can't afford the gaps in my expansion. It makes it hard to spread faith, and AIs resettle those spots. That's another place where this gets tricky. And god forbid a granary or aqueduct survives the capture...

Later, if I've annexed a few choice capitals, I sometimes go back into Tradition, if the timing is right, because by then, 4 free culture buildings can actually net opera houses.

Clearly there are problems with this strategy. By not getting the 4 free culture buildings I lose access to the next policy which gives the -unhappiness in the capital, which makes it hard to grow tall in my only unit-producing city.

I'm not sure my scheme is going to work out. It's hard to spread religion when you don't build more than one city. You can't afford to wait until an AI settles next to you to start spreading your religion, and I'd rather rely on Religious Texts than spend faith on Missionaries. I can attempt to settle close to an AI's capital with my first city and hope he expands my way, and doesn't have his own religion, but yeah... hmm.

I mean, obviously, what I'm trying to do here is keep my culture costs really low, hence the one city. (And this allows you to cheaply build National Wonders)

Do you think this is a feasible tactic for Immortal/Diety SP? Any suggestions to fine tune this? I'm obviously going with the +Happiness religious benefits to assist with the ICS. Where should I go after Honor? I'm thinking Commerce because I'm usually not in the Renaissance when I finish Honor, and I struggle with maintenance costs. Faith buys you units but it don't pay their upkeep... The +happiness down the right side of Commerce seems like a great synergy.

I'm also thinking Rationalism isn't my best bet, and that I should just go Commerce until I get Autocracy. Thoughts?

There's only one way to find out...

This sounds...hard.

Will you be generating enough faith to make use of holy warriors? Keep in mind that to spread your religion, you will likely need plenty of inquisitors later to take out those religions that are going to take root in other civs, and you'll need them in fairly large waves to remove enough religion so that your's can take root.

On the other hand, holy warriors seems strange with only 1 city. I almost wonder if you would be better getting cheaper buying in cities from the commerce tree and Big Ben and a follower belief to help in some other way, maybe religious community to take advantage of your important tall cities, or some extra happiness to faith buildings so your puppets can grow a bit more without you taking a hit. Religious art could also be nice. +8 culture can be massive, and the fact the AI will rarely take advantage of it makes it even better.

Piety could be a good choice. I imagine you'll be carpeting the puppets with trading posts, and they like to build faith buildings, so that +10% gold would be helpful from temples that they'll get one way or the other, and as I said, I would be concerned about the amount of faith you get being enough for holy warriors AND inquisitors, so anything to get more faith can only help. Even if you have a ton of extra faith, its just a ton of extra units!

How are you getting your religion even founded with one city? SH is a must, so you might want to consider the bonus production to wonders from honor too, but if you want to avoid finishing honor throughout the whole game...

Someone else might be able to tell better than me, but I think national wonders get more expensive with puppets as well, they just don't require the building, making most national wonders likely not worth it after you start conquering.

Also don't count on that ICS thing. The AI generally doesn't settle in your face and spaces out its own cities pretty well. You won't even start to approach that city density.

What are you considering for your enhancer? On one hand cheaper missionaries and inquisitors sounds good if you want to really spread your religion, but on the other hand, you might really need iterate preachers to hit an extra city or two with your religion as early as possible.

Autocracy is one option for your industrial SP's, but don't ignore order. your low pop puppets could benefit from extra production from mines in hilly areas, the opener will give you tons of happiness if you have many cities, and the reduced building maintenance should be nice with many puppets making all those buildings you might not otherwise build.

Like I said, this sound hard to pull off to say the least.

Rooftrellen said:

This sounds...hard.

Will you be generating enough faith to make use of holy warriors?
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What are you considering for your enhancer?
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reduced building maintenance should be nice with many puppets making all those buildings you might not otherwise build.
...

Like I said, this sound hard to pull off to say the least.

Click to expand...

Big Ben + Commerce might be a better idea, yeah. That would help.

Yes, I have run into problems with not having enough inquisitors already when trying this. My first two neighbors founded religions, and by the time I took their capitals it had spread a lot. Of course, I'm slow at Domination so that's not helping.

Re: Starting a religion - This definitely requires either certain civs or moving my settler around (if necessary) to find a spot where I can get +faith bonuses from a pantheon. With the Celts, this is easy. Religion is guaranteed if you're anywhere near a forest. The +faith from kills has strong synergy with holy warriors, and I'm mostly certain the benefit is kept after promotion. I'm considering moving my settler closer to my neighbor anyway to spread my religion easier... but anyway yeah I see your point. It is hard to found a religion with only one city normally.

I was thinking religious texts for the enhancer and getting printing press as early as possible... that makes it better than itinerant preachers. But I dunno. The cheaper faith purchases might be a better plan.

Re: Order. Building maintenance is definitely an issue, although not terribly so, because puppets are all gold-focused, and I can prevent them from getting too much production. Usually they tend to build banks and castles and other free things like that anyway. But yeah, universities and such sometimes crop up too. Hmm.

Your point about it not being true ICS due to lack of density is very true, and part of the problem. AIs tend to build closer together than players on Immortal/Diety, probably because they can afford to grow tons of cities tall with their bonus happiness. But it might not be dense enough. And I can't reduce the city size to 1 or 2 easily anyway. I can pull that sometimes but not always.

In general, I'm wondering if I'm better off abandoning the OCC part of this, just going more traditional ICS, and razing cities then re-settling the same location (or near to it)... although a courthouse is only barely more expensive than a settler... but you can use production to make settlers.. so I could follow in my city razing with a settler. That might help? Then I could take advantage of the Liberty track's happiness benefit.

I was just hoping to pull off something cool... you could complete autocracy really early if you manage to have only one city... but then maybe going wide with regular ICS will get you there even faster? I dunno. That's where my lack of ICS experience comes in.

True_Candyman: I've already made a few attempts. I tend to stall out and fall behind in tech after dominating a few neighbors. This however, happens to me on Deity with regular ol Domination, so it may not be due to a flaw in the plan. ;-)

Just try egypt :

Pick liberty and the production bonus and the free settler and maybe the worker and go as fast as possible to philosophy by this time you should have at least 3 cities (preferable 4)

Open piety in the classical era built you're temples at double speed and start expanding more because temples gives you happiness

After that finish liberty get GE and get a faith wonder like notre dam, hagia, mosque