Piety + honor - how to?

Hello, guys! Old school civ fanatic here.

I'm trying to start the game as a spiritual warfarer civilization, trying to use only Piety and honor.

Anyone have any suggestion?

Yeah, I have one for u -just don't. it ain't gonna work. MIxing both bad trees together is awful idea. Even the AI doesn't do it.

IAUShias LOL.

I was wandering how could it work. I really prefer CIV IV mechanics, since V's decisions are FOR LIFE.

I'm kinda of bored of using tradition (since it is a error-proof alternative...kind like CHEAT)

Byzantines. As long as you get a good Pantheon, you can get Holy Warriors and a religious building so you don't end up with useless Prophets.

Edit: Or the Huns. If anyone makes a religion that you wanted the beliefs, RAZE ALL CITIES IN A 10 HEX RADIUS!

Probably on a lower difficulty. Make sure you get Holy Warriors. The other beliefs should be based on happiness and gold. Might want to play as the Celts to ensure a good supply of early faith and the UU synergizes well.

deividu said:

Hello, guys! Old school civ fanatic here.

I'm trying to start the game as a spiritual warfarer civilization, trying to use only Piety and honor.

Anyone have any suggestion?

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Turn on Raging Barbarians in advanced options and go early Honor opener to speed things up a bit. Alternatively/also, try playing with 1 less civilization than the map size would otherwise indicate so there are more barbarians to farm.

Try it with Germany or Zulu while having raging barbarians enabled. Try to get the heathen conversion (or whatever its name was) reformation and just convert barbs with low upkeep. Just park couple of missionaries 2 hexes away from barb camps and have unlimited supply of cannon fodder!

Seems like Aztecs would have a natural synergy for this (and fit quite nicely thematically too)

OMG. It is so unoptimal that mind blows when thining how to make it work.
But definetly Holy Warriors, and Tither of course, and pagodas (culture + hapiness) but religious center also ok.
Ragind barbarians is a good idea, since this Honor opener will be more than waste. However instead of less civs, add more civs. So peace will never be a option. And you need to expand less before startung warmongering.

Civs which may work better:
Aztecs, since will repair the culture issue.
Celts, more early faith and UB helps with hapiness.
Songhai. Is still horrible, but this is setup when this mud pyramid is borderline not bad.

Good luck.

It will be hard, and its a shame. I don't think it will even be possible to get a win on Deity with this, but I'm sure someone out there could prove me wrong!

TheGrandWazoo said:

It will be hard, and its a shame. I don't think it will even be possible to get a win on Deity with this, but I'm sure someone out there could prove me wrong!

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OP didn't mention anything about difficulty level?

TheGrandWazoo said:

It will be hard, and its a shame. I don't think it will even be possible to get a win on Deity with this, but I'm sure someone out there could prove me wrong!

Click to expand...

I don't know if Genghis Khan's Keshiks are still so OP in BNW, but otherwise do a duel map against Gandhi while opening up both trees.

how to? change to king or even prince where you can play blindfolded and still win.

Great ideas, guys. I've began with Aztecs, focusing on that tip about heathen conversion, (which is awesome).

About difficulty, my ordinary play is on emperor (and I can only win through culture / Diplomacy).

I'm trying that crazy piety-honor tree on Prince, but intend to do it on KING.

Actually I'm failing miserably, but I'll prevail.

Thank you guys for the replies

As said, raging barbarians. The only way you'll get Honor producing decent culture early on to compare with Trad/Lib and without the early culture you can find yourself falling behind quick. But with raging barbs you should have tons of culture coming at you from the darkness.

I echo the play with one civ less theory as well; means more barbs means more culture and means more headaches for the tactically inferior AI. Even on real difficulties (King+) that's a good thing.

It's getting hard. latest play I was like, 100 points behind, last position.

I tried doing a Pious Warmonger today, but I didn't dare to open Honor. Went full Piety as the Byzantines, and I regreted it because of how slow it is... so little culture. Anyway, spawned on a small desert with almost no places to expand, but I found a wonderful location for Adrianople, whilst Constantinople was on the desert (very low hammers, though). I had two nearby neighbors: Carthage and Egypt. On the other side of an inner like, my Buddy Babylon and Pal Pachacuti. I spawned on an ice-blocked coast, so no Dromons this time... damn... I could barely settle my third city. Anyway, I went for a big religion:

Pantheon: Desert Folklore: +1 per deserts.

Founder: Pilgrimage: +2 per foreign city following this religion.

Follower: Mosques: +3 +1 +2

Follower: Pagodas: +2 +2 +2

Enhancer: Just War: +20% combat strenght near enemy cities following this religion.

Patriarchate of Constantinople's belief: Either Tithe or Interfaith Dialogue.

So, I based it around getting big amounts of faith to spend mostly on missionaries. I would use my missionaries to convert my enemies before a war, getting more and either or . I think I could switch Mosques for Holy Warriors too, but I was quite busy buying missionaries. So, when you enter the war, you'll get your bonus. This should come around at the time of the Cataphracts, which I used with some Composite Bowmen to early rush the Carthaginians. It worked fairly well for me, on Emperor.