G-Major 34

[img=right]http://www.civfanatics.net/methos/hof/staff/gauntlet.gif[/img]While the general Hall of Fame is an ongoing competition, we like to run time-definite competitions between updates that we call Gauntlets. Standard Hall of Fame rules (*) still apply, but any games meeting the settings will be counted towards the Gauntlet.

Settings:

• Victory Condition: Religious (though all victory conditions must be enabled)
• Difficulty: Immortal
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Standard
• Map Type: Ice Age
• Speed: Epic
• Civ: Any
• Opponents: Any
• Version: 3.17.001
• Date: 25th August to 25th September 2008

Must not play as Inca.

The earliest finish date wins, with score as a tiebreaker.

Are there any Religious Diplomatic Victory guides?

I couldn't find any.

Sun Tzu Wu

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Are there any Religious Diplomatic Victory guides?

I couldn't find any.

Sun Tzu Wu

Click to expand...

Have a look at the discussion in
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=280317

I think most questions are answered there

The differences between 3.13.001 and 3.17.001 are discussed a bit here:

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286952

Mainly, that you can no longer self-vote by converting to your state religion after the vote is made, but before end of turn.

Now you just need friendly AI with their own religion, and to only convert to the AP religion long enough to build it.

Doing any sort of diplo victory with the buggy 3.17.001 mod would be rather hard(you can't bribe people into civics)...

Thanks for all the suggested threads about the Religious Diplomatic Victory. The last one on BTS 3.17 was especially current and useful, since it touched on the difficulty of getting a Religious Diplomatic Victory on BTS 3.17 versus the easier 3.13 (which isn't permitted in this Gauntlet).

My first attempt came to an early end, since I accidentally generated maps with normal Barbarians. I usually play with Barbs off, especially for peaceful victory goals. I had it set for Raging Barbarians for an earlier war-mongering game and just desected it without selecting No Barbarians. I played as though they wouldn't bother me, but they did; lost a Warrior and Hut Scout to Animals and another Warrior to a Barbarian Archer.

I'll try again without Barbs.

Sun Tzu Wu

HolyHandGrenade said:

Have a look at the discussion in
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=280317

I think most questions are answered there

Click to expand...

That was on Medium and Small and the gauntlet was won around 900AD.
Ice Age map may be very similar, so this might be a good reference. If, however, that map has settings that allow all civs to be met without Astronomy, it's a completely different game. I haven't looked at Ice Age in a while, I'm thinking it will have continents. In that case, most of my BC strategy is probably useless. I'd be glad to share what I can recall if it applies to this map. Anyone expecting a BC finish?

I haven't played Civ in months...unofficially retired. Trying to make it permanent this time. It's like trying to quit smoking with the nicotine patch. I even used "the patch" for my civ addiction...in that I upgraded early to the 3.17 patch so I couldn't play even if I wanted to until the HoF mod was ready.

I've gotten several IA maps that were single continents so a BC finish should be possible. Of course not by me but Mesix is pretty good with the religious games so he might pull it off. That is if he can be convinced to play. He seems to be in that retirement phase too.

I have submitted one game in the past 30 days.

update: I updated my HOF to 3.17 on my home desktop and supmitted another game as a quick test. I am running map finder for the settings of this gauntlet and will see what I can do. Good luck everyone.

My first attempt did not go too well. I was able to found three religions (Hindu, Jew, and Christ) in my Capitol. Most of the players were on one large irregularly shaped landmass, but two AI civs (Hatty and Mansa Musa) were on their own islands. By the time I found Hatty and spread the AP faith to her it was already about 400 AD. Not a bad time, but unfortunately Shitting Bull decided to form a colony at about this time which ment I had to spread the AP faith to one more civ before elections would trigger. By the time the elections came, three AI civs had spread the AP religion to most of their cities (giving them a lot more votes than I would like). The two players who had the most votes were running the Free Religion civic, so I lost the "brothers and sisters of the faith" diplo bonus. It was about 1000 AD when I quit. I knew the game was going way too long and I hadn't yet reached my goal.

I will be giving it another go soon. A BC finish shouldn't be too tough if the game plays out well.

Turn off vassals

I've read the threads mentioned above, but ...

No problem using The Oracle to get Theology, but what next ...

All (6) opponents are on the same continent, so there's no clear research path after Theology like Astronomy. So, I decided that Animal Husbandry and Bronze Working would be good to improve my Power rating; I'm hooking up Copper and researching Alphabet (to give away Techs later) now.

My diplomacy with any opponent is currently no better than +1. I founded Judaism (Monotheism) and Christianity (Theology). I'm running Organized Religion for the 25% Hammer bonus for buildings/Wonders, but this results in -2 Diplomacy adjustment with Darius I (Buddhism) and -4 Diplomacy adjustment with Mansa Musa (Hinduism). Fortunately, Mansa Musa opened borders with me at -3 Diplomacy.

So, is The Apostolic Palace Victory vote (BTS 3.17) really invalidated if one has 75% of the vote by oneself? That doesn't seem to appear in the documentation. In any case, if 75% of the faithful are Roman, shouldn't the Pope be Roman too? Sometimes this game doesn't even try to simulate reality.

This is my first attempt at a Religious Diplomatic Victory, so I'm a bit lost. Any suggestions?

Sun Tzu Wu

Well...I managed a poor time, but a victory none the less.

The start location looked great with 2 seafood and 2 grassland gems. Unfortunately I was alone on an island.

There are no other submissions yet...so maybe I'll be the first. I will be posting a better time soon.

As a measuring stick...my first attempt yielded a 1650 AD finish. Like I said...it will improve very soon. I had to get to Liberalism and convert to Free Religion to get the diplo votes since noone shared a religion with me.

@ Sun Tzu Wu: After you research the prereqs for Theology and get the Oracle going, it is best to research techs that improve your healthiness and happiness. More population equals more votes when the diplomatic victory comes up. If you time it right, you should be able to spread the AP religion to one city of each AI by the time the wonder finishes. Run the Organized Religion civic and spread it to all of your cities first. At least one of your cities should be building a missionary at any given time.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

So, is The Apostolic Palace Victory vote (BTS 3.17) really invalidated if one has 75% of the vote by oneself? That doesn't seem to appear in the documentation.

Click to expand...

This is the main problem with the Apostolic Palace, there is litlle to no official information about it, just what people have found with experience. I believe that you can't win if no other AI votes for you (that may or may not mean you can win with 75% of the votes yourself) but I am on no way 100% sure.

Try and treat it like a UN victory and get all the AI to vote for you.

I have a (as yet unaccepted) game, 1200AD. Could only reasch one other AI by land, 3 by galley but had to wait to get caravels to reach the last two. Having everyone on the same landmass would mean beating this date by a long way, might have to play again.

I had 3/5 of the other civs vote for me in the AP election.

Mesix said:

@ Sun Tzu Wu: After you research the prereqs for Theology and get the Oracle going, it is best to research techs that improve your healthiness and happiness. More population equals more votes when the diplomatic victory comes up. If you time it right, you should be able to spread the AP religion to one city of each AI by the time the wonder finishes. Run the Organized Religion civic and spread it to all of your cities first. At least one of your cities should be building a missionary at any given time.

Click to expand...

Can you switch your State Religion while building The Apostolic Palace?

Can you also interrupt building it, convert to No State Religion while building something else, and convert back to the old State Religion and resume building the AP?

My plan was to found a Religion, get Theology, build The Apostolic Palace and spread my Religion to the lowest Population City with lowest potential for Population growth in every opponent's Civilization. I didn't think I'd need many Cities to do this; so far, I have only two Cities and the capital is busy building The Apostolic Palace.

Now, I don't think I have enough Cities. Maybe four Cities would have been better:

1 City to build The Oracle and The Apostolic Palace and maybe 1 Missionary.

3 Cities to build 3 Missionaries each, making a total of 9, 3 for my Civ and one each for the six opponent Civs. Opponent Civs that founded Religions may require back up Missionaries, in case the first one fails to convert the City, so maybe each City needs to build a 4th Missionary.

I built Stonehenge and The Oracle in my capital and now I have a Great Prophet that doesn't seem to be much good, since I haven't built any Missionaries yet. There doesn't seem to be much point in building a Holy Shrine for a founded Religion with no following and a Golden Age seems to be a waste for only two cities. Can't a Great Prophet be used to bulb Theology? I've done that in Warlords, but is it possible in BTS?

Maybe I should start with a Leader that begins with Mysticism? With Mysticism on Turn 0, there might be a chance of founding either Buddhism or Hinduism? Does anyone know the set of Turn 0 Techs (in addition to the Civ specific starting Techs) the AI gets at Immortal level? Is Mysticism one of them?

Sun Tzu Wu

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Can you switch your State Religion while building The Apostolic Palace?

Click to expand...

If you change to NSR you lose the ability to build the AP.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Can you also interrupt building it, convert to No State Religion while building something else, and convert back to the old State Religion and resume building the AP?

Click to expand...

You can do this but you will get some hammer decay if you leave it too long.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

3 Cities to build 3 Missionaries each, making a total of 9, 3 for my Civ and one each for the six opponent Civs.

Click to expand...

Remember you can only have 3 missionaries at any one time (including on build queues).

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Can't a Great Prophet be used to bulb Theology?

Click to expand...

Yes.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Does anyone know the set of Turn 0 Techs (in addition to the Civ specific starting Techs) the AI gets at Immortal level? Is Mysticism one of them?

Click to expand...

I think not but not 100% sure.

Ozbenno said:

I had 3/5 of the other civs vote for me in the AP election.

Click to expand...

Is that possible before 1000 BC? I just passed 1500 BC and my best Diplomatic value was +3 (Hatshepsut). Doesn't the Diplomatic value need to be +8 or better before there is even a chance of an AI voting for a DV?

Does anyone understand how the Favorite Civic works? Hatshepsut's Favorite Civic is Organized Religion and I have been running it since I founded Judaism, but I'm not getting any Diplomatic bonus for it.

Sun Tzu Wu

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Is that possible before 1000 BC? I just passed 1500 BC and my best Diplomatic value was +3 (Hatshepsut). Doesn't the Diplomatic value need to be +8 or better before there is even a chance of an AI voting for a DV?

Click to expand...

Well as my winning date was 1200AD I don't know

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Does anyone understand how the Favorite Civic works? Hatshepsut's Favorite Civic is Organized Religion and I have been running it since I founded Judaism, but I'm not getting any Diplomatic bonus for it.

Click to expand...

The AI has to be in that civic as well to get a bonus. In my game I had +4 civics bonus with Joao (total +9) and 2 turns before the AP election he changed civics and I lost his vote (didn't change the result but I was swearing profusely at the computer when it happened).

Ozbenno, thanks for your answers.

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Can't a Great Prophet be used to bulb Theology? I've done that in Warlords, but is it possible in BTS?

Click to expand...

Ozbenno said:

Yes.

Click to expand...

Some Technologies in the Technology Tree are labeled as researchable (bulbable) via various Great People. However, Theology doesn't have such a label in BTS. That's why I was confused. It doesn't make sense to only label some of the bulbable Techs in this way.

Sun Tzu Wu

Sun Tzu Wu said:

Can you switch your State Religion while building The Apostolic Palace?

Maybe I should start with a Leader that begins with Mysticism? With Mysticism on Turn 0, there might be a chance of founding either Buddhism or Hinduism? Does anyone know the set of Turn 0 Techs (in addition to the Civ specific starting Techs) the AI gets at Immortal level? Is Mysticism one of them?

Sun Tzu Wu

Click to expand...

Yes. You can switch your state religion while building the AP provided both of the religions are present in the city where you are building the AP. If you are switching to Christainity (for example) then you mush have Christainity present in the city where the AP is being built or you will get a message that you can no longer build the AP in that city.

I would not recommend founding Hinduism or Buddhism. If you let the AI found these religions and then open your borders, they will spread them to you. If the AI has the holy city, they are less likely to switch to the AP religion. You want to run the dominant faith of the world to get the positive diplo bonus with more AI players. This is tough to do if you have to spread the religion yourself. It also becomes difficult to spread the AP religion if you are also spreading the dominant faith of the world. Let the AI do this bit for you.