Challenge: Earliest Religious Victories

The challenge is to post screenshots of your earliest URVs for each of these civs and provide an overview of your main strategy. The challenge is specific to Sultan level, SoI v0.4.0.1. Records will be listed in this first post, which I will update as required.

"Native" religion victories are listed first for each religion. Alternate religion victories (where a civ changes from it's native religion and then wins a URV) are listed below a linebreak.

Orthodox
Kingdom of Armenia - 1192 AD (SanJose) (8645)
Byzantine Empire - 1106 AD (SanJose) (46588)
Kingdom of Makuria - 1130 AD (blizzrd) (14747)
Kingdom of Georgia - 1297 AD (SanJose) (6092)
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Kingdom of Mesopotamia (Abbasids) - 1073 AD (SanJose) (28283)
Kingdom of Rum - 1428 AD (SanJose) (4504)
Kingdom of Egypt (Fatimid) - 1238 AD (SanJose) (15030)
Seljuk Empire - 1422 AD (SanJose) (3981)
Paramara Empire (Malwa) - 1480 AD (SanJose) (4310)
Ayyubid Kingdom - 1494 AD (SanJose) (7606)
Safavid Empire - 1643 AD (Jusos2108) (15496)
Timurid Empire - 1531 AD (Jusos2108) (4057)

Catholic
Kingdom of Jerusalem - 1241 AD (SanJose) (19982)
Principality of Antioch - 1196 AD (blizzrd) (48717)
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Kingdom of Mesopotamia (Abbasid) - 1174 AD (SanJose) (10738)
Kingdom of Egypt (Fatimid) - 1181 AD (SanJose) (31489)
Kingdom of Rum - 1244 AD (SanJose) (48796)
Byzantine Empire - 1039 AD (SanJose) (56296)
Seljuk Empire - 1222 AD (SanJose) (40661)
Kingdom of Yemen - 1454 (SanJose) (5267)

Sunni
Abbasid Caliphate - 1007 AD (SanJose) (19552)
Samanid Empire - 1163 AD (SanJose) (11655)
Khwarezmid Empire - 1302 AD (SanJose) (14141)
Seljuk Empire - 1217 AD (SanJose) (27234)
Sultanate of Rum - 1270 AD (SanJose) (9014)
Ghaznavid Empire - 1256 AD (SanJose) (10122)
Ghorid Empire - 1278 AD (SanJose) (16168)
Ayyubid Sultanate - 1328 AD (SanJose) (12044)
Kingdom of Oman - 1444 AD (SanJose) (9393)
Mamluk Sultanate - 1380 AD (SanJose) (26234)
Ottoman Empire - 1504 AD (SanJose) (20198)
Mughal Empire - 1614 AD (SanJose) (13806)
Timurid Empire - 1515 AD (SanJose) (15780)
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Sultanate of Yemen - 1298 AD (SanJose) (6021)
Fatimid Caliphate - 1165 AD (Jusos2108 (25215)
Armenistan - 1250 AD (SanJose) (5131)
Principality of Antioch - 1372 AD (SanJose) (5191)
Byzantine Empire - 1190 AD (SanJose) (20234)

Shia
Imamate of Yemen - 1096 AD (SanJose) (32315)
Fatimid Caliphate - 1121 AD (Jusos2108) (43624)
Kingdom of Sindh - 1271 AD (SanJose) (9614)
Safavid Empire - 1559 AD (SanJose) (74056)
Ak Koyunlu - 1515 AD (SanJose) (17341)
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Byzantine Empire - 1052 AD (SanJose) (40617)
Abbasid Caliphate - 986 AD (Jusos2108) (48256)
Kingdom of Georgia - 1336 AD (SanJose) (2689)
Kingdom of Armenia - 1238 AD (SanJose) (5198)
Seljuk Empire - 1147 AD (SanJose) (78571)
Gujarat Sultanate - 1255 AD (SanJose) (10734)
Mamluk Sultanate - 1297 AD (SanJose) (80475)

Hindu
Kingdom of Ajmer - 1150 AD (SanJose) (16426)
Kingdom of Gujarat - 1150 AD (SanJose) (21397)
Paramara Empire (Malwa) - 1133 AD (SanJose) (23209)
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Byzantine Empire - 1109 AD (SanJose) (22993)
Kingdom of Mesopotamia (Abbasids) - 1085 AD (SanJose) (16992)
Kingdom of Makuria - 1454 AD (Jusos2108) (2864)
Ghaznavid Kingdom - 1196 AD (SanJose) (22270)
Ghorid Epire - 1432 AD (SanJose) (9059)
Kingdom of Sindh - 1276 AD (SanJose) (9614)
Mughal Empire - 1600 AD (Jusos2108) (21778)

Can I just provide the link, or I need to rewrite my post from Religious Victory thread ?

Unfortunately I can only provide a link as well. Sunni URV

I had begun this game well before the challenge began, so it not at all optimized. Just something to set the mark. Also, I thought that relics would be shown on the diplomacy screen eventhough they settled, but it appears not. Thus my relic guest against the indies was rather wasted. Finally I realized to spy on the Byzantines to find them in Constantinople...




BTW, what do you think of also including the final scores?

Diplomacy only allows trading of relic units, which is why you won't see settled ones.

I'd love to see the scores, esp. since they are more optimized now, so you shouldn't be getting Guy of Lusignan as often as before

Jusos2108 said:

BTW, what do you think of also including the final scores?

Click to expand...

Sure. Would make a good tiebreaker if ever one was needed too.

Friendly civs were Makuria, Armenistan (vassal of Abbassids, before they eventually declared war on me), Georgia, KoJ and PoA. Fatimids were my vassal, but our relationship never got above Pleased despite having +7 "You Liberated our cities".

A Great Engineer was used to rush-finish the last Cathedral in Antioch, once it came out of revolt.

Wow, you have open borders almost with everyone! How did you do it? Very impressive game It's a first time I see "Armenistan" in the list...

Yeah, I had open borders with Abbassids (and their vassals Armenistan) until just a couple of turns before the URV. I had to declare war on Yemen though to get the Indian civs to open their borders, and so Yemen unsurprisingly wasn't willing to open up. I would have had to vassalise them and ran out of time.

Here are my scores:

Also, I hope that my KoJ one wasn't too late to be on the list..

Get Mekkah, get Medinah. Abbasids collapse. Build Spiral Minaret and Al-Ahvaz. Get Kufah (plus Baghdad and Samarra). Build lots of Sufi missionaries.

I only settled 3 of my own Great Saints, the rest came from the AI civs, including the last two which triggered the URV.

Just enjoyed my game; didn't bother to care about the Shia majority, because I thought that would trigger automatically, but it turned out to be the last condition to trigger. I settled 8 of 11 imams by myself, so I didn't really get lucky there. Also I didn't find any muslim relics in Mesopotamia, so I had to espionage where they were held. (Sana'a)

I was just about to go for Dwarka with my SoD, when Malwa declared war, so I detoured to their capital and capitulated them. By then Gujarat was already ready to peace-vassalise, but naturally I had none of it. Eventually I declared war on them, took Dwarka and, since they weren't willing to capitulate, made peace. They were still pleased with me and immeatidely peace-vassalised. Hardest part was to get piety to Royal Saint level, since there isn't much go for in Hindustan. I ended up massacring Sunnis and Shias in eastern Khorasan. I took turns with the Ghorids to hold Peshawar, so the innocent inhabitants could repeatedly massacred.

It took me very long to claim Dharma, since I was naively thinking Hindus dont't get Piety points for violating Ahimsa, unlike the previous player Perhaps we should talk with edead making Piety more pious It seems that eradicating minor religions do not change Piety at all! I may be wrong but Hindu health wonder did not change my piety by any noticeable amount.

I deliberately waited 3 turns to make Dwarka my capital for the future 50% commerce bonus. It took me awhile to hit that 100 gold threshold, so Jusos, I am curious to look inside your holy city I used 2 Great Saints to teach 12 cities Vedas and Upanishads. Even overpopulating Iraq was not an easy task -- apparently there must be a better strategy for earlier Hindu UHV

Tigranes said:

It took me very long to claim Dharma, since I was naively thinking Hindus dont't get Piety points for violating Ahimsa, unlike the previous player Perhaps we should talk with edead making Piety more pious It seems that eradicating minor religions do not change Piety at all! I may be wrong but Hindu health wonder did not change my piety by any noticeable amount.

I deliberately waited 3 turns to make Dwarka my capital for the future 50% commerce bonus. It took me awhile to hit that 100 gold threshold, so Jusos, I am curious to look inside your holy city I used 2 Great Saints to teach 12 cities Vedas and Upanishads. Even overpopulating Iraq was not an easy task -- apparently there must be a better strategy for earlier Hindu UHV

Click to expand...

Could you please elaborate some more about the 50% bonus that you mention? I confess I have only played each Indian civ once each and consider myself a long way from in-the-know about these civs and how to play them.

Well, it's very general -- capital gets +50% for hummers and commerce under bureaucracy

Tigranes said:

It took me very long to claim Dharma, since I was naively thinking Hindus dont't get Piety points for violating Ahimsa, unlike the previous player Perhaps we should talk with edead making Piety more pious It seems that eradicating minor religions do not change Piety at all! I may be wrong but Hindu health wonder did not change my piety by any noticeable amount.

I deliberately waited 3 turns to make Dwarka my capital for the future 50% commerce bonus. It took me awhile to hit that 100 gold threshold, so Jusos, I am curious to look inside your holy city I used 2 Great Saints to teach 12 cities Vedas and Upanishads. Even overpopulating Iraq was not an easy task -- apparently there must be a better strategy for earlier Hindu UHV

Click to expand...

Well generally religions have been the reason behind many wars and Hindus aren't any better than Muslims or Christians, so I see nothing wrong in getting some piety from fighting the infidels.

My Dwarka built a blacksmith and a market after which I hurried Guildhall and the +100% coin building with two GEs. Then I switched it to build Wealth and turned the science slider to zero.

Dwarka has such a bad production, even with Workshops it makes 13 base hummers + 6 from GE and +50% -- one gets only 27 gold from production (market does not affect that gold). Still, your achievement is impressive since you managed to fight a brother in faith and still hit 100 Piety. With my Ajmer I would go for Piety first and then declare -- but I guess owning the Shrine makes up for Hindu wars?

This was perhaps the most difficult URV so far, the Makurians really aren't meant to survive past 1200. Stability was troubling at times, but never alarming; Mamluks respawned on Sinai, because I was solid at that point. It was very enjoyable though, I completed the first two conditions first by turning PoA and KoJ to Orthodoxy (KoJ took Cairo btw). Then I waited for the Mamluks to spawn and spawned some GEs to hurry the cathedrals. The rest was just pure conquering, but fun though. Byzantine was an monster, mainly due to our lucratious tech trading deals, and I had really great battles against them after sneak attacking Antioch.

With this game I was not going for the earliest URV, but rather was testing how realistic is it to convert all the leaders to the Sunni faith, i.e. to achieve the ultimate Victory in a Mod called The Sword of Islam. I have triggered my URV right before 1300 to avoid winning UHV, but otherwise only unexpectedly re-spawned Georgia was left non-Muslim in 1300 and that would not last long, obviously . So there, 50% can be easily replaced by transforming the map into Dar-al Islam



The strategy was rather straightforward: collapse Buyids, peace with everyone, make Baghdad Great People factory, make Isfahan West Point and relocate capital there, tech for Heavy Horse Archers, build tons of promoted units and prepare for Mongols. Then I bribed civs like Yemen and Sindh to become Sunni, collapsed Byzantium, vassalized and converted PoA, conquered KoJ (with Mameluke help), won the wars with Cilicia, Malva, Ajmer, Gujarat, Makuria and forced them to convert at Sword's edge. Becoming Holly Roman Emperor is essential to avoid collapsing with all these wars.

As for the URV as it is stands right now -- 50% and Royal Saint was very easy achievable, while with Great People you can always focus on the right tech to get the needed one, if random generator fails you again and again.