Iroquois - GnK Civ Guide - Sketch Pre-War Academy post

I would like to get some clarification and thoughts of use and gameplay of the Iroquois Civ in Gods and Kings. (There are some additional changes and synergies which could be clarified)

For now I will not format it too much and will leave it for the WA thread. After that, the content will be polished.



Iroquois is one of most underrated civs in Civ 5 GnK because the real power of it is hardly understandable on paper/theory crafting without special clarification, which I’m going to post here. I’ll leave it for replies and judgment before arranging it in fine form, and before I put it into the War Academy as a civ-specific guide.

So the Iroquois, led by Hiawatha is the Civ representing a confederation of 5 native American tribes who lived near lake Ontario.


Link to video.

UA:
The Great Warpath

Units move through Forest and Jungle in friendly territory as if it is Road. These tiles can be used to establish Trade Routes upon researching The Wheel.


UU:
Mohawk Warrior
Swordsman replacement
No IRON required - no resource requirement
Combat bonus +33% in forest/Jungle

UB:
Longhouse
Workshop replacement
100 cost instead of 120
Does not provide general 10% bonus
Grants +1 per each forest tile worked by city


Terminology:
MPOE = Maximizing Production Output Efficiency, the term I'll use is for a strategy/approach to your building and tech priorities which emphasizes production buildings over everything else. It always prioritizes this way which allows you to increase production output in the city as soon as possible in order to have other buildings built faster. MPOE tries not to lose production time turns, which in the long term will lead to much faster and shorter periods of having different mid game buildings built.
This approach minimizes building times for all buildings, aiming to have the advantage of earlier Turn# in the building of science/culture/faith buildings, and by having their effects as early as possible without breaking the chain of prioritizing production-focused buildings, which allows all the queue times to be shorter.
It have nuance of demanding certain population/population growth to power it, but we'll talk about later more in-depth.

Hammer/food tile coefficient = Average city output of food surplus and hammers – At the end of the classical era it is greater in the capital/few cities of the Iroquois than all other civs, assuming no additional bonuses added like wonders/religion. The greater number of food combined with the greater number of hammers means that city could produce more, having a significant growth ratio at the same time.

So what makes Iroquois different from other civs? Iroquois is one of most Builder-themed civs in CiV GnK thanks to its mechanics and UF developers provided to them.
Its UA and UB are tile based, as well as their UU with its bonus. Forests, nature loving, chopping is the worst thing you could do with such a tree-loving faction. Nature is the way, and this way provides... quite a big advantage during early economic development, production which could be unmatched by any other civ, at least in a Bias-based forest capital. This advantage could be very deciding at later stages, but the point is to use it as soon as it comes. But we'll talk about it later – in the MPOE section, and after we'll list all those benefits we’ll need to use and abuse using the MPOE approach.

So what are benefits of tile-based Iroquois bonuses?

1. Free road tiles. +1 of saved upt per forest tile used instead of a normal road.
== This is a very powerful and most subtle feature, and many people miss its importance. Road cost 1 upt, and having free road tiles which does provide you a trade route, but does not need upkeep = ALOT of gpt saved, and actually means Iroquois in a mediocre case can have 6-7 gpt more than other civs and much earlier trade routes. 6-7 gpt per turn at Ancient/Classic era is really very much. It also ticks earlier and provides much more gold bonus than let’s say Arabia’s UA. Earlier trade routes also add gold, meaning you will have a most flourishing economy and gold if you have enough forests around your capital to use as roads.
More than that those magic warpath forest roads provide bridges BEFORE Engineering, (proof : http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11686484&postcount=16) , and they act as railroads after research of Railroad technology towards 25% production bonus, saving more upt, but not increasing movement further
2.Saved worker turns.
- You don't have to build as many roads
- Workers move faster through forests going from one job to the other
- When a worker moves into a forest, it can start improving that tile that turn instead of having to wait for a turn
The worker turns you save via that is roughly the same as the 25% you get from the Pyramids
3. Defense. The forest roads mean that you will have roads which grant a defensive bonus only accessible to the Iroquois. No other faction would be able to use it. It will slow the enemy while making you very mobile within your lands. UU’s forest-fighting bonus, and no-resource ability means you could be impenetrable assuming you have some forests around key cities.
4. Early resource-free UU. Even on higher difficulty levels early swordsman could be a powerful tool. The problem is that swords need improved iron. Mohawks do not need iron and also have a forest/jungle bonus. They are forest stalkers, and harder to take if they use forests which do exist even on foreign/neutral territory in the era they come (Classical).
5. High hammer/food tile coefficient in capital/few more cities. The Longhouse. Huge early production tile-tied bonus. The effect +1 per-tile could be very powerful, so much as it could be much better than any other (i.e. Egypt’s) bonuses. The difference between the Workshop and Longhouse seems to be insignificant, without calculation. But let’s check it. The early Medieval age - If we have virtual non-Irouquois capital with pre-bonus production of 14 . It builds Workshop, and its new production 16+1.6 (10%) = 17.6 . Let’s check an Iroquois capital with saved forests, which have lumber mills and Longhouse built. For a city with production of 14 , using 1 2 tiles, it’s necessary to work more tiles like that. The hammer/food ratio is more balanced. While a Farm/Mine nation will use different types of tiles to balance output, Iroquois will use more production tiles (lumber mill forests) to gain the same production, but less food-only tiles. Meaning in order to get 14 base production, the city could work around 5 forest tiles. Meaning the city will gain +5 more with the Longhouse. 14 + 2 + 21. If we’re going to compare the % of production in this case it is almost 30%, !. 28%-10% = 18% building bonus over other civs!. Assuming the capital could generate most of empire production output (up to 70%) at this stage, this is powerful, but that’s not all. The thing that Longhouse comes at discount. 100 hammers instead of 120, 20 saved hammers, earlier build - earlier other buildings like universities being built.
6. Deer Bias. You luckily start with deer which, alas, is an awesome food resource and also subject to the Longhouse bonus. Making it the only food bonus for forest tiles, and assuming the start has some fixed food resource minimum and maximum (distribution mechanics), you will have deer almost guaranteed.
7. It's all one path. The other benefit which is very rare for a civ to enjoy. The UU and UB of this civ lie on one tech path. This path also has a very useful military unit - Composite bowman, and emphasizes more protection/production (quarries/walls). UU and UB come with 1 tech difference on the same path, and this could be abused. It's also the same path for a very important detail required for MPOE - Ironworks.

General benefits: You have an early potent economy mixed with protection, mobility and serious production focus, which is actually one of the most powerful builder bonuses in the game, assuming you have enough forest. Also, those bonuses provide some nice synergies with Wonderspamming, Rexing and Warmongering.

The downsides of being Iroquois, things that you shouldn’t forget:
1. Chopping. While its works well with others, Iroquois save trees and then enjoy production bonus for rest of game.
2. Well, Iroquois are Iroquois. No Diplo bonuses, no straight military bonuses. No culture bonuses. No Faith bonuses. They must take it with their early economy advantage and sheer production – Using the MPOE method.

So let’s have a deeper insight into Iroquois gameplay:

Contents:
1. MPOE - The concept, General Empire Management Notes under MPOE .
2. 3 Style of Iroquois play - Wonderbuilding (Tall), REX (Wide) and Warmongering (RAWR!), and their Policy & Religion choices.





Chapter 1.
Maximizing Production Output Efficiency (MPOE)

1.a. General Concept Explanation.
1.b. Food/Production balance and Growth – What powers MPOE
1.c. Bringing MPOE to action, And how it works.


1.a. General Concept Explanation.
Before we start lets clarify some sub-concepts required for understanding how MPOE works.

Advantage Value Deflation – Civ game advance built in the way, that with game progression and advancing through eras and technology trees, outputs/yields of different in-game values inflate with a time. For simplest example - advantage of +2 beakers nature wonder tile while everyone have ~4 beakers total is huge (50%) , while same advantage will deflate as soon as others have libraries built up. If advantage is not used as soon as it comes (ie for example citizen does not work that +2 wonder beaker tile), and as long as you won’t prioritize increasing your advantage further as soon as possible by building libraries etc, keeping it intact, it will lose its own value. So, some CiV numerical advantages (yields/science/religion/production) deflate if not being used as soon as possible, and in order to exist and develop into more advantage, need to inflate.
So in opposite to AVD – if you rushing, nurturing advantage, and prioritizing to inflate it faster than rivals develop their yields, you winning more advantage, if your rivals will not prioritize to chase you up.
That’s a base of MPOE – to neglect deflation, and to multiply own advantage at fastest, faster than rivals could chase in order to neglect your said advantage. For MPOE its case of Food Growth which powers Production, and then monster Production power everything else - all other yields, so at finale, the advantage of production grows exponentially, and bring in Wonders, Armies and Other yields buildings at swift rate, so little by little it create new advantages c5faith://////), and inflate them, as it did to itself.


At side note that this works also for such “competition” yields like Science/Faith/Gold. Culture does as well, but in lesser regard.
MPOE will grant you Wonders, Armies, and Mega cities faster , providing at mid stage all other yields advantages earlier than rivals could get, creating advantage in other yields.

Dedication – MPOE, and its components, Food Growth and Production Inflation need dedication - Because of AVD. More you dedicated, and less distracted you are, more effective it is.

1.b. Food/Production balance and Growth – What powers MPOE

In order to power advance in such yilds like Science, Production and Gold, Food is necessary. It is a fuel for inflating your advantages in those competitive fields like “Science” and “Production”. So Food/ fast Growth is Priority number 1 at early stage, and key feature at later stage, when MPOE and inflation of advantages is ticking. So, said advantages wont develop, if population is not growing. Growth is part of inflation.
Thus food tiles, food buildings, windmills, food growth wonders, social policies and religion beliefs have UTTER importance. Esp. when you have your cap of happiness easily manageable with Iroquois MPOE – the tech path lies thru quite early Construction with quite hi production yielding start location/bias, Tradition SP tree, and ability to control and switch between food and production tiles. If empire is happy, you use food and grow, so you are dedicated to MPOE. If empire is unhappy, you build happiness buildings with your hi production to allow it to grow, and you use your maximum production output, so you are dedicated to MPOE.

The food tiles, ie Iroquois bias Deers, have very hi value. Food tile also have more priority to work, if you have more free happiness, (which must be used as much as possible under MPOE, hey we are not Persians, and we don’t aim for Nature Golden Ages), and next citizen will inflate growth/production.

In rare occasions (more in "ideal" occasions) when you have too much forest and not enough food resource (you should avoid on settling cities with too few food resources anyways) there is option to chop 1-2 riverside tiles to make there farms - but only if you have all covered with forests - much more forest you could supply working citizens for, too much excess of happiness and too low food output after all means to get more food been used (Food wonders, food buildings build by production, pantheons + beliefs which generated from faith buildings/wonders)

The key "Development stage Food wonders" :
Temple of Artemis - sometimes is hard to get on high levels – because AI prioritizes it, and if other AI builder in game, and esp. if he got free archery from ruins, at Immortal-Deity there big chance you will lose it. So it is very good wonder, but is a gamble. MY opinion that one (at hi levels) should go for it if he got “lucky” advantage – i.e. free archery from a hut and/or marble in capital and/or pop from ruin.
Hanging Gardens – this is monster wonder you will need. Consider it as top priority wonder in your capital. Aristocracy will help you with that.

1.c. Bringing MPOE to action, And how it works.

So how it all works, and how MPOE differs from other approach generally. It requires balance, and threat production times, and effects with higher importance. As said, more and faster built things lead to more and faster advantages. So the in simplicity it would be something like “multiplying advantages balancing growth-science-production”.
MPOE is kind of micromanagement and calculation, which oversees efficiency and the triangle of food-beakers-hammers in such way, that:

I. Food / growth advantage being increased consistently. Granaries, Watermills and HG are buildings of top priority. Fertility rites belief if not much camp resources, and Goddes of Hunt if there much camp resources in the capital and around.

II. Science comes first and then oversees that all-time growing manufacture have something to build AND it advancing it self in same time. In order to walk properly men do steps with their legs in such sequence: Left – Right – Left – Right, and never otherwise. Same here, Your right leg is Science, and Left is Production. Also you need food to live, that how MPOE works. For example lets take build where we need to start with left leg, i.e. production – We have marble in capital, in order to make swift use of it, we need : wonders to build, required tech to work it, worker, and then to make step with right leg, after we stepped with left one – to boost our science after solely production-focused action. No matter what production is for – be it Faith (Stonehenge), More Growth (Artemis ) or GL gamble (science, and in this case we do make right leg step making it more like a dancing ). Lets say we go for Faith (and it worth it), and aim for SH. So our queue will look like:
1. More food. We tech Pottery because need granaries. Building queue: Scout (ruins/forest exploration/barb help/defence) > Worker > Swap to Granary on pottery > finish worker.
2. While we finish worker we tech to Masonry. And then fresh worker goes to build quarry, while we teching remaining Calendar. We grow, and upon Calendar SH starting it’s construction, and we continue to grow.
3. Now time to do right leg step. Writing, and Library. Lib will be next building built after SH, so, we could use our maximized growth pop and library for next left leg step – portion of our Iroquois production focused tech tree.
4. And so on, the principle is same – Left and Right leg of Science and Dedicated increasing of Production speeds. The precise sequence depending of game style you chosen, and this will be described in specific play style description sections.

III. Citizen Working tiles Allocated with growth>production if there happiness and place to grow and work tiles AND every next citizen grant at least 1 extra hammer or food growth increase. We could have example of tile citizen allocation. At early stage, for example, difference between +1 surplus and +2 surplus may lead to major differences of growth., doubled time of growth. In assumption, you have happiness to grow further, it wont be worthy to work [1 food 2 prod 1 gold] over [2 food 1 prod] tile, because if new citizen come early, he will be able to work extra hammer tile, so that -1 hammer will be re-payed back + faster beaker count will increase. There is no exact formula, but as pop used for science and each citizen at later stage means more citizens working those Iroquois forest longhouse lumber mills, so you should carefully check the price of gimping your growth for any reason to come.

IV. There is very high priority of production/hammer building. Unless you finished all of them, its time to make right leg Science step, its not food building, you should not build regular buildings before those.

V. By emphasizing and rushing production progression, you will create holes, made by your quick building advantages, more and more , with progression of the game, you will be able to inject wonders into your building queue. Obcourse, the right-leg stepping science must oversee that there always useful wonders to build, as well.

VI. Units built by purpose of necessity of defence, for Iroquois, till Longhouses are up. After it - by preference of chosen gameplay style (if Warmonger - stamp them up) - see in next chapter

The changes, queues differences, adjustments and different details will change, depending on starting location, map-game settings, and chosen game style: About this in next Chapter


to be continued. 1-8 topics will come in few close days. Output appreciated. After some polishing i will format it in fancy way with pics!

Chapter 2.
3 Styles of Iroquois play - Wonderbuilding (Tall), REX (Wide) and Warmongering (RAWR!), and their Policy & Religion choices

2.a General Timeline for Iroquois. Important techs and timeline points. Important Policies and Beliefs.
2.b Wonderbuilding Forest Capital - Tall/OCC
2.c Expansionist Wide Empire and REX.
2.d Warmongering.

2.a General Timeline for Iroquois. Important techs and timeline points. Important Policies and Beliefs.

As been described in previous chapter, science and hammer infrastructure developing simultaneously, and must match each other demands. Thus the basic tech and building sequence for Iroquois will be same Left & Right Leg stepping – with some modifications depending on play style and VC chosen, the earlier stage is almost same, however – depending perhaps more on starting position than on endgame aim. Some places in this queue could be swapped according to game play, rival civs preferences.
Firstly, lets generalize & list important techs and buildings for early MPOE Iroquois game, using said “Food-Science-Production” triangle

0. Settling - For settling Capital - River with plenty forest tiles around and many food resources should be prioritized
1. Pottery tech – 100% case opening tech, because it:

Production starts with Scout, which can: uncork the Ruins, Help with Barbs and protection, scout, steal workers, meet CS for extra gold/faith/culture bonus, then switches to few turn worker, and Shrine > Granary after Pottery is up.
2. Writing – The first MPOE step for “Right-Leg” Science, providing Library, which from first turns could boost your beaker output with Library being built. It’s Done just after Pottery, except certain case when we have Marble at capital and go for Tall play style game . Library being built in capital as earlier as possible.
3. Worker techs – depending on your start location recourses certain techs which unlock certain resources improvements could be prioritized. Normally, with proper forest start, there is chance of hi quality of Camp resources for Iroquois, So trapping could be of huge use. If you start with 3+ camp resources in the capital, next move after Writing (and Wonder techs for Tall build) should go there. With Goddess of Hunt pantheon Camps will provide HUGE bonus.
4. Wheel, which is prerequisite to Mathematics, powers UA forest road trade routes gold bonus, and unlocks Water Mill building which is important to oversee the Food growth.
5. Mathematics – Unlocking important Hanging Gardens wonder – Food step, and also tech which unlock first game siege weapon for warmonger game.
6. Construction – The first MPOE Step for “Left-Leg: Production - it unlocks Lumber Mills , which do provide, yet not buffed, but already good use of your forest tiles. More than that it unlocks awesome protection unit – Composite bowman, it moves us further towards production-boosting techs and towards Iroquois UB Longhouse, and it provide Coliseum, extremely useful building which allow you to boost your population growth, especially for Wide/Warmonger builds. As soon as it is done, worker(s) can move and start making mills at same turn, and each non-resource forest tile should have lumber mill (assuming required resources are improved).
7. Philosophy – The Second Science Step – Unlocking National College national wonder. Also it unlocks Temple which is useful for building religion, esp. in Wide game, and moves us further on Tech tree towards more Science-inflating buildings.
8. Metal Casting – 2nd production step – UB, Longhouses + Lumber mills will give now significant boost over other civs for our production, which we must abuse as soon as it comes. More important it gives us early 1st possible Great Engeneer slot, which we must to use as soon as LH is up.
9. Theology – required for Garden to increase speed of our 1st GE and for Hagia Sophia wonder, which will be rushed with our 1st Great Engineer and will grant us Religion.
10. Education – The 3rd Science step, which prerequisite technologies (Civil Service) will provide more units and irrigation food bonus and more wonders to build for Tall game. As soon as comes Universities being built, and Oxford after . It allow us making science specialists.
11. Machinery – 3rd Production step , mega-technology, which unlocks National wonder of Iron Works and very strong unit – Crossbowman. They both necessary for any way of playing.
12. Scientific Theory – 4th Science step, unlocks Public Schools
13. Biology – Hospitals will provide even more food.
14. Industrialization. – 4th Prod. Step. 2 paths meet now.

Later sequences will very very much depending on play style, settings and victory condition you will aim.

SP General Choices:
In any case Tradition is 1st tree to go for, and finish. It benefits all MPOE Food process. Tradition opener provide so necessary speed boost for acquiring new tiles. Food bonuses are vital, Free upkeep will actually, together with trateroute forest feature and no-cost spent on roads, will kick more gpt, and cities with archers will be able to protect themselves effectively on their own. And obcourse Aristocracy, because, in each case, you will find yourself abusing your production speeds and kick wonders into your queue.
Rest SPs are optional and depends on your target VC / level / rival civs/ start location and style you choose.

Pantheon/Religions Beliefs General Choices.
Iroquois have forest bias, and thus bias for Deers as starting location food resource. Assuming you have plenty of Camp resources in capital your Pantheon should be Goddess of Hunt (+1 per camp). If no much Deers/Camp resources – then Fertility Rites (+10% ), in most cases. Some pantheons are game-style play specific, and will be mentioned as alternative pantheons which will do fit well only with certain game-play style.
Beliefs wise, most universal and must-have Follower Belief for Iroquois should be Religious Community (+1% per follower in city, 15% max), and should be taken in any game. Other, worth mentioning, is Feed The World with +1 food per Temple and Shrine.
Other beliefs are more situational and depending on play style and chosen VC, and will be mentioned specifically for each of 3 play styles.

Wonder Choices.
Anything that gives GE points rock. Food worthy ones are Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens. Science Must-haves are Porcelain Tower, Hubble. Generally awesome are Leaning tower of Pisa, CN tower, Himeji Castle, NAuchwaistein, Notre Dame , Petra (huh duh but well if you got desert city, why not), Taj Mahal, The Great Wall, the Louvre, the Oracle. Hagia Sophia used to found Religion.

2.b Wonderbuilding Forest Capital - Tall/OCC

In general, wonder-builder build for Iroquois is almost precisely follows the General path mentioned in part 2.a. (It could go for philosophy earlier though) Because such build almost certainly will aim for Culture, Science or Diplomatic victories, it benefit from wonders, and relies on Start-location bias forests. If you are not sure which style to play in your new game - check your surroundings, already few turns of your game will say you would it be optimal or not. The thing is that its opposite, REX Wide build, which will be mentioned in part 2.c , require many forests, as much as possible, in order to enjoy early speed expansion, free of cost :c5traderoute: and roads.
So when you should consider Tall build with Iroquois.
- You playing OCC game -obviously
- Your setting of map is tight and crowded
- You see that you do not have too much forests beside your starting location, and you could settle 1-3 more cities maximum to benefit from your longhouse, and even that - with some effort and extra road-building.
- You plan Peaceful game with Science/Diplomacy/Culture win.
- You love spamming wonders even on Hi Difficulty level
- You have marble in river-located, close to mountain capital and quite good food supply/forest as well.

The receipt is quite simple - it almost certainly follows the General route of MPOE, kicking Marble, if aviable, as earlier as possible, and aiming to build Temple of Artemis. If you play on deity, advice is to beeline for Hanging Gardens instead, at least if you have other builder civs, esp. Egypt.
Easiest victory of such game is Cultural, but if you find yourself near too much aggressive rivals or near agressive runaway AI, or just near Huns/Aztecs/France/Greece you might consider Science victory. The bonus of science victory that you will be able to have much more up-to-date units on top lvls, so you will be able to repel attacks more easily, but if you have good defend-able terrain, and bunch of cultural CS/peaceful AIs around, Culture win will be incredibly fast.

The build base out on max. city amount = 4, settling 2-3-4 cities after early built NC, with preference to buying settlers and selling un-used resources, meeting CS and pillaging barbarian camps.

SP choice focused on finishing Tradition as early as possible, with emphasis on growth, and then turning on:
1. Culture Victory - Piety/Commerce opener/Patronage/Freedom once available - finish/ finish Patronage/Finish Commerce (or finish commerce left tree first if shore-based before patronage.)
2. Science Victory - commerce opener/Rationalism left tree/ Freedom/ patronage / rationalism right tree (free 2 techs postponed to take one of most heavier techs at end)/ commerce
3. Diplomatic - Commerce opener/Patronage left tree/Rationalism left tree/ Patronage finish/ Freedom/ finish Rationalism to get UN.

With this build the main feature is to use the all-time increasing advantages, the time production hole, created by your inflated production times to kick in more and more food>production>science enhancers, and then gold/culture/faith , and wonders- as much as possible. By going early Aristocracy, by following MPOE approach to your economics and building and teching queue, you provide to yourself enough tech to have enough wonders to build and to have up-to date production output enhancers, and with same production you provide speed teching, advance and inflation for other yields, by spamming wonders and buildings. As been said, wonder types will be (most important, possible to get are marked in bold - don't miss them):
1. Food wonders. Temple of Artemis, Hanging Gardens, CN tower,
2. Science wonders : Hubble, the Porcelain Tower (must have), The Great Library (impossible to get on hi lvl difficulty)
2a.(Culture wonders for Culture victory come here as well ). Alhambra. Christo Rodentor. Sistine Chapel., Sydney Opera House, The Oracle, Terracotta Army, The Louvre (2 x GA + culture = awesome)
2b. Angkor Wat. It is usefull to grow and claim those forest tiles faster. Also it gives 1 GE/pt
3. Specialist/GP growth/GA/Production/GE defence wonders. Chichen Itza. Himeji Castle (GE Defense +2 GE p/t + 15% defence). Leaning tower of Pisa, Nauchweistein, Notre Damme. Petra (with your bias there is big doubt that you could use it, but, alas, it is wonderful wonder, and if you have place for it, it could be good, even if you have 2 tiles for it.), Taj Mahal, The Great Wall (GE Defense), The Hagia Sophia (one of best wonders - to get religion with), The Kremlin (GS defence + culture)
4. Powerful/GE wonders. Eifel Tower. Mosque of Jenne. The Pyramids.
5. Rest/Least important. Macchu Picchu. Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. Pentagon. Stonehenge. Statue of Zeus. The Collossus. The Forbidden Palace.

Pantheons:
There are 2 winners :
The Goddess of Hunt - if there a lot of Camp food/lux resources + 1 to each one is very much early. So 3+ of those - TGoH.
Fertility Rites - otherwise
some other tile-specific beliefs could be considered depending on terrain/availability of TGoH/FR
Beliefs:
Follower.
Religious Community - must have, number one builder, esp. Iroquois belief, should be your first one.
Divine Inspiration - very powerful way to get extra GS/GAs - (in my example game there 24 wonders, kicking 48 faith per turn, which is 77% of my faith output, which bought alot of GPs for me)
Feed the World - another +2 food for city.
Other are more specific, depending to your victory, cultural VC could benefit from Cathedrals.
Founder:
Tithe, or may be Papal Primacy if you want Diplomatic Vic.
Enhancer:
Defender of Faith - to protect your tall small empire from invaders
Reliquary - could buy you xtra GS/GA if taken early
Religious Texts - if your religion have place to spread by itself

Post-Scientific Theory game: following the VC of your choice. Nothing to say special about those - there plently articles about priorities for each one. The thing that you should follow MPOE still, but for SV you will need to rush Labs/Atomic/Hubble/Parts techs, for Culture - Radio next and all Culture wonders asap, prioritizing Louvre and SOH, and diplomatic goes for UN, while balancing on science/production thingy, focusing on bit more of a gold over culture output at end.

For illustration please check this post with example game - it was sub-optimal, hasted Immortal OCC win with 24 World Wonders, and switching to SV from CV because of runaway papa Atilla next to my house:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=11700771&postcount=32

2.c Expansionist Wide Empire and REX

This game play style with Iroquois have sense and effectiveness if there enough initial room to expand, and forests or jungle coverage around is high and stretches far. This build abuse Iroquois UA in highest possible measure : As there enough forests, you can get almost instant trade routes, at no worker job cost, instantly, speeding your settlers and units once you have your culture on it. In short description, this method will go for REX, aiming to get REX wide bonuses as quick as possible due speed settler advancement, initial forest good balance between food and hammers, and, as result, gaining unmatched economical advantage + benefits from buildings that improve yields of empire , for example - shrines and temples.
Assuming there is enough food res (deers) in capital, the frequency will be kinda similar to general one at start, but, getting Construction and lumber mills .
The very important synergy of this build - is The Messenger of Gods pantheon, which is important to get and to keep. There are also few other options, but, alas, this is the best one, allowing you to have early powerful advantage even in better way that Carthage could do.
The method is REX = rapid early expansion, and emphasizes early settlers, and settling on (plantation/mine) resources, which actually is effective method to save forests for Iroquois, since their improvements remove forests. Camp lux are better to keep as citizen worker tile.


End Victory conditions of such game play could be Scientific , or Domination. Obcourse, SP choices will vary with VC chosen :

Domination - The Jihad Iroquois: Will base on heavy religion output in order to tech, and even wider MotG, and Honor benefits (right tree)
Tradition opener > Honor opener + 2 SP of Honor right tree > Oligarchy > (we get free garrisons + 1 happy 2 culture per garrison) > Piety opener and +1 faith bonus > last sp in Honor right tree for happy > finish tradition and when possible , get Autocracy.
This would be Warmonger Heavy game, abusing Mohawks and their upgrades, which getting early lumber mills and earlier beeline for longhouse , and abusing MotG science, hight output of hammers of cities to build libraries, and double speed shrines and temples with +1 faith output and Feed the World follower belief , netting in +5 faith +2 food income for those 50% discount buildings. Spamming those will grant you huge bonuses to gold/happiness or even warfare (just war with prophets), and your numerous cities will generate alot of pressure around enough to convert your neighbors you are going to take out.

Science - The Communist Iroquois: Will base on hi city count and hi hammer building spam, and then raising many hi pop cities with enough happiness and potent science output. Again rex, this time with Tradition (finish) /Liberty (finish) combo, MotG abuse, Rationalism (finish), Commerce opener, and Order (opener + factory science bonus).
The advantage hammers spent on buildings, and aim is to grow all other yields advantages exponentially using hi hammer output.
The early lone worker from liberty been taken as 3rd SP - and you wont need more soon, because you dont need to road cities, you settle on lux, and your worker can start work at same turn he arrive to tile, and have speed boost with SP.
Liberty finish , Tradition, then grab Rationalism, except last SP in order to save 2 techs to endgame, to get last parts techs.

Pantheons
Messenger of The Gods - Numero Uno of wide Iroquois.
Fertility Rites - 10% Food grows is nice subsitute
Sacred Path and Goddess of The Hunt are situational.
God of War - could be nice thing, because you actually ICS, and could yield you alot of Faith lately for warmonger game, but as been said, nothing is good as the Messengers.
Beliefs
Founder:
Ceremonial Burial for awesome happiness bonus you will need. Failing that - Tithe.
Follower:
Domination Vic:
Feed the World = +2 food per city.
Mosques (for Just War) or Pagodas (otherwise) = much cities - more benefit from those.
Science:
Mosques, Religious Community (at later stage will provide nice benefit), Feed the World.
Enhancer:
Religious Texts, or Just War for GP Domination Jihad.

to be continued

Reserved

It was a good read. I skipped the calculations because I'm lazy but I know that the longhouse is awesome. I enjoyed playing Iroquois in vanilla.

And I actually tested hard REX (~ 14 cities, standard) with workshops before universities in my last game as Russia and won space on turn 260. That was my fastest space victory with a wide empire (tall seems to be a bit faster under most circumstances).

The huge difference was flexibility. With extremely high production all my cities could basically build everything. Culture, gold, faith and science per turn went through the roof. A bit later than usual but after that exponentially.
None of the AIs had a chance to invade me at any point in time.

With the Iroquois it could work even better, indeed.

So yeah, looking forward to the rest of the guide. Religion offers some interesting production boosts, for example.
Tradition vs Liberty is actually a good question here as well. Faster border growth is extremely useful because borders don't tend to expand into forests and food can be rare because you don't want to chop all those river tiles for improved farms.
Liberty is obviously useful though. Or maybe even Tradition opener + religious settlements + Ankor Wat. Temle of Artemis for more base food?

You can road up forest tiles between cities that haven't been acquired yet. Trade route established! Then once it does get acquired, delete the road. Iroquois have a great early economy because of all that GPT saved on roads.

Hey Slvynn, I sent you a PM with a more grammatically polished version of the article to make it easier for others to read and review. No suggestions yet on the content though. This is top notch stuff.

I play the Iroquois frequently and agree with the content.

I think the larger issue of not chopping is the opportunity cost in not being able to farm/trade post the tile, especially tiles that are irrigable pre-Fertilizer. Essentially, you end up with a hammer economy because all of your non-forest/non-resource tiles have to be farmed to allow growth. As a result, science is slow due to lower population. Saving trees also saves you worker-turns, possibly reducing the number of workers you will need overall.

I also agree with the prior posters re: border expansion. Tradition's base policy, Angkor Wat, or perhaps the Religious Settlements pantheon belief is almost mandatory here or you will be forced to buy a lot of tiles to hook up your cities via Warpath. Relying on Liberty and a monument to expand your borders won't be sufficient.

slobberinbear said:

I play the Iroquois frequently and agree with the content.

I think the larger issue of not chopping is the opportunity cost in not being able to farm/trade post the tile, especially tiles that are irrigable pre-Fertilizer. Essentially, you end up with a hammer economy because all of your non-forest/non-resource tiles have to be farmed to allow growth. As a result, science is slow due to lower population. Saving trees also saves you worker-turns, possibly reducing the number of workers you will need overall.

I also agree with the prior posters re: border expansion. Tradition's base policy, Angkor Wat, or perhaps the Religious Settlements pantheon belief is almost mandatory here or you will be forced to buy a lot of tiles to hook up your cities via Warpath. Relying on Liberty and a monument to expand your borders won't be sufficient.

Click to expand...

You right, i'll write about it in depth with even numbers and comparisons later
There many special nuances that needed to understand difference of Iroquois approach to economy. Food powers Production and Science via pop, then production powers everything. Saved worker hours are huge. As i said, Iroquois is most non obvious civ, and hardly measurable without proper experience or calculation

Febreze said:

Hey Slvynn, I sent you a PM with a more grammatically polished version of the article to make it easier for others to read and review. No suggestions yet on the content though. This is top notch stuff.

Click to expand...

Thank You alot! Much appreciated, i will correct first post.

RealHuhn said:

It was a good read. I skipped the calculations because I'm lazy but I know that the longhouse is awesome. I enjoyed playing Iroquois in vanilla.

And I actually tested hard REX (~ 14 cities, standard) with workshops before universities in my last game as Russia and won space on turn 260. That was my fastest space victory with a wide empire (tall seems to be a bit faster under most circumstances).

The huge difference was flexibility. With extremely high production all my cities could basically build everything. Culture, gold, faith and science per turn went through the roof. A bit later than usual but after that exponentially.
None of the AIs had a chance to invade me at any point in time.

With the Iroquois it could work even better, indeed.

So yeah, looking forward to the rest of the guide. Religion offers some interesting production boosts, for example.
Tradition vs Liberty is actually a good question here as well. Faster border growth is extremely useful because borders don't tend to expand into forests and food can be rare because you don't want to chop all those river tiles for improved farms.
Liberty is obviously useful though. Or maybe even Tradition opener + religious settlements + Ankor Wat. Temle of Artemis for more base food?

Click to expand...

Thank you, i am glad it's useful. There much to write for me - and i've done some thinking and checking, which i will continue to post in close days.
The point is MPOE, which need food growth, but then provide huge hammer output tiles with +1 food and sets certain order to prioritizing builds and research.
Going bit ahead, i'll just say thats its Tradition (must have and much better than liberty in Gnk for Iroquois MPOE), and while Artemis is hardly achievable on Immortal-Deity, it is good thing on lower lvls, but HG is pure gold. I wont say much , because i'll better write all material - and there alot, in ordered form soon.

Maybe expand a bit section on how The Great Warpath actually works since it's not really clear in the game, for the sake of those new to them. What I know is:
- the great warpath can act as bridges before you research engineering.
- it also gives you the railroad production bonus but not the movement bonus after you researched railroad.

How to describe Iroquois: A civ that focus everything on one thing to make them strong at everything as long as they get what they focus on.

Iroquois wants forest alot of them and should maybe chose forest over most other things such as close proximit to capital. Food will be a problem becuase forest do not give much food which means that food from buildings and CS may be very importent for Iroquois settling on rivers for watermill is probably very good for the food poor forest villages of this civ. Building the wonder temple of artimnes can be one of the best thing you do as this civ because the food bonus is for your base food (The food you produce before pop consume it) and the archer prdocution bonus is also usefull because you will probably produce some archers. Happines can be a problem but if you use the strategy of settling far way from the capital you will probably also get a varaity of lux resources and your good production means that your happines buildings are finished quickly. You will need gold. You could replace the lumbermills in some cities for trading post, the capital will probably be a trading post city because it can get railroad bonus but its also the only city which gets the commernce opener bonus. Your tech rate may not be the best but your production make up for it.

Your UA will make it easy to defend your cities which may be targeted by other civs who think your a threat to them. After a build up your military may be to strong for them and you can kill the other civs one by one.

Religion Suggestion:
Pantheon: Religious Settlements or Goddess of the Hunt
Founder: Player Choice
Follower: Feed the World
Follower: Religious Community
Enhancer: Player Choice

Thanks for imput , you are right about food, but there is already much things to finish which do talk about food/production relationships. Actually Iroq are fine. 1 food 4 hammer iroq lumber is much better that 4 hammer mine at later game. Start is growth, then production builup, Artemis(hard at deity)/HG/longhouses/ironworks/MPOE/huge production/wonders/army/win. Lets not run ahead, there is rest of guide to be posted,as soon as i have time for it.

Erneiz Hyde said:

Maybe expand a bit section on how The Great Warpath actually works since it's not really clear in the game, for the sake of those new to them. What I know is:
- the great warpath can act as bridges before you research engineering.
- it also gives you the railroad production bonus but not the movement bonus after you researched railroad.

Click to expand...

1. i am almost certainly know that you must have engineering in order to use forests as bridges, i 'll check it again
2. Indeed, thanks for input, adding it.

Erneiz Hyde said:

Maybe expand a bit section on how The Great Warpath actually works since it's not really clear in the game, for the sake of those new to them. What I know is:
- the great warpath can act as bridges before you research engineering.
- it also gives you the railroad production bonus but not the movement bonus after you researched railroad.

Click to expand...

It literally treats every forest tile in your borders as a Road. So, if you have a lot of cities in forests but their borders don't touch, you can road up the tiles in between them and establish a trade route.

Syntax Error said:

It literally treats every forest tile in your borders as a Road. So, if you have a lot of cities in forests but their borders don't touch, you can road up the tiles in between them and establish a trade route.

Click to expand...

its clear, but he means soemthing else
Obcourse, if you missing linking forest tile, you could make road, that's even was not mentioned because it is seemed as obvious to me

He says, that forest tiles also act as bridges (he says before Engineering, i say after engineering , and 99% sure because i remember one of my last games, but i will re-check)), and also they act as railroad towards 25% railroad production bonus in non-capital cities connected to capital, which is correct.

added chapters 1.a and 1.b about MPOE, and much more left to write
rest will be added soon in portions

Let me do that checking for you.

So I started a quick continents duel map and hope I start on a river with a forest tile on the other side, and sure enough I got it on the first try. I move my warrior into the Capital first before starting a new turn.


Then I move the warrior past the river into the forest. voila~!

Notice I still have 1 movement point left there.

Awesome, mabby it was not this way in Vanilla (or i really didnt noticed another magic forest boon!)

Thanks for input and job done, adding it!
(so much playing and never abusing it, or mabby it already feels normal when u use it too much ? )

Added :
1.c. Bringing MPOE to action, And how it works.

made minor formatting and order adjustments

Great guide so far. Looking forward to more =)

I like the strategy you've outlined so far but I'm curious about whether the Messenger of the Gods Pantheon (+2 Sci with each city trade route) would work with your strategy.

My thoughts on this would be that since the iroquois have the UA giving them cheap roads this could be a quick boost to science available fairly early on. What are your thoughts?

Regards,

Varek

Varek said:

Great guide so far. Looking forward to more =)

I like the strategy you've outlined so far but I'm curious about whether the Messenger of the Gods Pantheon (+2 Sci with each city trade route) would work with your strategy.

My thoughts on this would be that since the iroquois have the UA giving them cheap roads this could be a quick boost to science available fairly early on. What are your thoughts?

Regards,

Varek

Click to expand...

yes, MotG is part of REX strategy for case you have enough forests to use, almost instant TR with no cost and 2 science boost
It will be part of 2.c part of this guide