Byzantium OCC Insanity - the new meaning of XCOM

[Merenptah]

EXCOMmunication - institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community. (Wikipaedia)

Here is a new religiously flavoured deity game with insane settings. Your aim is to dominate the world religiously and win a Cultural Victory.

Game Settings
Playable Civ: Byzantium
Number of AI Opponents: 5
Number of City States: 12
Map Type: Donut
Map Size: Small
Difficulty Level: Deity
Game pace: Standard
Game options: One City Challenge; Barbarians and Ancient Ruins enabled; all victory types enabled
Victory Conditions:

• Every city follows your religion
• Win a Cultural Victory (after all cites have been converted/excommunicated)

Insanity #1 One City Challenge

• You won't be able to produce settlers
• You won't be able to capture cities; any city you try to capture will be instantly razed including Capital Cities and City-States
• You won't be able to steal Works of Art as these will be instantly destroyed together with the captured city

Insanity #2 The Wall - giving a new meaning to XCOM

• Your city is surrounded by mountains; which means:
• No trade routes in or out of the city
• No unit can leave or enter your city except for Paratroopers (and XCOMs)
• You won't be able to use Missionaries or Great Prophets to spread your religion
• You won't be able to use Great Musicians to Concert Bomb opponents
• You won't be able to use Archaeologists to excavate Antiquity Sites

Insanity #3 Byzantine Pathfinder

• You start with 4 Pathfinders (beyond the Wall) and plenty of Ancient Ruins
• These have the ability to let you choose the benefit you get from goody huts just like the Shoshone
• They upgrade to Composite Bowmen (via goody hut selection) even if you haven't researched Construction

Insanity #4 Workers, Mining and Natural Wonders

• Two workers
• Mining tech
• Four Natural Wonders surround the city: Uluru, Lake Victoria, Mt. Kilimanjaro, King Solomon's Mines

Please share:

1. Pathfinders: what is your goodie selection strategy? and what did you do with them once the map was explored?
2. When did you open Piety? Immediately or after completing Tradition?
3. Which Reformation Belief did you choose and when?
4. Did you wait for XCOMs or did you start a war with only Paratroopers? How did it go?
5. How did you time building the Hotel/Airport, and when did you research The Internet?
6. Which World Wonders did you build?

Save file: View attachment Theodora_0000 BC-4000.Civ5Save

 

[calad]

Isnt it impossible to spread your religion if you cant send missionaries and use trade routes?

 

[Browd]

Have to use a passive spread enhancer, like Itinerant Preachers or Religious Texts, build Grand Temple ASAP, try for World Religion (extra spread), and hope for the best -- not a very encouraging plan.

As for reformation beliefs, Underground Sect is the only one that purports to address religious pressure, but it is bugged and doesn't appear to work, which means Charitable Missions may be the only reformation belief worth taking on a cooked map like this.

 

[TLHeart]

just as bad as the last cooked map with spain. does not sound fun to me

 

[chazzycat]

interesting idea. Sounds pretty difficult but fun. I'll give it a shot and let you know how spectacularly I fail.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well if you take 2 passive spread beliefs...
and possibly unity of the prophets (for ensuring that your passive spread is unstoppable)

 

[chazzycat]

after playing the first 20 turns, I may have overestimated the difficulty. it's quite stacked, even more than I imagined. founded religion on turn 12...and got GL no problem thanks to all the free pop from ruins (even completely whiffing with free techs). 2 free workers and marble under the cap might be a little much

 

[Merenptah]

Quite funnily, the last city that had to be converted just disappeared after a revolt on T229; so I did not get to use XCOMs for the intended purpose. Quickly bought a Hotel the same turn and won CV on T252.




Milestone Timeline:

Spoiler :

T2 Pantheon: One with Nature
T14 Religion: Religious Community + Religious Texts
T19 Great Library => Philosophy
T24 National College
T30 Enhance: Religious Art + Itinerant Preachers
T35 Grand Temple
T57 Education
T83 Printing Press (used Oxford)
T86 Reformation: Unity of the Prophets (completed Tradition first and then full Piety)
T115 World Religion (build Forbidden Palace for the extra Delegates and also bribed Spain to vote for it)
T229 One Religion - last city disappeared when trying to join Byzantium after a revolt
T252 Cultural Victory

Initial BO: Monument, Granary, GL, NC, Shrine, Temple, GT

Pathfinders: popped around 8 ruins first few rounds and one more later on; just went for Pop increase, Free Tech and Culture; upgraded two Pathfinders as I wanted to finish the Monument before getting more Culture when Pop/FreeTech wasn't available.

Catherine was stacking A-Bombs on a city next to mine so I started war before XCOMs.

Just for fun, I then took out Madrid and Moscow in just two rounds with 2 XCOMs each and 10 Stealth Bombers. Cities go poof and can't be recaptured.

 

[happyturtle]

I've only gotten to T50, but this map is awesome!

 

[Browd]

Pursued similar approach as Merenptah, with t.248 culture victory. But unlike his game, the last two holy cities (Marrakesh and Thebes) just wouldn't convert, and Egypt had a good bit of culture built up, so I had to destroy both holy cities (stealth and x-com units) and the two remaining Egyptian cities to close out the victory.

 

[Chysp]

This was a really fun game! Picked up a Turn 236 cultural victory. Religion had been an early priority, but the other civs were too dominant in that regard by the end, so I wasn't getting any religion bonuses on tourism (except for world religion).

Pathfinders were used for pop, culture and techs, and nothing else. I tried to pick up as many early wonders as I could, including GL (straight into National College), Hanging Gardens, Parthenon, Oracle, Petra obviously, and thankfully got every one I wanted.

Took Charitable Missions for my Belief, which went alongside Tithe. I had most of the city states as my allies for most of the game as a result. Never went to war, didn't ever really see the point. Cathy did take over most of the map, and by the end I was starting to get just a little worried, because she was catching me up in science.

Given my relationship with allies, I probably should have gone for the 25% science from city states policy earlier. At one point, my science was lagging, which allowed Cathy to catch up.

After Scientific Theory, I essentially prioritised getting up Hotels and Airports, then going for the Internet. Got them up relatively quick and bought them with gold.

Full Tradition - Full Piety - Aesthetics Opener - Patronage Opener - Rationalism Opener - Complete Aesthetics - Complete Rationalism - dabbling in Patronage. Freedom policies were interspersed somewhere in there.

Edit: Just realised I didn't win this. I had completely forgotten about the 'every civ follows your religion' victory condition >.<
... Almost tempted to retry it and go for the dominant religion part too. I made quite a few mistakes that slowed me down before.

 

[happyturtle]

I got to T125 before having to shut down the game and actually try to do stuff. I'm having a blast with this supercity. I went straight into Piety, then Aesthetics, and now two policies into Patronage. Since the game's not open, I'll have to do this from memory.

I didn't take notes on my Pathfinder choices. I got a lot of techs and population, a bit of culture, and upgraded them all to Composite Bowman - probably not the best set of choices.

Wonders: Stonehenge, Great Library, Oracle, Petra, Great Mosque of Djenne, Sistine Chapel, Forbidden Palace

Got beat to: Alhambra, Parthenon, Chichen Itza

Last time I checked, my religion (named Muddle, after my dog) had spread to 14 cities, but that was several turns ago that I remember checking. I took Unity of the Prophets as my Reformation Belief, as Krikket suggested.

I got to Printing Press first and proposed making Muddle the World Religion. Since I have 4 delegates, I can probably pull it off.

Egypt keeps denouncing me, because of taking the Wonders they want. I have a DoF with Morocco and Russia, but will not renew Russia's since they are now going after one of my city state allies. I'm gifting units to the city-state (usually the same ones they've given me, since it's Hanoi ) so I hope that's enough to help them hold out.

Can you liberate a city during a OCC? Or does it auto-raze before having the opportunity?

One mistake I made was buying city-state alliances too early. I should have used that money for buying buildings, thus freeing up turns for Wonders!

 

[Browd]

Cannot liberate cities in OCC -- they go insta-poof when conquered.

 

[chazzycat]

I've played about 150 turns now. It's pretty fun, but I think I am going to fail the objective. the problem is, I think I am going to win culturally long before I get to XCOMs. The vast majority of cities belong to my religion but the AI is fighting back with lots of prophets, as they tend to do on deity.

It's been fun building a ton of wonders though. Got GL, ToA, Oracle, Petra, Chitchen Itza, ND, LT, Globe, Sistine, Uffizi, Eiffel Tower. Broadway is next. Just won the world fair and should get tier 3 tenets pretty fast.

I went full piety, full aesthetics, 4 in rationalism, 3 in patronage, order. 5 holy sites, all those wonders, and allying both culture CS very early from barb quests has kept my culture very strong all game. Tradition might have been a better opener, since piety didn't really help found or enhance any earlier. But, those holy sites are really nice on Petra desert sheep hills. I'm not fully convinced either way.

 

[happyturtle]

I haven't had very much luck with barb quests. Pocatello has Pathfinders EVERYWHERE, ready to swoop in and clear the encampment after I kill the barb.

 

[chazzycat]

yeah that's annoying. I kept my CBs in pairs...that helps a bit

 

[Empedocles]

How big is the area encircled by mountains? You could fill the whole thing with units and start teleporting units across the mountains to get your conquering started early.

 

[chazzycat]

haha, I considered that as well but you would have fill up the entire city workable area. the mountains are 4 hexes out from the cap.

 

[happyturtle]

I've had to break up my theming bonuses and close borders to keep from winning too soon. The holy cities are holding out, as well as a few others, so I'm teching to Radar now.

 

[Buccaneer]

Is the ability to build so many wonders preventing the AI opponents from amassing that much culture, thus giving you the ability to close the gap faster with tourism?