[BTS] Religious Economy?

Just finished a Monarch game with Hattie where I got probably my biggest tech lead of all time using what is to me a new strategy (so I obviously did it pretty suboptimally). Game started out standard: UU rush (sry Brennus) to secure a holy city, then infrastructure spam, GP for the holy city, and cottage up with 1 production and one GP Farm. However instead of spending hammers on a medieval war, I just missionary spammed and beelined theocracy, paper, and divine right (with a lib detour). My production city went AP--->Sankore---->SM and the results were ridiculous.

I essentially had the benefits of a mid-game corporation as all my cities were getting at least +4,+4,+2 (Base!). My commerce cities got online much faster with the hammer boost, and combined with the shrine, I ran 90-100% all game. Further hammers were saved because all my neighbors were friendly (and I could AP stop any wars before they got out of hand), and I basically had my choice of victories by say 1400 without earning a single XP since the BCs. I don't have tech dates, but I think I got like a late 1600s radio (for an internet beeline to backfill, later aborted because backfilling was so easy, also apparently computer obsoletes all my toys.), and was always an era ahead of the AIs.

I had never thought much about a religious economy past getting shrines online or capturing profitable ones, and this probably can be done much better with other leaders (Capac, Ramses, Mansa come to mind). Is this sort of thing (beelining Theocracy, Paper, Divine Right) viable on higher levels? Anybody else try this sort of thing regularly? Tips? Thoughts?

Mittens said:

I had never thought much about a religious economy past getting shrines online or capturing profitable ones, and this probably can be done much better with other leaders (Capac, Ramses, Mansa come to mind). Is this sort of thing (beelining Theocracy, Paper, Divine Right) viable on higher levels? Anybody else try this sort of thing regularly? Tips? Thoughts?

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It's dangerous, but can be worthwhile. Don't forget you can be beaten for thoses wonder (and actually I wouldn't build the AP myself but give the tech to some wonder spammer with my religion), and converting others civs may not alway work. If you neglect your military and have Ragnar decide to tech philo and convert to confusianism (I have seen that, and I can swear every single of his cities were confusianist), you may be in a world of trouble. Even without that, converting religion founder is an hard task.

Mittens said:

Is this sort of thing (beelining Theocracy, Paper, Divine Right) viable on higher levels?

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From an Emperor game.
It was a 6 continents game and all religions were founded at one.

It's not really an economy. It is making an effort to empower religious buildings such that they offer higher returns than alternatives.

The key buildings/wonders are Sankore, Spiral Minaret, and Apostolic Palace, with a shrine if possible.

However, this does not adjust your tile improvements in any way (you still pick between farms, workshops, or cottages on grassland terrain for example) and the only civic choice that matters is the religious line, and even there anything but FR will let you get the full benefit of the wonders (you always get the AP benefits too).

Government, legal, econ, etc aren't affected at all. So really it's a question of whether you think you can secure at least 2 of the wonders (or 1 with an AI building AP for you) and get away with running a state religion.

I'm not above taking DR with lib if nobody has it yet and I have a state religion, since it trades very well and spiral is very nice, even moreso with stone.

Tatran said:

From an Emperor game.
It was a 6 continents game and all religions were founded at one.

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Four religions before expanding any? Whatever tickles your fancy, I guess.

TheMeInTeam said:

It's not really an economy. It is making an effort to empower religious buildings such that they offer higher returns than alternatives.

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Well it's not an economy distinct from an SE or CE, but given that I made the conscious choice to forgo more cottage cities by diverting medieval hammers that would normally go to trebs and maces, and instead focus on religious infrastructure, I think of it as a distinct subset of either an SE or in my case CE. As an aside I think it has better synergies with a CE, because a CE's main weaknesses are a lack of hammers pre democracy and a susceptibility to pillaging. This (with the diplo bonuses and hammer bonuses), ameliorates both of those problems.

1. CE ans SE are garbage terms that carry sufficiently minuscule meaning to be nigh useless.
2. You are correct in that you divert hammers from military or other buildings to make these. But you make the conscious choice to divert hammers from military to libraries or universities too. Do you want to run a university economy? Why not? Same amount of sense.

Also:

CE's main weaknesses are a lack of hammers pre democracy

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Only if you build too many cities with cottages.

and a susceptibility to pillaging

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Is one of the most ignorant arguments against cottages as a tile improvement ever conceived. The only way this is even a tiny bit relevant is if you choose to cottage border cities. Even then, if the enemy stack can survive in your territory on flatland for long you're screwed regardless.

The diplo bonuses are irrelevant to building wonders and missionaries, FYI.

Anyway, one of my more recent immortal games featured AP and Sankore and a lot of troop spam to control most of my continent. Once I fell behind in tech (was going SP + workshops to spam troops) I just build the EP buildings and used espionage + palace move to steal my way back to parity and lay more smackdown. The AP in particular was helpful there.

It's tried time and time again, and the result is that it royally sucks on high levels. The exception is, you guessed it, getting the religion(s) by rushing your neighbor(s). Then UoS and co are simply one choice to sustain your empire, not necessarily any better than the alternatives. Even then the thing keeping you afloat is the extra land and goodies from rushing, not the religions really. They can be a convenience but hardly a gamebreaker. Now if monasteries weren't obsolete so early (or were obsoleted by something you could skip like Democracy - yes I know it doesn't make sense) maybe things would be different.

Seems like if you're ahead in tech enough to get all these wonders, and you have enough cities for these to pay off a lot, then you're already winning.

Tatran said:

From an Emperor game.
It was a 6 continents game and all religions were founded at one.

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He founded Judaism in 1440AD.. that's the time of the screenshot... Quit beeing tools. No one gets Philo in 2000-something-BC.




<.<

Kadazzle said:

He founded Judaism in 1440AD.. that's the time of the screenshot... Quit beeing tools. No one gets Philo in 2000-something-BC.

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I'm surprised more people don't play with Choose Religions tbh. Basically no gameplay change (okay you can cherrypick resourcesped cathedrals when aiming for cultural) and brings variety and color when Isabella is actually spreading Christianity and not Buddhism.

The big drawback of religious buildings is that they're relatively useless unless you need culture. Temples obsolete at monarchy, and monasteries are usually not really worth the hammers. The boost they get from UoS and the like makes them viable builds.

JammerUno said:

The big drawback of religious buildings is that they're relatively useless unless you need culture. Temples obsolete at monarchy, and monasteries are usually not really worth the hammers. The boost they get from UoS and the like makes them viable builds.

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Spi temples are cheap and while not as good as HR units if you have the wonders they're worth it easily.

"monasteries not worth the hammers" is flatly untrue. A monastery has the same to :sceince:% multiplier ratio as an observatory - literally a better rate than universities unless you still need oxford. On top of this, they give culture. Accruing them in the capitol can give you a marked early game effect, and getting 2 is frequently plausible and noticeable in a bureaucracy cap. If there's one place you send that taoist missionary off the religion you just bulbed (mostly for other reasons), it's the B. cap to crank out another monastery there.

Also, temples are one option among far fewer easy sources of in games with stone ----> mids.

They're obviously not always good builds but unlike crap like explorers they certainly have a place in the game.

Silu said:

I'm surprised more people don't play with Choose Religions tbh. Basically no gameplay change (okay you can cherrypick resourcesped cathedrals when aiming for cultural) and brings variety and color when Isabella is actually spreading Christianity and not Buddhism.

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Seriously. Myself, I always play with choose religions because it gives the game a little more spice and flavor. Instead of buddhism, hinduism, or in some cases judaism ALWAYS being the domininant religions, sometimes it can be Islam, Taoism, or Christianity. I really don't know why people don't like it.

So what do you guys think of using this sort of thing as a default in a Ramses game?

1) Is guaranteed a religion if he wants one with GP bulbs (Obelisk)

2) Is guaranteed a religion if a neighbor founds one (War Chariots)

3) Will get all the wonders if he gets to the tech on time, still leftover hammers for units (IND)

4) Cheap temples for all your cities (SPI)

Silu said:

It's tried time and time again, and the result is that it royally sucks on high levels. The exception is, you guessed it, getting the religion(s) by rushing your neighbor(s). Then UoS and co are simply one choice to sustain your empire, not necessarily any better than the alternatives. Even then the thing keeping you afloat is the extra land and goodies from rushing, not the religions really. They can be a convenience but hardly a gamebreaker. Now if monasteries weren't obsolete so early (or were obsoleted by something you could skip like Democracy - yes I know it doesn't make sense) maybe things would be different.

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This is not exactly true. If you play it with the right leader (Asoka), you can break the game using ICS + AP/UoS/SM on a land heavy map. It's incredibly broken, although slightly painful to play because of the number of cities you have to manage.

Mittens said:

So what do you guys think of using this sort of thing as a default in a Ramses game?

1) Is guaranteed a religion if he wants one with GP bulbs (Obelisk)

2) Is guaranteed a religion if a neighbor founds one (War Chariots)

3) Will get all the wonders if he gets to the tech on time, still leftover hammers for units (IND)

4) Cheap temples for all your cities (SPI)

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Sounds like a pretty good game plan if i say so myself. Maybe I should try this kind and get henge. Go worker>Henge>War Chariots if anyone is near or kind enough to found a reli for me. If not I could expand and bulb theo with a great prophet for AP and christianity.

shyuhe said:

This is not exactly true. If you play it with the right leader (Asoka), you can break the game using ICS + AP/UoS/SM on a land heavy map. It's incredibly broken, although slightly painful to play because of the number of cities you have to manage.

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I was talking generally. What you said would require a very skilled player, the right Civ and a rare unstandard map. If few of the best players here can break certain aspects of the game under certain conditions that doesn't mean they don't "suck" as a general rule/guideline when compared to alternatives.

TMIT said:

A monastery has the same to % multiplier ratio as an observatory - literally a better rate than universities unless you still need oxford.

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I wouldn't say that. If you don't build them very early the payoff isn't quite as nice as most games last long after you get SciMethod. Or maybe not for you now that I think about it

shyuhe said:

If you play it with the right leader (Asoka), you can break the game using ICS + AP/UoS/SM on a land heavy map.

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What's "ICS"?

Infinite City Sprawl. Fancy term for making a boatload of cities.