Babylon Contrast Journal, All Welcome

[CrazyG]

Spoiler game spoilers :

Pilgrim was already taken in my game but I agree it's really strong.

I think Holy Law can go a long way to supporting a gunpowder rush strategy by providing and in big amounts throughout the medieval era. You can keep numbers up for a quite a while I think. Pagodas are doing extremely well (as they will in general on a pangea-style map) but thrift's long term weaknesses are showing in my game.

Looking at turn 140+, I'm wondering what if I had statecraft/artistry instead of Fealty. Or maybe open with Fealty then go statecraft. the discount and monasteries are very strong but most policies after it seems underwhelming. The from fealty seems eventually pointless due to happiness being so difficult (not sure if that this patch itself or the difficulty mod).

This was my first game on Milae's mod and it does the change the short-long term tradeoffs a lot. It's made me understand his tier list a lot better, long term competition seems really tough without war.

 

[DeAnno]

Spoiler :

Also I was definitely thinking inspired works instead of Glory of God since you can already buy the Great Writers, and pretty sure you will get Rationalism so you can get Scientists, which are the main reasons for going Glory of God if you don't have these.

So my TtGoG plans are as follows:
1) At the start of Industrial there are usually a few embassies left, mostly on the other continents. Buy some Great Diplomats until they are gone. This nets you 1-2 votes usually.
2) The ability to buy GGs mixes very well if you feel you have to war and go Autocracy because the Citadel policy. I will try to wait for that or until I know I'm not going that way for the spam of them. Even without it might be needed to hold more easily against the AI.
3) Buying Engineers makes it much easier to chase wonders, if only because you can invest and finish on the same turn. More important for Babylon.
4) I'm more likely to go Industry than Rationalism I think in this setup, meaning it is likely getting me the GS. If not, it is getting me the GMs, which are helpful for the WLTKD strategy I'm pursuing with Fealty and Synagogues.
5) The rest of the GP are still pretty useful to buy 2 of cheaply. GA get some happiness, GM create some more works.

Overall there is just so much value to be had, the costs for the first two or so of each GP are cheap enough compared to focus firing GP that it's effectively like 12 free great people over the course of time. Sure some of them aren't that great use, but quantity has a quality all its own.

 

[Milae]

Okay up to turn 141:

Spoiler :

Basically I was just trying to conquer Muang Saluang. The city actually wasn't particularly easy to attack since there was only one tile I could attack from without being hit. Would have been almost impossible to attack from range without indirect fire though. I knew it was a race against time for them to get to Chivalry and get castles and Naresuan's so I built roads around as quickly as possible and tried to clear out units in the forest in the north west so I could attack from there.

On turn 96 Attila decided to attack Siam. This was incredibly useful as they had to pull some of their units away so we could actually start attacking. Managed to take the city on turn 113. Must've been pretty close as they had Chivalry and a castle in Sukhothai but I stepped up my attack when I saw that to make sure.

Built Ankor Wat and went bottom of the tech tree so got forges very early so have very high production across empire. Went straight for steel to build some longswordsmen, Assyria has Orders in their religion which they spread to us so got a few of them, as well as some mandirs from Confucian and Monastries from going fealty. Not sure if I will finish fealty by the faith cost reduction feels essential with all the conversions I will need to do to get value out of the religions I conquer.
Continued with the war since I had nothing else to do and Attila was still fighting. I watched a lot of Horse Archers get destroyed by Naresuans lol. Once I had Machinery and some longswordsmen with cover 2 I ressettled Muang Saluang (probably a waste of time), and then great generaled out towards Sukhothai. Got 3 level 5 Crossbows and close on a few more, partially thanks to the city state quest for conquering Muang so army is getting good and pretty sure we can take Sukhothai soon, they have inquisition enhancer but haven't reformed yet. Here is the final situation:

Global situation: Korea and Assyria are into Renaissance and on 32 techs. Assyria has 11 policies as well! they seem to like us which is great as we have 4 trade routes to them helping science and culture a lot. Korea would be amazing to conquer next. They have Terra Cotta and a proper Authority religion. No easy way into them though:

Other next option would be Russia. Pretty good city state quest to conquer Yaroslav which should be doable. THey have Great Wall and many DPs though, including Assyria.

 

[DeAnno]

Played up to Turn 180:

Spoiler :

The game continues to be very quiet, with some excitement happening to others in the world and apparently also CrazyG in an alternate dimension but none for me. Overall I've felt like Culture is struggling now but I'm staying relevant on Technology, and Religion continues to be dominant.

Right as I opened I immediately upgraded my Spears into Pikes and then my Bowmen into Xbows as I got machinery, fearful of war coming like with CrazyG. It didn't, but my diplomacy stayed all smiles so I can't really complain. I built one Heavy Skirmisher and was going to do a second but Korea bought my last two horses and an iron for 5 gpt, I think he needed them from pillages maybe.

I started the save sending a lot of missionaries far to the west into Hun lands and converted a lot of followers, but Siam was there too and it was a mess and ended in a lot of no religion cities. Eventually as I went to Renaissance I stopped the sendings there and focused a bit on Russia instead with a combo of missionaries and a Great Prophet who are midway through their jobs. Overall my pressure is quite strong everywhere even in the border Siam cities, so I feel good about keeping my religion strong all game. On policies 9/10/11 I had 159/200/220 Followers.

With investment and an Engineer I managed to build the Leaning Tower in DK, my only wonder. I spawned a Diplo with it and now have both my insulated City States with my Embassies. Later I popped a third Great Diplo and sent him down to Kathmandu to get what may have been the last embassy on the continent, was a bit stressful as it was through Siam when he wasn't my friend and then Korea.



Assyria was the one who managed to found Congress and that left me without a resolution. Treasure Fleet, Casus Belli, and WR Eartern Orthodoxy are all up for vote this turn, I think probably put all votes against the Religion but I left it for whoever picks up the save.

My scout continued to be incompetent and never explored the southeast of the main continent, eventually I promoted him to an explorer and sent him to the southern new world where he just popped Survivalism 3. Meanwhile I sent two fresh explorers to the northern new world where they've made a career of helping Tyre, killing a camp, freeing a worker, and killing some barbs, but they might leave for the south soon to clear some camps there with the old explorer. Other CS alliances have been shaky with Statecraft Noble Truths Byz being not really practical to muscle away. Assyria is colonizing north and Byz south right now.



I went for Chemistry and then Banking and ended up delaying Guilds probably too long, but the Infrastructure is showing its muscle now to be fair, those Banks provide a lot of yields and the Grocers are helpful to not stall out on pop. I have all the Artists Guilds up finally as well as Banks and Grocers in every city, plus most of the previous buildings done.

WLTKD has been kind, after using my first GM to unstick Babylon and Nippur I haven't had any problems maintaining it and Circuses are all still in reserve. Synagogues and Burghers together make it feel quite worth it to maintain, and I think I want to go Industry next to continue doubling down on it as well as the investing in buildings. Despite the Internal Trade bonus of Fealty the external routes have been too good for me to deny with all this peace, even more trade routes will serve well too.

At one point the Huns asked me to declare Siam, would've been Gandhi too; I decline, not wanting to rock the boat. Later he declares Siam alone anyway triggering DP with Byz and Russia, but both those wars fizzle out to nothing. He looks like he might take the Siam city near Kathmandu though. Recently however Assyria has denounced and declared him so we'll see if he holds against the five tech advantage.

Russia asked me to declare Korea right near the end, would've been against I almost did but something felt bad in my gut and I said no. The next turn Gandhi vassals Korea and then Korea asks me for Friendship, I also say no. I don't really see why Korea is the vassal of India despite having more techs but AI is gonna be AI.

I have a Great Scientist popped this turn I didn't aim yet, I think probably plant him somewhere but idk where really, maybe another hill. Also WLTKD ended in two places this turn or maybe last turn, remember to refresh it looks like easy trades... wait a minute...

Spoiler Vitals :

I feel like per turn values are almost meaningless with Instant Yields, I make so much with full Banks, Progress, Holy Law, etc.
5 Cities: 73 pop, 2 CS allies, 6 friends, 3 embassies
Science: 35 Techs, about halfway to astronomy [Byz has 38 but is the only one, some others with 37]
Culture: 11 Policies, about halfway to 12 [Leaders have 13 and are slightly more than 2 policies ahead]
Religion: 200 followers when policy 11 hit, 16 cities
Babylon: Ironworks, East India, Heroic Epic, Grand Temple, Artist Guild
DK: Leaning Tower, Printing Press, Scriviner, Nat Monument, Circus Maximus, Artist Guild
Borsippa: Writer and Artist Guild
Akkad: Writer Guild
Nippur: Writer Guild, School of Philosophy

EDIT:

Spoiler Buggy behavior :

So I think there's a problem with lux trading again, but I'm too tired to figure out what it is and make the bug report right now. Ugh. Look at this.



They don't show up in available resources either, but now I remember I made that deal a turn or two ago and it's still there on the deal list. I wonder if it's actually draining my gold.

Superminor spoiler: I advanced to 181, trading for the luxes again and the WLTKD triggered this time. Who knows how long I'll "keep" them.

 

[CrazyG]

I've had that buggy thing with luxuries and WLTKD too.

 

[Milae]

Yea I had a city state quest which didn't trigger after I bought the lux. I had to buy it again and this time at a higher price as it was the last one so I'm sure the original deal was in place.

 

[stii]

Ahh yea that makes sense, it was soo different to the practise one I did where I had to scrape for 3 cities.
Mine should be done today also.

Spoiler Religion :

Mostly referring to the Progress guys:
So from my previous experience on a map like this you either have to go all in on religion and convert everyone, or just get reformation and then accept that your religion will be limited to which cities you want to inquistor. Basically whoever has the largest religion gets the pressure which overwhelms everyone else. I probably would have gone with Mausoleum and Artistry or Tradition and tried to win at religion as it gives crazy faith later. Or Theocratic, rushed to reform, and just kept it in my capital/my own cities (one cool thing about this founder is that it affects all cities even if they aren't your religion) and then used spare faith on Prophets which get the +5 culture from Holy Sites as well. This is one of the main reasons I much preferred Tradition first if possible since it would synergise better with either of these. Tbh I've not used Holy Law much but I can see it's doing good for you guys atm but just wondering how useful it will be later on and if you will be able to keep the followers? I think with the Mod on the lategame synergies are more important than early utility so that might be why you guys prefer Holy Law to me. But it might be the difference in getting Porcelein Tower or not so that could be pretty big.

Also I was definitely thinking inspired works instead of Glory of God since you can already buy the Great Writers, and pretty sure you will get Rationalism so you can get Scientists, which are the main reasons for going Glory of God if you don't have these. And when you reform so early you aren't getting a benefit from it for quite a while until you get to industrial.

One other thing is that the new Pilgrim Founder is actually insanely good for getting city state allies. I played Polynesia and by mid renaissance I had every city state as my ally which gave +100 Science per turn from Scholastism. I know Statecraft Babylon is pretty weird but it was soo good I think it's worth considering. I didn't even have Borobodur, I think if you have that it's just strait up OP. Maybe some of these option weren't available for you guys anyways as well.

@stii Is there anyone who you could attack without big repercussions? It will take a while to weaken people and getting to range/logistics is pretty useful so I would start as soon as you can with Crossbows, even though conquering probs not possible until Muskets.

Spoiler game stuff :

So there is the traditional problem of defensive pacts everywhere couple with a pretty huge number of trade routes. making me less keen on attacking anyone with anything less than a full victory. I have done a very conservative build where I just wait for muskets and attack. Assyria just had a pact with Siam so I attacked them and rolled over them pretty easily. although,

Spoiler awkward map based spoilers that don't really matter but probably is unknown to you :

Assyria has half their cities on the extra continent so possibly for that reason they had not much army to hold me off at the start

I think i can ride muskets to at least two vassals and maybe a few more too. It is mostly a case not getting unhappy rather than winning battles.


I am doing the other end of religion you mentioned where you just give up on flipping cities back. Although it is a real pain when cities half flip, I'm going to have to conquer a Siam city to fix it!

 

[stii]

It is very interesting how different AI players do better in some games than others. Even ones who share no borders with us.

On the trade thing I do find if you do multiple trades with the same player in the same turn it often bugs out and eats resources.

 

[Milae]

Spoiler :

I went for Chemistry and then Banking and ended up delaying Guilds probably too long, but the Infrastructure is showing its muscle now to be fair, those Banks provide a lot of yields and the Grocers are helpful to not stall out on pop. I have all the Artists Guilds up finally as well as Banks and Grocers in every city, plus most of the previous buildings done.

Yea Money seems pretty good, you are 6 progress, 5 fealty? I'm surprised you didn't get to propose with reform and an embassy but what's the plan when you can?

I feel like it will still be hard to catch up even with Glory of God so might need to try to conquer at some point?

Assyria has half their cities on the extra continent so possibly for that reason they had not much army to hold me off at the start

It does seem like a trap the AI falls into when there is spare space on the map. Hopefully the tradition guys won't do that as well and ruin their culture/science.

You beat Assyria easily with muskets? I was thinking that should be doable as long as they don't have arsenals. Assyria definitely not a good target on mine though since they are strong and I'm getting lots of science from trade routes with them.

 

[stii]

Spoiler my game up to t180 :

I continued the basic plan of teching to muskets. Assyria seemed the best bet as they only had a defence pact with Siam and while Russia has her capital right next to my city she is also a bit stronger both in terms of units and more importantly tech. I built up lots of units and upgraded from my UU to convert gold into production and get the free indirect fire ability on everything.

Like others I got a pretty insane amount of trade routes from every AI by being in the middle of the group hug. I'm not sure exactly how much as the display shows different thing in different places but it was certainly a lot. This was with zero of my TRs too. It will be a shame to lose a bunch of this, but at least I will get loads of free gold when I do fight. (tense on this is really confusing. Will lose? Have lost?)

Mongols decided they wanted to pillage one of my TR real bad here and did a sneak attack. Which was fine with me, I'll trade a TR for some culture and more importantly a GG for my real war. I probably could have taken their city but I don't really want a million tiny cities when I plan on taking 4-5 in my real war and then probably some more later on. the Huns and Siam have been scuffling all game, Assyria got a bit beat up too at one pointing with one of their cities taking a bunch of damage earlier on. I guess the Huns UU is really powerful early on because they did pretty well despite being behind on tech.

Just before a murder.

I seem to have ay more faith than I know what to do with and this was before I fought a double war with orders everywhere. It does mean I can build 3x religious buildings and flip any cities I conquer really easily. When I take a Siam city I will use that to flip my cites off no religion to Siam's religion, as their religion is pretty good and has so much pressure it will force its way in anyway. I'm not sure if the I will get their reformation belief as well as my own by controlling their holy city too. The wording suggests it works like that but I have no clue if it really does. A long way off anyway.

AI had a few units but I plowed through the first city pretty easily. My main problem was I only wanted to take two cities so I had to walk an awkward path around one of them to get to Assyria's Capital. Siam pretty much just fed elephants into my defensive position.

T182 slightly awkwardly because I don't have quite the right saves, you'd think I'd learn to at least save on the round numbers by now. Assyria is just getting rolled and then Siam will be next. no one seems to care either which is nice. Russia won't have a DoF with me but doesn't seem too interested in attacking me. My main issues is increasing unhappy from war weariness and extra cities but It should be fine.

Spoiler vitals to compare :

7 Cities: 109 pop, 1 CS allies, 4 friends, 1 embassies
Science: 36 Techs, about halfway to architech [Byz has 39 as does Russia
Culture: 11 Policies, dead on [Leaders have 13 and are slightly more than 2 policies ahead]
Religion: pretty much nothing bar my holy city. Which doesn't really matter as my religion doesn't do much and benefits from other religions

Petra in desert city and Patheon in capital, soon to gain pyramids and forbidden palace, along with an 8th city. Pretty much every possible build in every city, the the point where I am running process a bit.

 

[DeAnno]

Spoiler :

I feel like it will still be hard to catch up even with Glory of God so might need to try to conquer at some point?

Maybe? I don't have Orders (they were taken before I enhanced) or any other Conquest bonuses at all so I'm not sure. Assyria is the tech leader in my game so scary to attack, even if their army is distracted by colonizing, so it'd have to be Siam or Russia. I think either way I want to delay any possible attack until Ideology, in that universe I take Autocracy to flip the table and use the megacitadels and Generals to make an immediate push, following up with the Airports.

There are advantages to remaining in the spot I am, lots of trade routes and few cities to boost my policy and tech costs. It's a very tight efficient empire and none of the cities feel particularly weak. Babylon does have lategame muscle and I feel that coming on, I'm getting to the point of full infrastructure everywhere and that interacts strongly with having Progress. Then again Holy Law isn't the best lategame Founder, though Creativity and Synagogues aren't bad.

Stii's conquests are pretty impressive though accounting for the two turns he is only a smidge ahead, maybe half a tech, on actual techs and half a policy or more behind on culture. But with vassals maybe that will accelerate.

 

[stii]

It is very interesting how different AI players do better in some gams than others. Even ones who share no borders with us.

On the trade thing I do find if you do multiple trades with the same player in the same turn it often bugs out and eats resources.

Spoiler :

Maybe? I don't have Orders (they were taken before I enhanced) or any other Conquest bonuses at all so I'm not sure. Assyria is the tech leader in my game so scary to attack, even if their army is distracted by colonizing, so it'd have to be Siam or Russia. I think either way I want to delay any possible attack until Ideology, in that universe I take Autocracy to flip the table and use the megacitadels and Generals to make an immediate push, following up with the Airports.

There are advantages to remaining in the spot I am, lots of trade routes and few cities to boost my policy and tech costs. It's a very tight efficient empire and none of the cities feel particularly weak. Babylon does have lategame muscle and I feel that coming on, I'm getting to the point of full infrastructure everywhere and that interacts strongly with having Progress. Then again Holy Law isn't the best lategame Founder, though Creativity and Synagogues aren't bad.

Stii's conquests are pretty impressive though accounting for the two turns he is only a smidge ahead, maybe half a tech, on actual techs and half a policy or more behind on culture. But with vassals maybe that will accelerate.

Spoiler game stuff :

Yeah I think you are slightly ahead bar the war stuff, being ahead on science is less good than culture, although it is closer than it used to be as spys seems to be a bit useless now.

I have no clue if you can win a late game without war under this sub mod. I mean I don't even really know if i can just make all the weak countries my vassals and win or if I need to push through and kill everyone. The war monger penalty so far has been super low, which is nice.

 

[Milae]

Spoiler :

Spoiler game stuff :

Yeah I think you are slightly ahead bar the war stuff, being ahead on science is less good than culture, although it is closer than it used to be as spys seems to be a bit useless now.

I have no clue if you can win a late game without war under this sub mod. I mean I don't even really know if i can just make all the weak countries my vassals and win or if I need to push through and kill everyone. The war monger penalty so far has been super low, which is nice.

It is possible without war but I think you'd need more wonders or synergies with religion. One or two conquest could be enough with the syncretism but again I think you'd need good wonders and it should be a challenge right to the end.

I'm not sure if the I will get their reformation belief as well as my own by controlling their holy city too. The wording suggests it works like that but I have no clue if it really does. A long way off anyway.

I'm pretty sure reformation beliefs either have to be primary, which you can't have since the one you founded will always be primary, or, for the universities and amphitheatre ones you get them from either majority or owning the holy city. I don't think you get the non-building bonuses from those unless they are primary though.

 

[DeAnno]

I flipped to the new patch for now but I still want to continue this game on 5-28 once everyone has caught up. Maybe we should standardize to a 45 turn increment next time? Dunno.

 

[stii]

45 turns sounds good. I will probably finish off my game soon.​

 

[Milae]

I flipped to the new patch for now but I still want to continue this game on 5-28 once everyone has caught up. Maybe we should standardize to a 45 turn increment next time? Dunno.

Yea I'm going to finish off my games before I switch, doesn't seem like a big change anyways.

Spoiler :

Ngl being at war most of the time made this take soo long. Was like 4 hours to do this part.

Took Sukhothai pretty quickly. I really wanted to push forward into Si Satchanalai since there were 4 pastures around it and Buddhism has Open Sky but I also felt like it was a race against time to attack someone else before they get to Arsenals so I peaced out and decided to attack Russia since I thought they would be much easier than Korea and there was a citystate quest to conquer Yaroslav. Just before I declared Korea decided to become Byzantium's vassal which basically meant I also had to be at war with Korea anyways so that was rather annoying.

War progress was very slow, I had to deal with Hwachas from korea and some cataphracts from Byzantium before I could even think about pushing forwards. Took me a while to get my road network set up as well and eventually got a good GG. Even so it seems rather difficult to push forwards without Metallurgy which I just got on turn 182. I think it will finally fall now as there are many less troops coming as well. Unfortunately I just realised at the end that they get their arsenal at Metallurgy. I haven't seen any lancers or muskets from them yet but I'm sure it will come soon so I'm not sure if I will be able to keep pushing after Yaroslav. Tbh I thought I would be able to take Yaroslav with crossbows but anyways I'm not sure what else I could've done. Perhaps finish of Siam and then war Attila but may not have been any easier and much less reward.

On the non-war side of things Buddhism was quite a nice religion to get. Inquisition enhancer gives me gold every time I inquisitor one of my cities (which happens often thanks to the pressure) and then I can get the yields from tithe and scholarship and the open sky pantheon. I already have orders in my cities from Assyria. The founder also means I now spend my spare faith on missionaries to send to city states. I went for Statecraft after fealty opener. I'm getting so much science+culture from trade routes with Assyria, it works well with the founder belief and only Siam is statecraft so shouldn't be too much competition. My plan is to reform into glory of god and probably go imperialism. Also one other nice synergy I discovered in another game is that the tourism from that founder can be used to make your trade routes with someone better so I plan to do that also.

Clearly science was quite slow. I think its because I delayed Education quite a bit but I probably also just didn't maximise my yields in each city as I was thinking about war stuff most of the time. Tbh I'm not sure I even did my Oxford/GL theming bonus which is just bad lol. However one good bit of news is that I managed to get a cheeky victory on the Treasure fleet project. I used the production boost from the GG that I used on Russia to win it, no AI bonuses here to steal it so I knew I was almost certain to win it.

I think science will be okay thanks to the trade routes and conquests, and shadow networks statecraft policy will give me good science as well. Culture is an issue though, I could definitely be working more guilds so I should get on that. Should be able to reform soon and then once a few civs are into industrial I should be able to propose resolution which would be Scholars in residence or arts funding. Probably the best thing I have going for me is a lot of experience on my troops. Multiple level 5 and some even level 6 ranged units with the experience quest completion coming up, should actually be possible to get to range+logistics this game. Not sure who else is even a good target after Russia. Korea, Assyria and and Byzantium are into Industrial on 39/40 techs. Attila is behind but not much to conquer and perhaps I will reach India if I conquer Russia.

 

[stii]

It is interesting how different the AIs are in strength in different games. Especially the AIs where we didn't have any interaction that could really cause that.

 

[Milae]

It is interesting how different the AIs are in strength in different games. Especially the AIs where we didn't have any interaction that could really cause that.

I suppose the main one is Assyria and they didn't get a religion in yours right?

 

[stii]

I suppose the main one is Assyria and they didn't get a religion in yours right?

They did. They founded 5th I think

I think Russia and Assyria are roughly flipped in our games. I guess it is a bit surprisingly Russia was so strong in my game without an religion.

 

[stii]

Spoiler Up to T225 :

I think all of our games have diverged enough that spoilers don't really matter but I guess there is if nothing else map overlap. These islands off to the side are interesting but I can't see me every building anything on them. The AI has filled them up and I have no clue if the extra cities are useful to them or not. Byzantium has a pretty small starting area so maybe it helped them. They are also the most powerful AI by quite a bit although I don't really know why. they are also my bestest friend and miles away so they can die last.


On the game,

I finished off Assyria by t200, taking only two cities to reduce how upset everyone else would get. Under this patch war monger seems super low although war weariness is really starting to mount up. This is not helped by my two front war dragging this out. Siam continues to spam their UU to the point where I must have killed well over 100 of them. Muskets really smash lower tech units and indirect fire from my UU is really powerful in enabling my to kill the endless waves.

I got pretty greedy and didn't bother with any more military techs quickly and trusted I had enough to finish Siam off. Which was true although it did cost me a few extra units. Cannon and even field guns continue to be shockingly useless, only doing slightly more damage to a city than my double attack muskets despite having 2-3 levels of city attack on them. At least artillery will be here soon so I can upgrade into slightly higher level siege units. By the end Siam's capital was getting pretty high in defence but I just surrounded it and poked it to death. It will be falling about 5 turns after the end point here and then Siam will join my vassal swarm.

Russia is starting to get angry with me but a defensive pact with Byzantium means I'm actively trying to provoke them into war with no success. I'm going to take a short break from war to get my war weariness down to zero then crush then Huns and Russia. I could maybe do Korea instead but the Huns are such a non threat I'm more worried about Russia attacking me at the same time and having to fight two enemies with real units is more scary than a two front war with a weak enemy.

As I didn't bother with any new units for quite a while I have also build pretty much every building, only 8 coal but that is a lot better than nothing. As Milae has said world projects are possible in this version I'm going to try and win world's fair that is coming up soon. Overall everything is going pretty well I've roughly caught up to everyone bar Byzantium and they will really need to pull ahead if I just make everyone else my vassal.

On the religion front I gave up preventing the spread ages ago, just keeping my holy city and getting a pretty big bonus from syncretism. Siam's capital has st basil's cathedral so I will be finally able to get enough with a few inquistor uses. I tied building a load of missionaries but it still seemed impossible even when I was earning almost 1000 faith a turn. I do at least have a few sinks now buying up artists and fairly soon scientists. And Siam's religion lets me buy museums everywhere for free.