Beliefs for a Wide Empire

[Black Lotus]

Generally I play ICS or a Wide Empire as some people call it, what are some of the best beliefs for this type of strategy? Most people on the forums talk about Tall Empires, I would assume Church Property would be pretty good, what else should I take?

 

[Gucumatz]

Church Property is good for all empires tall and wide alike.

The 2 science per trade route is great too. Etc.

 

[Sporaticus]

I like to take the 1-Happiness-per-River-City Pantheon, happiness for shrines and temples, and Papal Whatchamajiggie. I can take out one AI easily if I am on one end of a fairly long river and the AI is near the other end. I just build a string of cities down the river, take my military with me, and have the upper hand when I get to the AI. Then I spread religion to the CSs, and take the 20-min-influence SP in Patronage.

 

[Gucumatz]

Pagodas are also great for any empire if you have access to a lot of faith per turn.

+2 happy, 2 faith, 2 culture per turn gives any wide empire a nice maint free building.

 

[Harthhal]

With france i get the +2 science per trade route pantheon, the +2g per city founder, the +1 happiness per city follower

 

[chazzycat]

came here to say pagodas.

the key thing with happiness is to add it incrementally, not all at once, to avoid stalling out growth in boom & bust cycles.

pagodas are perfect because you can set faith auto-buying, and you can count on +2 happy every X amount of turns. Not many options provide that kind of predictable, scheduled happiness increases.