Bonus yields strategy. Please critique

[Navanod]

Hi, had been working on a combo that is based mainly on instant bonus yields upon common conditions with emphasis on synergy with each other. This is inspired by the evangelism missionary spam, Border Blobs Style Opener and Mongol Horde strategies.

The aim is to generate so much gold, science, culture and Golden ages to pull vastly ahead by Renaissance or Modern era to suit a domination or science victory.

It works ideally for the Mongols (which will be discussed later) but should do well for Ethiopia. YMMV for other civs.

This is currently being tested on Emperor, standard speed, huge continent map with default # of Civs and CS with start bias disabled. Most other settings are at default and no game balance affecting mods other than VP 9-30.

Please bear with me as I dive into the details, which can be rather verbose.

The cores of this strategy are bonus yields for:

1. Pop growth
Science (Progress and Council building)

2. Border growth
Faith (God of Expanse), Food and Gold (Authority, Tribute), Culture and GAP (Autocracy, Lebensraum)

Monuments, Mongol Ger and God of Expanse are the main synergies to drive this in early game.
As there are diminishing returns on stacking border growth bonuses, Sovereignty (Traditions) would not be prioritized.

Angkor Wat would be nice but it is highly competitive and would require missing out on other Wonders because of the tech tree. Better to get the Wat by conquest if possible.

3. Building completion
Food and Culture (Progress, Organization), Gold (Industry), Production and Science (Ironworks)

This will be the main source of bonus culture in early game and gold once Industry policy is unlocked at Industrial era. Expertise (Progress, +20% to building production) is one of the few synergies for this.

4. Missionary spread
Science (Evangelism), GAP (Apostolic Tradition)

The combo comprises of:
Pantheon – God of the Expanse
Founder - Apostolic Tradition
Follower 1 – Churches
Follower 2 – Arbitrary. Recommended Cathedrals (if there are large farm clusters. See Tu_79’s guide) or Inspiration (to boost culture for border growth) or Order (for war)
Enhancer – Evangelism of course.
Reformation - Arbitrary. I recommend Crusader Spirit for the gold and culture

God of the Expanse is the main source of faith for both founding religion and making missionaries.
Churches effectively boost the science and GAP yield of missionaries by 50%.
Piety, Organized Religion policy can further reduce faith costs but it is not essential early.

5. Killing units
Culture and Science (Authority/Dominance)
This is just going to count on the Mongol’s UA making almost every mounted range unit a UU.

6. Tech discovery
Culture (Progress and Oxford University)

7. City conquest
Science and Culture (Authority, Imperium, includes founding cities), Gold and Culture (Crusader Spirit), GAP (Mongol Terror, CS only)

Can be quite substantial esp if Reformation is achieved early to unlock Crusader Spirit.
The GAP from Mongolian UA is actually not as vital, thanks to the better yield from missionary spam.

8. Tribute from City States
Culture (Authority, Tribute)

A much more sustainable bonus than simply conquering them. In mid to late game, Autocracy lvl 3’s Gunboat Diplomacy can turn this into a big source of culture under the right conditions.

 

[Navanod]

General thoughts

This strategy suffers from slow science in early game until the missionary spam can be done.

As the bonuses are all era scaling, it is essential that the choice of research be tailored to “jump” eras instead of completing all techs in each era. The power of the bonuses will only really start to shine in renaissance and beyond.

Because 4 policies choices are required to set up the basic combo (and more to complete it), it may be counter-productive to expand beyond 3-4 cities before reaching Medieval era as the poor yields (due to low era bonuses) from the new cities cannot offset the science and culture penalties and significantly slows the strategy down, causing vital Wonders to be missed and slower era advancement.

Early wars (Ancient or Classic eras) are very bad for this strategy as the key aim is to keep making buildings for culture bonuses. Making and replacing units all the time can really kill the game. Luckily, Mongol’s Skirmishers are hard to kill and can respond very quickly to threats, which is a key part of this strategy.
As such, most of the units killed for science and culture will be barbarians and CS troops. If attacked, I defend with Skirmishers and milk the attackers for science and culture but don’t try to capture AI cities (pillaging and stealing workers are great though) before reaching Renaissance era, when experienced troops upgrades to Heavy Skirmishers.

 

[Navanod]

Techs

Due to the slow science and the need to “jump” eras, a choice needs to be made from the beginning about how techs would be chosen and which wonders to aim for in the critical early eras.

I had mapped out 2 paths to Medieval era, to be decided based on circumstances:

1. Writing to Philosophy to Theology

This requires rushing to Philosophy by taking the least required techs, before going back and filling out the rest of the requirements to get Engineering so as to move on to Theology.
The aim is to grab Great Library (Writing) and Oracle (Philosophy) to get the free tech (ideally timed to get Philosophy) and policy which will help greatly in fulfilling the requirements for Cathedral of St Basil (Theology) which will then allow early reformation for Crusader Spirit.
This effectively ignores Bronze working, Iron Working, Currency and Metal Casting. The main disadvantages are that Heavy Skirmishers will be delayed, iron resources will not be revealed, no chopping of forests and jungles to build plantations and no villages. It will also miss Temple of Zeus, Angkor Wat and Colossus.

2. Currency to Physics

This is a straight forward rush to Currency for Angkor Wat and then Physics for Heavy Skirmishers, ignoring Fishing, Sailing, Philosophy and Drama/Poetry.
The main disadvantages are that coastal cities will not be able to develop, no naval units and no Courthouse for annexed cities. It will also miss the Great Lighthouse, Oracle, Cathedral of St Basil and almost always Great Library as Writing is not researched until after Currency.

I would usually follow path 1 whenever possible, since Angkor Wat can be captured (if built in a city near enough) and is not as critical thanks to the Mongol’s Ger already providing the same bonus.
The Great Library, Oracle and Cathedral of St Basil on the other hand, are important for their bonus at the time of completion and these effects cannot be captured once lost.

 

[Navanod]

Policies
1. Adopt Progress
2. Organization
3. Adopt Authority
4. Tribute
5. Expertise
6. Complete Authority Tree
7. Adopts Industry (High priority, always taken if possible)
8. Complete Industry Tree
9. Autocracy Lebensraum (High priority, always taken if possible)

Optional
- Adopts Piety
- Organized Religion
- Divine Right
- Adopts Tradition
- Sovereignty

The late completion of only the Authority tree means that this strategy will depend on fast teching via Evangelism to quickly reach later eras to get Industry and Autocracy Ideology.

 

[Navanod]

Spamming missionaries with Evangelism

Lastly, this took me awhile to really figure out how to do well. A few things to note:

1. The science yield is based on the number of other religion’s followers in the city the missionary spreads to. This means that the yield will fall with each spread. Pick cities with the most followers of other religions.
2. It is possible to run out of targets if spreading aggressively. It may be necessary to let certain cities “rest” and recover.
3. If there is a very religious AI neighbour, there will always be nice targets but be prepared to defend against the AI’s religion. Important cities cannot be allowed to be converted or they will lose the important God of Expanse bonus!
4. The idea is not to convert cities but to let them remain in other religions.
5. God of Expanse's faith bonus scales with era although the tool tip states only scales with game speed.

I am also going to try a rather cheesy trick to avoid running out of fat juicy targets next game. I would try to acquire a city with another religion that has been enhanced and spread to it with my missionaries. I then produce Inquisitors there to “reset” the city to all followers of the other religion. This should give me a permanent internal spam target that can be quickly recovered for a small faith cost rather than depending on AI and passive spread recovery. The constantly high number of followers of another religion ensures almost max science bonus per spread. Such efficiency should offset the cost of the Inquisitors.

That’s it! Any suggestions and inputs will be most appreciated!
I am especially interested in early rapid expansion vs my current "wait for later era to expand" theory.

 

[Strigvir]

TL;DR
Proc yields are nice, but they don't count towards related unhappiness sources, so not worth committing to them completely.

 

[kenneth1221]

I see something majorly anti-synergistic: taking authority, but then avoiding early wars. IMO the true strength of Authority is when you can conquer all of your neighbors early enough to snowball. The on-capture bonus yields for cities is worth much more than killing units.

 

[Navanod]

TL;DR
Proc yields are nice, but they don't count towards related unhappiness sources, so not worth committing to them completely.

Thanks for pointing that out. I certainly had not considered the implications of that. I was kinda hoping the relentless building would mitigate that somehow.
And yes, it is too WOT. I'll summarize that ASAP.

 

[Navanod]

I see something majorly anti-synergistic: taking authority, but then avoiding early wars. IMO the true strength of Authority is when you can conquer all of your neighbors early enough to snowball. The on-capture bonus yields for cities is worth much more than killing units.

Yes, I agree with you. Allow me to explain my experience though.
By early, I mean before reaching Medieval era. I did try going full Authority first but without the capability to take cities (and the non-scaled rewards) that early, it wasn't really doing much except earn some +7 science and culture from barbarians.

Trying to rush an AI's city with skirmishers and catapults usually resulted in a stalemate and being caught from behind by another opportunistic AI, which completely crippled the rest of my economy as I had not unlocked Discipline and Honour yet. Even on the off chance of a successful siege, it is only 30 Science and Culture per city. It can be done for CS via heavy tribute, but then I ended up with a city I may not want to annex.
In your opinion, when is the best time to start a war? I may try pushing back the Progress picks, esp in 10-9, where there are so many more barbarians to farm for culture and science.

 

[kenneth1221]

I honestly can't say the best time to war if your goal is to take cities for the yields. For Mongolia to have full access to its potential, war needs to be delayed to at least Mathematics. At the same time, you want to attack before the AI has walls up. That doesn't allow for a very large window of time.

On the other hand, there are benefits to cranking out a few highly mobile units, declaring war, and then harassing your target. They'll make units and send them at you, creating a more reliable source of science and culture than barb camps. It's relatively safe, and you're hindering the AI by making them divert their production.

In summary, I would say the best time to actually start a war is when you can steal a worker or capture a settler.