Border Blobs Style Opener

[crdvis16]

I've finally gotten around to trying this strategy out using Mongolia on Immortal/Standard/Standard. I've restarted a few times after getting through the early game but then wishing I had done something differently so I've had a few runs of the opening but haven't gotten into late game yet. A few notes:

I am able to consistently get the desired pantheon (God of the Expanse) and have been able to found a religion almost every time with fairly minimal effort. A starting build of scout/monument/shrine and policy opening of Tradition->Sovereignty along with the Expanse pantheon seems to be enough to found a religion somewhat safely on Immortal difficulty. I typically don't prioritize shrines in my 2nd or 3rd cities as a monument or ger probably produces just as much faith via tile acquisition.

I have not been able to get Angkor Wat in any of my games, however. I have tried going to Writing and then to Commerce and every time I am still a few techs away from Commerce when Angkor Wat is completed. I am planning to do one more restart where I go straight to Commerce and can hopefully nab it this time.

Overall this opening can feel a tad slow in tech/policy progression but not much slower than normal IMO. I haven't been able to make it to mid or late game yet so it will be interesting to see what happens when all of the synergies come online and start snowballing. I'm planning to enhance with Zealotry to buy my armies with faith and also dip into Piety for the faith purchase cost reduction and double tile acquisition during WLTKD. I'll eventually go for Autocracy/Lebensraum for yet more tile acquisition and hopefully get Angkor Wat next time.

I'll conquer/puppet as much as I can and hopefully with enough cities popping new tiles the food/faith/gold instant incomes will just be massive. I'll try to report back when I've completed a game with my findings!

An update: I was able to get Angkor Wat in my new game. I only researched techs necessary for getting to Commerce in order to grab it. Even doing that, there were other civs grabbing wonders near that tech progression which makes me think I probably only barely got it. The trade off is that I didn't get to Writing until much later than normal so my tech progression has certainly suffered. It may prove to be worth it, though. We'll have to see how strong the border pop synergies are.

Despite being quite behind in tech I was still able to found 4 decent cities total and already forcefully annexed a nearby city state, so it seems like I should be in a good spot to recover in science and then see how the border blobs snowball works from there.

 

[crdvis16]

An update: I was able to get Angkor Wat in my new game. I only researched techs necessary for getting to Commerce in order to grab it. Even doing that, there were other civs grabbing wonders near that tech progression which makes me think I probably only barely got it. The trade off is that I didn't get to Writing until much later than normal so my tech progression has certainly suffered. It may prove to be worth it, though. We'll have to see how strong the border pop synergies are.

Despite being quite behind in tech I was still able to found 4 decent cities total and already forcefully annexed a nearby city state, so it seems like I should be in a good spot to recover in science and then see how the border blobs snowball works from there.

Another update:

I can't completely tell how strong the instant food from border expansion is, but the faith and gold generation from border expansions is definitely strong. I founded a total of 4 cities, forcefully annexed 2 CSs, and have conquered a few others (but haven't converted those others to my religion yet). In any case, with just 6 cities following my religion and fully benefiting from the instant yields from border pops my faith and gold generation is really really strong.

I am able to rush buy Heavy Skirmishers and Cannons with faith via Zealotry roughly every other turn even though my base faith generation is pretty weak (just from shrines/temples in most of my cities). I've also been HEAVILY negative in GPT at times but still totally positive in gold and still able to upgrade my military units whenever I unlock the necessary techs.

This bodes well going forward. This strategy should only get stronger the more cities I puppet/annex and therefor the more borders I have that can expand. I plan on playing as wide as possible just to see how silly the instant yields can get.

 

[Magean]

I tried this strategy on a Planet Simulator map, standard size & speed, King level, as Ethiopia.

That's a strong synergy for sure. Especially regarding gold : although I was frequently on slightly negative gpt, my overall income was comfortable enough for me to rush the early mandatory buildings in my new cities.

In order to get Angkor Wat (AW), I focused on the sole techs necessary to unlock it. Being Ethiopia, I kept my first Prophet and refrained from founding a religion until I had all the requirements for Currency (AW's tech). At that point, I founded my religion and picked Currency as a free tech (my Pantheon free tech was Ironworking). Only then did I realize that AW had 6 policies as a requirement (that's a lot). I only had 4 policies, was very close to the fifth, so I kept developing, waiting to meet this requirement. Unfortunately, on turn 133, someone I didn't know on the other continent built AW while I was a few turns away from my sixth policy, and had therefore not started the construction yet.

It came as a disappointment because I thought that, on King difficulty, when you really want a wonder, you get it. But apparently, judging from other comments on this thread, the AI has a high priority on AW. Besides, this strategy is a slow start regarding science and culture, which doesn't help for Angkor. Anyway, the synergy is still quite strong as it is. At least I know whom to search for and invade oversea.

 

[Legen]

Note that Piety's Divine Right doubles border growth during golden ages and "We love the king day". Any civ that has a focus on either and usually goes for Piety should be included as a natural candidate for this style.

 

[Glidergun]

It's be interesting to try the Celts with this strategy; they don't get any innate boosts to border growth their border expansion pantheon is much stronger than the normal one.