Can Emporer/Immortal/Deity games be won without starting with Mysticism?

[DarkSchneider]

Once you hit Emporer, the happiness caps on your cities grow so limiting that you really need an early religion. To that end, starting with Mysticism and immediately working towards Polytheism seems essential.

Is it possible to win an Emporer or above level game without choosing a Civilization that starts with Mysticism?

 

[Oggums]

I consider going for an early religion on Emperor to be one of the weakest strategies. You'll be off to a slow start with both your economy and military.

 

[DarkSchneider]

Ok... then how do you deal with 3 as your city size limit? Or losing out on the culture the religion will generate?

 

[akots]

Ok... then how do you deal with 3 as your city size limit? Or losing out on the culture the religion will generate?

Build more military, go kill somebody. Help to get more food and happiness resources.

 

[itkovian]

For me, Emperor is all about sniping a worker from someone and getting him back home. I'm not consistent at all on Emperor yet, but my wife is getting there(I'd say she is at over 75% wins, but I'm wallowing at maybe 1 in 8 wins)...She swears by the worker theft method and prefers to skip religion unless the circumstances push her into it. I'm not as adept at poaching from my neighbors, but my only successes at 7 player Emperor have involved sniping/crippling a neighbor.

 

[MyOtherName]

Ok... then how do you deal with 3 as your city size limit?

Squeeze every last bit of usefulness out of your citizens!

Prioritizing settling near a happiness resource helps.

Barring that, alphabet/drama or monarchy aren't really all that far away...

 

[Oggums]

Ok... then how do you deal with 3 as your city size limit? Or losing out on the culture the religion will generate?

Hook up/conquer/trade for happy resources, switch to Hereditary rule, raise the culture slider, or my favorite...

Go steal your neighbor's holy city.

 

[hollebeek]

The Romans don't have Mysticism, but still are probably the easiest to
play on Emperor, since your Praetorians can get you a holy city and the
pyramids

 

[Shadzy19]

Going for a early religion is IMO the worst thing you can do at these levels , you wont have worker or military techs and worst of all you will get a lot of people pissed off at you , i usually stay without a religion for a very long time untill im sure what allies to choose the only exception is if there is only 1 religion on my continent.

 

[Bezhukov]

The happiness limit in the capital is 4, not 3, and later cities tend to hit 3 around the time other options become available. It can be constraining, but I try to build settlers/workers out of high food cities so they don't go unhappy, and I always start the game with a worker, so my capital doesn't hit the happiness limit as fast as some of the other games I've read about here.

For a creative civ, using theaters and the culture slider is an underrated approach to early happiness (analogous to use of the lux slider in the early stages of advanced play in CivIII), that also gives your cities a nice border boost.

I focus on trying to get trade routes established ASAP (building lots of workers early helps here), both to get religion from my neighbors - improving both relations and happiness - and to trade for happiness resources. Forgoing obelisks/temples to chop libraries for border pops also helps early science to get to happiness techs.

And industrious civs can chop Pyramids to get to early Representation. Lots of options.

 

[Zavior]

Going for a early religion is IMO the worst thing you can do at these levels , you wont have worker or military techs and worst of all you will get a lot of people pissed off at you , i usually stay without a religion for a very long time untill im sure what allies to choose the only exception is if there is only 1 religion on my continent.

Agreed. You will get religion at one point or another. Going for religion early just cripples your growth.

 

[DangerousMonkey]

Starting with Mysticism becomes progressively worse as you go up in difficulty levels. Firstly, the higher the difficulty level the more difficult it is to actually beat the AI to an early religion, because in the beginning everyone starts with pretty much the same ammount of default gold each turn (+9 from palace and base tile, and maybe one or two more from whatever tile you decide to work) but the AI gets progressively more massive bonuses to this value. So no matter how skilled you are you have pretty much no chance of beating an AI that also has mysticism to Meditation or Hinduism.

Secondly, a heavy early chop-rush becomes more and more indespensable as you go up in difficulty levels, and you don't need myscticism for that, you want mining and the wheel as your starting techs if you can get them. The only real way to beat an AI on the highest difficulty levels is to make big gains early on through a chop-rush fueled expansion or conquest. Either you'll be able to capture a holy city or set yourself up strongly enough to be the first to get code of laws or some later religion.

So, in short, you don't want mysticism on Emperor/Immortal/Deity game, so "yes" you can win without it.

 

[Smirk]

I've been playing the Balanced map setting and have been finding ivory spawns nearby pretty often. Clearly that would get a higher priority in an emperor game than normal. Things like gems, gold and silver are naturally something you would want to look for as well. All of these are far cheaper to get and pay for themselves almost immediately, unlike early religion (unless it spreads to you).

 

[Aramazd]

Of course, you can just use something callled World Builder

 

[AngryPants]

Of course, you can just use something callled World Builder

Might as well slip yourself a nuke or 3 while you're at it. That will make you unstoppable because Duck and Cover wasn't invented until the 1950s

 

[BigCMan]

Ok... then how do you deal with 3 as your city size limit? Or losing out on the culture the religion will generate?

Time to crack that whip...

 

[Shadzy19]

Ok... then how do you deal with 3 as your city size limit? Or losing out on the culture the religion will generate?

Well usually i go one of these ways , either mass military and kill my closest neightbour and use the plundering money to keep my research up or go mass cottages with 1 production city and beeline for monarchy for HR.
I never reseached monarchy when i first started playing but lately it seems the most important tech after you have bronze / iron and cottages up.

Second way to get you'r civs at least making a few improvements is as others have said already by whipping them , just get a granery go mass food + commerce and once your +2/+3 over your happiness limit whip a expensive building and repeat.
After i revolt to HR the whip is my best friend .

 

[Shillen]

I almost never go for an early religion. I don't understand why people think it's necessary. In a lot of ways it hurts you to do so.

 

[DarkSchneider]

Alright then, so you don't choose a leader without Mysticism and miss out on one of the two starting religions. Which later religion do you shoot for? Islam and Taoism seem much too late, the computer will always beat you to Judism, so we're stuck with either Confusism and Christianity.

 

[Shillen]

Why do you need a religion? I adopt one of my neighbors religions and have a permanent ally for the rest of the game.