Celts Religious CV strat (help please)

So, I'm a newish player (less than 100hrs) and I'm playing on King? (#5) but debating on bumping it up to Emperor? (#6 or whatever #7 is). Now I know a fair few people are of the opinion that 'you can do whatever you want and still win' at this difficulty, and I agree with that. As I have really no idea what I'm doing and still manage to win fairly easily. I'm trying to develop this strat for Immortal/Deity, but want to see how it goes in earlier difficulties as my 'learning curve'.

I've decided I really like the Celts and that I should probs pick a civ to 'learn'.

I was wondering if I could get some tips or at least a pointer to a good guide/let's play for a similar strat. I've done a fair amount of research, but I get a bit lost after teching Theology (I end up either going straight for Broadcast Towers, etc or bumming around in the lower end to try and 'catch the bottom 1/2 of the tech tree up').

I'm going for a Peaceful(ish) Cultural Victory, but fueled by religion (spreading it aggressively) in a tall empire (generally 3 cities).

My general build order is: Scout > Scout > Monument > Worker (interrupting for Stonehenge) > Granary > Shrine > Temple > x

Policies are: Honour opener (to farm culture + faith with Pictish Warrior), Tradition > Piety opener > Asthetics > Piety

Tech is: Calendar rush (for Stonehenge) > Lux techs (basically all the first era) > Theology rush > Archeology rush

My general religion is: Fertility Rites/God King > Tithe + Lit Drama > Cathedrals + Texts and finishing with Scared Sites.

Priority Wonders: Stonehenge, Oracle, at least one from Theology (Grand Temple/Borobudur preferably with Hagia Sophia being nice if I can), Pisa, Sistine Chapel, Uffizi, Louvre, Eiffel Tower.

 

For Celts if you settled at least bordering one forest, do not build shrines. Also do not build workers if you can steal them. (and by that time in your BO, which is apparently before NC, you really have temple tech already? You should really get those libraries up if you want to hit Philo at a reasonable time since on king beakers from caravans are probably not much)

BO should be as your standard tradition 3-4 city guide. Aim to have these up: NC, ironworks, circus maximus, hermitage with 3-4 cities. If terrain allows high faith pantheon, tech should go straight to civil service after philo. Otherwise, if it's a good pantheon but no faith generation, you should hit theology and Hagia Sophia. On King, I doubt you'll have much trouble getting it.

On King, you should get all the wonders you can. There's no reason to skip out on any of them actually unless it comes at the cost of delaying the aforementioned national wonders. Get everything! Even Red Fort or Ankor Wat or some other thing that is considered useless. Have your satellite cities help out with the non-theming ones. It's king! At least the great people points will help and +3 culture from WC proposal works on every wonder even ones like Great Firewall.

on deity however... well... best way to explain it to you is to have you play an actual deity game On deity the AI's choices, tech paths, SP paths determine greatly which wonders you should/can go for, so it's on a case-by-case basis.

Cathedrals really suck, in a full game if you got Sistine, Louvre, Uffizi and museums in your cities, you will realistically never run out of room for artwork. Pagodas or Mosques are better but I would suggest divine inspiration + swords to plowshares which is my go-to combo. (and Messiah with planting prophets rather than spreading religion if your pantheon is non-faith generating) If you go piety, try to get "to the glory of God" which will allow you to purchase GS without completing rationalism. Forget honor opener. With some decent scouting and the + combat against barbarians on king, you don't need it.

 

Aren't Shrines a prereq for Temples? I'll try the steal builders thing. So you recommend going Calender > Writing > lux techs? Which will change my BO to Stonehenge > Library.

The issue I have with Civil Service is it means I can't product Pictish Warriors after then, so I try ti hold off a bit. I've only really just started playing with this strat, so I'm still a bit unsure of timelines, etc.

I've tried Deity once. I was following someones 'come from behind Diplo win', where you deliberately stunt growth, etc and befriend the strongest civ and then just buy out all the CS late game.

I'll take Pagodas instead then . This is probably a stupid question, but why would I want to be purchasing GS when my end game is a CV while aggressively spreading religion?

Thanks for the reply!

 

Aren't Shrines a prereq for Temples? I'll try the steal builders thing. So you recommend going Calender > Writing > lux techs? Which will change my BO to Stonehenge > Library.

If you build Hagia Sophia, you get a free temple without a shrine. On deity chances are either all the religions are going to have been taken, or no one is going religion at all at that point. Piety deity AIs will found religions FAST. AIs who don't care about religion will hardly bother with it. Either way I hardly build temples until I want to build Grand Temple as they waste too many hammers on a measly +2 faith
Pottery to Mining/AH/sailing -> optics depending on terrain, once granary scouts are done and you have enough workers, writing. Then to construction for CB if you need but otherwise calendar and philo. You really need to give up Stonehenge in a lot of games for deity though as it sets you back a bit too much.

The issue I have with Civil Service is it means I can't product Pictish Warriors after then, so I try ti hold off a bit. I've only really just started playing with this strat, so I'm still a bit unsure of timelines, etc.

+1 food from farms with fresh water is far more important than Pictishes.

I've tried Deity once. I was following someones 'come from behind Diplo win', where you deliberately stunt growth, etc and befriend the strongest civ and then just buy out all the CS late game.

How did that work for you? CV doesn't work that way though. You actually cannot come from behind to win at all.

I'll take Pagodas instead then . This is probably a stupid question, but why would I want to be purchasing GS when my end game is a CV while aggressively spreading religion?

Simply because you cannot get the wonders on deity if you are 40 turns behind the AI on tech. And only get Pagodas if you can afford the missionaries to get it to your satellites and still stock up enough faith to buy them. What I usually do is let the AIs take religious buildings as their belief, let them spread to my own cities while I just maintain the religion in my capitol and plant my prophets, and then just buy the pagodas with the faith from holy sites. Shared religion does not have to be your religion. Accepting another AIs religion also provides the tourism boost

 

Ok that makes sense. I'll have to jump up a difficulty (or 2) at least to test all this .

True.

I ended up getting really bored, as all I was doing was money hoarding. And it was going for a Diplo Victory, not CV .

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

Do you suggest just jumping straight into Diety to try and get this figured out? Or should I stay back and try and get my timelines figured out first?

 

Celts don't need shrines and they don't need Stonehenge, focus on getting your expos out quickly and settled next to forests, and getting 2 or 3 pictish warriors. This is all the faith you'll need to get a religion. Build food and science first, after that you can go get your shrines and temples, and you've got plenty of forests to chop to hurry that along.
You don't need to be putting policies in honour or piety, go for full Tradition ASAP (or liberty if you've got a lot of land.)
Subsequent policies go into Aesthetics and then Rationalism as soon as it becomes available.
The reason you want to buy GSs in the late game is to bulb them to rush you towards internet. The extra GSs are more valuable than GMs would be, you can make sure you have GMs in the late game by waiting until after you've got the NVC and Internet to build the Musicians guild.

 

Cheers man. I'll give that a shot.

 

Don't interrupt a worker for stonehenge. Getting a fast worker is more important. Ideally you could steal them but on Emperor it takes quite a few turns to be able to steal enough.

You also don't really have the time to go into piety. You should focus on tradition, aesthetics and rationalism. And the ideology.
If you want (for fun) go into piety I'd suggest mixing it with liberty instead of tradition. Either way you won't have time to finish Piety and another tree before aesthetics/rationalism so you have to chose.

Fertility rites and godking are "better than nothing" pantheons. If you have good terrain for more powerful pantheons, grab those instead.

Tithe is good, pilgrimage is another very good option.

Lit Drama is terrible take a building, sword into plowshare or religious community.
Cathedrals are okay. They provide additional slots if necessary if you find yourself starving for slots, allowing you even more archeologists spam later... but I never find myself prefering cathedrals to pagodas.

Get sacred sites only if you base your tourism on it for a sacred sites spam. If not get Jesuit Education instead.

 

Ok.

They seemed pretty decent to me, or are they the 'noobie trap' pantheons? Thanks for the help with the religion side

 

Well it should be obvious that +1 faith for every desert tile or 1 faith 1 culture per gold are just better (if you have a lot of those around). Or +1 food per camp when you have lot of deer/truffles. If no other acceptable options, fertility rites is still a decent pantheon.

Lit Drama is just bad... +1 faith per amphitheater is just very weak compared to most other beliefs.

 

I'm generally in a forest start with something like 1-2 silks and a deer/sheep tile.

 

They're both generalist pantheons. Fertility Rites in particular is perfectly fine for a pantheon - but you should look out for better ones if your terrain can support it. Getting faith from your terrain or extra food from Sun God is superior if you have the right area for it.

Pilgrimage is actually a pretty amazing belief. Make sure you scout before you pick it - if you have several CS nearby or a low-religion neighbor, it is absolutely fantastic for faith generation.

As stated above, Liturgical Drama is not very good. If you really want a faith producing belief from your first pick, grab either Mosques/Pagodas or get Divine Inspiration (you want wonders for CV anyways).

 

Thanks a lot for the insight

 

The thing about taking mosques or pagodas is that if you're spending faith on them then you're not spending faith on spreading your religion. Getting good spread is very powerful when pursuing a cultural victory. It gives you improved retention of CS, a positive diplo modifier with all civs who adopt your religion, a +25% bonus to tourism with civs that adopt your religion and it makes it more probable that you can get World Religion passed at one of the early World Congresses which will give you a 50% tourism modifier in your capital.

A good religion for this kind of play is Tithe, Divine Inspiration, Religious community and either Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers. This gives you money from your spread, improved passive spreading, extra faith from wonders - and you'll be building plenty, and a production bonus so you'll get your wonders a bit more easily. When spreading look to convert clusters of city states and civs that didn't found a religion..

 

I'll try taking the religion that way. I know all about the modifiers (to an extent anyways ). That's one of the reasons I'm trying this strat.

Yep, I found that out the hard way about spreading it.

 

it also depends on your neighbors if you can spread or not. If someone close to you goes piety - gl with this. safe choose is to get stuff that doesn't need spreading - 15% production, stp, di and reliquary (bit underrated but it's equal to at least 5-6 FTP over the course of the game.)

 

I'm trying this out on Emperor currently. Going fairly well, but I'm lagging a little behind on tech. I finished some of the tech buildings a bit late.

I missed Stonehenge (got sniped when I was ~5 turns off). I have Oracle, Hagia, Borobudur. I'm generating ~100 beakers, 25ish (I think) gold, nearly 50 faith and about 40 culture per turn. I'm currently at 3 cities and don't plan on expanding any more (although a coastal city would be nice due to a couple of fish). I'm fairly sure I'm about 500 AD atm.

My religion is: Oral Tradition (had a lot of dyes, spices and bannanas), Tithe, Pagodas and Itinerant Preachers. I've fully converted both my neighbors (America and Askia, although Askia has recently founded a religion ). There is no way to remove a religion from the map without raising the Holy City is there? I've done a quick look up, and that seems like the only way from what I can gather.

My policies are: full Trad, over 1/2 of Asthetics and Piety opener (got late).

 

The synergy between religion and culture is really interesting.

But how about Piety? Can a cultural victory be done with only Piety and Rationalism (until +2 per specialist) skipping Aesthetics completely? You get similar modifiers to tourism, assuming you're able to spread your religion far and pass world religion. You will be able to buy musicians, but miss out on the +33% culture modifier. If you're able to generate engouh extra gold from the +25% gold bonus from temples, you might be able to ally enough cultural city states to compensate.

 

The problem is that you don't need Piety to get World Religion and the bonuses from Aesthetics help a lot more a CV than Piety. Unless you play ICS Sacred Sites of course but let's put that aside for the discussion.

Well to your question "can it be done ?". Yes most probably but not optimally I think.