CFC: Fastest STANDARD SETTINGS Deity Religious Victory

Civ Fanatics Competition: Fastest STANDARD SETTINGS Deity Religious Victory


Welcome to the Civ Fanatics Competition (CFC) where we will find out who can pull off the fastest deity religious victory on a game with ALL STANDARD SETTINGS!

Everyone plays Civ with their own 'standard' I know, but the game gives some 'standard' settings to us and many of us will regularly play them. This competition is meant to see who can achieve the fastest victory on those 'standard' settings.


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Start conditions


To participate, start and play a game that matches the following conditions:

• #players: 8
• Leader: Any
• AI Leaders: Random
• Ruleset: Gathering Storm
• Version : September update or higher
• Difficulty: Deity
• Start Era: Ancient Era
• Game Speed: Standard
• #City States: 12
• Disaster Intensity: 2
• Map: Any map that is randomly generated (NOT: Earth, East Asia, Europe or any of the TSL variants of those three. Also: no custom build maps!)
• Map Size: Standard
• Resources: Standard
• World Age: Standard
• Start Position Standard
• Temperature: Standard
• Rainfall: Standard
• Sea Level: Standard
• Victory Conditions: All enabled
• Advanced Options: All default
• Mods: UI (only!) mods allowed, no other
• Special conditions: Any random seed / map can only enter the competition once. Any player can join the competition multiple times, but always with a different map seed.

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Rules


To make sure it’s a fair competition, make sure to:

• Not cheat and/or use exploits (you know when you have, it’s that subtle feeling of shame when you post a score you did not earn fairly ). This off course includes using any cheat codes, restarting maps or playing maps you have seen others play, reloading previous saves after mistakes (not crashes, but even then you shouldn’t replay more than one turn exactly as you did before).
• Follow the GOTM rules, especially the ‘what should we consider as exploits’ (see https://forums.civfanatics.com/forums/civ6-game-of-the-month.545/)
• If you participate and anyone shows you accidentally or purposely violated the conditions or rules of the competition, your name will be crossed from the top 10.

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Participate in the contest

To be eligible for a ‘top position’, post a reply to this thread where you:

• Mention the number of turns it took you to win the intended victory.
• Claim your position in the ‘top 10’.
  • End your post with the new ‘top 10’ with you in it (see below).
• Add the first turn save game and the last turn save game (post victory).
• Mention the game seeds.
• For flavor: post screenshots of interesting parts of your game, or even make a video.
• Describe (the more flavor the better) what your strategy was and how the game went.

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Current Top 10

Copy and paste, and enter yourself into the top 10 list if your score is worthy!

• 1st place: [player] - [number of turns] - [leader/country]
• 2nd place:
• 3rd place:
• 4th place:
• 5th place:
• 6th place:
• 7th place:
• 8th place:
• 9th place:
• 10th place:

Have fun!

 

I was playing the Khmer for the first time and had a great run. I picked the Shuffle map, so strictly it doesn't count as completely STANDARD, but since this one hasn't had a kick0of yet, I thought it would be fun to post it anyway. Hope some of you get inspired and show us how much faster it can really be done!

Settings:

Spoiler settings :

Religious victory on turn 158:

Spoiler win :

The religious victory is really straightforward. Hadn't done it in a while, so was fun for a change, but you really need to do only one thing: full focus on faith. A little diplomacy and forget about the rest.

Strategy:
1.) Beeline astrology, theology and reformed church. Later on cartography to sail the ocean and convert other continents.
2.) Build holy sites asap, shrines, prasats and later on mosques. Build a few cities fast in the beginning, build a little army to fight of the barbs and don't seem like a 'snack for the AI'.
3.) Khmer gets a little extra faith from aqueducts, so build those.
4.) For pantheon and beliefs I picked: river goddess, feed the world (both because of the synergy with the khmer), pilgrimage, holy order and mosque.
5.) Wonders: I got Hagia Sophia (most important one). Any wonders that give faith are good, but didn't get them this game.
6.) Gov: get theocracy asap.
7.) Moksha with the Patron Saint promotion
8.) Diplo: try to prevent wars.

I got quite lucky on some aspects in this game: was on a continent with Zulu and Australia, who were locked into war with each other from the ancient era. They both did not get a religion, so mine was easily spread to all of my continent. (It turned out to be a continents map, used shuffle). I waited (and bribed a little) for them to become friendly towards me and then befriended them both in the same turn (otherwise the other would be upset that I befriended their enemy). When I play a civ for the first time I try to get a starting location that can make use of any strengths they have, for the Khmer I rerolled twice before I had a start with a proper holy site spot next to a river. Turned out around it were about four more decent city locations with a good (or ok) HS spot next to a river. Lucky there as well. And if that wasn't enough, my second city was next to Kilimanjaro and therefore was good from the very start. With this start I just rolled towards a religious victory. Had about 10 apostles once I got to cartography and had more coming in every turn. The apostles could spread between 7 and 10 times a piece and many with powerful extra strength. Turn 142 I turned the Cree to my religion, 16 turns later all of the other continent. They never saw me coming.

So, what are your strategies?

"SHOW ME WHAT YOU GOT"

 

I was so fed up with being ultimately blinded by faith generation and HS adjecencies clearly visible in religious victory elimination thread, that I gave a try to RV.

I am totally convinced Genghis is the best one for RV, even though I extremely rarely go for RV, so plenty of space to improve as my experience is not so high.

So I took the hardest mapscript possible - Terra - that guarantees no city states and early DoWs from many civs, lowers chance to get ay tribal village and nearly guarantees classical golden era to all AIs

This is my very first game.

The start. Yes, there is Alex watching you from the very first turn, with no chance to send delegation (if it really mattered with Alex)


Extremely strong income from pantheon, 6 (six!!) faith, all from 2nd city
Extremely strong adjecencies of holy sites - +1 each from 2 forest
ONE 2food2hammers tile in capitol 1st ring, another one in 2nd, needed to improve flatstone to get the third
What really matters is brutal force of apostles


Praise the horse lord
I can't even imagine what Genghis can do with better conditions

I played very carelessly, so my empire is not a real empire at all. 2 cities, 14 pop, I lost KulOba in military emergency against Nubia, Scythia and Phoenicia



Seeds

 

• 1st place: enKage - 142 - Genghis / Mongolia

• 2nd place: Bangau - 158 - Jayavarman / Khmer

• 3rd place:

• 4th place:

• 5th place:

• 6th place:

• 7th place:

• 8th place:

• 9th place:

• 10th place:

 

RV T89 with Russia on a Standard settings Pangea Map.

map seed : -1079314055
game seed : -1079314056

Spoiler Details :

[Religion & Religious Tips]

Pantheon : Dance of the aurora
Religion beliefs : Work Ethic / Missionary Zeal

Once you get your religion, start by a few missionaries to quickly convert weakest civs. Use your missionaries on civs without religion and your apostles on civs with a religion, mainly with Theological Combat. Erevan was in the game, so it made things a bit easier. Missionary Zeal is, I think, THE key for sub T100 religious victories : with Sacred Order you have cheaper units but with Missionary Zeal your units move so fast that you can win the game before the IAs' apostles army. I noticed on a few games that the AI's start to make apostles rarely before T100. So if you can win before T100 conversion will not be a problem and the key for that timer is a great faith generation (Dance of the Aurora and HS in every city) and early units (early religion + missionary zeal).

Work Ethic is powerful with Russia but I don't think it is the best belief for religious games. I took it in order to have faster buildings and settlers, builders. I usually use my faith on a Monumentality Golden Age timer to buy units but in this one, since it is a religious victory, I decided to keep my faith and use it only for religious units. I hard buit all my settlers and ended up with 8 cities. 8 cities with at least +6 adjacency bonus Lavras (and so +12 with the Policy card) is more than enough. I think that 4-5 cities must be enough for sub 100 religious victory.

[CITIES DEVELOPMENT]

[T2/Saint-Pétersbourg] : T7 : Scout | T15 : Settler | TT17 : Laure | T21 : Scout | T26 : Monument | T26 : Slinger (buy) \
T30 : Builder | T34 : Warrior | T38 : Trader | T42 : Builder | T45 : Builder | T49 : Oracle | T52 : Gov. Plaza \
T55 : Ancestral Hall | T57 : Settler / >>> Then, Holy sites buildings then settlers then holy sites prayers.

[T19/Astrakhan] : T24 : Laure | T31 : Monument | T36 : Warrior | T42 : Autel | T45 : Builder | T49 : Builder \
T54 : Settler | T59 : Settler | T63 : Temple | T71 : Mahabodi Temple / >>> then Theatre Squares & Holy sites Prayers

For all other cities : Holy sites >>> monument >>> Holy sites buildings >>> Prayers / The main goal is to make faith.

[Screenshots]

• 1st place: Enfant_Sauvage - 89 - Peter / Russia

• 2nd place: enKage - 142 - Genghis / Mongolia

• 3rd place: Bangau - 158 - Jayavarman / Khmer

• 4th place:

• 5th place:

• 6th place:

• 7th place:

• 8th place:

• 9th place:

• 10th place:

 

Why why?

I want to be first!

Inspired by fantastic game by Enfant_Sauvage, I tried similar as Gandhi

3x holy site + 1 relic, only missionairies spam
Go for classical golden era and flood the world with 7 spreads missionairies. With stepwell early Gandhi has very easy golden era. Some civs will reconvert temporary, but their guys have only 3-5 spreads
Holy order belief, the rest doesn't really matter --> in case of Gandhi I think this is superior tham niss. zeal, at least on Terra
No temples, no apostles, no added culture or faith from city states (terra mapscript, I realy like those hard starts ).
Scythia, Pericles, Georgia, Khmer, Canada, Australia, Maya as random opponents

Really quick and fun type of game, thanks again for inspiration. If you go Terra/ Peter probably you will take #1 again





3 cities approach, faith generation after doubling adjecencies. No other districts than holy sites - endless barb flood from the desert, this is why I never settled fountain of youth

• 1st place: enKage - 88 - Gandhi / India

• 2nd place: Enfant_Sauvage - 89 - Peter / Russia

• 3rd place: enKage - 143 - Genghis / Mongolia

• 4th place: Bangau - 158 - Jayavarman / Khmer

• 5th place:

• 6th place:

• 7th place:

• 8th place:

• 9th place:

• 10th place:

BTW Correct me if I am wrong, but does the record in HoF states the corect finish turn? Does is state the number of turns to win or finish turn?
I strongly start to suspect it is 87 turns of play + 1 initial turn, so I should write 88 here, so I also edit my Mongolian game with adding 1 lacking turn

 

Well done ! I will certainly try a Terra/Peter game ! The competition has just started here. I will also take some notes, so new players can understand how fast Religious victories works.

 

Safe to say then that early faith generation (and/or missionary bonuses, since early faith translates into missionaries anyways) is indeed the most important Civ factor for a fast religious victory, and the Elimination Thread produced pretty good results.

 

Normally the cost of one spread is 33% missionairy cost. Gandhi in golden era with holy order pays 10% base missionry cos per spread. In addition this basically means Gandhi's unique abiity funds you 2 spreads every 3 turns, what is an explanation why Gandhi is far better than Chandy. Pre t100 cities are so small that you need 1-3 spreads per city, because they don't have the time to accumulate other religions' pressure

 

I agree, that is why Gandhi may be better than Peter on some maps. With Peter you will normally have better faith production thanks to your holy sites in tundra tiles but with Gandhi your missionaries are so strong that you need less faith. I think there is a battle between Russia and Gandhi. Genghis Khan has also theoretically the strongest religious units. With a huge early culture and early apostles you may be able to win more or less only with Theological Combat. Civtrader, by far a better player than me, made a religious victory on turn 76 with Mongolia on a Pangea map : https://www.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/hhfmv5/genghis_a_hidden_gem_for_religious_victories/

I had some bad maps this afternoon, so my T89 is still my best game for now but I am pretty sure it is possible to go for a close sub T80 with Peter folliwing the strategy we discussed here.

 

• 1st place - lotrmith - 81 - Mansa Musa / Mali

• 2nd place: enKage - 88 - Gandhi / India

• 3rd place: Enfant_Sauvage - 89 - Peter / Russia

• 4th place: enKage - 143 - Genghis / Mongolia

• 5th place: Bangau - 158 - Jayavarman / Khmer

• 6th place:

• 7th place:

• 8th place:

• 9th place:

• 10th place:

Tried quite a few maps/games until I finished one that I thought worthy of posting (since back in the debate of the elimination thread... I wanted to get a good solid sample size of great Mali games and then challenge or try myself to compare with similar Russia games).

Some strategy notes:
- There's a definite tradeoff and hefty decision to be made with governors. In this game and in several others, I found Pingala with 2nd promotion to get the Culture bonus (which only capped at +6 in my capital, but comparatively established reasonably early) gave me enough Culture to get to Theology and get apostles to attack founded religions, while early missionary spam was enough to convert everyone else. In other games trying for Moshka just put Theology so far behind, and also given how spread the Civs were I don't think Moshka would have had any positive effect whatsoever (considering his relevant Apostle promotion is buried at level 4). It would just not have been worth it, at all, to hard build or build/buy a builder to chop in a plaza and a plaza building. Theocracy was also just too far out in every game regardless of what I did, I don't believe many/any record-setting religious finishes will get to Theocracy.
- I can only speculate but it's possible that Choral Music might be better for reaching Apostles/Theocracy earlier, but it'll cost you opportunity of Work Ethic as well as potentially change your strategy with missionaries vs apostles.
- Most of the converting was done with early Missionaries. I did of course wait until the Classical Golden Age Exodus.
- I basically did a 1-city challenge. Most of the game was spent with just the capital running prayers exclusively and banking Faith for missionary spam (once you get Exodus) and apostles later. I did not faith-buy markets, I did not hard build any settlers. I was able to suzerain one state and sell my diplo favor at a premium to Sweden and Greece to buy some settlers which really only served to plunk down in nearby desert for immediate +5-6 faith per turn. Only my 1st expo finished a holy site in time to make a difference in faith generation (buying shrine/temple). Everything is measured in immediate/quick faith return-on-investment.
- This was done on a Lakes map. As per the thread's discussion I firmly expect I can improve probably up to 10 turns on a Terra map. I'll be trying that next.
- Build/Research order, for Mali, was Scout > Slinger > Holy Site > Trader > Prayers, with Foreign Trade for the trade route ability so I could build the trader to boost Currency, followed by the standard governor promoting civics and Poli Phi, then Theology. (side note: I did not attempt but I wonder if skipping Poli Phi to go straight to Theology would improve times... I did not benefit much from any government policy cards, really, until Theology). Research went Astrology (of course) > Pottery > Writing > Currency. This works well with Mali obviously so you get be extremely focused, plop down a Suguba to get Faith/Gold discounts, and get to work once you found a religion and get your Exodus. There's plenty of era points with the high adjacency holy site, the suguba, Currency being a classical tech, founding your religion, etc.
- I ran out of things to buy with gold. I did not spend any money on Monuments/Granaries but I did buy 3 settlers (the 3rd came late enough to not matter) and 1 builder which did help my 1st expo get the Holy Site up faster. I'm pretty sure my final military score was 0 as I lost my warrior, scout, and slinger in the late turns. I could have easily afforded more units had an emergency arisen (barbs, DoW). A lucky goody hut supplied me with a trader.
- I had bought a couple nearby tiles to provide better production capabilities early.

- In this particular game some challenges faced: Germany established a religion and bolstered it hard, I wisely sent two apostles with, luckily, -75% prostheletizer and Triple-Strength spreads working together to kill it. Bolivar's cities were high population and FAR away. In fact, most civs were FAR away. Generally speaking you want/need to sent your early missionaries out FAR and work from the furthest civs out and finish with the closest civs.

Some luck: Sweden founded a religion via Stonehenge but did not spread it so missionaries took it out. Gilgamesh founded a religion late but was nearby so easily took it out. Greece scored a prophet late but never activated it (1200 BC recruit vs 875 BC finish).

There was little/no Theological Combat to take advantage of.

As with all high scoring finishes, luck and map roll plays a big part. I finished a number of different games and I expect the difference here was early 1st meets on a science and culture state to help get the ball rolling a bit bigger/faster. The nearby wonder did boost Astrology in time which also helped but I did not settle it until relatively late so the other benefits it gave were fairly nil.

Note: The true victory is indeed Turn 81.

HOF says 80 turns which is a lie.

 

I totally agree with governors. Moksha is useless in fast religious victory, since reaching lvl4 is unreliable, and Pingala / Liang / Magnus are always a better choice

 

Okay here's a record I won't think will be beat any time soon.

• 1st place - lotrmith - 58 - Mansa Musa / Mali

• 2nd place - lotrmith - 81 - Mansa Musa / Mali

• 3rd place: enKage - 88 - Gandhi / India

• 4th place: Enfant_Sauvage - 89 - Peter / Russia

• 5th place: enKage - 143 - Genghis / Mongolia

• 6th place: Bangau - 158 - Jayavarman / Khmer

• 7th place:

• 8th place:

• 9th place:

• 10th place:

T58 Victory on Terra. Same strat as outlined above. Truly one-city. Scout > Holy Site > Prayers/Trader > Suguba > Prayers.

The stars aligned, nobody else founded a religion, nobody DoW'd me (too busy with eachother, Mongolia fought India, China fought Poland, Nubia fought America). My missionaries that made it to the far end of the map where Teddy was had excess charges and didn't have anything else to do. It took I think two turns to convert the last nearby Scottish city I needed to get a majority so it's *possible* had I used different Missionary movements I may have shaved off one or two more turns but that's it.

Note again HoF lists one turn early but it is indeed T58. Screenshot shows 7/8 civs because the tracker doesn't update unless you save the game and then load the save.

 

Wow that was fast. I never did a religious victory, but if it only takes 60 turns I might give it a try.

 

That's crazy @lotrmith ! Congrats.

 

I see Poland and India, so still space to improve. Terra script is a must

 

Poland was working on Stonehenge and had a Holy Site but stopped earning prophet points... China conquered one of their cities which is likely what hurt them. I passed by their capital and did not spend any charges because I was anticipating Stonehenge.

Likewise Nubia started Stonehenge but went to war with America and stopped producing it in favor of army.

India spawned in southern Tundra and quickly got their 1st expo taken by Mongolia, and had a wayward settler wandering near my territory unable to settle, so they were stuck with one garbage capital.

In all I was the only religion on the board through lucky circumstances.


Also to anyone not aware (I wasn't when I first started this RV pursuit), Missionary Zeal not only ignores hills, marsh, woods, rainforest.. but it also removes the river crossing penalty. So, that's the must-have belief, as Exodus religious units get six completely unrestricted land movements per turn (embark/disembark on water still slows you down as does ZoC of enemy religious units).