Challenge: Earliest Religious Victories

[Jusos2108]

Once again I couldn't rely on the other Shia nations to help and in the end I settled 10 Great Saints into Cairo (some GSs were imported from other cities), one pre-settled was found in Al-Kufah though. I spread Shia to Mesopotamia and Makuria while purging my own cities from other religions and that was enough to make Shia the dominant religion. I found one relic in Madinah, one in Mecca and the last one I took from Baghdad.

Spoiler :

 

[embryodead]

You're relentless! I really like this thread for all the data it has brought, but might I ask you or others for some comments if you find any goal / civ to be too easy / too hard / too boring? (possibly in the 0.4 dev thread)

I know that Abbasids are the obvious choice for an easy & quick URV win, and that Tigranes doesn't like the current Sunni Shahadah URV anything else I should look into before I get the new version out? I guess the results also show that the scoring for URV is a bit too high and too steep, it's most often Suleiman or something near the end...

 

[Jusos2108]

Thanks!

Also thanks to your speed improvements and that I got a better computer loading, for example, a Mughal start takes ~10 minutes; now that really improves the gaming quality! I am also kind of tired in regular RFC, the RFCEs are undergoing some major changes, DoC is not at all balanced (=too easy) and other RFCs are only in development, so currently I am only playing SoI.

I'll post my opinions there.

BTW, Blizzrd should our Samanid URV be up here?

 

[Tigranes]

10 minutes? Wow! Do you play on Alpha Workstation?

 

[Jusos2108]

I got the vassals first (Antioch, Karaman, Armenia) and then the Catholicism above Otrhodoxy, but I had some difficulties locating the relics. Naturally there were two in Constantinople, so getting them took some time and in the end I had four.

Spoiler :

10 minutes? Wow! Do you play on Alpha Workstation?

I tested it and on my first try it took 17 minutes, so I was exaggerating a bit.

 

[Qiu]

Spoiler :

Vassalized Zengid and Fatimid first and then backstabbed Byzantine to gain the title of roman emperor. Sultanate of Rum finally capitulated to me during the joint battle against Byzantines. Gained 1 relic from Jerusalem and 2 from Damascus, luckily enough. (later got 1 from Constantinople). Used additional 3 or 4 great saints to achieve the 3rd URV. My strategy was not making Catholicism more populous than Orthodoxy, but to let Orthodoxy be less than Catholicism

 

[Jusos2108]

Getting the URV as Georgia is rather tedious, since while befriending 5 civs, there is nowhere to expand. Especially with the strong muslim civs present. I was able to get Antioch from Seljuks pretty soon after the PoA collapsed, although that was like sticking your hand into bee nest. And the amount of muslim troops that my awesome Monaspa Lancers buthered around the hills of Antioch was just ridiculous. Seljuks and super-Zengids didn't even collapse during the Mongol invasions.

On top of all Byzantine declared war on me with vassal Armenia, although I was prepared to crush them, so that was more of a stroke of luck piety-vise. I took Constantinople and collpased Byzantines, after which my armies rolled down the Levant and crushed the Mamluks, who collapsed pretty soon, then I used my GPs to speed up the the Cathedrals in Alexandria and Jerusalem.

Spoiler :

 

[blizzrd]

Qiu, can you please post a screenshot of the victory screen? Also we are keeping track of High Scores, if you could please also give us your final score.

 

[Qiu]

Qiu, can you please post a screenshot of the victory screen? Also we are keeping track of High Scores, if you could please also give us your final score.

Sure.

Spoiler :

In fact I played it on Caliph level, which might not fit your request

 

[Qiu]

My key strategy was backstabbing Byzantines while they were suffering the 4th Crusade. With the Roman Emperor title in hand, you could do anything you want. Very good historical feeling. Awesome mod, good job edead

 

[blizzrd]

In fact I played it on Caliph level, which might not fit your request

Ah yes, that is the case. But I'm sure you could do even faster on Sultan level!

 

[Jusos2108]

I conquered the Seljuks and Baghdad as soon as I could and then began preparing a proper welcome for the Mongols. That turned out to be a slight overkill (50 khwarezmian lancers and 20 HHAs + 10 catapults), but at least the almost none of my improvements got pillaged. I ended up slaying 122 Mongol Horse Archers during the invasions. Meanwhile I concentrated on spawning the GPs in Mesopotamia. When invasions ended, I spread Sunni to everywhere and sent a raiding party with GPs to Mecca.

Spoiler :

 

[Jusos2108]

I took Multan early on and it began spawning Great Saints like no tomorrow. Meanwhile I spread Shia to all of Hindustan and conquered Mesopotamia. I din't find any relics there, but luckily there where two in Hejaz. At that point I was little puzzled where the other relics might be as I knew that Mamluks had one and no other civ had any. Thus I even conquered Sana'a in order find them, however in the end the missing relic was located so close to me that I feel bit ashamed as I wasted many turns on espionage and conquering Sana'a..

Spoiler :

 

[Jusos2108]

I took Multan early and began spawning the GPs there; I also got few from different techs. Shortly after the Sindh spawned I took them out and prepared a fleet towards Mecca. I sent my troops beforehand and the GPs came as soon as I had gotten the last one of them (GM from tech). Meanwhile sufis and Sunni missionaries spread Sunni to all of Hindustan Persia and Caucasus. That was enough to get Sunni to 50%. Although it triggered couple turns after I had settled the GPs in Mecca.

Spoiler :

 

[blizzrd]

Before spawning, the Buyids did a mighty fine job of smashing the Abbasids which meant that the Spiral Minaret had not yet been built.

So I chose not to initially spread Shia Islam in my capital, which allowed Sunni Islam to spread there and first up after a Blacksmith was the Spiral Minaret. Shortly thereafter Hinduism was also spread to my capital by an Indian missionary and Rani Kav was the next build in my capital.

I captured Multan early and spawned 5 Great Priests there, while spreading Shia to most of the Seljuk, Ghaznavid and Khwarezmid cities. I then converted each of these civs to Shia Islam by bribing them with techs and suddenly there were 12 settled Great Priests in Shia-controlled cities.

Just as I was considering taking Al-Kufah from the Rebels, the Abbasids respawned and I had to bide my time building up more troops for a push on Al-Kufah. In the meantime my fleet took a raiding party to capture Mecca (Rebel) and Medinah (Fatimid). Mecca had one Islamic Relic too. Fatimids were doing great, so I sued for peace after taking Medinah and they stayed more than stable enough to prevent the Mamluks from spawning.

Once I had enough troops ready, and just before the Mongol invasions entered Iraq, I declared war on the Abbasids and beelined for Al-Kufah. I then holed up inside the Shia Holy City whilst the Mongols began to dismantle the Abbasids. After a brief pause, my troops ventured north from Al-Kufah and took Baghdad from the Abbasids, which conveniently had three Islamic relics inside!

Spoiler :

 

[Qiu]

Tried a Byzantine Hindu URV

6 horseman with a great saint and workers made an epic journey towards India. Then used another great saint to spread Hinduism in Anatolia. Tried to make the province of Asia to be the most populous. Construction in Hindu holy city was rather a tough task. Caste system, which is often said to be useless, proved to be quite helpful here.

Spoiler :

 

[youtien]

Hindu Byz, that's hilarious XD. Qiu showed again that how can we Chinese jinx everything, every game.

By the way, I did Hindu Sindh URV long ago, then went for domination. The Hindu title helps.

 

[SanJose]

In last version bug sunni urv
http://i42.fastpic.ru/big/2012/0622/d1/5db65219576675f185ededb73e879ad1.jpg
delete this message plz

 

[SanJose]

malwa 1188, score -12081

Spoiler :

and fail sunni Principality of Antioch

Spoiler :

 

[embryodead]

@SanJose
Could you please post the Antioch savegame?