I don't like god of war. I agree that it almost guarantees a religion, but it will be very hard to spread and enchance it, on higher difficulties you will end up with bad enchancer and without reformation. At least unless you play Monty or Harald.
Founding a religion on Emperor
- Thread starter crdvis16
- Start date
I don't like god of war. I agree that it almost guarantees a religion, but it will be very hard to spread and enchance it, on higher difficulties you will end up with bad enchancer and without reformation. At least unless you play Monty or Harald.
LukaSlovenia29
Emperor
- Joined
- Mar 13, 2016
- Messages
- 1,500
I'm playing on immortal and in my last two games (France, Netherlands) I've managed to found first with god of war, grab churches, enhance first, spread enough to get a reformation national wonder. The trick is to not needlessly clear barb encampments and to be at war with a neighbouring civ for the vast majority of turns. In my current game as the Netherlands, I've been at war with both Aztecs and Huns for around 100 turns, playing carefully (not losing any units -> little war weariness) and racking up faith from kills. I've enhanced to mandirs, so I get 13 faith from each city's buildings (shrine, temple, church, mandir) as well, and faith from happiness (went with pacifism for cheaper missionaries).
All in all, God of War is imho the best option for non-religious civilizations in human hands, unless you happen to start in an awesome desert area, next to Sri Pada, religious city states etc.
All in all, God of War is imho the best option for non-religious civilizations in human hands, unless you happen to start in an awesome desert area, next to Sri Pada, religious city states etc.
I think the higher in difficulty you go the more you get pigeon-holed into certain optimal strategies to consistently stand a chance. I think that's just to be expected. On Deity it wouldn't surprise me if you have to stick to certain policy choices, build orders, etc to stand a chance. I remember in vanilla civ on Deity it was almost required to worker steal from CSs in order to stand a chance. That's one of the reasons I very rarely bumped the difficulty up to Deity back in the day when I used to play more and mostly played on Immortal. I found Immortal to still be challenging but allowed me some flexibility to try new things without being too harshly punished. Nowadays, either because I'm not able to play as much as I used to or VP is just harder now, I play on Emperor for the same reason.
I think part of my problem is that I just WANT to play a wide, progress game with Spain that uses a pantheon suited to wide (initially peaceful) play. To me, going 'God of War' would be what I would WANT to do when playing a more aggressive civ who wants a religion, in which cause I would go Authority and both barbarian hunt and start early wars. In my head, 'God of War' just doesn't fit with the theme of how I want to play Spain. I assumed that I could get away with playing this thematic version of Spain (progress, initially peaceful wide) on Emperor but maybe I am finding that I'm not quite good enough to pull it off at this difficulty. I haven't given up yet, though.
You're probably right about the herbalist. My pantheon gave herbalist +1 faith but that probably wasn't worth the delay in hammers that could have gone toward building my settlers quicker. I was just tempted into it because my capital was basically completely surrounded by forest/jungle. Like literally every tile.
I think I was assuming forests to be defensive due to the movement restrictions, making their invading army slowly approach and get peppered by city/archer fire the whole time. But you're right that once his legionnaires/Kris get into the forests it becomes a negative. Hills would have been ideal too, but I think it would have lead to much worse tiles worked maybe? But in this game that would have been worth it, as being invaded was ultimately my downfall.
You're certainly right that I didn't take into account my neighbors well enough when taking my policy choice. I went into the game with a set game plan and didn't alter it based on circumstances (aggressive neighbors forward settling me).
Good point about the horsemen. I don't think I had any horse tiles from what I remember but maybe I could have found a way to trade for them or ally a CS that had them. At some point I'd want horses for Conquistadors anyway.
Good point about founding my religion in my capital. The prophet spawned in that border city (the natural wonder giving extra faith must have done it) and a part of me thought it was a good idea because that city was closer to the center of the continent, which I thought might help me spread my religion everywhere faster. But you're right that ideally your capital is your strongest city so stacking bonuses there might be a good idea.
I didn't know that about renewal requiring specifically 2 jungle or 2 forest rather than 1 and 1. I probably didn't have my tiles set correctly to account for that.
I believe Tu_ also recommended God of Commerce. I assumed that 1 faith per 25 GPT would yield really low faith returns. Early game my GPT is often really, really low so wouldn't that result in hardly any faith generation? And I usually find that I don't have city connections up and running until later in the early game too, at which point it might be too late to help me actually found the religion. Am I missing something with God of Commerce?
Definetely you are. it gives you +2
/+2
it cities with connection
. The strategy is to build shrine->worker->settler*999. Start to build road to city even before settler is ready.EDIT: Thing is that this additional 2 gold per city allows you to keep your GPT positive with roads. In other situations you do not build roads cause they cost more gold than produce
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Definetely you are. it gives you +2
EDIT: Thing is that this additional 2 gold per city allows you to keep your GPT positive with roads. In other situations you do not build roads cause they cost more gold than produce
Ok, I'll give it a shot. Commerce would certainly play into my long term game plan as well. I'll just have to prioritize workers earlier than usual. And city connections also alleviate happiness issues, so not a bad thing to prioritize when going wide anyway.
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Alright, finally got another game going (had like 4 in a row where I was alone on an island... when the map type was continents. What are the odds???). My plan from the get go was Progress with the early worker from Liberty and to grab God of Commerce as my pantheon, using the early worker to connect new cities with roads. Opening build order is shrine->monument->settler x 5+. Every new city would be shrine first, probably monument next (the +1 faith to all monuments event seems to pop up quite frequently), and then whatever is needed after that. Between prioritizing shrines, taking +1 faith event options, founding cities for bonus faith, and immediately connecting all my cities with roads for the +2 faith from God of Commerce I should be able to found a religion this time, right?
I found that my opening area wasn't terribly crowded, thankfully. Arabia is my nearest neighbor but I seem to have a locality that can pretty easily support at least 6-8 cities without feeling like I'm forward settling. Monopoly resource is Dyes so decent production tiles with some free culture tossed in for my capital. The timing on my build order worked out such that I had already completed a road to my 2nd city by the time my first settler appeared. I'm able to grab God of Commerce and so I'm pretty much connecting my new cities with roads as fast as I'm able to settle them.
Early game barbarians are being a real problem, though. My start isn't very gold-heavy (basically no gold producing tiles early on) so I'm mostly broke in the beginning. Other than my starting warrior and one that I rush-bought initially I don't have much to clear camps with. I don't want to slow down settler production and my 2nd/3rd/+ cities are busy making the initial shrine. The warriors mostly take turns protecting my worker after they did their initial scout of my nearby area.
My money woes aren't really alleviated until I take Equality (+2 production/gold per city). I've managed to settle a total of 6 cities by this time and most of them have finished their shrine. Some also built a monument, some popped out another worker, and some are building some horsemen as I've been denounced by Arabia so a DoW is likely incoming and I'm really tired of barbarians constantly attacking my cities and trying to steal my workers. My city nearest Arabia, so the likely invasion target, gets walls up and with the 3-4 horsemen I have incoming I feel like I will be able to hold him off. I'm 3 turns from spawning my GP to grab my religion and.... the 3rd and 4th religion spots get taken. I've missed out on founding a religion AGAIN!
I was only a few turns off from founding my religion so obviously this strategy CAN work but I must not have executed it properly. I probably could have settled one last city to grab the religion if I hadn't started producing horsemen, but I was certain Arabia was going to DoW any minute and didn't want to lose another game from an early invasion. It still seems odd to me that I'm not able to consistently found a religion on Emperor when I am pretty much tailoring my strategy toward doing so. I didn't bother checking who got to the 4 religion spots before me in the retire screen so perhaps I had bad luck with the other civs in the game.
I found that my opening area wasn't terribly crowded, thankfully. Arabia is my nearest neighbor but I seem to have a locality that can pretty easily support at least 6-8 cities without feeling like I'm forward settling. Monopoly resource is Dyes so decent production tiles with some free culture tossed in for my capital. The timing on my build order worked out such that I had already completed a road to my 2nd city by the time my first settler appeared. I'm able to grab God of Commerce and so I'm pretty much connecting my new cities with roads as fast as I'm able to settle them.
Early game barbarians are being a real problem, though. My start isn't very gold-heavy (basically no gold producing tiles early on) so I'm mostly broke in the beginning. Other than my starting warrior and one that I rush-bought initially I don't have much to clear camps with. I don't want to slow down settler production and my 2nd/3rd/+ cities are busy making the initial shrine. The warriors mostly take turns protecting my worker after they did their initial scout of my nearby area.
My money woes aren't really alleviated until I take Equality (+2 production/gold per city). I've managed to settle a total of 6 cities by this time and most of them have finished their shrine. Some also built a monument, some popped out another worker, and some are building some horsemen as I've been denounced by Arabia so a DoW is likely incoming and I'm really tired of barbarians constantly attacking my cities and trying to steal my workers. My city nearest Arabia, so the likely invasion target, gets walls up and with the 3-4 horsemen I have incoming I feel like I will be able to hold him off. I'm 3 turns from spawning my GP to grab my religion and.... the 3rd and 4th religion spots get taken. I've missed out on founding a religion AGAIN!
I was only a few turns off from founding my religion so obviously this strategy CAN work but I must not have executed it properly. I probably could have settled one last city to grab the religion if I hadn't started producing horsemen, but I was certain Arabia was going to DoW any minute and didn't want to lose another game from an early invasion. It still seems odd to me that I'm not able to consistently found a religion on Emperor when I am pretty much tailoring my strategy toward doing so. I didn't bother checking who got to the 4 religion spots before me in the retire screen so perhaps I had bad luck with the other civs in the game.
Sounds like you went a little bit too fast with settlers. I'd build 1 more military unit before starting the settler spam (hopefully an archer rather than a warrior). This gives some more time to develop culture, I'd want equality available before city number 3. I would consider monument before shrine as well, as the AI rarely takes God of Commerce and it gives a better start. Its not too much faith lost in the scheme of things
Txurce
Deity
The exception to this is Carthage, for obvious reasons. They can blow right out of the gate with this approach.
An extra military unit early and monument before shrine would help my all-around game but would probably have made me further from actually founding my religion in this particular instance. I can't help but think that Spain's faith gain upon settling cities needs to be boosted somewhat, unless I am just getting really really unlucky in not being able to found a religion and everyone else has no issue doing so?
Well I can found pretty consistently on Emperor with any civ, which I think comes down to good settler timing. Just something to consider, that monument will put your culture pretty far ahead which means unlocking equality earlier. The
and from equality can get your shrines in secondary cities built faster. Delaying your first shrine 10 turns will cost you 20 , which likely only delays your great prophet by a single turn.Well I can found pretty consistently on Emperor with any civ, which I think comes down to good settler timing. Just something to consider, that monument will put your culture pretty far ahead which means unlocking equality earlier. The
Good point. I suppose that in the case of God of Commerce there isn't a huge rush to get the pantheon as quickly as possible, either, so shrine second wouldn't change much. If I was going for a pantheon that could give faith more immediately just from tiles or something then an early pantheon might matter more and make shrine first possibly more worth while.
Exactly. Commerce does nothing until your second city is founded, and as Spain you get 40 faith for that second city, so the synergy is awesome. If get lucky with faith city states you can get a pantheon without even building a shrine
Just an update in case anyone reading this thread later is curious- my current game is going better. I ended up on a 2-person continent with Austria and was able to found my religion with about 6 cities settled using God of Commerce, though a big part of this was probably my 2nd city having Mt. Kailash as a tile (6 faith yield and +2 more faith per era!). It kind of seems as if Spain has a start bias such that it has a faith generating natural wonder nearby, as it has happened in almost every game of mine with Spain.
In any case, this game is going fairly smoothly now. Austria has adopted my religion, I fended off an invasion by Mongolia, and I've started spreading my religion to other landmasses somewhat starting with CSs and civs who don't own their own religion. My faith generation is pretty high with Missions. Conquistador settlers are awesome as the number of buildings you start with upon settling is fantastic so I've used them to grab a few island cities. I'm currently building up an army and navy that will hopefully conquer Austria and at some point I will probably try to pivot toward a Diplomatic victory if possible.
I am having some other issues, though. I'm very far behind culturally, and somewhat behind technologically. I am somewhat used to that in the early-mid game but usually not this far behind. I assume this may be due to Progress having a slower start? I am much stronger economically than usual, though, and I definitely have more hammers in total being wide. So hopefully I can leverage those advantages to make up for my culture/tech weaknesses. I think reaching for military techs and invading is probably my best bet for catching up.
My other issue is that I probably should have planned out my choices for founder/enhancement/reformation beliefs better. There's probably some nice synergies I could be going for with my religion but I ended up just taking beliefs that are each good in their own right but maybe not full of synergy. I probably could have grabbed as many religious buildings as possible and went for a Sacred Sites culture victory (since missions would count towards it too) or maybe picked a bunch of militaristic beliefs (zealotry, etc) and went very aggressive.
I also would have preferred my starting location to be on a landmass with 3 other civs so that I could try dominating my continent with my religion. It's going to be very hard to now spread my religion to another landmass that has its own religions already well established. I contemplated re-starting my game to this end but figured it took me so many restarts just to get a decent game going that maybe I should just play it out.
In any case, this game is going fairly smoothly now. Austria has adopted my religion, I fended off an invasion by Mongolia, and I've started spreading my religion to other landmasses somewhat starting with CSs and civs who don't own their own religion. My faith generation is pretty high with Missions. Conquistador settlers are awesome as the number of buildings you start with upon settling is fantastic so I've used them to grab a few island cities. I'm currently building up an army and navy that will hopefully conquer Austria and at some point I will probably try to pivot toward a Diplomatic victory if possible.
I am having some other issues, though. I'm very far behind culturally, and somewhat behind technologically. I am somewhat used to that in the early-mid game but usually not this far behind. I assume this may be due to Progress having a slower start? I am much stronger economically than usual, though, and I definitely have more hammers in total being wide. So hopefully I can leverage those advantages to make up for my culture/tech weaknesses. I think reaching for military techs and invading is probably my best bet for catching up.
My other issue is that I probably should have planned out my choices for founder/enhancement/reformation beliefs better. There's probably some nice synergies I could be going for with my religion but I ended up just taking beliefs that are each good in their own right but maybe not full of synergy. I probably could have grabbed as many religious buildings as possible and went for a Sacred Sites culture victory (since missions would count towards it too) or maybe picked a bunch of militaristic beliefs (zealotry, etc) and went very aggressive.
I also would have preferred my starting location to be on a landmass with 3 other civs so that I could try dominating my continent with my religion. It's going to be very hard to now spread my religion to another landmass that has its own religions already well established. I contemplated re-starting my game to this end but figured it took me so many restarts just to get a decent game going that maybe I should just play it out.
tu_79
Deity
Best time to go conquer is in Conquistador time. Specially coastal cities. Those guys are tough at sea. If you have Zealotry, maybe use some of them for settling the new world. Otherwise, just take cities.
What beliefs did you pick for your religion? The update would be much more complete if you told us
I think when I first got Conquistadors I only had 4 horses available and I was still fairly far behind in tech. I don't think I would have been able to win a war with my neighbor Austria at the time even with my Conquistadors leading the way. I'm planning to try a new game now that I think I understand Spain a little better, though, and will hopefully find a way to capitalize on the strength of Conquistadors a bit better.
I think my religion was:
Pantheon = God of Commerce (faith/gold from city connections)
Founder = Council of Elders (science/production when cities adopt my religion)
Follower1 = Synagogues (I think faith and some other yield, can't remember other yield)
Follower2 = Diligence (production from followers)
Enhancer = Tithes (money and faith)
Reformation = Sacred Sites (tourism from faith bought buildings)
Tithes was really nice- I think I was upgrading my military units mostly on the back of huge chunks of money from tithes.
Sacred Sites was probably a waste of a reformation since I didn't use my second follower belief to pick up another faith bought building type and I wasn't really planning for a culture victory anyway. I should have went with One World, One Religion since I was eventually planning for a Diplo victory.
Other than replacing Sacred Sites I think my religion was mostly OK. I have tons of faith generation, money, and production which are all useful for wide Progress. However, I ended up ditching this game after all. I really started to get annoyed by the way the landmasses were setup. I want to get into a game where I can battle other religions on my continent and try to dominate them.