G-Major LIX

[Cromagnus]

I thought you were a proponent of mid- to late-game domination in Time games? AIs don't do anything on King, I think that teching to Modern Era quickly should be enough to secure the votes you need in congress, and then you can just crush AIs with Foreign Legions.

I was until recently. And I'm sure I'll waffle back to it at some point. But, there are three primary issues with mid-to-late Domination.

1) City placement. The AI places cities in terrible spots, and in the final balance, you're better off razing a badly placed city. The real issue with this is Wonders. If you leave the AI alone they'll build Wonders in cities that you'd otherwise want to raze.

2) World Congress. You often can't up-vote your own measure and down-vote World's Fair at the same time unless you're down to 3 opponents.

3) Great works. You capture a lot of great works that generate tourism. Which runs the risk of cultural victory.

The reason in theory that I like late domination is that you get trading partners and it's trivial to wipe the board with XCOM. Plus, On King the AI generates revenue that you can use to your advantage. You can capture virtually every city at once. But, the turns of anarchy, and the placement issues... I dunno. I think if you achieved near-Influential status first it might be less of an issue (less population loss and anarchy) but then you're running the risk of winning a cultural victory.

Also, speaking of cultural victory risk, zenmaster, that's one thing to be careful about with the liberation strategy! However, in my games I've used city gifting to reduce tourism, so it might work out. (I place all the great works that I capture in a city and then gift it to the AI)

If you gifted a city to Alexander with tons of great works, if he liberated, the liberated civ would start with a big culture and tourism bonus... which might help, but you might have already generated more total tourism than their total culture prior to being eliminated...

 

[Cromagnus]

1) If you put in the time, finish and submit your games right then if possible. 2) Time games are not to be undertaken lightly .

^This.

I second your congrats on just finishing. You're right, time games are happiness-bound, to a degree, but only if you don't crank on the culture lever as hard as you can, IMHO.

I mean, sure, if you tried to carpet the map early with cities, you'd be happiness bound, and gaining new policies too slowly to fix it. So, you have to wait until you have the policies/buildings/etc to counteract that before you can start your expansion.

But, in my opinion, this makes you money, tech and culture-bound, not happiness-bound. (Since happiness is limited by how quickly you can get happiness policies and the techs + money to place happiness buildings)

So, really time games are everything-bound, but we're splitting hairs here I think. ;-)

I emphasize growth-bound because my highest scoring games were bound by growth, with every civ. Perhaps there's another ceiling I haven't encountered yet though. I do agree that difficulty matters, but I think there's enough global happiness to counteract that.. I could be wrong?

 

[zenmaster]

^This.

I second your congrats on just finishing. You're right, time games are happiness-bound, to a degree, but only if you don't crank on the culture lever as hard as you can, IMHO.

I mean, sure, if you tried to carpet the map early with cities, you'd be happiness bound, and gaining new policies too slowly to fix it. So, you have to wait until you have the policies/buildings/etc to counteract that before you can start your expansion.

But, in my opinion, this makes you money, tech and culture-bound, not happiness-bound. (Since happiness is limited by how quickly you can get happiness policies and the techs + money to place happiness buildings)

So, really time games are everything-bound, but we're splitting hairs here I think. ;-)

I emphasize growth-bound because my highest scoring games were bound by growth, with every civ. Perhaps there's another ceiling I haven't encountered yet though. I do agree that difficulty matters, but I think there's enough global happiness to counteract that.. I could be wrong?

I agree with what you're saying for the most part; I think the reason your games were always only bound by growth were because 1) you are an incredible player, always prudent, and adept at Time games , and 2) those games were on prince or lower difficulty, mostly on tiny/small maps, sometimes with happiness help baked into the civs (India, Aztec crazy culture for policies from kills)

I know some who tried that Lakes gauntlet and didn't plan for happiness well were handcuffed by that (which indeed is a function of not enough culture/religion/etc. as you say.... which means they were bound by everything )
But I have a strong feeling that playing Time games on standard+ size land maps on higher difficulties will find happiness as the true score limiting factor at some point. I don't think there is enough global happiness help to offset the increased happiness penalties at the highest levels, but I could be wrong, of course.

Also, speaking of cultural victory risk, zenmaster, that's one thing to be careful about with the liberation strategy! However, in my games I've used city gifting to reduce tourism, so it might work out. (I place all the great works that I capture in a city and then gift it to the AI)

If you gifted a city to Alexander with tons of great works, if he liberated, the liberated civ would start with a big culture and tourism bonus... which might help, but you might have already generated more total tourism than their total culture prior to being eliminated...

I agree that the Great Works/culture victory issue is a big reason why mid-late game domination is tricky. That is why I think in this one, the Great Khanh should be on the warpath immediately. You and Vadalaz were able to win a Domination victory on a Large Lakes map on King level with Russia in about 100 turns. I'm thinking the Standard Terra map with Mongolia may be similar with all civs being compressed onto the initial mainland and the terrain being clearer in general. Taking out the caps at least by then reduces the great works risk. Happiness would be a big issue, but if it could be managed, then this early conquest leaves accidental culture victory much less of a danger. If you can control the whole map capitalwise by T100, the Great Works will be very few I would think. And hopefully, either no one gets the Parthenon up or the one who does doesn't have much else in the way of wonders so it will be an ideal survivor. Yes, AI trading partners would be non-existent, but hopefully the army gets big enough to earn some tributes on King level.

My liberation idea assumes I would build/leave a monument in that to-be-liberated city, but you are right about leaving any Great Writings there as well. Maybe an early conquest, annex if happiness would permit, build a monument and try to build an amphitheater before gifting? Might be too much culture lost during that occupation phase though. Not sure I'll run with this idea though...

Anyway, I'm still stubbornly trying to get Mongol Fractal map win before starting this monster. Thanks much to Morcar_olmig for his report. I will do the same once I muster up the gumption to tackle this one.

 

[Cromagnus]

I agree with what you're saying for the most part; I think the reason your games were always only bound by growth were because 1) you are an incredible player, always prudent, and adept at Time games , and 2) those games were on prince or lower difficulty, mostly on tiny/small maps, sometimes with happiness help baked into the civs (India, Aztec crazy culture for policies from kills)

I know some who tried that Lakes gauntlet and didn't plan for happiness well were handcuffed by that (which indeed is a function of not enough culture/religion/etc. as you say.... which means they were bound by everything )
But I have a strong feeling that playing Time games on standard+ size land maps on higher difficulties will find happiness as the true score limiting factor at some point. I don't think there is enough global happiness help to offset the increased happiness penalties at the highest levels, but I could be wrong, of course.



I agree that the Great Works/culture victory issue is a big reason why mid-late game domination is tricky. That is why I think in this one, the Great Khanh should be on the warpath immediately. You and Vadalaz were able to win a Domination victory on a Large Lakes map on King level with Russia in about 100 turns. I'm thinking the Standard Terra map with Mongolia may be similar with all civs being compressed onto the initial mainland and the terrain being clearer in general. Taking out the caps at least by then reduces the great works risk. Happiness would be a big issue, but if it could be managed, then this early conquest leaves accidental culture victory much less of a danger. If you can control the whole map capitalwise by T100, the Great Works will be very few I would think. And hopefully, either no one gets the Parthenon up or the one who does doesn't have much else in the way of wonders so it will be an ideal survivor. Yes, AI trading partners would be non-existent, but hopefully the army gets big enough to earn some tributes on King level.

My liberation idea assumes I would build/leave a monument in that to-be-liberated city, but you are right about leaving any Great Writings there as well. Maybe an early conquest, annex if happiness would permit, build a monument and try to build an amphitheater before gifting? Might be too much culture lost during that occupation phase though. Not sure I'll run with this idea though...

Anyway, I'm still stubbornly trying to get Mongol Fractal map win before starting this monster. Thanks much to Morcar_olmig for his report. I will do the same once I muster up the gumption to tackle this one.

Yeah, you might be right that early domination would avoid capturing any GW, but it's kind of moot, if you think about it. There's no need to liberate really. The trick I've used in the past is to use Attila. (Always Attila in my games... )

I leave him his capital, and if he somehow managed to build a wonder, I gifted him a crappy capital and then captured Attila's Court. The thing I *didn't* do is purchase all but a one-tile radius around that capital before gifting so that his cultural borders would be minimized. But really at that point it's almost not worth the effort. The points for land are trivial compared to population and you can use great generals to grab his boundaries anyway. And after clearing the map with Genghis you should have plenty generals!

 

[vadalaz]

The more I read, the more tempting it gets to actually play this. The good thing about Time games for HOF is that you know exactly how many turns the game will take and which saves will need to be uploaded, so you can take breaks and play some other setups without worrying about keeping all the autosaves... I think I'll play this to 1/3 of the way, then see how things go from there.

 

[Cromagnus]

See, vadalaz, this is what I mean! People keep tempting me to play.

 

[Morcar_olmig]

I don't think there is enough global happiness help to offset the increased happiness penalties at the highest levels, but I could be wrong, of course.

In my game that was the case! I had 31 cities and i almost maximized global happiness from culture policies - they only one i missed is the one which gives you +1 happines for military unit stationed in the city - that could give me another 30 happ and as i mentioned i could have used faith for pagodas what would have given me 40 happ = 70 in total and 70*2,5 = additional 175 points, but minus 10 Future tech which i got by GS bulbing = 75 points... don't really make big difference. I think i also made mistake in choosing religious things - didn't take enough happiness, but got money instead. But i was able to "take" right religion from my neighbour...

Also, there is two different approaches:

1. Carpet bombing when you cover all available land with the cities (Cro prefers that)
2. Tall cities (which i have used in my game) - i invested in the cities size rather than their number .

We can compare it - let take 10 cities with 10 size and 5 cities with 20 size.

Points wise: 10x10 gives us 10x2,5+10x5 = 75 points ; 5x20 gives us 20x2,5+5x5 = 75 points. So the values are equal (or almost equal since i don't know exact formula for pop and city values calculations - i'm not that good at interpolation, but excel is, with its forecast function

Happiness wise: 10x10 gives us 10x3+10x10 = 130 unhappiness; 5x20 gives us 5x3+5x20 = 115 unhappiness. So we are saving happiness by having tall cities.

Of course tall cities take more time to growth to comparable level, but time is not the issue in our case, while happiness is! Also we save money by not paying maintance for 10 monuments, but for only 5 instead. However there are some other minor factors to consider which i didn't cover here, but my general idea clear i guess.

But well, i could easily be wrong here, but we need more completed games to understand that!

So let's wait until that!

Funny thing:

At some point in the game i realized that my tourism rate is the issue and i should slow down that in order to not to win by culture. I saw that i get additional tou bonus by having trade routes with Harald (which he established), so only possibility to cancel that was to DoW him, what i did. But then i saw that his forces are overwhelming the defense of my allied CS Tyre (which was located closer than me to HArald) - so i decided to gift some modern units to that city state to help repeal Harald's attack. I was very surprised when 5 turn after i disovered that Harald cap would fall next turn if i don't stop Tyre somehow - so only possibility to achive this was to sign a peace treaty what i did. But it's intresting what could happen if the CS would captured the last cap? Did anyone check that?

 

[Cromagnus]

Military Caste is local happiness anyway.

But that matters. And it depends on your definition of tall. Tall cities (for sake of argument size 25+ on land maps) generate more unhappiness than can be compensated for by local happiness. Assuming you have all the relevant policies, here are the numbers (for a size 24 city) with all the relevant buildings, a garrisoned unit, and all 11 specialist slots worked:

Population unhappiness: (13 (citizens) + 11/2 (specialists)) * 0.85 (forbidden palace + liberty)
= 15.725

Number of cities unhappiness: 3

Total: 18.725

Local happiness:

2 (coliseum) + 2 (zoo) + 2 (stadium) + 2 (pagoda) + 2 (temple) + 1 (mint) + 1 (bank) + 1 (stock exchange) + 1 (water mill) + 1 (hospital) + 1 (medical lab) + 1 (garrisoned unit)
= 17

Global happiness: 1 (Liberty) + 1 (Goddess of Love)
= 2

Total: 19

So, even without any other global happiness (IE from commerce/notre dame/etc) you can carpet the map in size 24 cities and never run out of happiness... ever.

But, with size 46 cities you will *quickly* run out of happiness.

So, more cities = better. Also Freedom > all, which I may have forgotten to mention.

EDIT: Oops, I meant size 24. Anyway, these are really the only the numbers that matter. The capital is an exception of course, but all the global happiness outside of what I cover here is limited. So this is your effective cap. (~size 24 average)

On a water map the cap is around 27.

But, good luck hitting size 24 with every city before t500.. That's the real trick folks!

 

[Morcar_olmig]

Military Caste is local happiness anyway.

But that matters. And it depends on your definition of tall. Tall cities (for sake of argument size 25+ on land maps) generate more unhappiness than can be compensated for by local happiness. Assuming you have all the relevant policies, here are the numbers (for a size 24 city) with all the relevant buildings, a garrisoned unit, and all 11 specialist slots worked:

Population unhappiness: (13 (citizens) + 11/2 (specialists)) * 0.85 (forbidden palace + liberty)
= 15.725

Number of cities unhappiness: 3

Total: 18.725

Local happiness:

2 (coliseum) + 2 (zoo) + 2 (stadium) + 2 (pagoda) + 2 (temple) + 1 (mint) + 1 (bank) + 1 (stock exchange) + 1 (water mill) + 1 (hospital) + 1 (medical lab) + 1 (garrisoned unit)
= 17

Global happiness: 1 (Liberty) + 1 (Goddess of Love)
= 2

Total: 19

So, even without any other global happiness (IE from commerce/notre dame/etc) you can carpet the map in size 24 cities and never run out of happiness... ever.

But, with size 46 cities you will *quickly* run out of happiness.

So, more cities = better. Also Freedom > all, which I may have forgotten to mention.

EDIT: Oops, I meant size 24. Anyway, these are really the only the numbers that matter. The capital is an exception of course, but all the global happiness outside of what I cover here is limited. So this is your effective cap. (~size 24 average)

On a water map the cap is around 27.

But, good luck hitting size 24 with every city before t500.. That's the real trick folks!

That sounds like a plan for my next attempt !


But now i will load my last turn for submitted game and analyze the happiness of my cities in "live" environment - i will report back if i find something intresting.

 

[vadalaz]

Ceremonial Burial is global happiness right? What about CN Tower?

I've started a game but I'm already making mistakes - misplaced one city which ruined the ICS pattern, gonna lose a city spot now. Also sent a caravan from my capital to an expo instead of changing base and sending it back to the capital. Trying a Liberty 6-city opener, will probably engineer NC and then kill everything with chariots/keshiks.

 

[Cromagnus]

Ceremonial Burial is global happiness right? What about CN Tower?

I've started a game but I'm already making mistakes - misplaced one city which ruined the ICS pattern, gonna lose a city spot now. Also sent a caravan from my capital to an expo instead of changing base and sending it back to the capital. Trying a Liberty 6-city opener, will probably engineer NC and then kill everything with chariots/keshiks.

They're both global. But 0.5 happiness/city isn't worth it IMHO considering the opportunity cost of not choosing one of the other founder beliefs. I dunno, in the end assuming 100 cities that maybe buys you 500 pts if you maxed out population by t500, but that's the hard part. Considering that this is terra with many coastal city opportunities for +3 happiness/city, I really don't think the endgame will be so happiness-bound that 0.5population/city will make the difference. However, it's difficult bordering on impossible to get pagodas or gardens in every city so I think happiness from shrines and temples is probably worth it although I'm personally loathe to base my happiness on something that requires upkeep. Still the value of faith bought great persons is IMHO worth all those buildings anyway. So I'd probably take those over growth beliefs and try to make up for it by planting cities faster. It's kind of a catch-22. With more happiness you can plant cities faster without running out but you grow slower so it kinda breaks even. /shrug

 

[Morcar_olmig]

Population unhappiness: (13 (citizens) + 11/2 (specialists)) * 0.85 (forbidden palace + liberty)
= 15.725

Just checked this - and yes, this formula is absolutely correct! Although i trust every word Cro said - i always like to check everything myself - this gives opportunity to understand the process better!

Population unhappiness formula for occupied city would look like this: (number of citizens + x/2 (specilaists))*1,34. So FP and liberty bonus is not applied to occupied city.

Also, in-game unhappiness break down screen shows incorrect info for captured cities (you can just compare two screens in attachment).

They both shows that Rabat (53 level) city is having 67,98 unhappiness disregard the courthouse built. This value is unhappiness value for occupied city (41+12/2)*1,34 =62,98 + 5 (for the number of occupied cities) = 67,98. While with courthouse build it should have showed: (41+12/2)*0,85 + 3 = 42,95. Don't trust that breakdown for captured cities

 

[vadalaz]

I ragequit after messing up the city pattern again. Can't concentrate today... I should put melee units on the correct city spots or something.

I think I'll play warry Diplo style next time, tall at first and kill a bunch before the first congress vote. I don't think accidental Culture victory will be much of a threat if I give one of the AIs a 200 turn headstart to produce some culture, but who knows.

Belief choices are definitely something to think about. I'm leaning towards food + Ceremonial Burial at the moment.

 

[Cromagnus]

I ragequit after messing up the city pattern again. Can't concentrate today... I should put melee units on the correct city spots or something.

I think I'll play warry Diplo style next time, tall at first and kill a bunch before the first congress vote. I don't think accidental Culture victory will be much of a threat if I give one of the AIs a 200 turn headstart to produce some culture, but who knows.

Belief choices are definitely something to think about. I'm leaning towards food + Ceremonial Burial at the moment.

In one time game I built settlers before World's Fair and planted them with a scout on each city spot. Ended up wasting a *ton* of gpt that way though... We're talking Info Era unit maintenance cost... no bueno. Eventually I came up with a pattern for building cities that ensures minimal travel time for settlers and ensures that the nearby cities are building them at the right time. But that pattern is for Lakes... terrain and coastline really affect things. For maximal growth you need to maximize the number of tiles worked, which means you need optimal coastal placement.

If (*if*) I play this gauntlet, I might try a Liberty/Piety start, then feed all capitals to Attila ASAP and then keep capturing and regifting them to keep him weak. Hmm

 

[Memoryjar]

I ragequit after messing up the city pattern again. Can't concentrate today...

Remember, pattern is not the same for continents cities and island. You can settle a city with 2 tiles between them if they are on islands (or they fixed that in last patch).

Not a gauntlet for me, last october one, disgusted me.

 

[Mesix]

In my game that was the case! I had 31 cities and i almost maximized global happiness from culture policies - they only one i missed is the one which gives you +1 happines for military unit stationed in the city - that could give me another 30 happ and as i mentioned i could have used faith for pagodas what would have given me 40 happ = 70 in total and 70*2,5 = additional 175 points, but minus 10 Future tech which i got by GS bulbing = 75 points... don't really make big difference. I think i also made mistake in choosing religious things - didn't take enough happiness, but got money instead. But i was able to "take" right religion from my neighbour...

Also, there is two different approaches:

1. Carpet bombing when you cover all available land with the cities (Cro prefers that)
2. Tall cities (which i have used in my game) - i invested in the cities size rather than their number .

We can compare it - let take 10 cities with 10 size and 5 cities with 20 size.

Points wise: 10x10 gives us 10x2,5+10x5 = 75 points ; 5x20 gives us 20x2,5+5x5 = 75 points. So the values are equal (or almost equal since i don't know exact formula for pop and city values calculations - i'm not that good at interpolation, but excel is, with its forecast function

Happiness wise: 10x10 gives us 10x3+10x10 = 130 unhappiness; 5x20 gives us 5x3+5x20 = 115 unhappiness. So we are saving happiness by having tall cities.

Of course tall cities take more time to growth to comparable level, but time is not the issue in our case, while happiness is! Also we save money by not paying maintance for 10 monuments, but for only 5 instead. However there are some other minor factors to consider which i didn't cover here, but my general idea clear i guess.

But well, i could easily be wrong here, but we need more completed games to understand that!

So let's wait until that!

Funny thing:

At some point in the game i realized that my tourism rate is the issue and i should slow down that in order to not to win by culture. I saw that i get additional tou bonus by having trade routes with Harald (which he established), so only possibility to cancel that was to DoW him, what i did. But then i saw that his forces are overwhelming the defense of my allied CS Tyre (which was located closer than me to HArald) - so i decided to gift some modern units to that city state to help repeal Harald's attack. I was very surprised when 5 turn after i disovered that Harald cap would fall next turn if i don't stop Tyre somehow - so only possibility to achive this was to sign a peace treaty what i did. But it's intresting what could happen if the CS would captured the last cap? Did anyone check that?

Don't forget that you also get points for land that you control. Having more cities generally results in controlling more land. A wide strategy will generally outscore a tall strategy with the same population.

 

[Cromagnus]

Well, against my better judgment I decided to give this a try... and discovered I'm really out of practice at Time victory. Didn't finish eliminating opponents until after t200, didn't research Plastics until after t220, annexed some cities I didn't need to, driving up my culture costs and preventing me from getting some key policies, (like 50% off culture buildings), which delayed Hermitage, etc. etc.

Also, I opened mixed Tradition/Liberty and finished Liberty first after the free Settler instead of finishing Tradition first. As a result I was floating in happiness with a low population. Huge mistake that ruined what was a really great start. (~T35 GL, ~T42 NC)

I didn't get my Writer's Guild up, or National Epic, or the opener for Aesthetics until way late, which probably cost me at least 1 policy. And Denmark finished Globe Theatre 1 turn before capture, costing me 1 policy. And the slow policy rate delayed To the Glory of God.

The late conquest, the slow tech rate, etc etc forced me to delay World's Fair, delaying my expansion by at least 40 turns.

Also I forgot to build a caravel (or even tech Astronomy), forcing me to delay International Games, (Gotta get that 1-time boost with ALL CS!!)... all of which also really hurt expansion.

Spoiler :

Still, I think I'll finish this one out. I don't have the patience to start over. But if I did, I would clean up my policy order. I would definitely do Tradition opener->Collective Rule->Finish Tradition->Representation->Flourishing of the Arts->Mercantilism->Reformation. (With a detour in there for Avant Garde/Civil Society/Universal Suffrage)

All of that of course relies on Cultural AND Mercantile CS allies, great production, and is designed to maximize cultural output & the number of Great Writers prior to an early-as-possible World's Fair.

It's all very inter-related. The faster you hit the Modern Era with 2 opponents left, the sooner you get all the key World Congress bonuses, and the sooner you get all the culture buildings.

IMHO the ideal game is treated very much like a cultural victory mixed with warlike diplo. You want to eliminate opponents ASAP so that you have one opponent left with only one city, to limit their tech rate, to allow you to delay Globe Theatre without it being stolen, (and all the other wonders)... You want to tech ASAP to get Broadcast Towers up in your 4 self-built cities. (all others puppeted)

This way you get ALL the happiness policies prior to expansion. All cities except Capital should be capped at 24 and focusing on production/gold. You want to be floating at 50-90 happiness so you can SPAM cities, preferably by t270. Getting Broadcast Towers up by t250, all culture wonders and all culture policies is NOT unreasonable, then World's Fair by t260, and purchase and expend 3-4 GW by t270, at which point you plant your (many) waiting Settlers. In theory. It's so much to juggle I've never gotten it right, and this run had poor production, but I believe this is the winning approach.

 

[vadalaz]

An idea I had was to include a couple of religious opponents. AIs love to pick religious buildings for beliefs, so you can take either the food or shrine/temple happiness beliefs yourself, temporarily adopt AI religions and buy the buildings, then switch back to your own. I haven't tried it yet and it sounds quite tedious, but in theory you can get a LOT of happiness out of religion this way... The problem is, you kinda have to stay in the early eras forever to keep the faith building prices low.

I think I'll play the Aztec Lakes game and try this approach there first, still not sure I'm up for a Standard size game.

By the way, Cromagnus, in your calculations you didn't include Tradition's 1 happiness per 10 citizens, which is extra 2 happiness, allowing for size 26 non-coastal cities.

 

[Morcar_olmig]

Intresting that Attila accepted Ulundi but left it as puppet - seems he doesn't want to control anything anymore

I met the same situation in one of my games where Zulu was also playing with cap puppet which was Amsterdam.

 

[Cromagnus]

An idea I had was to include a couple of religious opponents. AIs love to pick religious buildings for beliefs, so you can take either the food or shrine/temple happiness beliefs yourself, temporarily adopt AI religions and buy the buildings, then switch back to your own. I haven't tried it yet and it sounds quite tedious, but in theory you can get a LOT of happiness out of religion this way... The problem is, you kinda have to stay in the early eras forever to keep the faith building prices low.

I think I'll play the Aztec Lakes game and try this approach there first, still not sure I'm up for a Standard size game.

By the way, Cromagnus, in your calculations you didn't include Tradition's 1 happiness per 10 citizens, which is extra 2 happiness, allowing for size 26 non-coastal cities.

Excellent point, vadalaz. I also didn't account for the fact that on average, 50% of your cities (or more) will have a circus or a stone works, leading to roughly +1.5 extra happiness on average. However, having played out more of this game, I have to revise my earlier thoughts on this. I think it's best to keep the population at 20 until after World's Fair, for a number of reasons.

1) Stadiums and some of the other buildings are very expensive to rush-buy and very slow to build.

2) You need some headroom during expansion while those new cities get "in the black" happiness-wise. They don't really break even until about size 9 or so, when they have enough specialists to compensate for the per-city unhappiness. In the meantime, if you plant 20 settlers at once, that 80 unhappiness will eat through your global happiness surplus *fast*.

So, all in all, I think 20 is a safer number, and in order to keep some headroom for expansion, you really can't let any city but the capital grow much past that point until you're done placing new ones.

Especially if all you're working with that new citizen is grass. (IE food) I've taken to only letting a city go past 20 if it has hammers or gold to work.

Regarding religion, yeah, I kinda find it to be too much multi-tasking trying to switch religions at will. Plus you need a *lot* of faith, and if you're not careful you can really struggle to overcome that other religion. I had this happen to me in my William Gauntlet attempt, where I *intentionally* spread another AI's religion throughout my cities to get Jesuit Education, which greatly relieved the pressure on my build queue, but ultimately cost me when I then had 50 cities worth of religious pressure fighting my own religion... In the end I most of my cities never benefited from growth beliefs.

Besides, if you have Reformation, you get secondary beliefs, and it's easier to keep that other religion in second place than it is to overcome it later. A missionary from the AI's holy city will get you just enough believers to buy faith buildings.

Which is why I've stopped using inquisitors to remove Holy Cities. (Unless I truly have no use for their beliefs)

However, I like your idea of using religious civs... because *they* might pick To The Glory of God, and *that* would be SOOO ideal. It would obviate the need to take ANY policies in Piety. That would save 5 policies.

I primarily choose To The Glory Of God to avoid completing the Aesthetics and Honor tree, since that saves 5 worthless policies. (And the tourism is harmful) It's only 2 extra policies to Reformation after the first two, and I want those two anyway.

With Genghis, completing Honor is moot. (I have 5 natural khans to steal Attila's land, which is enough)

Anyway, yeah, getting To The Glory of God from an AI would allow you to invest in happiness policies earlier and pull the trigger on World's Fair earlier. (Faith-bought Great Writers)

Ok, enough rambling, back to the game!