G-Minor 37

[hecubus]

Is it best to choose one of the early religions as the one to spread, so you get more time to spread it?

Do you need to found all three of the early religions to give yourself the best chance? If so, how do you ensure getting Buddhism and Hinduism (other than having a freaky gold / gem start)?

Do you have to have peaceful and non-spiritual opponents in order to make this work?

[WARNING]Long, rambling post below. Surprised? I know I run on a lot, and my advice must be taken in light of my level of play, which is not very high. These posts are as much for my own benefit, as a way to digest and analyze my games. I have "bulbed" quite a few things while typing out here. A good percentage of the posts I start never even get posted, because I've walked myself through the situation. For those who take the time to read, I thank you, and input is always welcome. Man, even the disclaimer is long...[/WARNING]

I chose Confucianism to spread because it came with a free missionary. I didn't start spreading it until I knew I had Theology locked up, and didn't actually adopt a religion myself until I had spread to all opponents and was ready to build the AP.

I didn't try for Buddhism, let one AI get it and be different religion than everybody else. Takes some of the heat off of me.

Choosing opponents...this is the real trick I think, if you don't intend to get enough votes through vassals. I went with random opponents since it was kind of a feeling-out game. Ended up with Hatty, Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Genghis Khan, Darius, Saladin.
-Hatty is very congenial if you share a religion, but prone to being conquered/vassalized. I got lucky in that she capitulated to Genghis Khan, who I also got to Friendly.
-Genghis was actually a great opponent in this -- probably because there was plenty of jungle between us.
-JC was my neighbor to the east, and the only one who took a swipe at me (at pleased, same religion. I was just too weak). I gave him meditation and monotheism for peace after I neutralized his pathetic invasion force and pillaged his iron. I'm not sure I would choose him again.
-Hannibal was the most unpredictable, I would definitely not choose him again. He had a penchant for Christianity, was very near impossible to get out of cautious when running a different religion. He built the Paya and ran Free Religion pretty quickly. I have never built that wonder but I may just to keep it out of AI hands.
-Darius, predictably, teched like a fiend and was pretty docile. Would have been a terrific ally had Saladin not gotten to him first with Buddhism. Attempting to secure his votes by force now. Good trading partner despite religious differences.
-Saladin was quiet the whole game. Occasionally demanded I stop trading with Hatty, but beyond that I didn't hear from him. Didn't attack anyone, didn't draw anyone's fire. I'd consider choosing him again since he'll happily grab up any religions you miss.

I think if you are trying to hoard all religions and think you can do it (and if I could do it on Monarch, only missing one that I tried for, it can't be that hard), having spiritual or otherwise religion-obsessed opponents can be a good thing. Strong bonuses from sharing state religion. On the other hand, since one will be your opponent in the voting, you don't want them to be too friendly with each other. This is where I think some of the maniacs come in handy. If you don't start right next to them and can really get on their good side, they'll likely grab a vassal or two of their own and can supply you with a lot of votes. The flip side of that is if they have the highest population with AP religion, they'll be your opponent in the vote, and vassal votes will go to them.

I'm going to take another shot at this one, I think I can tighten up the tech path even more, though I was pretty happy with it, especially my timing on the Oracle build with prereq research, This has never been one of my strong areas and I wanted to work on it in this game. I think playing a couple levels above my comfort zone made me a bit more strict with myself. I think I went wrong in going for CoL before Theology, though (cleaning up the tech path and getting Monotheism in time will help). Getting the AP built ASAP seems to outweigh. You need that vote to happen while the overall population is low low low. Which brings me to...

Needs improvement: Choosing when and where to spread religion. The 1-pop hovel you spread it to now may be a 10-pop city before you know it. Once you click that first missionary to spread the religion, its further spread is out of your control. Trade routes are also extremely important to keep in mind as they will quickly spread religions to any city without one. Religion abhors a vacuum. This was what burned me on Hannibal. I spread to one city via missionary, then he built another city along the road further in and it picked up the wrong religion by natural spread. I think if you see an opponent's city is likely to end up connected, drop a missionary with AP religion in it.

Also needs improvement: Diplomacy.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

Is it best to choose one of the early religions as the one to spread, so you get more time to spread it?

Do you need to found all three of the early religions to give yourself the best chance? If so, how do you ensure getting Buddhism and Hinduism (other than having a freaky gold / gem start)?

Do you have to have peaceful and non-spiritual opponents in order to make this work?

I've been using non-spirtual civs and ones that dont go for religions early. Roading towards the other civs with extra workers is a definate speed increase, as my last attempt i got the vote for diplo ~960BC, but again i couldnt succeed in getting 1-2 more votes for the win.

I get 4 cities usualy. Gold is always in the start. I can found 4/5 early religions with Ramsees, and the UB helps bulb the Oracle if i am in a hammer poor capitol, or no marble to speed it up. thx to jesuin for the research tip. I only ever build 3 things. Workers, Settlers and Missionaries. (wonders too, but you know that) I farm all my land for max pop and whipping strength.

Remember, that spreading it to the farthest opponents first gives them more time to spread it, while closer opponents might get a spread while passing nearby or while your spreading farther. it takes ~30 turns to spread to the 3 farthest opp. each, while spreading closer takes only 5. When i cant build missionaries, i do get a library to hire scientists, so i can gift the techs i am getting away.

 

[WastinTime]

@ArcadicGamer: 960 BC is very good. You say you have 4 cities. That seems like a lot to build and still get the vote by 960. Are you sure you're playing on Normal speed? I don't think 960 BC is even a valid date for normal. Did you mean 950? or are you on Marathon?

 

[ArcadicGamer]

I had 3 cities in the 960, corrected, vote. But of course i didnt win. It was a rather amazing start with almost zero jungle, FP and PH on river and 2 gold. 2nd city had pigs gold and 6 river tiles to farm also. 3rd was simply founded to farm population to give majority vote.

Yes i am on normal speed. In most my games i found a 4th city @ ~500BC to farm some more pop to get closer to self-voting, although i havent gotten it to work with a spiritual civ, and i forgot to do the HG trick this time, otherwise i'd been submitting that 960BC game.

note: the ~ symbol is to mean appoximatly an amount. I used it in my previous post since i did not remember exactly which date the vote came, but it was around the early 900's

Offtopic: I did upgrade last night, so all saves i had were gone, but i did submit a dual HC settler game for vista testing Methos.

 

[hecubus]

Gandhi this time, better start but I lost the first few rounds of votes and population is starting to get out of control. I might have a better handle on the diplomacy in this one, but I don't think I'm positioned to turn it military if it comes to that. Saved for the night around 980AD. I think this strategy is fastest if you plan and time your spread with the AP build extremely well, but I think vassals are the sure-fire win. This is a frustrating VC, but the games have been a lot of fun.

 

[jesusin]

@Harbourboy:
On my second try with Gandhi I chose Buddhism to spread. I think it's best,
...

I was thinking that Judaism is best, since you can revolt to OR immediately and then build missionaries without a monastery.

Or did you have time to build the Budhist monastery before getting to Monoteism?

 

[Thrallia]

so am I the only one who plays with choose religions on?

I keep getting confused on here, because my last game, the first three religions founded were Christianity, Taoism, and Islam.

 

[ArcadicGamer]

so am I the only one who plays with choose religions on? :crazyeyes:

I keep getting confused on here, because my last game, the first three religions founded were Christianity, Taoism, and Islam.

i play with it on, but refer to them by the relgion that is normaly found.

 

[azzaman333]

OK I just had a go at this. How on earth can you spread your religion to everyone by 500BC??? I can barely build 2 missionaries by that time and by then the whole world has turned Hindu and someone has declared war on me.

Do you spread your own religion, or is it quicker just to accept the religion that the rest of the world has and spread it around your own cities?

Do you need to have a big empire yourself? How many cities are needed for this?

If you don't mind your game requiring quite a bit of luck to win, you can rely on Izzy/Van Orange/Hatty to expand a religion for you, but this can make the vote hard to win.

 

[karmina]

I was thinking that Judaism is best, since you can revolt to OR immediately and then build missionaries without a monastery.

Or did you have time to build the Budhist monastery before getting to Monoteism?

Actually not, you're right. Although no Buddhist civ can help getting only religion-free cities to spread to.

Are there differences in spreading chance between religions?

960BC is an amazing date. I get the impression this gauntlet really boils down to getting the perfect starting location and some tech pops. So far I always had either no production, no commerce, or no health. Also I seem to pop maps 90% of the time. When there are techs inside huts, its either fishing or the tech I'm researching with one turn left...

 

[WastinTime]

I don't think huts matter so much this time. You can't get a worker or settler. You don't need money. Tech is really not critical. You have plenty of time get the tech you need to win.

 

[hecubus]

I don't think huts matter so much this time. You can't get a worker or settler. You don't need money. Tech is really not critical. You have plenty of time get the tech you need to win.

I did pop Priesthood from a hut the turn before I finished researching Monotheism last game. I was able to start on The Oracle the next turn, this got me Theology 5 or 6 turns earlier. Also popped Agriculture, which helped growth while beelining. Pure dumb luck. Game before I got nothing worthwhile from them. While huts can have a very nice impact, I surely wouldn't include them as part of my strategy. I put effort into opening the map to find my opponents, huts I get from that are a side benefit.

 

[Harbourboy]

What's the trick here? I can't get these votes to go anywhere near my way. Everyone I suck up to ends up getting too big and becoming my rival for votes, to the extent that even if everyone else loved me and voted for me, there wouldn't be enough votes left to win.

I'm missing something obvious here but I can't see how to make the numbers stack up.

 

[hecubus]

What's the trick here? I can't get these votes to go anywhere near my way. Everyone I suck up to ends up getting too big and becoming my rival for votes, to the extent that even if everyone else loved me and voted for me, there wouldn't be enough votes left to win.

I'm missing something obvious here but I can't see how to make the numbers stack up.

That's pretty much exactly what I'm running into. I'm tinkering with the idea of not spreading religion to some civs until a turn or two before the AP is complete. The limit of 3 on missionaries hurts this, you can't camp one in every civ. I really think the vote needs to happen within a very few turns of the religion's spread, because once you do it's out of your hands. This is why I say I think this is the fastest strategy with the best execution/luck, but vassalizing half the map is the guaranteed win.

Edit: Also thinking, spread AP religion to a couple larger cities of one civ. Spread to a couple smaller cities in a 2nd civ. Spread non-AP religion, or let AI spread non-AP religion to all other civs, except for one tiny city. Have one person who'll vote for you, one opponent who'll vote for himself, and everyone else abstaining since they don't like either of you. No idea how the numbers will work out for this with total number of votes (may not have enough without the votes of those tier-3 civs). This at least cuts down on some of the guesswork of who's your buddy, who's your opponent, and who's a non-factor.

 

[Harbourboy]

I've worked out that the big problem is that as soon as someone else gets a 25% vote, you're stuffed, because they can block your victory no matter what anyone else does. How do you stop that? Attack them?

 

[Thrallia]

I fixed it by building the AP in a city near an Islamic civ, declared war on him, and let him capture it That made me the only christian opponent, since I had the most votes

Unfortunately, my game crashed afterward(not that it mattered...1000AD is not a promising time frame anyway)

 

[bestje]

@thrallia; you'd be in trouble if he'd razed your AP city though, its possible the AI hates the AP as much as humans isn't it?

@harbourboy if someone is getting a quarter of the vote all you can do is to either increase the votes of everyone who is voting for you by enough to reduce it but not enough to change who your opponent isyour opponent
or you can attack them as you say, be careful about you attacked our friend modifiers and changing who your opponent in the vote is though

 

[jesusin]

Is this Gauntlet a only-hammers-matter thing?

My plan:
1.- Tech as fast as I can to Monoteism (being careful not to found any other religion).
2.- Revolt to OR and build as many missionaries as fast as I can.
3.- Get one to each civ, starting with the owners of a religion.
4.- Research to Theology slowly
5.- Revolt to Judasim and build the AP slowly.
6.- Revolt to no religion once the AP is built.
7.- Research to Alphabet slowly.
8.- At last, missionaries have ended their work. The few roads I've built have proven useful.
9.- I am the only one eligible both for Pope and for winner.
10.- If my capital is pop 9 and every infected city is pop1, I have won.
11.- If every infected city is pop2, I need 18 believers in my Civ.
12.- The turn I choose to vote for victory, revolt to Judaism. Gift a few techs just in case.
13.- Enjoy.

So all I need is a gold, a couple of hills, a PH start, some food not too far and a central location start.

Is there a flaw in my plan?
Is there another strategy that can beat mine?

 

[karmina]

@Thrallia: Being the only one eligible isn't the problem here. I also failed to win on my two last promising attempts, because too many abstained. All AIs were pleased despite all having other religions; but they - and especially Liz who abstained - had too much votes.
I need to know more about the different leaders, obviously some will vote for you if pleased, some don't. Liz didn't even love me a fraction more after I gave her all my resources, the AP and some other cities. Pure self-voting is quite hard on this type of map.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

You need +8 for a UN vote (with hidden modifiers which I'm not too clear on). My UN diplo win the other day I had 2 civs at +10 just to be safe.