G-Minor LXIX

How would you outlaw it? It's not a bug, it's bad game design. I can see outlawing abuse of it, but it's a perfectly valid way to generate tourism. The problem begins when you ICS with it. Also, this is very, very difficult to abuse on Deity.

Also, sometimes you end up getting Sacred Sites from someone else's religion invading your territory. So how do you outlaw it?

Since IMHO it's not fair to outlaw, you'd have to set some sort of max # of cities, or something like that.

I do agree though, that for CV on any difficulty below Deity, perhaps you should not be allowed to take that reformation belief for HOF games. Until(yeah right) it's fixed. Not ideal, but otherwise you might as well say: Allowed Victory Condition: Sacred Sites.

Prince or below especially... the AI is so pitiful on Warlord.

 

GL + Piety for early Oracle maybe? I'm not sure it matters how early you get sacred sites though. The limiting factor IMHO is how fast you generate faith and how quickly you meet your opponents. The earliest possible sacred sites win would require mad culture and mad faith I think. NW Pantheon + Uluru and Kilimanjaro perhaps, barb quests for Cultural CS allies. Or maybe a ridiculous Banana/Citrus +1 start, culture from jungle tiles + Mt Sinai in an expo. It's honestly more fun to me to play with min-maxing this than to try to go for a regular CV... just because regular CV = aborted SV. *snore*

 

I'm also no fan of outlawing it - but sacred sites seems to be contrary to what BNW was supposed to be. It's broken.

But your comment on allowed victory conditions might be the key. Why not make that cultural victory with sacred sites active a new victory condition for HoF purposes?

 

I don't know about outlawing or anything like that. There should be a viable strategy for going wide and Cultural. It's not my style but I know that others like this way. Even I have had games that eventually developed into sprawling 10-12 city empires, whether through conquest (sometimes an AI just makes me really mad) or expansion (wow, another great city spot). I don't think it should create such a gap in turn to victory though. This should probably not be available in such an early policy tree.

 

a non piety Cultural victory?

it is going to be slower, but if all participants agree

 

Wow. Was able to get to turn 158. How do you get thru your SP so fast? Did you open tradition? Problem with lots of cities is the SP costs go up so fast.

I don't think sacred sites is broken. It takes a careful balance of ics, faith generation and culture/sp management. It is just a different way to play the game.

 

No shrine? temple?

 

Got a sub-T140 entry with the following strategy:

Reroll for a mostly desert start with at least one oasis and 2 distinct lux (marble preferred).

BO: scout,scout,shrine,monument,worker,settler,...,temple,oracle,settler,...
PO: Piety-opener (for fast shrine),Liberty,Republic,Coll.Rule(free/fast settler)
Piety-OR, MoH, RT, Reformation, Theocracy (plant Prophet - not enough time to move him to the other site of the map, otherwise I use him to spread my religion)

1st focus is culture. Always hoping for a culture hut, especially before starting the shrine in capital. Next try to find culture CS and do some quests for them.

Pantheon: Desert Folklore (off course)
Beliefs: 100g, pagodas, mosques, religious texts

TO: pottery,AH,->Masonry,Calendar,->Phil(temple,oracle),->Currency,->CS(open borders), Engineering(bridges)

During temple/oracle I tried to grow capital as much as possible. After that I got a new settler every 4 turns.

 

Turn 256. Could have been better. Forgot to build amphitheater in Capitol, delayed Broadcast Tower about 7 turns. Worst thing was Valletta, it had been bought by Venice behind my lines. So I went to war, took it in peace deal, but during AI turn, so was bitten by the "yield from center tile doesn't count" bug, starting somewhere in t130ish area.
Gonna try again, though. Morocco is fun. I didn't even really use the UA. Only one external trade route the whole game. Loved the Kasbahs.

 

Ok i tried your strategy and reached on turn 147 on same map which i uploaded,could do it better if a little better terrain,different nation(shouldn't put Venice in game),and better picks on ruins,i mostly get map/barbarian camps.
Also there was no need for second scout,instead i made library and also faster first settler.
And policy order i did bit different:
Starting with liberty opener,then republic,then with full piety except theocracy,free settler and then theocracy.This seems better but again kind a forgot how coll.rule also give faster settler,not just free one.So maybe do it after mandate of heaven on piety.I guess this would involve some mathematical formulas to get proper answer what is best lol.
Also what was funny,i made comparation pantheon versus 3 settlers build,and i finished on completely same turn in both cases.It seems if you dont make it,then opponent civ make it and then it have bigger defense so advantage of getting cites faster doesn't apply.
I wish if i could reload same map with everything same beside venice as civ.

 

I forgot to mention, that I choosed fixed opponents - no venice, austria, greeks. I think it was denmark, japan, huns, mongols and other warmongers. I hoped my religion would spread early and warmongers not always go for religion 1st.

 

Same here,picked huns,askia,mongolia,venice,england. Before i applied your strategy,askia was always leader,sometime even huns,after applying your strategy always venice.(i guess it's due having one city only while askia/huns have more so they got more if longer time)
And there is one trick which also helps - dont kill barbarian camps near other civs territory,they will take their settlers and then civs wont expand much,sometime not at all.

 

I can never find the last civ

 

Why dont you pick a civ that finds you?

 

Why do you want to stop the other civs from expanding?

The more they expand, the closer they are to you, the easier it is to have trade routes and shared religions.

 

any candidates that deserve mentioning or obvious? mongols and huns are pretty good as they're out searching for places to invade!

 

Not sure whether it is coincidence, but America and Portugal often find me quite early.

 

Did that with my last game and got turn 135. I find this a excellent result.
The last civ I found was a little too late since I was already producing tourism and he had the highest culture. Otherwise it might have been a few turns better.
I think I will just fall out of the medals.

 

T161 and I can't be faster. I wonder you're build order.
Liberty collective rules - Piety made a better game rather full piety.

 

Are you in the medals currently?