Got strategy-blocked, need a new plan for victory...

[paralistalon]

After my last failed attempt at a Religion-focused game, I started anew with Byzantine. The map was random which ended up being continents; standard size; immortal. It's turn 160 or 170. I completed Liberty and then went into Piety with the plan of getting Sacred Sites for a Culture victory. My religion, Protestantism, has Monastaries, Pagodas, and Cathedrals. Along with the Great Mosque, this gave my capital all 4 faith buildings! I'm sitting at 4 cities and each one has all 3 faith buildings set up. My faith is about 70 per turn and is benefiting from a nice Pilgramage bonus.

So... with 5 turns until my reformation belief, Boudicca, who is on my continent, adopts Sacred Sites. She has Mosques, so I guess she figured it would work for her. :/ I am now left wondering what I am going to do (suggestions please!).

My religion is perhaps 55-60% dominant on our continent, with Boudicca's religion taking over the other half. I am considering if there is a way to get her religion, Buddhism, to spread back over my cities (so I could then build Mosques and have Sacred Sites in all my cities!). Unfortunately, I don't know how one would accomplish this. I think the only thing I could do would be to steal a freshly made Great Prophet and try to carry him back to my cities. This might be difficult considering we are already at war.

Or should I just take another foucs entriely? Charitable Missions and Jesuit Education are already taken.

 

[justanotherturn]

You need to get to reformation before finishing liberty to get sacred site. usually the IA pick sacred site even sooner than in your game. (you say it's around turn 170)

You can check the religion panel before choosing a reformation SP, if all interesting choice are taken, i'll usually pass on that and focus on other things.

If you manage to make your religions the world religion, you can still get a cultural victory in a more "classical way". you can even kill boudicca and use her religions to help you boost your tourism.

 

[paralistalon]

How does it work if I capture one or more of boudicca's cities? I'm pretty sure I can spawn missionaries/inquisitors of her faith, but can I spawn her great prophet?

 

[Browd]

No, you cannot spawn a GP of her religion -- all GPs will be of your religion.

But, as you note, you can buy Missionaries and Inquisitors of her religion, as long as you buy them in cities where her religion is the majority religion.

 

[kb27787]

You can't spawn a GP of her religion, but you sure as heck can capture one... and she might be willing to give you her religion in your holy city for "free" (once she plots against you)
Be nasty to her (or nice, depending on how much backstabbing tendency she has) or just convert one of her cities to your religion. I'm sure she'll send a prophet to your holy city soon enough then you can either capture the prophet through DoW, or just buy inquisitors from it to convert your other cities. (if you use an inquisitor on your own holy city, it removes all traces of your religion though including holy city status if I am correct... so don't do that if you plan on getting world religion Wc proposal... but your satellites are ok)

 

[Teadrinker]

Get religious fervour, buy artillery with faith. Win.

 

[Maxym]

Definitely try to steal her prophet, if not get her city and do it with inquisiotrs. With four buildings you will get huge tourism. Next time beeline your reformation, you just need cheaper settlers from liberty then reformation then you can go back to finish liberty.

 

[sendos]

With standard, AI grabs reformations as early as turn 100-120. They could grab it earlier if they get oracle or you have Poland in your game.

But damn, bad luck about the sacred sites plan. You were right to choose liberty to accelerate expansion, but instead of finishing it, work on piety as soon as possible. Grabbing oracle would help. Also, leave theocracy until after reformation belief. Once you found your religion, you don't need to complete the piety tree to make use of the reformation.

 

[Callonia]

There is less difficult plan, Capture a missionary from her in war or barbarians then have it spread religion to newly settled town of yours and start cranking out missionaries and inquisitors from that newly settled town.

Enough faith and time, her religion will be yours xD Especially if you have plenty of inquisitors eradicating ur religion at once then missionaries ready to spread immediately.

You might want to wait til you have several inquisitors and missionaries recruited before having them spread its so that you will have a solid network ready and set up which won't convert too quickly.

 

[Mutineer]

If you want to try religion base strategy I would advice to use Bodica.

Forget about liberty - go Piety strigth away. Pure piety.
Steal workers build settlers. Works very good on immortal, did not try opn deity.

 

[paralistalon]

Thanks for the advice! I ended up declaring war and snatching Poland's great prophet (which I discovered had only 1 use left...) and then was able to snag one of Boudicca's prophets that had 3 uses left. I had four established cities. So what I did was found two new cities, which quickly got Protestantism. I quickly built all the faith buildings, then converted my 4 established cities to Buddhism in 3 turns. I made a missionary in my capital, which was now spreading Buddhism, and converted my two small cities. I then built mosques in all my cities for a total of 6 cities with all four faith buildings and sacred sites!

Of course... I have found that the tourism boost isn't anywhere near broken at this late stage of the game... the 48 tourism won't be doing much when I have Portugal on the other continent going for culture who already has 10,000! But still, it's a good start for culture victory I suppose.

Now the hard part, figuring out how to spread to the other continent, and also weighing whether it's worth it to get labeled a major warmonger.