Great prophet opening bulb strategy

[Gr8scott]

Greetings CIV players,

I am getting back into CIV 4 a bit, and was playing around with a bulbing strategy opening that I wanted to get comments on.

Here is a quick overview:

Pre-reqs
-Philosophical leader (ideal seems to be Ghandi)
-Good capital suitable for bureaucracy
-Emp / immortal level seems to work best

Tech strategy
Pretty standard worker techs, BW, etc.
-focus on priesthood to Oracle sling to CoL
*add religious techs to allow GP to bulb theology (med., poly, mono, etc)
*add Civil Service pre-reqs after this (math)

Build strategy
key additions are early stonehenge + early oracle (sooo shiny!)
I usually go worker, detour to Henge, back to normal (hopefully chop assisted)
Build Oracle when available

Bulbing
With a philosophical leader and two sources of GP points you get your second GP about the time you are able to build civil service.

Advantages of this strategy
-Early bureaucracy
-Very valuable trading tech -- theology
--As a trading tech, this one is nice because it is highly valued, (seemingly) rarely teched by the time you want to trade it, and also may let you pick who gets first crack at the AP. It also is a dead end tech, so you don't feel too bad using it in trade compared to something immediately useable like CoL.
-good chance of founding 2 religions if that helps your mid/late game strategy
-With bureaucracy, you have a good chance at power researching to maces and conquest.
-can spread (inflict?) religion on neighbors since you get a free missionary with both confucian and christian.


Disadvantages:
-early production used on wonders instead of rex.
-Wonder synergy with Bureaucracy low?
-later Great people harder to get
-probably lots of others...see thread below


Considerations / enhancements
-Better uses for great prophets? join? shrines?
-Perhaps juice it with a temple (confucian via free missionary) and run a priest if you are tech-ready for CS buld before GP produced.


Anyway, I tried it a few times and it seemed to work pretty well. Would love to hear thoughts on why it is poor or how it could be improved!

Thanks!

 

[CreeDakota]

I think the key to this strategy is to look at oppotunity costs:

Hugely delayed Great Scientist = no academy for along time, maybe ever.
Founding Two religious = may make a harder diplo position and encourage running more priests for an even longer delay at an academy.

I have found my most successful religious games are where I focus on it heavily, including going for University of Sankore, Spiral Mirinet, AP and possibly Sistine Chapel.

As for an Early priest If build oracle or stonehedge, I am often satifiied with a settled early great priest. I can usually let you afford one more city and has a few hammers as a bonus.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Yeah I like a settled great prophet too. +5 gold and +2 hammers usually enough for an extra 10% science.

EDIT: And it's +5 gold the whole game, which is a lot, and that's before markets etc.

 

[Yesod]

If you're grabbing Code of Laws with the Oracle you might as well turn the Prophet to a shrine. Last game I did that I got 12 /turn automatically. It was a big & small map that turned out to look like a pangaea. Also, using the second great person on theology is in lieu of bulbing philosophy with great scientists.

I definitely know what you mean when you say you can "inflict" religions on people with that Confucian missionary. That little bastard can change the tech pace of the entire game. Having control over who gets theology might be worth it.

You might also try grabbing metal casting with Oracle if you find yourself on a water start, and bulbing Code of Laws or Theology with the first GP. I've never tried it, but it'd be great if it works.

 

[dalamb]

I've never settled a prophet except in OCC; am I missing something? If you shrine the prophet and have >5 cities, he gets more gold than settling him. I imagine the +2 boost early in the game is pretty significant, though.

 

[DaveMcW]

I've never settled a prophet except in OCC; am I missing something? If you shrine the prophet and have >5 cities, he gets more gold than settling him. I imagine the +2 boost early in the game is pretty significant, though.

You need 8 cities plus 7 missionaries before the shrine pays off.

 

[Cookie Crumbs]

Or 8 cities with the relevant religion...

 

[MkLh]

I think the key to this strategy is to look at oppotunity costs:

Hugely delayed Great Scientist = no academy for along time, maybe ever.
Founding Two religious = may make a harder diplo position and encourage running more priests for an even longer delay at an academy.

I don't think this is a problem. You can grow GS in your second city before GPs are born and with Caste it comes pretty quickly. However this is quite difficult to pull out on Immortal. You need a lot of techs (barbs are problem with Stonehenge since there are fewer fogbusters - often need Archery) and building Oracle after 1500BC is not safe (in my attemp it went on 1700's). I actually suggest to skip BW unless you have a rich start.

 

[MkLh]

Well, I tested this. Immortal/Epic, Sitting Bull because he's got a guaranteed barb defence with BW. Bureaucracy and Academy 485BC, another GP coming in few turns. Otherwise undeveloped but the playing was far from optimal. I won't continue this boring isolation game, but in non-isolation early Bureau may be very nice (macemen rush?).


View attachment Bull BC-0485.CivBeyondSwordSave

 

[Yesod]

You need 8 cities plus 7 missionaries before the shrine pays off.

It depends on the map of course; the game I was playing I was boxed in and Confucianism had already spread. I didn't have to do anything to get that gold.

Sometimes you have to make an investments to see a profit. Firaxis didn't seem to reflect this too much in Civ IV, but as far as this is concerned, I'd rather give up the 2 hammers (you're gonna get at least 5 cities without building missionaries, right? You already start with 2.) than miss out on a shrine that will give me nearly 100 /turn once I put down wall street. I don't play very often on Deity though, and I understand Firaxis designed it differently.

 

[Gr8scott]

You need a lot of techs (barbs are problem with Stonehenge since there are fewer fogbusters - often need Archery) and building Oracle after 1500BC is not safe (in my attemp it went on 1700's). I actually suggest to skip BW unless you have a rich start.

Thanks for giving it a try MkLh.

In more testing, I think it is workable, but requires focus.

Additional thoughts:
-Barbs are definitely a problem you have to plan on.

-The ability to create a shrine is not lost if you use a GP to bulb CS. In my last couple of games, confucian spread to the capital and I burned the christian missionary on the capital. This allowed me to build two cheap temples (ghandi) for happiness and also I could juice the prophet points by running two priest specialists. In this game, I actually burned the second prophet on a shrine since a neighbor went confucian crazy, and quickly got another GP before I was ready to research CS. You could still go academy with 3rd Great person and shrine with 4th, etc.

-I find a big tradeoff early on is getting the techs to make Oracle ==> CoL a reality (fast enough) puts a lot of restrictions on what you can do. Once this is done, the rest is pretty low risk.

-Theology as a trading tech is fantastic. No one has it. Everyone wants it. It doesn't really help the AI that much to get it. What could be better? When you get trading enabled, there are tons of backfill + pretty good techs you can secure with it (backfill + ironworking, monarchy, currency, construction, etc is typical). You end up pretty comfortable with techs plus a big lead on getting CS and can focus on getting to maces.

Anyway, not sure yet if it is consistently doable, but when it works you are pretty good position (at least compared to my other early strats).