Harv's Civ6 Tour of Historical Learders - Current Game 7 - Pointy Hat Scythian Horse Lords

[Harv]

Game 7 - Tomyris of the Original Pointy Hat Scythian Horse Lords

The leader pack came out during the last game, but I did not want to go back in time in order to play all leaders in general historical order. So I went a little further in time and chose Tomyris of the Scythians. Settings are:
Still Emperor - Last game we got squashed right at the start and played multiple restarts to get comfortable.
Huge Terra Map - This will crowd us on a big continent. It might make it easier for us. It might make it tougher. We don't really know.
Added Heroes and Legends - We will complicate our game one ruleset at a time.
Kept Monopolies and Corporations - We are learning more about this rule set.
Kept Secret Societies - It was fun playing with the Vampires in the last game.
Disaster Intensity changed to 4 - As annoying as they are when they happen, I wonder if it slows down era progression when more bad stuff happens.

Spoiler :

Here is my take on the list of abilities and unique units:

Killer of Cyrus:
+5 versus wounded unit sounds nice. +30hp for the kill also sounds nice. I can think of a couple of strategies, maybe.
One drawback is this is a 100% combat ability. This gives me a visualization of the expression, "one-trick pony."
Another is by the late game where the AI no longer has units, this is no longer useful. At least by then we have won.
A question I have is if city garrisons count as units for the purpose of the hit point bonus. Even better if it counts for a wounded garrison.

Pointy-Hat Horse People of the Steppe:
This is a two-for-one special on light cavalry and Saka Horse Archers. The usefulness hinges on how many times we are building light cavalry units. If we build a single Saka Horse Archer, then we get a second one for "free" or a 100h value. We might win a few more hammers as we build other light cavalry.

Saka Horse Archer:
I don't know if it replaces any unit. If it does not, then we also have a Horseman and Archer unit. Strength is similar to Archers, but range is only 1. I do not know if they provide flanking bonuses, but they ignore ZoC. I can think of a few strategies with these.
When we cross into the Medieval Era, then we should have a lot of Crossbows.

Kurgan:
Flatland. 1 Faith, 3 Gold. I can see some potential with this. A big question is if we distract ourselves with early religion or not. Last game we ignored early religion and it worked out just fine. It is also available very early. T40 is my estimate for the Pantheon. So it is possible we get our Pantheon a little early if we are able to get our builder out earlier.
It also guarantees we generate faith and it might also save us from going bankrupt with all that light cavalry we are building.

3 points helping with warfare. 1 point helping with economy. Here is our start:

Spoiler :

It will take us 3 turns to reach that Plain Hill. That will give us a start, 3 turns behind, with a bonus hammer on our city tile.
Moving 2 turns will put us on a Tea tile. We would gain a bonus Science and we would have free access to a luxury resource.
We are near a southern extreme of the map. We see white tiles.

 

[Harv]

Game 7 Part 1A T16 3400BC - Early Game Decisions to Make

We actually did two starts previous and worked up to about T16 the second time. The first time, I did not like the idea of losing 3 turns to get a plains hill settlement. The second time, I just did not like the idea of locking in with the Heretic Order so early. This was enough to spoiler at least 5 key pieces of geographic information about this map.

Spoiler :

1. We have Mount Kilimanjaro about 7 tiles to the west of our starting location.
2. A continent can be found to the north.
3. A hut can be found to the southeast.
4. A lot of our land is very clearly and easily defended with mountain ranges. Except....
5. We have the Aztecs for neighbors.
6. We got to peek at some ley lines.

T1 4000BC - There was really one direction for our Warrior to wander and that was to the south and then to the west, around the hills, further into the Kumari Kandam Steppes. They go on seemingly forever. What is over that hill? Maybe it is easier to just go around the hill. To the southwest, we discovered a part of Lake Tai.
We also got to explore the headwaters of the Syr Dayra River. The river makes a big loop, then flows eastwards past our settlement and then into some mountains to the northeast. Rivers tend to flow downstream. So it makes no sense that they will flow into mountains. Maybe we study the path of the Niger River more closely. Are we on a very high plateau?
Here is our first settlement, Pokrovka.

Spoiler :

Oddly enough, if I change one vowel and two consonants, then I get the name of one of my mother's close friends. I do not know why I keep thinking of that when I read the name of our first settlement.

T2 3960BC - Our Warrior continued his journey to the NW and far to the west, he sighted a 4w1h tile. This cannot be normal. We must check it out!
T3 3920BC - Sure enough, we discovered Mount Kilimanjaro. This got us a contact with the Hermetic Order, a very early Eureka for Astrology, and a legend of the Ancient Hero, Beowulf. Maybe we misheard his name and it was really Ekindu.

Spoiler :

After a lot of deliberation, we decided to hang on to the Governor Title. We are not planning any builds in the near future. It will be close to Turn 50 by the time we get another governor title.
T8 3720BC - Our first Slinger is ready and we sent him off to explore the southeast. It was the quickest direction he could go.
Here, we decided to take a risk and started straight away on a Monument. We have access to a Hero already. The monument costs 60h and the dedication costs 20h. We can have access to a very powerful early unit and so far it is 80h away. For that cost, equivalent to 2 Warriors, we might actually be safe from an early invasion against an early attack from our worst-case (spoiler above) neighbor. In our last game, we were about 3 Warriors, 2 Archers, 1 Vampire against the Sumerian Host.

T9 3680BC - Our Slinger discovered the Ural River and a Village.
T10 3640BC - Our Warrior discovered Asiamerica on the other side of Sarycamysh Lake. We got another early Inspiration for Foreign Trade.
We also encountered Hercules! Now we have a choice in first Hero. I understand the Heretic Order is all about early strategic placement of cities and districts and Hercules can help us place those districts very quickly.

T11 3600BC - Animal Husbandry 25s
We entered a Tribal Village and got - An early Inspiration to Early Empire! This might actually come in handy. We are quickly moving towards Foreign Trade and we can make a ley line to Early Empire and we are likely to get there long before we get 6 in population.
Our amazing rng continues to run in that we also have access to Himiko.
(We actually ran a quick test on an old save and found this might have been tied to our early decision on the Heretic Order.)

T15 3440BC - We found and explored another Tribal Village and this one gave our Slinger enough experience to gain a level.
This gave us contact with the Voidsingers. So we have a choice to make here, as well.
T16 3400BC - Code of Laws 20c
The slinger can see borders from the Village and is foolish enough to investigate. We are greeted by Montezuma. Here is a map showing our situation.

Spoiler :

Their second city is about 10 tiles from our first and only city.
Most of this is rough terrain.
It would take a Warrior 8 Turns to attack our settlement from Malinalco.
We can accomplish quite a bit in 8 Turns, so feel safer based on that. For example, we can finish research on Archery.
I forgot to check diplomacy if he was in contact with anybody else.
We might have to leave a unit to watch for the inevitable attack.

We have a bunch of choices to make! The first and easiest is government.
Discipline or Survey is 95% easy. Discipline. Eventually Barbarians will show up to ruin the day. It is very strange we have not seen them yet.
Urban Planning or God-King is 90% easy. This is our earliest and best chance to get an early pantheon. So unless we have access to early faith, then our choice is God-King.

Next choice is Secret Society:
Heretic Order might actually go well with Hercules if we get him. We would have about 30 turns to slam down 3 districts. This should be doable. We make a second city with an amazing Holy Site.
If we are going with Voidsingers, now is a very good time to do it. We are almost finished our first Monument. The bonus Faith means we get to our Pantheon much earlier. We might even be able to skip God-King and still get our Pantheon T26. With God-King it's T24.
An alternative is to hold out for Sanguine Pact. There are no Barbarians in sight and even if we do find an Encampment, we might not gain access to them. Failing all of that, we would be going back to the Heretical Order of Hercules backup plan.

Finally, we have a first Hero to choose:
Beowolf - He's a one-trick pony and the Scythians love their ponies. I think with him, we are guaranteed safe from an Aztec threat.
Hercules - Those Mountains hide a lot of very nice Holy Sites and Campuses.
Himoko - In war, like another general. In peace, a diplomat.

 

[Harv]

Game 7 Part 1B T25 3040BC - The Origin Story of the Pointy Hat Scythian Horse Lords

T16 3400BC With a sample size too small to prove, based on only 7 games, 85.7% of the time we run Discipline and God-King, because we want access to a Pantheon, and God-King is the only way we have access to Faith, and this is the cheapest access we have to Faith. However, in the case of this game, after careful consideration, we finally decided to go with Discipline and Urban Planning. This moved sealed for us a choice, given the current hand we are dealt.

In a corner of the map, we saw signs of a rival civilization and dashes representing a border. So we moved our Slinger and came into contact with....

Spoiler :

This is every start's worst nightmare. I am told on a lot of Deity level games, this is an automatic restart. However, we are not playing Deity. We are playing Emperor. We also see none of his units, so we have at least 8 turns to live. This also gives us the Eureka for Writing. At the end of the turn, we caught a glimpse of a Barbarian Scout streaking across the Tundra wasteland and that is enough to give us a clue where we can find a Barbarian Encampment.

T17 3360BC So we went hunting to the southwest, east of the lake, figuring that was where the camp would be. We increased the level of our gamble, in that we changed our research to Pottery. We are betting that we do get the kill with a Slinger and win the Eureka for Archery. The prize for this gamble is 20s, or almost enough to outright buy the Pottery tech.
T18 3320BC The Monument is now complete. Now who we dedicate this Monument to? A familiar voice called to us, telling of the Origin Story of the Scythian People....

...Herakles came to this land before it was inhabited by the Scythians as it is now, when he was driving the cattle of Geryon...
When Herakles came from there to the land now called Scythia, the cold winter and frost overtook him, and he drew his lion's skin around him and fell asleep. meanwhile, by divine fortune, his horses disappeared from where they had been grazing while yoked to his chariot.

When Herakles awoke, he searched everywhere in the land and kept going until he reached a place called Hylaia. There he found a cave and within it, a creature that was half girl, half viper. From her hips up, she was a woman. From her legs down, a serpent...... She declared that that the horses were actually in her possession, and she would not return them until...
...

But she delayed returning the horses to him, as she wished to spend as much time as possible with Herakles, while all he wanted was to take his horses and leave. At last she gave them back saying, "...you in return have rewarded me with three sons."

...But Scythes, the youngest, performed the task and remained there. The kingship of the Scythians, and because of the original libation bowl, the Scythians still to this day wear cups hanging from their belts. AS for the mother of Scythes, this is the only role she is reported to have had in the origin of this race.......

-Herodotus 4.8, 4.9, 4.10
Edited by Robert B Strassler
Anchor Books, c2007

.....or did she play a deeper role than imagined?

Spoiler :

As a legitimate spoiler, here is what we passed up in terms of ley lines. We had sight of four of them, two already in sight of our capital city, a third one that could be used, and a fourth that would be more difficult to use.

Spoiler :

In our story, we are uniting Herakles with the Voidsingers, just as Herodotus recalled a story uniting Herakles with a serpent lady.
T19 3280BC We have sight of the Barbarian Encampment. For micromanagement, we worked the weed. We will speed up our science a little bit and still complete our dedication in two more turns.
T20 3240BC Warrior v Spear 30v31 24/32 5XP - We got our hindquarters handed to us over a single point difference. It is no matter. Blood of the enemy has been spilled.
T21 3200BC Herakles has joined us! He will be with us until T51. In the mean time, we will squeeze out another Slinger unit, because they are cheaper than Archers.
Warrior v Spear 32v29 28/26 10XP - We can see this blood makes a difference. However now, we are quite injured.
Our first slinger is promoted to L1 Volley.

T23 3120BC Pottery 25s
T24 3080BC Foreign Trade 40c - No change to civics
T25 3040BC It is time to choose our Pantheon. Here is a look at our situation.

Spoiler :

Two Pantheons have already been selected:
Religious Settlements - Maybe this will become an AI city that will become our own.
Sacred Path - We are close to the Tundra and not the Jungle.

We have a bunch of options open. I believe the idea in this game, the way we have drawn our cards, is to generate faith in insane quantities.
Dance of the Aurora is interesting, except we gain no benefit from it right now - and we will not gain a benefit until build a Tundra city. From the look of the map, we will have one with access to Jade and Pearls.
Earth Goddess is also interesting. We have mountain tiles everywhere.
Stone Circles might be worth 6 Faith, maybe more. That does not seem like much, considering we are already getting 4 from our monument.
We see a similar quantity from Religious Idols if we are lucky.
Craftsmen gets us 2 Faith and 2 Hammers, eventually.

Culture options are also interesting, but we believe faith in silly quantities is our answer.

 

[Harv]

Game 7 Part 1C T52 1960BC

T25 3040BC We try Dance of the Aurora this time! Inspiration Mysticism. This is a part, maybe even the middle, of a long chain of very bad decisions leading to more bad decisions. 9/11 Era.

Spoiler :

T26 3000BC Our Slinger cleared out a Barbarian Camp and Hercules cleared it out. Inspiration Military Tradition.
T29 2880BC Contact with Perry of Athens.
T30 2840BC We invested 50g in delegations to Monty and Perry. We can be friends for a while. We sighted another Barbarian Camp near Athens.
T31 2800BC Somebody already completed Stonehenge. We are likely to come in third in the race to religion.
T32 2760BC Herakles sacked another Barbarian Camp and launched at the Horseman to make it an easy kill for our Archer.
Wheat Farm for our primary settlement. Eureka Irrigation.
Herakles killed the spears trying to avenge their camp. Eureka Bronze Working.
T33 2720BC Monty returned the favor of sending a delegation. There will be peace in our time.
T34 2680BC Perry took up Fertility Rites.

T35 2640BC For Civics, we switched to Discipline and Colonization
We hired Mags for our primary settlement. Tea Plantation. From my understanding of the Scythian people, this was probably not tea, but something else.
T37 2560BC Contact with Gilgamesh.

T38 2520BC Suddenly we got a Barbarian spawn to our northeast in what we believed to be a very unlikely spot too close to our settlement. We activated all of our units and sent them to protect our plantation of weeds. Meanwhile, Perry returned the favor of a delegation.
T39 2480BC Another tea plantation got us the Inspiration for Craftsmanship.

T41 2400BC For Civics, we went with Discipline and Urban Planning
T42 2360BC Archer promoted to L1 Volley. Here we founded a very sub-optimal city. If we are Steppe Nomads, can we even call this a city?
I must have been so embarrassed by it, I forgot to take a picture!
We planted a Holy Site and got the Inspiration for State Workforce.
T43 2320BC Our Warrior sacked another Barbarian Camp and that put us in contact with the Sanguine Pact. Hindsight says we should have been patient and waited. On the plus side, this makes it much more likely we secure our Golden Age.
T44 2280BC A Horse Pasture got us the Eureka for Horseback Riding.
T46 2200BC We started a cotton plantation and promoted our Warrior to L1 Battlecry.
Elsewhere in the world, the Greeks and Sumerians have gone to war. Maybe they will be distracted for a while and we can build our power base.
T47 2160BC With life of Herakles coming to an end, we built a Kurgan for him. This also secures a Golden Age.
T48 2120BC We established a trade route from Kul Oba to Pakrovka. This got us the Eureka for Currency. This time we have a screenshot and the embarrassment that is our empire is becoming very obvious. If it was not for some luck from a Tribal Village, we would not even had the Eureka for Early Empire! We would be all the way to T50 waiting for it - and maybe even some Classical Era charity!

Spoiler :

T51 2000BC RIP Hercules.

Ancient Era Summary:
Technology 7/11
T11 Animal Husbandry 25
T23 Pottery 25
T27 Archery 50
T34 Irrigation 50
T36 Mining 25
T39 Astrology 50
T47 Bronze Working 80

Civics 4/7
T16 Code of Laws 20
T24 Foreign Trade 40
T35 Early Empire 70
T41 Craftsmanship 40

Production:
T8 Slinger 35h
T18 Monument 60h
T21 Dedication to Hercules 20h
T26 Slinger 35h
T32 Builder 50h
T40 Settler 80h (and 33f)
T48 Trader 48h
T51 Scout 30h

Investments:
T28 Archer 60g
T30 Archer 60g
T42 Tundra Tile for Holy Site 60g
T43 Builder 215g
T46 Grass Tile for Encampment 60g

Trade Deals:
T39 Tea to Monty for 10g + 13gpt - Value 270g (Currently calling 1gpt worth 20g)
T46 Tea to Perry for 79g + 12gpt - Value 319g

Body Count:
T26 Slinger k Barbarian Spear
T27 Slinger k Barbarian Scout
T32 Herakles k Barbarian Spear
T32 Archer k Barbarian Horseman
T41 Archer k Barbarian Scout
T43 Warrior k Barbarian Spear

The Deeds of Herakles
T26 Herakles sacked a Barbarian Camp already cleared by our Slinger.
T32 Herakles sacked another Barbarian Camp cleared because the Barbarians were busy chasing Greeks.
T32 Then Herakles smashed into the Barbarian Horseman counterattack, making it a very easy kill for our Archers.
T32 Then Herakles smashed the Barbarian Spears as they tried to take revenge for their camp getting sacked.
T42 Herakles built the Kul Oba Holy Site
T49 Herakles built the Pokrovka Encampment
T51 We buried Herakles in the Kurgan near Kul Oba.

T52 1960BC - We start the Classical Era in a Golden Age. With Faith generation at 14 and going up to 18 next turn, Monumentality seems the obvious choice. We can finally build Settlers and get back into this game.
We should choose a location for our Government Plaza.
We are 10/60 on a Great Prophet and likely to come in third place. At our current pace, we are looking at T102.
Here is a look at both sides of our Empire Embarrassment:

Spoiler :

 

[Harv]

Game 7 Part 2 T93 575BC - From Brilliant Beacon to Darkness

T54 1880BC - Apparently there is an Aussie Sumo war. To this day, we have not been able to locate the Aussies.
T57 1760BC Contact with Geneva
T58 1720BC Greco Sumo Peace Deal
T59 1680BC Contact with Portgal
T60 1640BC Founded Gelonus

Spoiler :

T61 Contact Preslav
T65 Contact Nzinga
T66 Contact Milta
Since we were not at war, we went with Classical Republic, Urban Planning, and Land Surveyors.
T71 Contact Dido
We claimed John the Baptist and founded Quetzalcoatl. I could not think of a creative name for a snake goddess.

Spoiler :

We were fourth in the religion race. We went with Work Ethic and Papal Supremacy.
T72 Founded Myriv

Spoiler :

T76 1000BC marked the Aztec-Portugal war. It is not going well for the Portuguese. It might be because the Aztecs have access to Beowulf.
T79 We claimed Kimoko and have sent her off establishing envoys.
T80 With Theology established, we ran Urban Planning, Scripture, Diplomatic League, and Maritime Industries
T84 Founded Pazyryk. It was probably in an embarrassing location, because we did not take a picture.
T86 Monty claimed Beowulf. As well as I understand his special power is deleting units.
T87 Contact Hong Kong
T90 The Aztecs have conquered Lisbon.

Technology:
T53 Writing
T61 Currency
T62 Military Training
T67 Horseback Riding
T72 The Wheel
T77 Iron Working
T79 Masonry
T86 Construction
T92 Engineering

Civics:
T53 State Workforce
T61 Mysticism
T64 Sailing
T66 Political Philosophy
T75 Drama and Poetry
T80 Theology
T87 Games and Recreation
T93 Military Training

Governors:
T53 Mags Provision
T82 Hired Piggy

Investments:
T52 Builder 80F
T53 Government Tile 70g
T55 Settler 150F
T60 Volcanic Tile 70g
T64 Volcanic Tile 70g
T65 Builder 85F
T69 Settler 195F
T72 Horse and Tea and Science Site 224g
T74 Quarry 96g
T80 Settler 235F
T88 Settler 280F Builder 205g

T92 600BC - We enter the Medieval Period in a Dark Age. Obviously, we decided to dedicate this to Exodus of the Evangalicals.

Spoiler :

T93 575BC - World Congress met and have blessed us with cheap military units.

Spoiler :

We thought we could get all of our settlers and builders from Faith income, but it is clear we overestimated our faith income. We only have 5 cities to show for our efforts, when we should really be at 10. Here is our situation. It's a very rushed sit-rep, because I am very excited to play this!

Spoiler :

 

[Harv]

Game 7 Part 3 T136 500AD - Dark Medieval Age

T93 575 BC - Contact with Auckland
For policy, we went with Urban Planning, Scripture, Dilpomatic League, and Veterancy

T94 550BC - A special session put us into contact with nearly the entire world. Philip, John Curtin, Seondeok.
Aid to Philip succeeded. Aid to Unkown (Byzantium) failed.
Military emergency was declared versus Dido, putting her at war with Nzinga, Gilgamesh, and Perry.
There was also a military emergency declared against Monty, allying us with Nzinga and Joao. Yep! They called in the big guns!

Spoiler :

We founded Issyk in the frozen southern tundra. Once again, it is such an embarrassment of a city we did not bother to take a picture.
Vassaled Hong Kong.
T95 525BC Claimed Sun Tzu and established contact with Fred.
T96 500BC Promoted PIggy to Researcher
Changed government to Oligarchy. Veterancy, Raid, Scripture, Urban Planning.

T98 450BC We promoted Voidsinger Chorus. This was a big oversight on our part and it cost us about 2 turns of really big science and culture benefits from our faith income.
Our Apostle added Holy Order to our religion.
Captured our first Aztec city, Tlacopan

T102 350BC - We claimed Sinbad! I was hearing so much about how broken he was. In this case, there is an entire continent to find.
Civics Feudal Contract, Raid, Scripture, Serfdom

T107 225BC Captured our second Aztec city, Malinalco and a builder.
T108 200BC We managed to defeat the Aztec hero Beowulf. He was supposed to delete more of our units, but the AI does not know how to use him.
Vassaled Auckland, Preslav
Civics Feudal Contract, Raid, Scripture, Professional Army

T111 125BC A special session put us into contact with Byzantium Basil.
T112 Capture Tenochtitlan. 1/11 Captials

Spoiler :

T115 25BC Captured Xochicalco
T116 1AD For 1000 Faith invested we got Herakles back. Hindsight says we should have waited several turns to save some faith, but we got him back.
T117 25AD Founded Solo Kha
T118 50AD We hired Mosh. For now, he can help stabilize captured cities, but eventually he will be useful in the religious wars.
Civics Craftsmen, Raid, Scripture, Isolationism

T119 75AD Captured Faro and a Builder. This fulfills our objective and we won the challenge. However, we are also jerks and not giving the city back. We will continue the war against the Aztecs.
T120 100AD Monarchy established
Craftsmen, Raid, Scripture, Charismatic Leader, Serfdom, Gothic Architecture
T121 125AD Recruited Marco Polo

T122 150AD The Monarchy lasted only 2 turns. We established a Theocracy instead.
Craftsmen, Professional Army, Scripture, Gothic Architecture, Charismatic Leader, Retinue
Captured Kwango. Once again, we are being jerks and not giving back the city. We let it rebel every few turns and smashed it all the way down to size 1.

T123 175AD We went 0/2 on the World Congress and spent all of our diplomatic favor trying to win a single vote and we did not.
RIP Himoko. She served us well.
T125 225AD We formed a military alliance with Gilgamesh, most likely the only one who will be friends with us. Hopefully he will pick a fight somewhere and drag us along for the ride. Failing that, eventually our missionaries will find him. We promoted Piggy to Connosseur.
Craftsmen, Raid, Scripture, Gothic Architecture, Confederation, Urban Planning

T127 275AD Terracotta Army is complete - and indeed we have an entire army to promote.

Spoiler :

Special session was called to put us at war with the world over a tiny Congo city, but the vote failed and we will eventually have to go to war the old fashioned way.
T128 300AD - Captured Lisbon. Now we have 2/11 Capitals. With our objective achieved, we settled a peace with the Aztecs and collected 20gpt.
They managed to keep a single builder that they managed to capture because we left it alone at the wrong time, but we will not make a big deal of it.

Spoiler :

T129 325AD We are denounced by Nzinga and Philip and Perry and Joe and about half the world. It looks like 4/11 leaders hate us.
T130 350AD Claimed Piero de Bardi. 200g and 1 Envoy. Yay! We got Auckland back.
T131 375AD Craftsmen Retinues, Professional Army, Scripture, Gothic Architecture, Machiavellanism
We spent 800g on a Trebuchet to claim a Eureka before upgrading.
T132 400AD RIP Sinbad - He made us a lot of money!
Founded Tolystaya and we completed Huey Teocalli again.

Spoiler :

We actually have quite a few lake tiles!

T133 425BC The Grandmaster Chapel is complete! We can eventually buy military units with Faith if we want. This might come in handy in case the Greeks suddenly get aggressive. They have condemned us, but are most likely hoping we do not turn our army their direction. Most likely we will not. We will wait until the world condemns us and all of our lucrative trade deals expire.
Piggy is promoted to Grants. We are in a race to get Imhotep. This is also a race we can buy with gold.

Technology:
T96 Apprenticeship
T98 Celestial Navigation
T00 Shipbuilding
T101 Mathematics
T103 Stirrups
T109 Military Engineering
T110 Machinery
T113 Buttress
T117 Education
T120 Gunpowder
T127 Metal Casting
T132 Mass Production
T136 Siege Tactics

Civics:
T96 Defensive Tactics
T98 Recorded History
T102 Feudalism
T108 Mercenaries
T113 Civil Service
T118 Guilds
T120 Divine Right
T122 Reformed Church
T125 Medieval Faires
T131 Diplomatic Service

T136 500AD - This takes us to the Renaissance era, nearly 1000 years before it actually started. We got to the other side of a Dark Age and emerged into a Heroic Age.
So the question is, what kind of heroes are we going to embrace?
Once again, we forgot to take a good picture of our empire and the night is young and I can keep playing!

 

[Harv]

Game 7 Part 4 - Renaissance Era Religious Victory

T136 500AD We entered the Renaissance Era in a heroic age and we get to pick 3 dedications. We went with:
Monumentality - Settlers and Builders we can buy cheaper are always nice.
Exodus - Of course!
Dracones - Well we chose this map with an entire continent to explore. Hindsight says both were bad ideas.

Policy we went with Craftsmen, Conscription, Scripture, Simultaneum, Merchant Confederation, Natural Philosophy.
We retired Sun Tzu. His time has come. Apparently we are done with warfare.

T137 Cartography
T138 Humanism
Craftsmen, Professional Army, Scripture, Gothic Architecture, Merchant Confederation, Invention
It looks like Craftsmen, Scripture, and Invention will be our workhorse and there is no sense in repeating those.

T139 Printin
T140 Built the Colossus, simply because we could.
Vassaled Mitla and Preslav

T141 The Enlightment. Built the Mausoleum. Converted Kabasa. This is probably the end of Buddhism as a credible threat.
Conscription, Gothic Architecture, Merchant Confederation
T142 Square Rigging
We are denounced by 6/11 opposing civs.

T144 Banking. Mercantalism. Claimed the Great General Amina. We kept him around because we have units from his era.
T146 Astronomy. Exploration. RIP Hercules.
We promoted Mosh to Lay on Hands. We plan one more promotion.
T147 Claimed Filipo Brunelleschi. I forget what he does.
We are now denounced by 7/11 opposing civs.

T150 Industrialization. Claimed Zheng He. Meanwhile on the other continent we founded Neapolis. It looks like I decided we were done with taking pictures of new cities. This one had access to Citrus and Marble and we start at Size 4 and we went straight to work on a Harbor.
T152 Civil Engineering. We built Mont St. Michel again because we could and we were running short of good builds.
Mosh is promoted to Citadel of God. At this point we are spamming Apostles.
Conscription, Skyscrapers, Merchant Confederation.
T153 Built the Forbidden City. Claimed Giovanna de Medici.
Triangular Trade is now a workhorse. Apparently Merchant Confederation is as well. Skyscrapers.
T154 Built Taj Mahal. Scientif Theory.
Special session was called against us for a religious emergency, but it failed.

T156 Built Hagia Sophia. Now we get yet another charge. Claimed Leonardo de Vinci.
A Tribal Village gave us yet another governor title and we promoted Mosh to Patron Saint.
T157 Steam Engine. Nationalism.
T158 Claimed Dmitri Mendelev for what it's worth.
T160 Opera and Ballet. Founded Olbia, the other city on the new continent. So the Dracones was not such a big pick for us, because we have been putting our energy into religion.

T161 Sanitation
T162 Colonialsim
T164 Economics. Built Potala Palace. Now we have an extra diplomacy slot.
T165 Natural History
T166 Claimed Raja Todarmal
T167 Ballistics
T168 Scorched Earth
T169 Military Science. Flight.

T172 Another special session was called against us for a religious emergency, but it failed 5 to 4. The AI gave up.
Rifling. Urbanization. Claimed Francis Drake.

T174 Religious Victory

Spoiler :

Scythians are supposed to do domination victory, but a decision back on T16 started us on the faith path and early pantheon allowed huge amounts of faith. Had we focused away from faith and worked with vampires, then we were much more likely to do domination.

1268 points. Not much.