Help/Question - A world full of Buddhists

[Polobo]

First the question. What is the diplomatic penalty for razing the city with a religious shrine, and does it scale depending on the number of cities with the religion present?

Now, the help part. I am playing a huge big-small map with 15 civs, 11 of which share my continent (the big one). I am Bismarck and just researched military tradition, I am pretty much at tech parity, middle of the road power. 4th in score to my neighbors HC, Justinian, and Monty. I've gotten Monty to attack HC, but Justinian and HC are friendly, as I am with Justinian (we currently have a DP).

I am 2nd to Hyuana Capac in GNP, mostly because HC has the Buddhist shrine and the entire big continent is Buddhist. HC also built the AP in the shrine city which happens to be the capital. My big concern is if I do take out the shrine/AP city, that Justinian (power leader) will attack me and I will probably have to sacrifice 1 city in order to keep my core intact (I've only 7 cities at this point). I don't plan on capturing any of HC's cities in the short term, although I will probably raze 3-5 of them if I can, then try to make peace and/or get him to capitulate.

Is there anyway to get HC and Justinian against each other or at least minimize the chance that Justinian will attack me? I cannot get Justinian to attack anyone else either.

 

[madscientist]

Justinian is a zealot and will stick to HC. Adopt Theocracy for while (ar eyou also Buddhist?). If you are a different religion I would assume Justinian comes after you for razing the holy city.

 

[Polobo]

Everyone, including myself, is Buddhist. I think pretty much every city has the religion present (on the big island); all 7 of mine do.

Aside from presenting the spread of religion would adopting Theocracy help at all (diplomatically)?

 

[r_rolo1]

Without a save or a SS I may be wrong, but why not:
-Capture shrine + other city in same continent
-Create colony

This will take the shrine of HC, provide extra cover to your troops ( every city you liberate to colony has 2 draftable defenders of the bat ,inclung the first ones ) and give you a friendly AI with lots of cash

 

[madscientist]

Justinian' favorite civic is theocracy. My guess is that he will not attack if you are in theocracy for a while and the same religion.

 

[bioelectricclam]

As a matter of course, I never level shrines - the gold boost is too good to justify it. I'd try bribing Justinian to stop trading (which cancels open borders) with Huayna, then take the city from him - then Justininian would have to declare war on you to take the city from you, AND war on huayna to enter his territory. At least, I'm assuming that he wouldn't have another route to get to the city besides through Huayna's turf. And the AI almost never wages a two-front war.

Another idea is to take the city and try to defend it; it should be possible if you use nationhood to draft some spare troops.

 

[Polobo]

If the shrine and AP were not in the same city I would keep the shrine. The problem is I feel that in order to get myself enough territory, and later possibly attempt a domination win (and even space), I need the AP gone otherwise war is going to be extremely difficult since the only civs I can attack (I am land-locked, no idea where the islands are) are all Buddhist.

Justinian is directly across from 1 core and 1 supplemental city of mine. Also, he has a city directly to my north that I want to capture eventually to complete a perfect city barrier around my capital (the other 6 cities are spread out in a circular fashion around my capital with only the north border unprotected).

 

[oyzar]

Razing AP when it is under your own religion seems pretty silly.. After a fast war you should be able to take control over the AP or maybe even before if you have enough territory.. with AP all your temples get +2 hammers too remember(as do monastaries and cathedrals).

 

[Polobo]

I am well aware of the benefits but the downside is constant forced-peace. I am not large enough to gain control of the AP and thus control the vote and by the time I get there I won't really care. The extra hammers, while nice, will be offset by the German UB. Also, while I lose the hammer bonus so does everyone else.

Unless I am missing something, I think the downsides of not being in control of the AP but belonging to its religion outweigh the positives, especially right now while I only have 7-10 cities and my opponents have many more.

 

[oyzar]

If you have 7-10 cities and your opponents have many more won't the shrine give at least 30 gold? Thats quite alot for one city. It is your game though...

 

[SnowlyWhite]

why would you raze a cash cow city? I mean, keep the city and enjoy the cash...

otherwise: if you raze the city, you'll get -5; if you declare, you'll get an additional -1 since they're friends. That shouldn't be enough to put justinian below pleased. I mean, you should have ~8 from religion, 2 from ob, 2 for some crap resource you provided, 1 for peace, let's say - 1-2 for refusing him crap... ~13 - (7 - 8) = ~5-6, you're very well pleased. At pleased, he won't declare on you and can't be bribed to declare on you either; if hc has nothin' to bribe him with, the discussion is pointless to start with...

1 more thing - memory for razing holy city is 200 turns... so it'll take a while till everyone forgets about it. And when your relations start dropping, they'll start asking crap, which obviously will only sink you lower. I'd keep it and, worst case, defy a resolution, though the ai is crappy at using the ap. Especially since most probably give you only 3-4 for sharing the same religion.

adopting theo would make sense only if justinian is in theo too, which he shouldn't, judging after the situation(I mean, there doesn't seem to be any enemy for him around). But again, shouldn't be the case if you're at friendly; and generally, if you share relligion with the dude, you can pretty much ignore him. He's a lousy backstabber so won't help you stir trouble in any way. Just use monty as your pet and that's that.

 

[Polobo]

I ended up razing it, along with 2 other cities and working to take out 2 more. -2 diplo for "you razed a holy city". I had a stack of 30 or so Currassiers and not nearly enough units to put up a defense outside of my core cities. HC brought Monty in against me as well, though Justinian hasn't declared but it is in the "we have enough on our hands right now" stance. I think Justinian and Monty are at war, and Justinian is winning since he has now encompassed my civ on three sides, whereas Monty was in sole possession of my southern border before. Monty also took out an outlier city held by HC to my SW (barb capture from the early days)

I dropped HC's GNP by over 200, putting me in first place. The biggest reason, besides seeing how things play out, is that while I power built a strong offensive force my best defensive unit is muskets against curassiers, and I barely have enough of those to defend my own, surrounded territory. I didn't want to expand myself just yet, and when I do I hope to take out Justinian as opposed to HC since I will reduce my exposure considerably going north-east as opposed to increase my exposure by taking out HC to the north-west and expanding toward Joao who also does not like me very much.

Shaka and Monty are neighbors and Shaka still seems to like me so my plan is to basically hold off HC once I raze his last 2 outliers and focus my attention on pushing Monty away from my borders while I am still in good graces with Justinian and Shaka. Then, hopefully I can expand into Justinian's territory to secure my core, and decide whether my Pazers and Assembly Plants will be used for domination or whether I will pursue space.