[BTS] Hesha's Random Questions

No, I'm playing Standard with high water. Not sure it's efficient, but it feels damn good to build missionaries in cities that can produce them 1/turn and see your income grow.

Oh, and I play Epic Speed.

 

Well, on epic speed just capturing stuff is very efficient. Of course, you can roleplay if you want.

 

True. I had already reached critical mass in terms of cities / pop vs ai, so it was only a matter of time before leaving them in the dust technologically. So I figured, doing the missionary thing and speeding up my teching to then overwhelm them with superior troops rather than superior numbers (mech inf vs inf) would be more fun. I guess I would have had a better score if I had destroyed them sooner, though.

 

Shrines can be fun, but as sampsa alluded to, it comes down to winning the game. On Normal (honestly, surprised you play epic speed after the hullabaloo you made earlier ), if I luck on a rare early shrine grab, it may be worth the investment in spreading that religion. But at the points you are talking about I'm usually in full bore "win the game" mode.

 

Likely because you got 1gpt from the shrine, then that was doubled to 2gpt due to market/grocer/bank.
Then you saved 1 gpt in unit upkeep and 1 gpt in unit supply. (As the missionary was outside of your borders perhaps?)

Right now, I'm playing alot of isolation maps, trying to desperatly come to terms with my personal impulse to constantly settle more cities just because I can. A habit that works well when in competion for land and when I have trading opportunities, but doesn't work that great when in isolation...

To get a better feel for how cities cost me I I try to check the economics tab and check for unit upkeep and supply whenever I settle a new city, in addition to how my BPT and -GPT behaves at 100% research.
That way, I can filter away the effect of unit upkeep. If I didn't do that, new cities would look more lucrative than they really are.

 

I can see some point and merit in trying to build up long term strength and resiliance in your empire by making long term yielding investments.
It's a very good thing to fall back to whenever you are in confusion as to what the next step should be.


But if you are in such a situation, the game is already at risk, as you are lost and wander aimlessly.
Those games tend to be lost for reasons such as:
"Oh, my economy is finally doing great and I have all this infrastructure! Lets make a plan for how to win the game next turn."
*End turn*
"Gilgamesh has launched a spaceship"
"Oh ****, oh ****, need to nuke his capital asap!"
*Emergency actions for 6 turns.*
"Mansa Musa has won a cultural victory!"
"T_T"

 

Never built Wall Street just for shrines, but it makes sense to found corporations in a city with a shrine or two. Very situational, of course. I have once got very lucky with Gandhi's building two shines in the same city for me, and then I founded Sushi and Mining there. Shrines are rather a bonus, though. The bulk of gold comes from corps.

Spoiler :

 

Spamming missionaries for the Apol religion can bring other benefits. Especially if you're spiritual and can crank out the 2+ hammer temples.

 

2+ Hammer temples? Do you mean cheaper temples? Or do you mean that there is a way for temples to generate hammers?

 

Temples of the religion that AP is built in, does generate +2 hammers.
Same with monasteries and I belive cathedrals too?
Probably the shrine too.

 

Yes, shrines and cathedrals of the AP religion generate 2 per turn. Monasteries of the AP religion loose the bonus when you discover SM.

 

My goodness. I was completely unaware of that. Do I read the wiki correctly, that every civ with the AP religioin gets the +2h bonus? Spiral Minaret and University of Sankore only give their bonus for their owner, right?

This is crazy! Since there are no useful resolutions, I guess it's best then to build the AP for some obscure religion or hope to steal it from such a religion in order to not give the AI a massive productivity bonus?

 

The biggest problems is that theology is a tech that one does not often go for.
And that AP is very costly to build.
It's more that you observe who is going to build AP, and try to get an advantage from there.

I did a nice trick in this game though:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...sabella-de-españa.517672/page-6#post-15476719

My close neighbour that I was eyeing as a target popped a GEngineering, so I gifted him theology, the next turn he rushbuyed AP and grated that AP bonus for me on my continent which was nice as I played a SPI-leader.

 

Do you reckon being SPI, having stolen the AP that would then make it appealing to build the other two wonders that give a bonus to religious buildings? Spiral Minaret belongs to probably the most useless tech, but it builds with Stone, which you often have by then and so does the Uni of Sankore, which is associated with a tech you virtually always have before AI... both have neat bonuses, provided you're building temples anyways.

 

Could be that it makes sense to make a try for those wonders.
I know these wonders roughly associated with the strategy you mention make out the backbone of the economy in many HOF strategies, but I don't have any direct experience with that.

I believe it is more likely that it's the other way around in most situations though... You make a somewhat late medieval attack, or a early reinessanse and you capture univ of sancore and/or spiral minaret and you have half of your empire in the AP religion already.
Then it would be very sensible to incorporate missionary spam and templebuildling while being in organized religion.
If you also happend to get the shrine, then all the better.

 

As krikav mentioned, these wonders are something you are most likely going to nab from someone as opposed to build yourself, as the corresponding techs are often ignored. Well, not Sankore and I do sometimes build it with the bonus if warranted. I never build AP, but it is nice if you have the religion and I tend to spread that religion to increase my vote influence or just capture it.

The idea of putting these all together deliberately/synergistically for all the religious bonuses is more of a role-play type game as opposed to optimal play.

 

Next question: Which improvements hinder forest growth? Am I right to assume that roads, railroads and camps do not hinder forest growth AT ALL? Any other improvements for which this is true? Coming to think of it, do forts remove forest?

 

Roads/railroads halve the forest growth chance. All other improvements (including camps, which is kinda annoying!) prevents forest growth completely. Building forts does not remove the forest.

 

That's actually terrible. But thank you for clarifying. Yeah, the thing about camps is pretty annoying because tundra deer with forest is just that little bit better

 

I'm almost certain that I have seen forest grow on a camp.
You sure about that @Windsor ?