jma22tb
Prince
I just realized how ignorant I've been this whole time about Religion and how much more powerful it is than I thought it was.
The choice between Statecraft and Piety is a lot more than just boosting Religion or Diplomacy. If you take Piety, conquer the world's Holy Cities, and convert the remaining nations to your religion, you can gain control of the World Congress without even needing diplomacy!
If you add Diplomacy to it, then you've got an even bigger lead on rivals.
Through religious conquest, suppressing Holy cities, and proliferation of your own religion in non-Holy City rivals, you gain insulation from diplomatic rivals that you otherwise do not have. Add some allies to it, and you've got everything you need to pass a World Religion and double up on the additional votes you get from the Religious National Wonder.
Once that happens, all it takes is an Open Border for cash deal, a flood of missionaries, and you've got your rivals compliant with your religion. They'll spread it to city-states for you too!
Let's say by the time you achieve this, you control 12 cities, the average # of cities per rival is 6 and you've got 16 city-states left. No total conquests on the map. Standard size game with 8 rivals.
That's 48 rival cities, 12 controlled cities, 16 city-states, all of which are under your religion.
That is
- 9 votes from your national Wonder.
- 8 votes from World Religion
- 2 votes from One World, One Religion if you take it
Without including Alliances!
That wouldn't win a Diplomatic victory, certainly, but it would give you plenty of protection against Sanctions, Luxury Bans, or other proposals you don't want. It can also be added to a Diplomatic playthrough to give you even more power over the World Congress.
Very importantly, this shows that you can conquer your way into diplomatic power without having to take Statecraft, Freedom or Autocracy.
If you want to do a conquest strategy, keeping this in mind and dominating religion will help you significantly to prevent being sanctioned and isolated on a geopolitical level through the WC.
Thanks and looking forward to publishing more guides!
The choice between Statecraft and Piety is a lot more than just boosting Religion or Diplomacy. If you take Piety, conquer the world's Holy Cities, and convert the remaining nations to your religion, you can gain control of the World Congress without even needing diplomacy!
If you add Diplomacy to it, then you've got an even bigger lead on rivals.
Through religious conquest, suppressing Holy cities, and proliferation of your own religion in non-Holy City rivals, you gain insulation from diplomatic rivals that you otherwise do not have. Add some allies to it, and you've got everything you need to pass a World Religion and double up on the additional votes you get from the Religious National Wonder.
Once that happens, all it takes is an Open Border for cash deal, a flood of missionaries, and you've got your rivals compliant with your religion. They'll spread it to city-states for you too!
Let's say by the time you achieve this, you control 12 cities, the average # of cities per rival is 6 and you've got 16 city-states left. No total conquests on the map. Standard size game with 8 rivals.
That's 48 rival cities, 12 controlled cities, 16 city-states, all of which are under your religion.
That is
- 9 votes from your national Wonder.
- 8 votes from World Religion
- 2 votes from One World, One Religion if you take it
Without including Alliances!
That wouldn't win a Diplomatic victory, certainly, but it would give you plenty of protection against Sanctions, Luxury Bans, or other proposals you don't want. It can also be added to a Diplomatic playthrough to give you even more power over the World Congress.
Very importantly, this shows that you can conquer your way into diplomatic power without having to take Statecraft, Freedom or Autocracy.
If you want to do a conquest strategy, keeping this in mind and dominating religion will help you significantly to prevent being sanctioned and isolated on a geopolitical level through the WC.
Thanks and looking forward to publishing more guides!
