Is this plan really worthless?

[Ryu007JP]

Howdy all need some help with a strat I've been beating my head into for awhile now. Trying to get a cultural victory with Byzantium via full piety rush to grab 3 religious buildings + sacred sites. Even with about as great a start as I can get, I'm still falling way behind. Doesn't help runaway civs aren't just running away, but pulling a 7sec 1/4mi. My most recent attempt had Hiawatha 2 eras ahead of me and 1 ahead of about 3 others. I'm guessing my build queue needs revision or something, but I can't help but to grab Great Library and Oracle

Build queue:
scout, monument, shrine, GL, Oracle, NC
I know its pretty terrible but I feel I need to play catch up to offset the piety start. Also I'm never really too certain when to slip in a worker or a new settler.

This is vs King, Large map, standard time, random map

Viable strat, or not so much? Comments, suggestions appreciated.

 

[georgie]

I can't really comment on your victory aspirations, but you should build NC before Oracle.

 

[EK834]

Howdy all need some help with a strat I've been beating my head into for awhile now. Trying to get a cultural victory with Byzantium via full piety rush to grab 3 religious buildings + sacred sites. Even with about as great a start as I can get, I'm still falling way behind. Doesn't help runaway civs aren't just running away, but pulling a 7sec 1/4mi. My most recent attempt had Hiawatha 2 eras ahead of me and 1 ahead of about 3 others. I'm guessing my build queue needs revision or something, but I can't help but to grab Great Library and Oracle

Build queue:
scout, monument, shrine, GL, Oracle, NC
I know its pretty terrible but I feel I need to play catch up to offset the piety start. Also I'm never really too certain when to slip in a worker or a new settler.

This is vs King, Large map, standard time, random map

Viable strat, or not so much? Comments, suggestions appreciated.

I haven't tried Piety in BNW yet, and I'm more a Tradition guy, but I would probably skip the monument for now and open Tradition (along the way, or as your first policy before going Piety) for its opener instead. It will accelerate getting SP.

I would build a worker instead. One reason I suspect you get so much behind is that you delay too much building food tiles and grow, which is even more important if you're not going down Tradition..

I often do Writing, start my GL//Mining so my worker will be able to chop/build mines/Archery - buy an archer/Calendar to grab Philosophy from the GL.

I often build the GL on King, unless my start location makes it too risky (too poor production, or because I have a warmonger to watch out for, or if I too badly need to focus on upgrading food tiles because the location is too poor in that). However if I for the GL and Philo I try to make the most of that lead by getting my NC up immediately after I grabbed Philosophy as free tech, and with your Piety strat perhaps you should get your temples up next. Those turns spent on the Oracle probably costs you a lot in the end.

After the NC is up isn't a bad time to expand though when the game situation allows it I like to have two cities before I start the GL.

 

[Kintara]

You need to settle cities. Trying to keep up like that is just slowing you down on your main focus, which is building as many cities and religious buildings as possible. You're basically supposed to fall behind. You might be surprised how much you can get done with spies and some time to get your cities up and running (and mass buying Great Scientists with Faith), but ideally you should win a victory early enough that the tech lead doesn't matter.

 

[Jon the Bastard]

You need to settle cities. Trying to keep up like that is just slowing you down on your main focus, which is building as many cities and religious buildings as possible.

Kintara absolutely has the right idea here. Open with a shrine, then grab a monument. From there, it could worker --> scout or scout --> worker, depending on what your situation is. But, if you are going to commit to a Piety opener you need to focus on the accumulation of faith early on, and not get distracted by everything else. If an opportunity arises where you can afford to deviate and, say, build a library instead of a faith building, then do so; but don't do it at the expense of what you main focus is.

Also, making sure you are settling cities in places that will synergize with whatever pantheon you open with and whatever your first beliefs are is something you want to pay attention to. If you can get culture or faith from working certain tiles, focus on settling cities in those places. This also means micro managing your workers and citizens. So, if you don't do that already, start.

I am finishing up a game as Catherine currently, but I too have interested in working on a viable piety opener... might be with Byzantium, might be with the Celts. I'm not sure. But, once I finish my game with Catherine, I'll start working on it. We should keep each other posted on what we're learning.

 

[joncnunn]

I can't really comment on your victory aspirations, but you should build NC before Oracle.

Agreed, and also since you aren't playing Venice, there should be at least one settler built right after NC.

 

[Maxym]

NO NC, no oracle nothing but scout, monument/shrine/granny later temple and as soon as you can settlers, liberty of course to free settler then piety to reformation, spam cities, with shrines and temples and all religious buildings you can buy. army as need dictates. If you can get 12-20 cities it's game over.

There is a thread with thus strat in strategy forum, read it. If played correctly there won't be later era's, before ideologies the game should be over.

 

[Ryu007JP]

Hehe just found the thread you were talking about Maxym ( http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503798 ), would have never thought about that Gonna have to try it out Although was wondering about large maps and randomness of map selection, probably would be hard to work that strat say on a watery map.

And the NC tip was helpful makes things a little less catch uppy for me tech wise.
Quick bit of editing: tick in tradition does seem to work out better All the little things add up don't they

 

[Moriarte]

There was a game of the month with polynesia on archipelago, where some people finished around t.130 or so, using this strat. Right about big maps. Should be much harder.

 

[CaptainPatch]

Build queue:
scout, monument, shrine, GL, Oracle, NC

I find that it's more beneficial by starting off with 3 Scouts. Added to your initial Brute, that allows you to _quickly_ explore the map in four directions. Hopefully the ancient ruins they discover will give you a quick boost in the way of techs, Faith, Culture, improved weapons, money and additional bodies to work your city tiles. It's also VERY important to get another Settler out to establish your second city. Thereafter, your first city builds Wonders and the 2nd supplies Workers and additional Settlers.

But one of the most important aspects of having several Scouts uncovering the map is that it reveals the City States quicker. In the long run, good relations with the CSs provides you a LOT of what you need to get ahead - but you can't start garnering until they become aware of you. Once you get CSs to be Friends or Allies, it becomes easier to keep them to at least Friends. Not as good as Allies, but you will be continually getting something from them in the way of Faith, Culture, Happiness, Food, or occasional units.

 

[sendos]

Howdy all need some help with a strat I've been beating my head into for awhile now. Trying to get a cultural victory with Byzantium via full piety rush to grab 3 religious buildings + sacred sites. Even with about as great a start as I can get, I'm still falling way behind. Doesn't help runaway civs aren't just running away, but pulling a 7sec 1/4mi. My most recent attempt had Hiawatha 2 eras ahead of me and 1 ahead of about 3 others. I'm guessing my build queue needs revision or something, but I can't help but to grab Great Library and Oracle

Build queue:
scout, monument, shrine, GL, Oracle, NC
I know its pretty terrible but I feel I need to play catch up to offset the piety start. Also I'm never really too certain when to slip in a worker or a new settler.

This is vs King, Large map, standard time, random map

Viable strat, or not so much? Comments, suggestions appreciated.

Maybe replace great library with stonehenge to guarantee founding a religion. If your tech progress is ok, you could aim for oracle to get the free social policy in order to grab sacred sites as soon as possible. So I might go scout, monument, worker, stonehenge, library, settler...oracle, when you can build it. As for policies, open tradition, open liberty > republic > Collective rule > open piety > aim for reformation > use oracle free social policy to speed up grabbing the reformation. After oracle, start expanding out a bit more to make greater use of the sacred sites. As for the religious buildings, I recommend pagodas and cathedrals (that way you get your great artists rolling in great works as soon as possible).

 

[Maxym]

No pagodas or cathedrals, there won't be any works. Monasteries and mosques as you get most faith per turn per faith spent and tourism is the same. SH is good if you don have a good source of fpt around or need to cut time to get religion because of who is in the game with you.

Dont even build guilds just crank out settlers and archers to Protect ur growing empire.

 

[Ryu007JP]

So update if anyone cares, after beating my head into the wall repeatedly, my determination is that this strat for the settings I made is pretty much junk, for King anyways. Works quite well on Prince, but then I think most strats can work on Prince <.<
On a side note had Ghandi that game, and for those who don't say he's a warmonger, he chose autocracy as his idealogy, and was proceeding to march his large army across my territory to go beat up Darius. I'm glad we were friends, Ghandi and I.

 

[striker4life360]

You need around 90 Tourism to win using Sacred Sites strategy, so around 13-15 cities with Byzantium. You shouldn't really need to enter renaissance since the faith cost of everything you need to buy goes up. I would go for calendar (Stonehenge), lux techs, then Philo for Oracle and Temples and then markets/colosseum try to get CS for open borders and avoid renaissance.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

That should work on king. Pretty much anything works on king, just focus on it.

 

[Beaver79]

I guess why even build the NC if you are trying to get a quick culture win? You need 5 social policies and you need to kick butt with faith and enhance before 2 of the faith buildings are gone. Philosophy, where you get temples, is the same tech you get the NC with. Maybe I don't understand but what tech do you need after that that the NC would help with?

Pretty much the only time I've been able to get 2 faith buildings let alone 3 is when I have a desert start or spawn next to a faith wonder. If you don't get that you need to spread as wide as possible quickly. I'd build 2 scouts and then nothing but shrines and then monuments and then settlers. Or restart and get the desert.