Standard Emperor Communitas_79. Defeat (Gave up) on Turn 302.
So I tried a strat I hadn't done in a very long time. I wanted to try a wide religion CV with Byzantium. The basic idea, go Way of Pilgrim + Stupas + Sacred Sites + other religious buildings...generate lots of tourism through base yields even though I am playing "wide". Then use shared religion to get a big multiplier with the Fealty multiplier.
The quick jist. I took out France early in the game and befriended my other neighbor Poland. I wound up having 2 pretty strong cultural players on other continents, Egypt and Ottoman. Ultimately Egypt is going the traditional CV style, Tradition + Artistry + Wonders. By turn 300, Egypt is starting to rocket ahead, and actually is generating more base Tourism than I have. My attempts at religious conversion have failed hard, and I've been sanctioned for a long time so money is too tight to equip a proper fighting force to go hit Egypt. Ultimately I can see the writing on the wall, I don't have the Tourism to CV him, can't beat him in science, and don't have the military to take him on. Time to throw in the towel.
My notes:
1) So the important thing to remember about Tourism and CV, is that for the most part Tourism is a non-snowball yield. Its not like culture where getting it early is better than getting it late. Yes Tourism early can give you some benefits, but compared to techs or policies, its not much. Therefore, its all about raw yield. What can ultimately get me the big tourism I need for my CV. This is important because late game Great Works give a LOT of tourism. With hotels + stadiums + museum + broadcast tower + creative expression (freedom), a base Great Work generates 12 Tourism (3 base + 1 museum + 2 BT + 2 creative expression + 50% GW multiplier). And that's not factoring in theming bonuses. This means that anything that is not focused on lots of great works (aka tradition + specialist play) has a lot of ground to cover to keep up. Of course, this gets even stronger one era after, but at the same time I don't have as many turns to take full advantage at that point either.
2) The Stupas gave me a very solid early tourism advantage. This was mainly felt with Poland (my neighbor). I converted him to my religion and kept him there the whole game, that plus the stupas gave me a strong influence with them. This helped my early TRs get more science and gold than normal. That said... its still very indirect. Ultimately I would rather have synagogues, churches or mosques giving me raw yields than indirect bonuses through TRs. While stupas help CV, considering how niche they are, I don't think they do enough personally. I wish they also had some more general yield just to give them something to do other than giving you a yield that doesn't do much the majority of the game.
3) My problem with the shared religion bonus is I generally find the big Civs in the game have their own religion, they are big enough to have good faith, and they want to keep their own religion. I managed to convert Egypt's entire continent to my religion twice....but it never held more than 10 turns. He would simply inquisitor + missionary them back in order, and my fealty finisher was doing nada. Further, he had some good religious buildings set up, so I'm doing 800 conversion, even with 3 spread 1250 pressure missionaries.
In the long run, I really don't think the Fealty tourism finisher does anything really to the civs I actually care about. I think even with this run-through I would have preferred artistry to fealty.
4) I've seen comments lately about how sanctions "isn't very strong". I do not understand that mentality at all. Yes if you have a vassal you can negate the effects somewhat, but not having lux trading drops your unhappiness and weakens WLTKD, you can't open borders with anyone, can't really start friendships, and your gold still suffers. Sanctions don't kill you, but they absolutely hurt.
5) Once again getting a world religion is laughably difficult. Even with 3 civs converted to my religion, no one voted for my world religion. Really looking forward to some adjustments on that one.
6)
@Gazebo, question for you. So unlike other yields, Tourism's city penalty is dealt to the raw yield....instead of adjusting the bucket like with science and culture. So check my math on this.
Lets say I have 10 tourism RAW. I get a 50% penalty from city numbers. I also have a +50% tourism bonus because of my hotel + stadium. What is my tourism bonus with spain:
a) (Multiplicative) 10 * . 5 = 5. 5 * 1.5 = 7.5
b) (Additive) 10 * (.5 + .5) = 10 *1 = 10
7) Pilgrim held its own pretty well imo. Its Tourism bonus is "ok", but its actually a decent culture spreader late game. So I was sending 10 missionaries against Egypt late game. They weren't really converted much against that massive religion wall of theirs, but it generated respectable culture. I'm curious how it holds up to the other spreads overall, its very weak early game, but actually has longevity.
8) I think sacred sites is pretty garbage. I would rather take to the Glory of God and pick up musician buying, I think I would have ultimately gotten a good bit more tourism focused where I needed it.
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