New Version - December 18th (12-18)

[BiteInTheMark]

Rushing well will slow down your faith buildings, so the same result of unabling to found a religion.

I think he should settle cities up north for some forests to work. His cities have like no production at all with all those flat deserts and floodplains.

Better choice would be to reroll though haha. I see no future at all for that bad start unless you can invade Arabia early and expand south.

I agree. Unless you go authority to gain hammers for your cities and immidiatly invade Arabia, this start location is a waste of time. Reroll.

 

[Leondegrance]

Thank you for your suggestions and constructive criticism.

I will briefly defend my city placement. The first thing to keep in mind is the starting location. I realize that the cities lack production but that is how it is. These are the available lands the game chose to give me. And I have to settle them regardless. Otherwise Arabia will gladly settle them and blow me out of the game.

It is not that bad. I have played Morocco in arid deserts and trust me these cities are only deceivingly bad. I know how to turn them into industrial cities. My last 43 game I dominated the world and was an era ahead with similar poor desert cities. Yes on Prince difficulty but still later they will look nothing like they look now.

Yes sad truth about the faith Civs like Spain and the rest. They will be in the game and things got just harder. There must be a way to found a religion. What I am going to play around is specializing the opening to achieve this. My top candidates are Goddess of Love and God of Expansion. I dont see stronger options than these 2.

The question is how to beat them for the Pantheon. I am tempted to turn off the ruins. Another one is to go for Stonehenge. But I agree some good RNG will be needed.

 

[Minh Le]

Rushing well will slow down your faith buildings, so the same result of unabling to found a religion.

I think he should settle cities up north for some forests to work. His cities have like no production at all with all those flat deserts and floodplains.

Better choice would be to reroll though haha. I see no future at all for that bad start unless you can invade Arabia early and expand south.

Its a hard start but not impossible. With that start founding a religion is almost impossible anyway, so I will just pick something like GAOC and invade Arabia to take his religion (in this case he has god of desert which is nice). I alway rush well when I have such bad start, well is like a life saver building, its as cheap as a monument and it give very good yield.
Desert cities can be feeded by trade routes later, and if you have some oil and with kashba they will be pretty good actually.

 

[Leondegrance]

Its a hard start but not impossible. With that start founding a religion is almost impossible anyway, so I will just pick something like GAOC and invade Arabia to take his religion (in this case he has god of desert which is nice). I alway rush well when I have such bad start, well is like a life saver building, its as cheap as a monument and it give very good yield.
Desert cities can be feeded by trade routes later, and if you have some oil and with kashba they will be pretty good actually.

When the last religion was founded yesterday I immediately checked if it was Arabia. But no, 7 were unknown Civs and 1 was Spain. That is what I call bad luck.

 

[Phuc Nguyen]

Its a hard start but not impossible. With that start founding a religion is almost impossible anyway, so I will just pick something like GAOC and invade Arabia to take his religion (in this case he has god of desert which is nice). I alway rush well when I have such bad start, well is like a life saver building, its as cheap as a monument and it give very good yield.
Desert cities can be feeded by trade routes later, and if you have some oil and with kashba they will be pretty good actually.

You’re repeating what BiteInTheMark and I said: that start can only work if you can invade Arabia early. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time.

 

[Minh Le]

Well.. in any start that give a neighbour 5 tiles away from my capital, I definitely take him out , not really because my land is bad. Tradition or progress can be quite powerful for very early war though, you really dont need Authority if you dont plan to play a warmonger game. Flat desert and tundra start is always hard but not impossible, maybe there are some stones, irons or oils and there are at least 6 very good tiles of kashba even on flat desert.

 

[Omen of Peace]

I know casbahs are great, but isn't Casablanca a dead weight until they're unlocked? That sounds like a long time to make the city productive. Wouldn't it make sense to found it much later? (with a risk that a neighbour will settle another city north of it, obviously)

 

[Leondegrance]

Tried really hard to do it but got beaten to 4 turns. Even with this impressive jackpot start with Spirit of the Desert unlocked and shrine rush and nearby Lhasa contributed 6 faith for quite long time, it was still not possible on Emperor.

I give up. Indeed religion is reserved only for few Civs on this difficulty.

 

[tu_79]

Tried really hard to do it but got beaten to 4 turns. Even with this impressive jackpot start with Spirit of the Desert unlocked and shrine rush and nearby Lhasa contributed 6 faith for quite long time, it was still not possible on Emperor.

I give up. Indeed religion is reserved only for few Civs on this difficulty.

View attachment 513489

Have you tried with Tradition? It's +3 faith very early, so it should help.

 

[Leondegrance]

Have you tried with Tradition? It's +3 faith very early, so it should help.

Absolutely, Sovereignty was unlocked for the 3 faith before even Justice. Everything was rushed for faith, with 7 cities on turn 90. And like I said, Spirit of the Desert, Lhasa, all cities first thing shrine. I honestly cant do better than this. Still impossible.

Well, no religion for me. I wanted Tradition-Fealty-Artistry but I guess now the best route to cultural victory would be Tradition-Artistry-Statecraft.

 

[Minh Le]

Did you try Stonehenge + goddess of beauty? I can get a religion as tradition 90% of my games with this combo.

 

[Leondegrance]

Did you try Stonehenge + goddess of beauty? I can get a religion as tradition 90% of my games with this combo.

I have some reservations about Stonehenge. No doubt it can help for quick Pantheon. But I dont think would help for religion. You say it helped you but I wonder if you played 43. The problem is the 43.

On this map Spirit of Desert is undisputed. Only 4 turns away but ..... still not enough.

So now basically I will play the same game as the one from last week which was Tradion-Statecraft-Artistry, only difference now is the difficulty is two steps higher on Emperor.

I was upset this morning about the religion but then looking at it from another angle. See, maybe it is for the better of game balance. If Ahmad gets a religion he will be unstoppable. If he is your opponent he will snowball into cultural avalance. So maybe there is intricate balance in the game to counter-act this from hapenning.

Even without religion he is formidable culture machine. I am chosing Statecraft in this game later to for the spies in order to oppose Egypt later, and probably Arabia and Ethiopia who tend to influence strongly.

 

[Minh Le]

Stonehenge has +2 faith yield, +2 from beauty, +2 from shrine next, +2 in your capital from beauty, +3 from Sovereignty, thats 11 faith very early. The artist point from beauty also help getting your first artist out 2x faster and that great work is +1 faith too. Until you get your 2nd city up, you already accumulate a hundred or more faith, thats equal to 50 turn of your second city after shrine. The problem is you dont have fast faith, the amount of civs in the game is not the problem.

 

[Leondegrance]

Stonehenge has +2 faith yield, +2 from beauty, +2 from shrine next, +2 in your capital from beauty, +3 from Sovereignty, thats 11 faith very early. The artist point from beauty also help getting your first artist out 2x faster and that great work is +1 faith too. Until you get your 2nd city up, you already accumulate a hundred or more faith, thats equal to 50 turn of your second city after shrine. The problem is you dont have fast faith, the amount of civs in the game is not the problem.

That is not 11 faith just because Stonehenge. Only 2 extra. The rest I already have even more via Spirit. Stonehenge would set me back for only 2. But anyway, I am convinced is impossible either way.

 

[Minh Le]

Well.. believe it or not is up to you , im bad at math and theory crafting anyway. But I can found very confidently with it even on deity and in presence of some strongest faith civs.

 

[BiteInTheMark]

I have some reservations about Stonehenge. No doubt it can help for quick Pantheon. But I dont think would help for religion. You say it helped you but I wonder if you played 43. The problem is the 43.

On this map Spirit of Desert is undisputed. Only 4 turns away but ..... still not enough.

So now basically I will play the same game as the one from last week which was Tradion-Statecraft-Artistry, only difference now is the difficulty is two steps higher on Emperor.

I was upset this morning about the religion but then looking at it from another angle. See, maybe it is for the better of game balance. If Ahmad gets a religion he will be unstoppable. If he is your opponent he will snowball into cultural avalance. So maybe there is intricate balance in the game to counter-act this from hapenning.

Even without religion he is formidable culture machine. I am chosing Statecraft in this game later to for the spies in order to oppose Egypt later, and probably Arabia and Ethiopia who tend to influence strongly.

One question. Why 2 steps higher? Whats your standard difficulty? While the difference from prince to king is relative low, the step from king to emperor is really noticeable.

Another thing is spirit of the desert..... How much faith do you generate through it? Tangier has a size of 1, gaining 1 faith, sale will work the oasis and one of the 2 resources, so one more faith. Rabat will work the floodplain and maybe 2 of the resources, Marrakesh has only 1 and Fes may have resources on desert or not, can't say. So, your pantheon may give you not more than 6 faith at maximum. That's the same amount you can reach with 2 markets with the plantation pantheon. Or the same amount as Goddess of beauty with Stonehenge. You didn't reached anything special to damn the 43 civ version as unable to found with a non religion civ.

 

[Leondegrance]

Well.. believe it or not is up to you , im bad at math and theory crafting anyway. But I can found very confidently with it even on deity and in presence of some strongest faith civs.

I appreciate your advice. You are good player. Stonehenge crossed my mind before but after more scrutiny I have reservations. Not only it will have negative impact, but it is also risky. You may be beaten to it.

 

[Leondegrance]

One question. Why 2 steps higher? Whats your standard difficulty? While the difference from prince to king is relative low, the step from king to emperor is really noticeable.

Another thing is spirit of the desert..... How much faith do you generate through it? Tangier has a size of 1, gaining 1 faith, sale will work the oasis and one of the 2 resources, so one more faith. Rabat will work the floodplain and maybe 2 of the resources, Marrakesh has only 1 and Fes may have resources on desert or not, can't say. So, your pantheon may give you not more than 6 faith at maximum. That's the same amount you can reach with 2 markets with the plantation pantheon. Or the same amount as Goddess of beauty with Stonehenge. You didn't reached anything special to damn the 43 civ version as unable to found with a non religion civ.

7 straight from Spirit.

I was beaten by 4 turns. This is 108 faith deficit. The issue is not 6 or 7, you are also proposing good alternatives, but the issue is they are not good enough to cover a deficit of 108. Mind you the static deficit is 108, the real one would be more.

I upped difficulty from Prince to Emperror. Because last week I won easily. With just 4 cities until Modern era.

 

[Leondegrance]

Here is the save on turn 1 with this map. I would be happy to know if you can found a religion.

No mods present, only the VP version must be 43.

And keep in mind, the last religion was found on turn 90.

I find it funny the last pages of this thread. Yesterday I was saying it is possible and you were saying it is not possible. Today the roles are reversed funnily, I am saying it is not possible and you are saying it is possible.

 

[Minh Le]

I really think we should discuss this in the Strategy section....