Noob to the Game. What's the best strategy for Byzantium.

[mokyo24]

OK I got the Gold Edition (yes I'm that late) after playing Vanilla single-player for some time (not long enough to try all the Civs though). One of the things I'm looking forward to is playing Byzantium, a civilization I like in real life.

I didn't have screenshots but I spawned near the coast of what would be Southern Europe, surrounded on all sides by City-States. I've been friendly with them and the other Civs (save for warmongering Aztecs). I've got really no where to go except south to Africa and NW to England.

I've thrown all my efforts to founding a religion, even getting the Tears of the Gods to make use of a Gem tile. The only buildings in my cities are shrines, those I got from Tradition and a bunch of early wonders (including SH) in the Capital. I was hoping for Culture Victory but I don't know if it's possible with my position. Should I switch to Diplomatic instead?

Still a few turns before I finish Theology, just enough time to get my first GE. What would be the best wonder to build, Djenne Mosque for the missionary bonus or Hagia Sophia for the instant Prophet to enhance my religion. So far I was the first to establish a religion and there are just 3 other Pantheon (India, Aztec and Brazil).

Also I just have 2 cities, with the still small Adrianople on a Horse Resource. There's a a 7 tile island on what would be England with 2 Pearl tiles and all other tiles are hills, save for the grassland adjacent to the Pearls. Would it be a good place to settle? Is it worth building a city there for the +4 Faith?

 

[GhostSalsa]

At first I thought you were playing G&K until I remembered your references to Tears of the Sun and Brazil. Ok BNW.

Strategy with regards to victory condition is (much) less a question of religion and more of whether you have enough production and science in your small amount of cities to build all the key culture wonders (Sistine and everything else with great work slots), maintain tourism modifies with everyone and snag a culture victory (open borders and trade routes from you to them), or will have to settle for diplo. Freedom is ideal if you are not looking to conquer a lot, and on lower difficulties there's usually little reason to. Freedom's level three tenets are key for culture or diplo victory.

Science victory on lower difficulties is not ideal for tall empires (not a lot of cities).

If you end up expanding a lot then science may become more appealing than diplo.

Religion is less important with regards to victory condition. Religion generally provides more culture and happiness per city and lets you buy great people. Byzantium can get more out of religion but also has to invest more, their bonus is very neutral in this regard. Before BNW religion's main use was: to allow for expansion by providing happiness (expansion made science/diplo victories easier). In BNW expansion isn't that rewarding.

If you take Piety in BNW, you have more options for leveraging religion towards a VC, namely using Holy Sites in your reformation belief to add tourism to religious buildings. This needs a wide (lots of cities) empire to be employed to best effect. You are already at theology with only two cities so you have already missed that boat. If you expand now it will still take so long to get your faith per turn up that you'll already be in later eras before you can finish buying your buildings.

Great Mosque won't be as useful without a high faith-per-turn that can churn out a lot of missionaries, as well as a lot of cities to spread to, such as an expansive AI that did not settle their own religion, as well as a founder belief that rewards you for having a lot of believers, etc. It doesn't do anything if you have weak fpt and nowhere to spread to. Borobudur is better if you have low-ish fpt but some good cities to spread to. Hagia might be better if you have neither. Settling your next Great Prophet (creating Holy Site) might be more attractive than enhancing religion, as then you will have enough faith per turn to finish leveraging the beliefs you have already chosen.

Because you have already founded a religion, new cities won't start with your pantheon belief. If you settle on those pearls you also need to get a missionary out there to activate tears of god in that city. So it's not really worth settling for the pantheon at this point. Next time consider your pantheon's expiration date when determining when you need to settle cities, and by extension whether you should even get that pantheon in the first place - faith-from-terrain pantheons only work best if you settle that terrain before you found a religion.

If you have other city spots that are better in general, you should settle those instead. If Byzantium is coastal then having another coastal city or two is good, because they can send food cargo ships back to your capital so it grows more. But it's going to take a long long time for those cities to get granaries up.

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Byzantium is strongest when played wide, but as I mentioned, playing wide isn't particularly rewarding for any victory type in BNW. All victory types and play styles work better when you keep your strongest focus on science, which requires growing a lot of citizens and placing them in the university specialist spots. At some point you said the only building in your two cities is shrines. I hope you didn't mean that they don't have libraries. You should have libraries and National College already, especially when only founding two cities. You should have Education already or soon, instead of only being about to get Theology (it sounds like you are around turn 134 if you are about to get the GE from Stonehenge.)

 

[mokyo24]

Well I guess I messed up the game. I focused to much getting to theology and getting some early wonders.

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[joncnunn]

Yes; too much focus on early world wonders is bad.

Faith based pantheon with tradition appears to be best way to religion; but if there's only one Gem tile any where near you (and also not any Pearls) then the start isn't suitable for Tears of the God.
Base minimum to make a good faith only pantheon is 4 faith [which would need 2 Gems]; with 6+ faith [3+ Gems] being much preferred.

 

[GhostSalsa]

Base minimum to make a good faith only pantheon is 4 faith [which would need 2 Gems]; with 6+ faith [3+ Gems] being much preferred.

I usually set my minimum at 8 faith - the two natural wonders standard. But I dislike slowing down my economy to build shrines and temples unless they are UBs.

 

[VicRatlhead5199]

One of my best games ever was a Byzantium game with a tundra start. Usually I hate tundra but I figured as Byzantium I could take lemons and make lemonade with dance of the aurora. I took religious community and pagodas as my follower beliefs, ceremonial burial(preBNW nerf) for my founder and itinerant preachers as my enhancer. I used the bonus belief to pick up just war. As a wide civ itinerant preachers did most of my spread for me but I took prophets into battle with me and converted any city not following my religion. I called them my "Prophets of Doom" because any city they converted fell shortly after. The other beliefs controlled happiness and assisted troop production. The dromons were really nice to have since they could bombard at a time when no other ship can so I always had naval support.

Just war is a pretty fun belief to play around with and the strategy would work with other civs but I think you'd burn more faith on spread without itinerant preachers or religious texts to help out. Being Byzantium really made that game.