Philosophy and Taoism: Religious Diplo

[Hugethman]

Hello all

So have just finished another late session this evening and my games seem to run a pattern

I tend to run a SE which I love and works, and with my second GP usually I bulb Philosophy and found Taoism. By this point on a fractal/pangea/continents map everyone except for some loser AI is either Hindu or Buddhist.

This makes diplomacy rather one sided. With everyone friends I tend to tech trade well to Lib, grab Military tradition and try and smash as many people out as I can with cuirassiers.

I've caught glimmers about spreading one's own religion, bribing AI's to change theirs to yours, and using the spiritual trait to flit between religions depending on the situation. I was hoping someone could either give me some in-depth help or link me to a discussion?

 

[Seraiel]

It's problematic to link you to anything, if you don't have any concrete questions.

From what I read in your post, I fear, that you might neglect the power of cottaging your capital and running Buro. Specialist Economy is an outdated term, nowadays all players run hybrid-economies, so they mix the sources of economy for an overall maximum, and don't only resort to one.

Also, Philosophy, unless you need it as tradegood, is a completely useless tech to research on your own if you go for a Cuirrassier rush. You might need to, because you need it for Lib, but you shouldn't research it for the Religion, but bulb Education instead and trade for it, like that you'd have earlier Cuirrassiers and would get it for free, while only missing out a holy city, which you can easily conquer with Cuirrassiers. Going for a mid-game Religion is good, if you're in an extreme underdog situation, because then, Philosophy is awesome tradegood and you could use the holy-city-bonus together with a different state religion for 40% cheaper tech-steals, and as tech-steals are already cheaper than teching something yourself, that'd be a great choice in the scenario where it's impossible to compete in GNP. The advantages available from getting civs towards friendly (which usually needs either the same or no religion) is probably the biggest advantage in the whole game, as tech-trades are the biggest source of BPT on the higher levels. Also, if you can bribe AIs into world-wars, then you're safe and can backstab them easily.

From the last sentence you ask for very sophisticated strategies though. Idk if you already did this, but definitely read the CIV-illustrated guide on hybrid-economy and the writeup "Replay #9" (links in signature) . In Replay #9 I played with Montezuma on a Boreal map and used the SPI to a maximum extent.

The only thing else I could give to you from that question, is the simple mechanic, that the number of population is the important factor when it comes towards religion, so always spread to the biggest city, and if you steal something the way I described, spread religion towards that city first aswell (see example(s) in Replay #9) . You can gift the missionaries towards the AI once you're in their territory, like that you save turns and can spread your religion faster, AI always spreads to the biggest city. AI needs a certain amount of population, before it is willing to switch its religion, and AI always prefers self-founded religions in the case, where two religions should be equal. I'm not exactly sure about the speed at which AI switches, but I think it was a max. of 5 turns if SPI, 10T if not and in peace and 20T if not and in war, so that's the time AI afaik will stay in the religion you bribed them into. Completely converting AIs by spreading religion towards all of its cities is too costly, as you could probably conquer it with those resources + a few more.
And regarding diplo in general: I calculate diplo. BUG + BULL or BUFFY .004 are great help in this. I believe friendly is +10. Not 100% sure about the last, because I still play with BUFFY .003 and that one doesn't show the hidden modifiers. Best article on diplo is CIV Illustrated #1 (also signature) , though that one is a pure reference book.

Hth, and I'll notify a mod to plz move this to Strategy & Tips, because you'll get more answers there.

 

[Hugethman]

It's problematic to link you to anything, if you don't have any concrete questions.

From what I read in your post, I fear, that you might neglect the power of cottaging your capital and running Buro. Specialist Economy is an outdated term, nowadays all players run hybrid-economies, so they mix the sources of economy for an overall maximum, and don't only resort to one.

Also, Philosophy, unless you need it as tradegood, is a completely useless tech to research on your own if you go for a Cuirrassier rush. You might need to, because you need it for Lib, but you shouldn't research it for the Religion, but bulb Education instead and trade for it, like that you'd have earlier Cuirrassiers and would get it for free, while only missing out a holy city, which you can easily conquer with Cuirrassiers. Going for a mid-game Religion is good, if you're in an extreme underdog situation, because then, Philosophy is awesome tradegood and you could use the holy-city-bonus together with a different state religion for 40% cheaper tech-steals, and as tech-steals are already cheaper than teching something yourself, that'd be a great choice in the scenario where it's impossible to compete in GNP. The advantages available from getting civs towards friendly (which usually needs either the same or no religion) is probably the biggest advantage in the whole game, as tech-trades are the biggest source of BPT on the higher levels. Also, if you can bribe AIs into world-wars, then you're safe and can backstab them easily.

From the last sentence you ask for very sophisticated strategies though. Idk if you already did this, but definitely read the CIV-illustrated guide on hybrid-economy and the writeup "Replay #9" (links in signature) . In Replay #9 I played with Montezuma on a Boreal map and used the SPI to a maximum extent.

The only thing else I could give to you from that question, is the simple mechanic, that the number of population is the important factor when it comes towards religion, so always spread to the biggest city, and if you steal something the way I described, spread religion towards that city first aswell (see example(s) in Replay #9) . You can gift the missionaries towards the AI once you're in their territory, like that you save turns and can spread your religion faster, AI always spreads to the biggest city. AI needs a certain amount of population, before it is willing to switch its religion, and AI always prefers self-founded religions in the case, where two religions should be equal. I'm not exactly sure about the speed at which AI switches, but I think it was a max. of 5 turns if SPI, 10T if not and in peace and 20T if not and in war, so that's the time AI afaik will stay in the religion you bribed them into. Completely converting AIs by spreading religion towards all of its cities is too costly, as you could probably conquer it with those resources + a few more.
And regarding diplo in general: I calculate diplo. BUG + BULL or BUFFY .004 are great help in this. I believe friendly is +10. Not 100% sure about the last, because I still play with BUFFY .003 and that one doesn't show the hidden modifiers. Best article on diplo is CIV Illustrated #1 (also signature) , though that one is a pure reference book.

Hth, and I'll notify a mod to plz move this to Strategy & Tips, because you'll get more answers there.

Hi - Thanks for your reply

I suppose I've always assumed the quickest path to cuirassiers involves liberalism --> nationalism/Gunpowder/Military tradition. I dont really have much to say to anything else you said apart from that its super useful

Although what you said about friendly civs being the BIGGEST advantage in the whole game is interesting…so i'm gnna explore that a bit

 

[Seraiel]

Hi - Thanks for your reply

I suppose I've always assumed the quickest path to cuirassiers involves liberalism --> nationalism/Gunpowder/Military tradition. I dont really have much to say to anything else you said apart from that its super useful

Although what you said about friendly civs being the BIGGEST advantage in the whole game is interesting…so i'm gnna explore that a bit

The path you mention actually is the quickest path towards Cuirrassiers. If you're so strong, that you need to self-tech Philosophy because no civ has it 'til the time when you need it for Liberalism, you imo. should up your difficulty.

 

[Lexicus]

Well, if you play on a higher/challenging difficulty as Seraiel says Friendly AIs are a great asset for various reasons.

I value religion much more as a tool for sucking up to the powerful/technologically advanced AIs. Generally I switch into whatever religion the AIs I want good relationships with are in; obviously this is not always a straightforward calculation (eg when two AIs you want to be pals with are different religions you'll have to make a choice).

It is relatively rare for me to have enough religious homogeneity to take real advantage of OR or Theo. In one game I built missionaries to get the state religion in cities that would get Universities so I could take advantage of OR bonus for whipping them, but that is also rare because I usually don't have time to divert production to missionaries.

Friendly Civs being the biggest advantage in the game is proportionally more true the higher the difficulty. The better the AI does relative to the player, the more payoff there is from having the AIs at Friendly. On lower difficulties there is no real need to placate the AI as the need for tech trades is low and you don't really need to fear their military power.

 

[Philobulbus]

I always thought bulbing Philosophy as early as possible was good because if you are the first to get it, the AIs tend to ignore it once they are no longer able to found the religion - making it much less likely that they will tech towards Liberalism.

For the same reason I tend to avoid trading it around until after I have Liberalism, or feel that I am sure to get it.

I don't generally bother spreading Taoism though - if I was thinking about a religious strategy I'd be much more likely to do it through Oracle > Code of Laws > Confucianism, or bulb Theology with a Great Prophet > Christianity > AP.

 

[Seraiel]

I always thought bulbing Philosophy as early as possible was good because if you are the first to get it, the AIs tend to ignore it once they are no longer able to found the religion - making it much less likely that they will tech towards Liberalism.

For the same reason I tend to avoid trading it around until after I have Liberalism, or feel that I am sure to get it..

Blocking Liberalism via Philosophy is ok, but as the AIs often research guilds and Banking, you'd need to block Paper aswell, because otherwise, an AI might decide to go for Economics and by that research Education. Better (and easier) to block Paper instead and by that deny the AI seeing Liberalism and Economics at the same time and thereby less the risk of AI researching Education even more.

 

[shulec]

Blocking Liberalism via Philosophy is ok, but as the AIs often research guilds and Banking, you'd need to block Paper aswell, because otherwise, an AI might decide to go for Economics and by that research Education. Better (and easier) to block Paper instead and by that deny the AI seeing Liberalism and Economics at the same time and thereby less the risk of AI researching Education even more.

I would disagree and say that blocking Liberalism via philosophy is great! I believe this is one of those situations that you playing 99% deity makes your experience less applicable to other levels.

The OP said he likes to utilize Specialist for early beakers. This certainly dovetails with bulbing Philosophy and running pacifism.

On levels other than deity, hoarding Philosophy, Paper and Education can allow you to bulblib Radio, Biology, rifling...

 

[Seraiel]

I replied to the specialists Shulec, by writing, that Specialist-economy is outdated, and that he should read the article on hybrid-economy, because hybrid-economy is much stronger . But I accept that point, because my games are also mostly HoF, and in HoF, bulbing becomes less iimportant, because of Commerce-resources one starts with leading to a higher tempo in research = less bulbs applicable.

But apart from that: Libbing Biology and Rifiling I've done both on Deity several times already too, that's possible with blocking Paper alone. I'm not sure, if you ment libbing instead of bulbing, because bullbing Rifling is basically impossible afaik. If you really ment bulbing, yes, start a GA, switch to Caste and Pacifism and create GSs for PP, Chemistry, SM and the like, no need to run those civics earlier already, better get up some infrastructure via Slavery and OR and / or some good, promoted units via Theo . Running Pacifism basically is something I only consider, if I at least have Granaries and maybe even Forges, but making an empire-wide-move with a GA is extremely powerful then, allows easy build-up, and once the cities are large enough, one can generate 3-5 GPs to i. e. directly chain the next GA or bulb from Paper 'til Cannons.

 

[Lexicus]

I have a question--how does one block Paper? I thought the idea was that Philosophy gives a religion if you get it first, so the human getting it first decreases its importance to the AI and makes them less likely to go for it.

Since Paper IIRC gives nothing for being the first to research it, does the AI decrease its importance if someone else gets it first anyway?

 

[Seraiel]

Simply don't trade Paper. Paper has some value towards the AI because it gives a WW, but AI heavily prefers anything giving a Religion, a Civic or any techs that have Military flavour. Paper has none of them, so with simply not trading it, chances that AI will research it are already very low. As usually only 1 civ has Philosophy 'til the time when the player needs it, it's also possible to block Philosophy to any civ that maybe did research Paper and thereby combine the two blocks. The only thing that can screw onesself with 2 civs having a tech is, if one of those civs is Mansa, then it's important to give Mansa all techs that he could trade from others, so that he doesn't get the idea to trade away Paper (same ofc. if the civ has friends) . It may also be advantegous to trade Stone additionally towards civs having Paper or Philosophy (ofc. after having traded for the last) , because it raises the chances for them to build the UoS or the AW, which makes the block even safer. As one usually already has the HGs at that time, this is often np.
Because I wrote about AIs having other AIs as friends, I also wanted to give the advice, to pay extra attention with bribes. AIs sharing war, is one of the most dangerous reasons, which can make them friends. AIs sharing religion is the other one. Bribing AIs against each other, so they're at war is only the basic level. If you followed my later "Replay"'s, you know that I sometimes calculated bribes in the manor of i. e. "I bribe A against B, and because B can bribe C and D, he'll bribe C and D against A, but for that he needs tech x, so I gift him tech x" . Like that, I only risked minimum diplomatic maluses. If wanting to make an AI bribe for sure, then it can also be good to get 1 AI in a 2-front-war, so bribe A against B and C against A. Like that A is in two wars, and you can be certain, that it'll bribe, if it has the option, and with being in two wars, those bribes get split, diminishing the risk of AIs becoming friendly towards each other again. Using those tactics with great care, one can sometimes create inter-AI-world-wars, where each AI is at war with another civ or where a maximum of two civs are at war against the same target, and that with only 1-2 techs and 1-2 bribes.
Don't forget to join the war against the targets that are far away, once nobody can DoW you anymore, to trade pleased-AIs against furious and friendly ones. Better have 2 friends and 2 foes, than having everybody on pleased, at least in most cases.
What I just think of, that is better than bribing A against B and C against A btw. is to bribe A against B and C against B while giving B a tech to bribe D, E and F (check if the AI can bribe others and which techs those civs lack) . Like that, you only lose B as a friend and 1-2 techs, but have the chance to severely slow down the AIs (AIs at war generally lower the slider by at least 20%) and also prevent AIs becoming friendly towards each other because every DoW is -3 but also -1 with all the pleased-AIs of that target. This often results in very desirable situations, where one has something like two friends, those can also be friendly towards each other, and all others are garantueed to keep their techs to themselves, resulting in an easy, major tech-lead for you and your friends, then you backstab the rest and your friends will peace-vassal or you're so powerful that you simply vassal them by force attacking 2-3 cities simultaniously. Every unit you beat is a maximum of 3 war-sucess, every city is 10, you only need 40 to vassal the AI + you need 1.5 times its power and 2 times it's land iirc, so it's even possible to keep that AI as a strong partner and not destroy his stack, if one can create those conditions. I did something like that in Replay #9 aswell.

 

[ori]

Moderator Action: moved to strategy & tips

also welcome to CFC

 

[Hugethman]

Well like Seraiel suggested I upped the difficulty level from emp to immortal and this resulted in my first win on Immortal after a few attempts. Threw a start with Saladin and Stalin close by, axe rush, then the rest was history. Conquest by 1350 (but missed up Apostolic diplo that would have happened in 1000 AD shocker but oh well).

Noone built the oracle so I got CoL from it, then bulbed philosophy and founded taoism , which isn't too tricky on Immortal either I find. So perhaps I'll move up another notch?

Side note: In the last game I had a very low commerce start. Having researched pottery, I had just about enough gold to build a couple of cottage in 5 cities, work some water tiles, lakes, to research writing. I then ran two scientists ASAP in each city until my tech recovered and workers built enough improvements to generate decent commerce. Late on I began working a combination of commerce and GP - it worked well, and sounds like your HE. (I was teching at marathon at the same pace as I usually do on normal, so I was happy).

Question: How do I utilise say, 3 cities ('science cities' ) that have a couple of food resources and decent green land? It seems I Would working mainly cottages and a few specialists early doors, and then move the specialists out to cottages middle game as their payoff decreases. I would be inclined to shift working Grass/Cottage to specialists to generate GP as needs, and then to have three cities producing their max GP (one scientist, one merchant, one priest/artist) during a GA to generate more GP for a successive string of Golden ages. Does this sound about right?

 

[Hugethman]

A farm or too early doest hurt either if the city lacks say pig, corn or seafood

 

[Seraiel]

You can basically use any city as a GP-Farm during a GA with Caste and Pacifism, if it's able to generate a GP or come close to it, and disregard all Cottages or everything else also. In some games, I used as much as 10 different cities as GP-Farms, if a city can generate a GP that is useful, it's worth it, and GA + Pacfisim + Caste has awesome synergy. Don't forget to starve those cities aswell.