Playing very wide with Ethopia?

Roghar

Warlord
Joined
Nov 30, 2007
Messages
284
Location
Perth, Western Australia
I started a game last night with Ethiopia, emperor/continents, thinking to play small for a cultural victory if possible. Two gems in the start, so went with Tears of the Gods for my pantheon. Found a couple more city sites nearby with gems and pearls, so happy with the start.

I was first to a religion, first to enhance, managed to get both Pagodas and Mosques, so thought Sacred Sites for sure. Have Tithes and Itinerant Preachers. Egypt beat me to Reformation belief, took Sacred Sites despite having neither of those buildings, so I took Jesuit Education.

I took Piety straight out the gate, and have started on Aesthetics.

At the same time, the AI on my continent has somehow left space to build decent cities; I have 5 and am building a settler for a 6th.

I’m not in the place I had planned to be, but find myself with some interesting potential, and am wondering if I can in fact go very wide. Despite all of the disadvantages to social policies and happiness going very wide, and difficulties getting national wonders up:
• With great early faith income and having pagodas and mosques, I’ve been able to buy those buildings very quickly in all cities as soon as they get my religion. Those two plus a cheap stele gives +7 faith, +6 culture and +3 happy very very cheaply and quickly, substantially mitigating the culture and happy costs of adding a new city.
• Each city adds a lot of faith fast, so going wide I can get a very strong late game faith income to buy research buildings, great people, etc.
• Absolute culture generation is large, so I’m fairly safe from influence later in the game and still have strong tourism potential, despite no Sacred Sites.

My current plans are to finish aesthetics, then rationalism and order. Once I have caravels I’ll explore the seas and try to settle other continents, and basically just grow as much as possible, enabling a range of possible victory conditions. My science is behind but should explode once I can buy my cheap universities (have plenty of jungle).

This has been a bit long-winded, but basically my question is, is it actually feasible to go very wide with a strong religious start utilising steles, mosques and pagodas?
 
Ethiopia's UB makes it a really good wide civ as well as a good tall civ. You aren't getting much out of the UA, but yeah, wide with Ethiopia is pretty good and very feasible.
 
Less feasible in BNW, but still somewhat feasible. Especially with Ethiopia or the Maya.
 
Yeah, it's actually a good idea, with the stele. Good as tall or wide.
 
Ethiopia is a BEAST going wide religious. If you get a good faith start, either desert folklore or a natural wonder (or maybe even stone circles), go as wide as possible with one key thing in your mind- CAP YOUR POPULATION GROWTH!

Let those big tradition cities grow as big as possible, but for those "wide" cities, you don't want more than 4 or 5 population. I'm pretty sure 5 population can support a pagoda, coliseum, mosque, and zoo? You can basically get like 1 unhappiness from each "wide" city this way, but you get tons of faith from those faith buildings, making it completely worth it.

Another great wide belief if you can get your religion up quickly (Borobodur helps immensely) is the +2 happy from temples, which requires 5 followers. Do it early and all 5 citizens will be your religion.
 
Just realized you went Piety first. I wouldn't do this if I'm going wide, I'd go Liberty or Tradition... Piety starts are not so good.
 
Thanks, good input on the city size. Yes, Piety start not great, I stalled too much, so have restarted with Tradition.

Unfortunately not a good faith start, but lots of jungle so have culture rocking through Sacred Path. I'll see how quickly I can get religion going before I decide if to go wide or not, without pagodas/mosques I don't see it working. I have Marble, so good Wonders bonus which may let me get my early faith that way, but jungle start sucks for production so we'll see.

If not I'll try it again next game.
 
If you do try yet again, I recommend going Liberty start as it will help get settlers out faster if you stick to the left of the tree.
 
Yes, realised this a way into my Tradition game and restarted. Completed Liberty, then Tradition, just started on Rationalism. It's going well so far, built 6 early cities, lead in score, currently winning my first war against England. I kept my cities very small early to keep happy and to enable quick religious spread, and have been rewarded with a lot of religion spread into nearby nations.

I aim to annex the better cities once their unrest is over, will see if the religious buildings (pagodas, mosques) make a large city count viable.
 
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