Askthepizzaguy
Know the Dark Side
Greetings all. This is my first post on this forum.
I personally favor a style of play which is probably pretty bad against humans, but works ok against the AI: I like to expand and expand. I'd like to hear from you and see if there's any suggestions you might have to improve this strategy.
First off, I tend to go for a civilization that starts with mysticism. This way I can research meditation as my very first discovery (to block the AI from getting Buddhism, while giving myself a starting religion). Then I gamble on Polytheism. It's rare that I don't get Hinduism as well, but I usually limit the game to 7 civs, on higher numbers you are virtually guaranteed not to get Hinduism. No bother, because if you try to get 5 out of 6 religions, you can do without Hinduism. Next I'll be researching to get Judaism, and with Oracle, I get Theology or Code of Laws so that I nab one religion while working on the second. The only one I don't try to get exclusively to myself is Islam because it takes so long to get there and my tech tree is already religion-heavy. I still try to get it if I can, but I don't strain myself.
Worst case scenario, I have 4 religions. Now I choose the civic which allows me to make missionaries without monasteries, and I spread all my faiths to all my cities. Now I have the cultural benefits of multiple religions (sometimes I don't choose a state religion, so I get maximum cultural benefit, and use temples instead for the happiness bonuses).
I try to get as many great prophets as possible, and build wonders that assist in this. Now I build as many holy shrines as possible, starting with the most propagated faith down to the least. This nets me extra gold per turn for all the cities in my empire.
Meanwhile, I've expanded my empire to as many cities as I can without destroying my science slider entirely. Often I will have to temporarily lower my science to prevent bankruptcy.
I try to get a leader with the trait (organized?) that allows me to build courthouses so as to reduce the maintenance penalties.
With the high cultural production from having multiple faiths, the financial boost to cover my immediate penalties, and the ability to produce courthouses faster, I tend to have many more cities than my AI counterparts. The problem with this strategy is that you can't focus too much on many of your existing cities, because they are producing missionaries, settlers, and workers, as well as temples and temples and monasteries and temples and monasteries. And unless you further bog down your empire with a city exclusively focused on military production, you're uber vulnerable during your early expansion. Any militaristic faction is your worst nightmare. On the plus side, you generally won't have to worry about religious hatred toward your faction because you have no state religion, or you can convert easily to a neighbor's religion without too much penalty.
Where the strategy really takes off is on bigger maps in the late/middle game. Once you discover communism and the maintenance penalties become non-existent, you have a new boom in city building and a giant sudden source of revenue.
At this point, I tend to role-play as the Borg Collective. One massive, communist empire that is too powerful to ignore, with new settlements spawning at a rate that will make your head spin, and seemingly endless amounts of cash.
Getting to communism is the entire battle. Once there, half of your empire can focus on expansion through settlements, and the other half can focus on building a MASSIVE army to take over the entire world. You could harass everyone on the board with ships and pillaging before you even bother with a main invasion. Use the cultural benefits of your empire to expand your borders into enemy territory through "flipping" until you can conquer by force.
Apologies if this strategy has been posted elsewhere, I came up with this independently.
Now, my question...
How would YOU improve this strategy of mega-expansionism in spite of maintenance costs? What would you add to this? Suggestions, questions, comments, all are welcome.
I personally favor a style of play which is probably pretty bad against humans, but works ok against the AI: I like to expand and expand. I'd like to hear from you and see if there's any suggestions you might have to improve this strategy.
First off, I tend to go for a civilization that starts with mysticism. This way I can research meditation as my very first discovery (to block the AI from getting Buddhism, while giving myself a starting religion). Then I gamble on Polytheism. It's rare that I don't get Hinduism as well, but I usually limit the game to 7 civs, on higher numbers you are virtually guaranteed not to get Hinduism. No bother, because if you try to get 5 out of 6 religions, you can do without Hinduism. Next I'll be researching to get Judaism, and with Oracle, I get Theology or Code of Laws so that I nab one religion while working on the second. The only one I don't try to get exclusively to myself is Islam because it takes so long to get there and my tech tree is already religion-heavy. I still try to get it if I can, but I don't strain myself.
Worst case scenario, I have 4 religions. Now I choose the civic which allows me to make missionaries without monasteries, and I spread all my faiths to all my cities. Now I have the cultural benefits of multiple religions (sometimes I don't choose a state religion, so I get maximum cultural benefit, and use temples instead for the happiness bonuses).
I try to get as many great prophets as possible, and build wonders that assist in this. Now I build as many holy shrines as possible, starting with the most propagated faith down to the least. This nets me extra gold per turn for all the cities in my empire.
Meanwhile, I've expanded my empire to as many cities as I can without destroying my science slider entirely. Often I will have to temporarily lower my science to prevent bankruptcy.
I try to get a leader with the trait (organized?) that allows me to build courthouses so as to reduce the maintenance penalties.
With the high cultural production from having multiple faiths, the financial boost to cover my immediate penalties, and the ability to produce courthouses faster, I tend to have many more cities than my AI counterparts. The problem with this strategy is that you can't focus too much on many of your existing cities, because they are producing missionaries, settlers, and workers, as well as temples and temples and monasteries and temples and monasteries. And unless you further bog down your empire with a city exclusively focused on military production, you're uber vulnerable during your early expansion. Any militaristic faction is your worst nightmare. On the plus side, you generally won't have to worry about religious hatred toward your faction because you have no state religion, or you can convert easily to a neighbor's religion without too much penalty.
Where the strategy really takes off is on bigger maps in the late/middle game. Once you discover communism and the maintenance penalties become non-existent, you have a new boom in city building and a giant sudden source of revenue.
At this point, I tend to role-play as the Borg Collective. One massive, communist empire that is too powerful to ignore, with new settlements spawning at a rate that will make your head spin, and seemingly endless amounts of cash.
Getting to communism is the entire battle. Once there, half of your empire can focus on expansion through settlements, and the other half can focus on building a MASSIVE army to take over the entire world. You could harass everyone on the board with ships and pillaging before you even bother with a main invasion. Use the cultural benefits of your empire to expand your borders into enemy territory through "flipping" until you can conquer by force.
Apologies if this strategy has been posted elsewhere, I came up with this independently.
Now, my question...
How would YOU improve this strategy of mega-expansionism in spite of maintenance costs? What would you add to this? Suggestions, questions, comments, all are welcome.
