Too many people here seem to be confusing "getting a pantheon" with "getting a religion". There are tons of people left on this list who will struggle to grab the last great prophet, and if they fail would have
no shot at getting a religious victory, but people are too busy falling in love with what they
could do ("think about the combat bonuses their apostles would have", or "imagine the adjacency bonuses on their holy sites") to actually concern themselves with the single most important aspect of a religious victory.
Regarding Canada, I'll say this one last time. Enough about this supposed "lack of production" crippling their chances at getting a religion - unlike everyone else, I backed up my words and showed you via a saved game (with
one hill near my capital) that it's still easy to get the first religion
on deity, with two extra civs thrown in for good measure. I again challenge anyone to follow my strategy and actually see for themselves rather than continue to regurgitate "Canada bad".
And while we're talking about eliminated civs, no one thinks Australia's +100% production for ten turns when the deity AI inevitably rushes you in the ancient era is helpful for building a holy site and running prayers? Ok.
Amanitore/Nubia [8] (11-3) Just what I want to do, ignore the best UU unit in the game to research astrology and build holy sites/run prayers. Glad we kept her around. Sure is a ton of production and food out there in the desert, too. Or is this where the same people who pretended Canada can't possibly settle outside of the tundra tell me that obviously Amanitore should just move out of the desert?
Chandragupta/India [16]
Cleopatra/Egypt [7]
Gandhi/India [24]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [19] Ignore actually founding a religion, just think about how strong his apostles will be! That's all that matters, right?
Gitarja/Indonesia [20]
Gorgo/Greece [19]
Harald Hardrada/Norway [1] All you have do to found a religion quick enough is ignore what he's good at - pumping out immortal boats to pillage.
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [26]
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Jayavarman/Khmer [14]
Mansa Musa/Mali [24] No production in the desert with Mali getting even less, and you'll have to some how scrape up an army to defend yourself AND build a holy site AND run prayers (and maybe even a builder so you can start getting that bonus gold). Canada's slow start is apparently impossible to deal with, but the man with the slowest start in the game is worth 24 points. Sure. But man, you sure will get a pantheon fast, and that's what's really important I guess.
Montezuma/Aztecs [8] Monty's still here because...? You're going to spam strong Eagle Warriors AND found a religion, some how?
Pachacuti/Inca [10]
Pedro/Brazil [22]
Pericles/Greece [5] You would think anyone with even the slightest advantage at getting a great prophet would have an advantage over a bunch of leaders who have none, but I guess not...
Peter/Russia [32]
Saladin/Arabia [29] (28+1) He gets is a free prophet. I know, I know, what's a prophet next to a quick pantheon (that's what's *really* important, right?), but I'm sure it's at least a *little* useful for winning an actual religious victory since, you know, you need a prophet to do that.
Tamar/Georgia [23]
@Kwami :
Oh, please. One save game doesn't prove much of anything.
I can do it every time I play as Canada. How many save games would I need to post for you to ignore before you were satisfied?
Besides, having extra civs around means fewer barbarians.
I put the extra civs in there because it tends to increase early AI aggression and I wanted to prove that Canada is immune to war (that's why I denounced everybody ASAP as well). If you actually bothered to look at the map, you'd see there is TONS of available space for barbs to spawn around my one and only city, especially with only 4 troops making up my "army".
In the tundra, with Canada, barbarians are much bigger threat than the other civs. You still need defensive troops to survive in most cases. The idea that Canada doesn't need a few Warriors or Slingers is ridiculous.
In the provided game I cleared two barbarian camps with nothing but my original warrior, two scouts, and one slinger. If you know that barbarians are your only threat and you focus on dealing with them, they're pretty easy to handle with a small force (use your pair of scouts to cut off the barb scouts, while your warrior and slinger head to clean up the camp). If you're still too scared to do what I did to deal with barbs, you can sub a warrior or slinger for the scouts and play it even safer (just like I said way back when I first talked about this). If a lack of scouting forces me into a classical dark age, good - it'll lead to an easy medieval heroic age, with Exodus to help spread my religion.
Besides that, the tundra is really bad for food and production. It doesn't matter if Canada gets bonuses to mines and lumber mills and camps since you'll have to spend time on tech to get those improvements and on builders to create them.
And, tundra farms are so bad.
None of these have anything to do with your ability to found a religion... you won't even produce a builder until after you have your religion if you do what I suggested so who cares?
In the vast majority of my games, even at Immortal/Deity, I don't have to worry about early wars. They just don't happen all that often. Spend the 25 gold on a delegation and get open borders. That's usually enough to avoid war, even if you don't bother to build many combat units.
I think if you try to skimp on training troops at higher difficulty levels you are taking a huge risk that Canada simply doesn't have to worry about. Sometimes you may survive, but other times you'll get wiped right off the map. To act like this isn't a strong possibility seems a little deceptive IMO. If anyone else spawns close to deity Monty and his hoard of Eagle Warriors it's game over, especially if they try rushing a religion. Canada doesn't care.
