Religious Victory strategy help

[pholtz]

I remember seeing some posts about how to accomplish this but can't find them now. I don't know whether they were posted here or in the Strategy area. My main concerns:


1. I heard something about if you have too much population, you'll never get the religious victory vote?

2. Some things about reducing your religion population then increasing it. I'm not sure how/when you do this.

I need some religious victories and would appreciate some pointers to the threads that discussed this. I don't want to play a game and never have the chance to vote, won't learn much that way.

 

[BLubmuz]

An help would be appreciated from me, too.
IIRC you cannot build the AP if you already own the necessary votes.
I've read something about too many pop, but i'm in the dark.

Still, i submitted 2 not bad victories, but prolly i never encountered the situations you're askin' about.

 

[DaddyMac]

1. I heard something about if you have too much population, you'll never get the religious victory vote?

You're right about this. The victory vote will never be triggered if you have enough votes to win without the support of any other civilizations. You can check the number of votes that you have, the number of votes that other civilizations have, and the number of votes required to win on the settings page (F8). I believe that the number of votes required for victory is 3/4 of the total number of votes.

2. Some things about reducing your religion population then increasing it. I'm not sure how/when you do this.

You can manage the number of votes in several ways:
1. Use slavery to whip away some of your population. This reduces both your number of votes (as a full member of the AP, you get 2 votes for every population point for cities that have the AP religion) and the total number of votes (which in turn reduces the number required for 75% victory). You may find that you have to whip several citizens to reduce your votes to the point where you no longer meet/exceed the 75% limit.
2. You can send missionaries to other civilizations. This increases the world voting population, therby reducing your percentage.
3. Don't spread religion to all your cities

You also need to make sure that you have the support of at least one other civilization that's NOT the other candidate. The other candidate will be the civilization with the most votes available. You can manipulate who your candidate will be by using missionaries to increase the number of votes a civilization has - but remember that you cannot decrease the number of votes that civilization has. Manipulating the other candidate is useful when #2 would vote for you if they weren't the candidate. Moving them into the #3 slot means more votes for you, and usually the win.

Hope that helps.

 

[bestje]

vassaling helps as well

 

[jesusin]

I think there was a lot of talk about this in one of the Beta Gauntlets.

Please, first read the civilopedia info.


There are more things you can do to manipulate your votes:
- Use the don't grow buttom and then grow a lot in the last turn.
- Change your religion and then going back to the AP religion on the last turn.
- Hanging Gardens in the last turn.
- Spreading the religion to more of your cities in the last turn...

 

[Conquistador 63]

Go check BTS Beta 8 Gauntlet thread. Ori has posted a lot of useful stuff there. However, I'm playing my 1st BTS game right now and some things aren't happening as predicted. In BOTM 1 & 2 spoiler threads there are reports of bugs found related to religious and diplo victories in BTS 3.13.

In my case switching out of my AP religion after being elected "pope" made me a "voting member" instead of a "full member" and no voting option has showed up in the next 20 turns.

 

[pholtz]

Similar problem here. I built the AP, got a trigger for election for the "leader?", the one that proposes votes. But nothing happened after that. I immediately spread my state religion to the two AI's, but when nothing happened, I changed my state religion, figuring that I had too much of a lead. Again, nothing. I switch back and played more, but nothing.

Never saw any voting or even the results of my first vote. So what happened?

Do I need to be less than 75% to trigger any voting? I thought it was only for the victory? The Victory screen showed that the AP was built but that was all.

Off to take a look at the Beta Gauntlet thread before I try again.

 

[pholtz]

I managed my first religious win, on a duel sized Settler map, normal speed, 425AD. I almost had a BC win, but the same turn the vote came, one of my opponents adopted the religion as state, which caused the number of necessary votes to increase. So I had to get the win the old fashioned way, by getting one of the AI's friendly with me.

All I can think of on my first attempt is that the same turn I built the AP, I also spread my religion. Perhaps there is a bug there, probably safer to wait until you are Pope before you take any actions necessary to cause/win a Victory vote.

 

[pholtz]

vassaling helps as well

You need two AI's in the game to get the religious victory right? What if one of them is a vassal? Now only two instead of three "teams". Does that make the religious victory impossible?

 

[jesusin]

You need two AI's in the game to get the religious victory right? What if one of them is a vassal? Now only two instead of three "teams". Does that make the religious victory impossible?

No, religious victory is based on civs, not on teams. I wish I had known before BOTM1.

 

[pholtz]

Starting to get an idea of how to do this quickly. I have played three normal speed duel games

Settler - 425AD
Chieftain - 100AD
Warlord - 300BC

Only with the last one did I take advantage of the "loophole" of the before and after the victory resolution vote difference. It's the first time I've won a non conquest game with a single city of size 4, might be able to get that down to 3 . It is cheezy. I think I'll be able to improve my times as I go up the ladder to deity.

 

[pholtz]

You also need to make sure that you have the support of at least one other civilization that's NOT the other candidate. The other candidate will be the civilization with the most votes available. You can manipulate who your candidate will be by using missionaries to increase the number of votes a civilization has - but remember that you cannot decrease the number of votes that civilization has. Manipulating the other candidate is useful when #2 would vote for you if they weren't the candidate. Moving them into the #3 slot means more votes for you, and usually the win.

Actually if you increase your votes from below the 2/3 (3/4?) threshold to above it the turn the vote is cast, you don't need to have support of another civilization. But I have used your suggestions when I didn't have enough to vote myself in.

 

[Thrallia]

I'd recommend using the support of another civ...I'm sure that either the patch being worked on by firaxis, or the next version of the HOF mod will get rid of that loophole.

 

[pholtz]

I'd recommend using the support of another civ...I'm sure that either the patch being worked on by firaxis, or the next version of the HOF mod will get rid of that loophole.

If this happens, what happens to the HOF entries that followed the rules then in effect and used that loophole?

Asking for two reasons

1. I've recently learned how to achieve a religious victory and have started to refine my technique to get the earliest time. Obviously, if I spend time learning how to do it using the loophole, and that is taken away, that is lots of wasted time.

2. I have 4 religious victories submitted so far, only 1 uses the loophole, mainly because I was not smart enough to do it at first. But I just finished a "normal" game where I was playing against random opponents on a new map type with a new leader, and the opportunity for a religious victory occurred, so I got a normal religious victory. I need to know if my normal religious victories are going to count.

My preference for the fix would be to require that another civ vote for you to get a victory. So no need to prevent the victory from being voted on just because one person has 3/4's of the vote by himself. Stopping a victory because the player is doing too good doesn't seem right. But even if the player has 99% of the vote, at least one other vote would be required.

 

[DaddyMac]

I'd recommend using the support of another civ...I'm sure that either the patch being worked on by firaxis, or the next version of the HOF mod will get rid of that loophole.

Is this loophole how JimmyThunder's Deity game got included? There was only one opponent left when he left, and I don't think that he could've persuaded them to vote for him since they would have been up for election too. Or since it was completed using the 3.0.2 patch, I guess voting yourself in was legal?

 

[Thrallia]

generally, it seems that if a strategy was allowed when the game was submitted, then it stays in the tables. But in 3.0.2, there was no self-voting block, so I have no idea how JimmyThunder won.

 

[Andrei_V]

If the only opponent is not of the AP religion, you'll be the only candidate for the AP win, and you can bribe that opponent to vote for you.

 

[WastinTime]

I guess I better work on that 2000 BC Diety Religious game ASAP I already submitted a few test games last week. With the right map, I think 2000 BC is the correct target (for Tiny/Duel).

It's odd they even put this victory condition in the "Beyond the Sword" expansion. The game will not even go to the Sword, much less beyond it.

 

[WastinTime]

On 2nd thought, the staff shouldn't even worry about this "bug". It's really only useful on Tiny/Duel, and do these map sizes really matter?

The top games on larger maps (will finish 1500 BC and earlier) will not be able to vote themselves in. You might be able to do it on Small, but not larger than that.

 

[shyuhe]

I'm curious to see what the ideal date is for a standard sized map. I haven't really played around with the AP on standard yet (tried some test games on tiny with non-industrious civs and got near 1000 BC).