Sacret sites question

[simonthesinner]

How much impact would it be in a culture game to, say, by year 1 AD get Sacred Sites and having 2 holy buildings each in 4 cities. Lets say your 16 tourism are the only ones on the board, except the 2 from the parthenon (which you don't own). Will that actually help you achieve a substantially earlier cutural victory, or is it still later with hotels, full ascetism, diplomats and tourism in the hundreds that you can actualy become influential?

 

[Pythakoreas]

I guess Sacred Sites CV is actually spamming cities with religious buildings, 2 tourism for a tall empire sounds...cute!

 

[Kintara]

Sacred Sites can help a lot. Basically, it gives you a head start that is pretty much impossible to get any other way. You'll want to expand mostly as much as you can manage, though, because more raw Tourism is better. No need to stop at four, unless you're forced to. Anyway, remember that you have to actually meet a civilization in order to influence them, so scouting is quite important to early tourism. Also, it's important to build your guilds. If your city is naval, then get a second naval city and a naval food route if you can, or you can spread out each of the Guilds to relatively high food cities. You need to run those specialists, and Piety means you might be a bit slower in growth, so keep that in mind. Also, note that settling Great Prophets after you've finished with Piety gives you tile-based culture from holy sites. That will also be turned into Tourism when you get your hotel/airport down. Getting the Enhancer that lets you spawn extra GPs can be useful because of that.

 

[PostConsumerWat]

I was playing around with sacred Sites as Egypt... with their temple UB you can really crank out the cities and and get it going. I had a desert start as well, made the Great Library, then the national wonder thing, Petra... it was pretty brutal.

I gave up though because it got boring. Emperor.

 

[simonthesinner]

Sacred Sites can help a lot. Basically, it gives you a head start that is pretty much impossible to get any other way. You'll want to expand mostly as much as you can manage, though, because more raw Tourism is better. No need to stop at four, unless you're forced to. Anyway, remember that you have to actually meet a civilization in order to influence them, so scouting is quite important to early tourism. Also, it's important to build your guilds. If your city is naval, then get a second naval city and a naval food route if you can, or you can spread out each of the Guilds to relatively high food cities. You need to run those specialists, and Piety means you might be a bit slower in growth, so keep that in mind. Also, note that settling Great Prophets after you've finished with Piety gives you tile-based culture from holy sites. That will also be turned into Tourism when you get your hotel/airport down. Getting the Enhancer that lets you spawn extra GPs can be useful because of that.

Ok. Maybe a Celtic religious wide culture empire for my next try then. But could you, for example win a culture victory before hotels with the help of Sacred Sites and 2 holy buildings per city? There's no use to go super-wide with it because of the tech malus, unless you can win kinda quick, maybe a bit into the industrial era.

 

[AbTupinikim]

In fact I played with Brazil, with cathedral + pagodas from religion, and after that rush to take sacred sites from the piety reformation. With a wide empire I get a so early cultural victory, before the radio...

It's like a great sacred empire... I put 6 to 8 cities with both religous bulidngs to get +than 20 tourism in the normal turn, and in the Carnivals I taked 50 tourism... using great artistis to prolong the carnivals for so many turns, great writers to get policies and musicians to complete the victory againts the most cultural oponent...

I not get so many points like the domination victory, but its cool too...

 

[cambasonso]

In my latest exploit of sacred sites I got my culture victory at turn 173, that is 1130 AD, (on standard speed). I went ICS ended up with 13 cities. I might make a post about it eventually but I'm still trying to improve my own record first. This game was on king, as I didn't want too many wars diversion, but I got really nervous when the first civ I encountered were the Zulus! By the time it ended the Zulus had already taken Dido and Maria-Theresa out, and I'm pretty sure I was next on his to do list but my culture (tourism) ended his barbarian dreams!

 

[Morningcalm]

And once again it is clear that wider empires do better with tourism than taller empires--though taller empires can dedicate to specialists better (that said, nothing prevents you having a wide empire with a tall capital that can work specialists).

Sacred Sites is great, especially if you have an expansive empire, as even +2 tourism from each city will add up to a lot if you have 5 or more cities that early.

In my latest exploit of sacred sites I got my culture victory at turn 173, that is 1130 AD, (on standard speed). I went ICS ended up with 13 cities. I might make a post about it eventually but I'm still trying to improve my own record first. This game was on king, as I didn't want too many wars diversion, but I got really nervous when the first civ I encountered were the Zulus! By the time it ended the Zulus had already taken Dido and Maria-Theresa out, and I'm pretty sure I was next on his to do list but my culture (tourism) ended his barbarian dreams!

How did you balance out the happiness and science penalty from the culture loss though? If you have low science you can't get the Culture wonders as easily right? Did any AI also try to hog wonders that generated tourism?

 

[SolDelta]

I found that a super wide Ethiopia benefits greatly from this. Grab a Stele, a Pagoda and a mosque/cathedral in every city you spam and you can comfortably stay in the green for happiness, pump out social policies and advance in technology at a competitive pace (though you may need to use your spies rather wisely to make sure you keep up with the science penalty.) You get 4 to 6 tourism from each city (if you fill those cathedral great work slots) and enough faith to be buying religious buildings as soon as the new cities are converted. Go a Piety and Liberty mix that gets you through the early game (and make sure you snap up the buildings before they go), then once you're in the industrial era (if the game lasts that long) grab Order ASAP, for socialist realism and the two policies that boost tourism for being happier than others, and for other Order civs. Oh, and make sure you grab church property to keep your gold up, you don't want to overextend your building maintenance and get even more of a science penalty.

 

[bob massingbird]

I guess Sacred Sites CV is actually spamming cities with religious buildings, 2 tourism for a tall empire sounds...cute!

If you aiming to win culture by going Sacred site, you should have not one but two faith buildings, that will make it 4 tourism per city early. Which is kind of nice. Any combination of Mosqu/cathedral/Pagoda/Monastery will do.

 

[Sidor1982]

My best with this strategy is 92 turns culture victory (Spain, emperor, 1v1 pangea map)

 

[simonthesinner]

Tried a few times and at least on King, with 10 civs it's way to luck dependent. Even if you rush through Piety, you will probably not get first pick. I got a very early religion due to Mt Sinai, built monestaries first for culture, had 3 cities, all with monument and picked tradition opener and then all piety. Celts still got a reformation belief Before me and i was 2 picks off. They picked Sacred sites.

I feel I would need to severely cook the starting conditions or play on Prince to reliably get this to work.

I Think I will however pick one building and then wait until after the reformation belief pick (or after I know sacred sites is gone) to enhance. If I don't get sacred sites I might not pick a second building.

 

[cambasonso]

How did you balance out the happiness and science penalty from the culture loss though? If you have low science you can't get the Culture wonders as easily right? Did any AI also try to hog wonders that generated tourism?

Happiness is barely a problem with pagodas and mosques you have an extra 3 happiness per city, I would let them grow to 5 and make them do a settler to effectively stop any possible growth. I didn't have much luxuries variety but a lot of copies so I was eventually able to trade them a little later on. I was able to make two friends, Sejong and Maria Theresa, but that was short live since Maria was taken out rather quickly by the Zulus. So I couldn't trade for money but they accept straight luxury exchange if you are not too disliked. Since I was very peaceful and did't pursue much wonders and was totally west on the standard pangea, it helped peace but decreased the rate of tourism spreading for a lack of trading routes.

Science wasn't at all a focus but incredibly I was on par with Sejong as tech leaders. The fastest you acquire sacred sites, the fastest you will win, so I will try bypassing any other opening and go straight to piety. Pumping faith is number one priority, so shrines and temples first, them monuments and libraries. This is pretty all I could build before it was over. I had just researched education and was going for pisa tower but I won before that if I remember correctly, but I kept the saves.

The only tourism wonders was parthenon which in this context is not worth the hammers. Since tourism doesn't affect your possibilities to win only their culture per turn, you can try to snap high culture wonders, but I haven't checked much into that. My own culture is my meter to see how good I am doing, since culture is quite scarce at the beginning of the game this is why you must hit early. I made the pyramids for the workers, I gambled trying for petra because it wasn't taken at turn 85 which seemed a good sign so I went for it and got it, and of course went for all the obvious religious wonders but didn't get them all.

I played standard speed, standard pangea, standard everything. I sometimes want to disable barbarians because the new horse units are really damaging but I abstain from it since it's part of the game.

 

[FrostK]

It is nice way to win, but u need a lot of cities.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=503250&highlight=religion

 

[rattlejaw]

Sacred Sites is very all-in. I've been trying to make it work on Immortal, and the biggest problem is that you generally end up choosing your Reformation belief before enhancing your religion (unless you delay with a Liberty opener, in which case you risk losing the good Reformation beliefs, and will generally have less faith output to found a good religion unless you happen to be playing Ethiopia, Maya, etc.). The AIs love faith buildings, so it's entirely possible--particularly if some of them happen to be faith civs--that by the time you hit your enhancer, there's no possibility of a second building. At that point, your Reformation is a complete waste of time.

I'm also not convinced that Sacred Sites is actually better for a culture win than For the Glory of God or Jesuit Education, both of which not only help with that win condition but offer a lot of versatility and the opportunity to make a better religion than one that's locked up in faith buildings.

If you're on a Pangaea (or maybe you're playing Maya and can scout with an early Admiral) and if you can get the right beliefs and if you have room to ICS and if, if, if. Sacred Sites looks a lot like a crappy gimmick that occasionally pays off big.

 

[FrostK]

Sacred Sites is very all-in.

Tourism is all-in in general cause it gives nothing until victory. Just comparing to others: science victory - n/c, domination - large army and a lot of cities, diplomatic - a lot of alllied CS. This should be changed obviously.

 

[chazzycat]

Tourism gives you ideology pressure, which causes massive unhappiness, city flipping, and revolutions. Is that not enough?

 

[Chiatroll]

Tourism is all-in in general cause it gives nothing until victory. Just comparing to others: science victory - n/c, domination - large army and a lot of cities, diplomatic - a lot of alllied CS. This should be changed obviously.

This is incorrect.

Ideology pressure is about the difference between your tourism level to them and their tourism level to you.

So, if they are exotic to you then you want to be either exotic or higher to them or the same ideology. If you aren't either of those you will suffer happiness consequences.

Tourism is a concern even if you aren't going to culture because of this.

 

[Drewbdu]

This is incorrect.

Ideology pressure is about the difference between your tourism level to them and their tourism level to you.

So, if they are exotic to you then you want to be either exotic or higher to them or the same ideology. If you aren't either of those you will suffer happiness consequences.

Tourism is a concern even if you aren't going to culture because of this.

But ideological pressure doesnt make a difference when Civs have over 70 happiness /: