WoundedKnight
Warlord
- Joined
- May 28, 2002
- Messages
- 253
Ok...I'll be the first to say it: I think that the religious civ attributes is overvalued. I've started playing games without ever building a temple or cathedral, and have done fine.
The anarchy for a few turns is the only thing I miss about religious civs. I beeline straight to the Republic, stay in republic until democracy, and in democracy until the end of the game.
The key to this strat is getting as many luxury resources as possible early on. The good thing about luxuries is that (1) they don't cost any shields, and (2) they cost no upkeep. So being very aggressive early on is key. Connecting offshore luxuries with harbors is important if you aren't playing on pangaea.
As discussed in a recent thread, the more luxuries you have, the more smileys a marketplace will add up to 12 smileys if you have all 8 luxuries (1 or 2 - no more, 3:+1, 4: +2, 5:+4, 6:+6, 7:+9, 8:+12. In addition to the one smiley per luxury at baseline. And if you have Adam Smith's Trading Company, you pay no upkeep at all for the marketplaces.
Compare this to temples, which you have to put 30 or 60 shields into up front, depending on whether you are a religious civ or not. Then you have to pay 1 gold for every temple you have, or 3 for every cathedral, throughout the ENTIRE game. And they only make 1 person happy (temples, unless you have oracle, then it's 2 until that expires) or 3 for a cathedral. That's not much bang for your buck. Temples cost money instead of feeding you money. Going from 5 to 6 luxuries with cities with marketplaces is like building a cathedral in every city and no cost and with no overhead. Going from 5 to 8 is almost as good as building two cathedrals, temples, and colloseums in every city (9->20 smileys) with no overhead. So why waste shields and resources on temples and cathedrals? Spend your shields and $ on building military so you can claim luxuries instead.
Occasionally I've had to put some temporary money into entertainment, but almost never beyond 30% (on regent), going down to virtually 0% when things have stabilized and marketplaces are built. In any case, it's not an ongoing issue like for temples where you pay forever.
I play scientific civs. That way you can build libraries up front instead of temples. They give you more culture and equally importantly, they help with your research so that by the time your first round of libraries and marketplaces is built, you have both the scientific and economic power to leap to the front of the pack. I generally play Persian for the industrious bonus too to lay down improvements and roads. Faster roads means more commerce which in turn means faster science and more money. By channelling resources (shields + gold) into the more productive activities of science, economy, and industry with this strategy, I got a score of over 4200 last night on a regent Pangaea map (the first time I tried this strat). I only played to 1400 (domination victory) and didn't milk the game at all. I had computers when none of the other players even had industrialization (small map). I'm not an expert player, but that's much better than I've done with the old Egyptian or Babylonian templemania.
Anyway, the reason I posted this is because I asked recently on this board how many temples/cathedrals people build and the overwhelming concensus was temples in all cities & cathedrals at least in large cities. And I'm posting this because, at least in my experience, it's possible to do very well without ever building a single temple at all, and with only very minimal and temporary expenses devoted to entertainment.
Drawbacks of this strat: Maybe on Emperor or Diety where people are really whiny you sometimes HAVE to build some temples, even with luxuries, and let productivity and science take a back seat to simply keeping the peace. Or if you have a really bad starting position and can't settle or warmonger your way to a good array of luxury resources.
WoundedKnight
The anarchy for a few turns is the only thing I miss about religious civs. I beeline straight to the Republic, stay in republic until democracy, and in democracy until the end of the game.
The key to this strat is getting as many luxury resources as possible early on. The good thing about luxuries is that (1) they don't cost any shields, and (2) they cost no upkeep. So being very aggressive early on is key. Connecting offshore luxuries with harbors is important if you aren't playing on pangaea.
As discussed in a recent thread, the more luxuries you have, the more smileys a marketplace will add up to 12 smileys if you have all 8 luxuries (1 or 2 - no more, 3:+1, 4: +2, 5:+4, 6:+6, 7:+9, 8:+12. In addition to the one smiley per luxury at baseline. And if you have Adam Smith's Trading Company, you pay no upkeep at all for the marketplaces.
Compare this to temples, which you have to put 30 or 60 shields into up front, depending on whether you are a religious civ or not. Then you have to pay 1 gold for every temple you have, or 3 for every cathedral, throughout the ENTIRE game. And they only make 1 person happy (temples, unless you have oracle, then it's 2 until that expires) or 3 for a cathedral. That's not much bang for your buck. Temples cost money instead of feeding you money. Going from 5 to 6 luxuries with cities with marketplaces is like building a cathedral in every city and no cost and with no overhead. Going from 5 to 8 is almost as good as building two cathedrals, temples, and colloseums in every city (9->20 smileys) with no overhead. So why waste shields and resources on temples and cathedrals? Spend your shields and $ on building military so you can claim luxuries instead.
Occasionally I've had to put some temporary money into entertainment, but almost never beyond 30% (on regent), going down to virtually 0% when things have stabilized and marketplaces are built. In any case, it's not an ongoing issue like for temples where you pay forever.
I play scientific civs. That way you can build libraries up front instead of temples. They give you more culture and equally importantly, they help with your research so that by the time your first round of libraries and marketplaces is built, you have both the scientific and economic power to leap to the front of the pack. I generally play Persian for the industrious bonus too to lay down improvements and roads. Faster roads means more commerce which in turn means faster science and more money. By channelling resources (shields + gold) into the more productive activities of science, economy, and industry with this strategy, I got a score of over 4200 last night on a regent Pangaea map (the first time I tried this strat). I only played to 1400 (domination victory) and didn't milk the game at all. I had computers when none of the other players even had industrialization (small map). I'm not an expert player, but that's much better than I've done with the old Egyptian or Babylonian templemania.
Anyway, the reason I posted this is because I asked recently on this board how many temples/cathedrals people build and the overwhelming concensus was temples in all cities & cathedrals at least in large cities. And I'm posting this because, at least in my experience, it's possible to do very well without ever building a single temple at all, and with only very minimal and temporary expenses devoted to entertainment.
Drawbacks of this strat: Maybe on Emperor or Diety where people are really whiny you sometimes HAVE to build some temples, even with luxuries, and let productivity and science take a back seat to simply keeping the peace. Or if you have a really bad starting position and can't settle or warmonger your way to a good array of luxury resources.
WoundedKnight
