The Doubly Holy city of Madrid

[Nuwan]

Isabella has a pretty good shot of founding both Buddhism and Confuscianism in the capital (Madrid) and you can do this by around turn 50 at normal speed. You need Isabella in order to start with both Fishing and Mysticism.

Here is how it works

1. Begin by working a 2 commerce (almost always water) tile near capital. You'll have such a tile in most starts in standard maps.
2. Tech Meditation while building either a work boat or a warrior.
3. You'll have a good shot at founding Buddhism.
4. Tech Mining followed by Bronze Working and get a worker out around the
time Bronze Working is done (the timing depends a bit on availability of uncovered hills to mine).
5. Tech Priesthood.
6. Immediately start building oracle when you hit Priesthood and start teching
Writing.
7. Chop forests and build a couple of mines to keep your citizens working.
8. Viola! finish Oracle and choose Code of Laws for Confuscianism. You'll get the happy free missionary and have a doubly holy capital city.

I've tried this 4 times on Emperor level (thrice on Big and Small, Standard size and once on Fractal, Small size) and succeeded in this every time. You need to tech archery pretty fast and chop out settlers quickly to not get boxed in, but that is usually doable.

This will set you up for a few different things. Its obviously a nice start for cultural wins, the 2 shrines can help fuel a long game, or you can try an Angkor Wat fueled priest/great prophet game.

See below for a screen shot of one of my games. This may be a fun way of playing Izzy.

 

[Refar]

By delaying a bit you could also have taken Monotheism for Judaism and a tripple holy city

Also chop/build Stonehenge while waiting for Priesthood for more Great Prophet GPP. Then bulb Theology with a Prophet.

I did tha once - on Prince thou not on Emperor - was fun but i think not really worth it.

 

[madscientist]

The biggest problem with this gambit is that you have no copper in the BFC and your wide open for an AI attack.

No worker techs, no workers, no defense past a warrior. The idea is not bad for Isabella but some prudence may help. Having two different holy cities ain't that bad.

 

[DaveMcW]

A double holy city is never worth the effort to create it.

 

[kazapp]

I've gotten a quad-holy city once or twice. Nice, but not more than that.

 

[oyzar]

I've gotten a 7 holy city in occ and won a diplomatic victory from it(it was monarch i belive). It is also rather easy to get double holy city in a city that isn't your capital, just have religion in all your cities when you discover a tech that gives you religion and have the holy city(non-capital) as the largest city(tao confu or just capture a bud or hindu holy city).

 

[AmazonQueen]

The biggest problem with this gambit is that you have no copper in the BFC and your wide open for an AI attack.

No worker techs, no workers, no defense past a warrior. The idea is not bad for Isabella but some prudence may help. Having two different holy cities ain't that bad.

An isolated islands map would solve that but then you won't be able to spread your religions far and wide.

 

[Nuwan]

I think this is a much better way of creating a double holy city than the Hinduism/Judaism route as you have mining/ BW and CoLs as techs and 1 worker out, so your development isn't stunted much.

You can get this fast (before 2000BC) so its very unlikely you will get attacked by an AI before then at least without aggressive AI.

Dave may well be right about the usefulness of it.

 

[madscientist]

If you really want a double holy city, best thing is to found one of the two early ones, build a second city fast for military, then concentrate on Judaism?christianity/Confuscism before the third city. Again, a high risk move.

 

[Polobo]

Up until Wall Street is there any significant advantage to placing corps and religions in a single city versus having them somewhat distributed? Depending on the map size, neighbors and city locations (and from experience in the late, post-launch, game) a single city providing ALL you gold is a BIG target. Plus, since you generally build multiple banks and grocers/markets have non-financial components you will probably have those buildings in other cities anyways.

 

[Julian Delphiki]

Was there something new in this strategy? This has been and seen & done about billion times

I mean really,

 

[r_rolo1]

Spain in a lake (TM) ..... a classic ,if you don't know it already.

 

[madscientist]

Up until Wall Street is there any significant advantage to placing corps and religions in a single city versus having them somewhat distributed? Depending on the map size, neighbors and city locations (and from experience in the late, post-launch, game) a single city providing ALL you gold is a BIG target. Plus, since you generally build multiple banks and grocers/markets have non-financial components you will probably have those buildings in other cities anyways.

Yes, you only need the expensive banks/markets/grocers in one or two cities. The remainder for Wall street can wait until after assembly line and factories/plants.