Veneration

[andersw]

Playing a game with Byzantines using Veneration.
Order/hero worship for faith, fealty for rebate and zelotry+faith of the masses for spending.

It feels strong but a lot it comes from the huge faith pump that is orders.
I guess Aztecs can probably even use it without orders but its still about wars.

Are there any other variants Veneration variants that are strong for example with peaceful play in mind?

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Any game where you think you'll be spending a lot of faith is good for Veneration. You ask about a peaceful play with Veneration - main peaceful sources of faith-spending:
- missionaries (especially with Apostolic Tradition!),
- inquisitors (especially with the Inquisition enhancer!),
- great prophets&other great persons,
- religious buildings,
- faith spending from reformation beliefs (culture buildings, science buildings, archeologists)

I'd especially recommend it when playing (peaceful) Byzantium, Maya, Ethiopia, Siam or Spain, when you have a good faith monopoly at the start of the game, or when you have a really strong pantheon start. For going veneration, I'd also recommend selecting one religious building as the second follower and picking at least the Fealty opener for monasteries.

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Playing a game with Byzantines using Veneration.
Order/hero worship for faith, fealty for rebate and zelotry+faith of the masses for spending.

It feels strong but a lot it comes from the huge faith pump that is orders.
I guess Aztecs can probably even use it without orders but its still about wars.

Are there any other variants Veneration variants that are strong for example with peaceful play in mind?

Aztecs faith generation is not that astounding after classical era; they get faith equal to the CS of defeated units unlike orders which scale with wide play and generate copius amounts of faith through out the game and it also scales with era.
Veneration works with pretty much every faith sink but it relies heavily on a faith generator and the two best faith generators happen to be Orders/Hero worship which are not very peaceful if i might say.
Border blop Spain with God of the expanse and To The Glory of God with Spain's natural ability to purchase ships might be the closest answer to your question but it's nowhere close to Orders/HeroWorship.

 

[andersw]

Aztecs faith generation is not that astounding after classical era; they get faith equal to the CS of defeated units unlike orders which scale with wide play and generate copius amounts of faith through out the game and it also scales with era.
Veneration works with pretty much every faith sink but it relies heavily on a faith generator and the two best faith generators happen to be Orders/Hero worship which are not very peaceful if i might say.
Border blop Spain with God of the expanse and To The Glory of God with Spain's natural ability to purchase ships might be the closest answer to your question but it's nowhere close to Orders/HeroWorship.

Thanks, I like warmongering so .... spain (war) sounds like an interesting test for next game.
And yes the faith from orders is hard to compare with.

 

[pineappledan]

Any yield on purchase mechanic is functionally a direct yield % converter that also captures instant yields.
Maximizing a yield converter is just about getting more of that yield in raw numbers and then spending them, but it makes no difference what you spend those yields on. As a result, Zealotry is a bad pick.

With their 1/2 converter, Byzantium has the most raw faith generation, so it's a great veneration civ.
Hero Worship and Orders pack the most raw output if you can win wars. If you are going militarist, pick up Syncretism for more generation. Don't pick Zealotry if you want to maximize Veneration.

For peaceful play, Ceremonial burial ( on GP expend, 5 on holy sites), Churches are a strong pick (4, and 1 per GW, higher than other religious buildings)
depending on how you are spreading faith or if you are playing wide, Abode of Peace (0.1 per foreign followers) or Mendicancy (2 per city) are good. Prophecy is also a strong choice (+3 on holy sites), and you can get more Ceremonial Burial triggers with cheaper GProphets.
The most raw is from Knowledge through Devotion (44 on all GP tiles). Jesuit education, Defender of the Faith and Global Commandments also generate faith, if those combine with your other strategies better. TtGoG might get you more Ceremonial Burial triggers, but it has no yields, so it's a weak pick.

With that combo, you have +12 on holy sites from religion alone, so you can ignore your GP purchase bonus as Byzantium and just focus on Prophets until you get enough sites to give a good economy on that.

 

[Drakle]

I posted these a while back.

I found a very nifty build.

Pantheon - God of the Expanse (Production and Faith on border expansion)

Founder - Ceremonial Burial (Faith and Culture on great person expansion)

Bonus - Holy Law (Faith, Science and Gold on Policy pick)

Follower - Veneration, Gold and culture on faith purchase.

2nd Follower - Free pick of religious buildings (I went Synagogues because 3rd and 4th adds some synergy). But cathedrals (gold and gold on border expansion would work. As would a number of religious buildings

Enhancer

Range of choices

Prophecy - Cheaper and Stronger Great Prophets

Sacred Calander - Percentage Great person generation bonus, and gold and golden age points per city following

Symbolism - GPP points

Reformation

Holy Land - Votes for holy sites

Knowledge Through Devotion - Buff GP tiles and works

To the Glory of God - Faith to purchase any GP, and Gold science and culture on expansion.

-----

Now, this is basically the faith monster Byzantium turbocharged. Two of the three faith generating Founder beliefs, which actually have an incredible synergy. Buying, and using a great person produces a bunch of culture, which triggers polices, which generates more faith to buy more stuff which produces more culture. Veneration only strengths this further. Faith converting into culture, basically means all my social policies are effectively cheaper. And Holy Law is consistently most of a tech, if you hit the max in terms of followers, which is well within Byzantiums reach.

Veneration is also very useful as the first belief because the early culture and gold from it are useful in their own right. But the culture can be used to trigger border expansions. Buying a faith-building, or a missionary in a city is easily enough to claim a tile or two when the city is still small. Buying a great person in the city can claim multiple tiles. I didn't realise this synergy until afterwards, so in my game, I don't actually have God of the expanse. But even lacking that and lacking Angkor Wat, with Tradition, I have my capital city in the Late Renaissance easily reaching a great distance outwards, from all the lump sum culture generated. Considering my production troubles, Expanse would have been very useful and likely generated more faith then Beauty (which ended up not being amazingly helpful as I didn't grab that many wonders).

Then the enhancer is up to you. Prophecy and Holy Land are perfect if you want to go for a diplomatic victory, it isn't too hard to get 2 votes in the early world congress just from Holy Sites. Even without that, my embassies, coreligionists and religious authority was more than enough to pass world religion on the first round of the congress. The others just mean more GP, which then trigger more yields.

Reformation is also up to you, though I ended up going with To the Glory of God, to best spread out my faith, and the extra yields on expansion. But any of them are viable and could work with a strategy.

In terms of strategy, this is clearly a Tradition build. Most wonders are not particularly critical, the main one for me was actually Hagia Sophia for enhancing my religion, after spending most of my faith on missionaries. And the free Great Prophet on being expanded, and picking Prophecy was enough to help spawn a second one, in the next turn. But any wonders that makes Great people more valuable or gives you more of them, particularly triggered yields is a good bonus. The Pyramids, Angkor Wat and University of Sankore are early wonders to aim for, though missing any of them, or all of them isn't crippling. Of the three, in the game I'm in, I only got the Pyramids.

For later policy, I took only the Fealty opener and then completed Artistry. Fealty opener faith purchase discount is very useful, and purchasing a round of Monasteries for all my cities was some useful border expansions and yields. After that, either Rationalism or Industry works.

Overall, I've tried the super spreader build before and found it was fine but not amazing. But my above build feels incredibly strong, and pushed me from in the middle of the pack in policies and tech, to the leader over the course of the medieval and Renaissance.

As an additional point, the Ceremonial burial/Holy Law combo is intended for heavy spreading. I played another game where I spawned on an isolated section of the map with 4 CS and one other civ (who didn't found), and so ditched Holy Law for the enhancer that is +2GPP, which also ended up resulting in gobs of faith from using Great People.

I feel with Byzantium that Veneration is a near mandatory pick if any of the faith producing Founders are used. Byzantium can produce so much faith, meaning a ton of culture, border growth and gold. I actually had half the number of cities that Songhai on the other continent has, but more land area with this religious build, Expanse, Tradition and Angkor Wat. All with like 2 total tile purchases with gold all game, both natural wonders.

To the Glory of God is also amazing. Even aside from all the numerous yields from purchasing a great person (easily multiple tiles of expansion in a non-capital city with Veneration), if you haven't purchased one before and have hit the cap in terms of cites, you get more faith back, than the cost of the Great Person. Of course, the faith cost quickly ramps up, but there are lots of GP to pick from, so easy to pick an expensive one, wait for the 7 turn cooldown on Epic, pick a cheaper one, and pick a more expensive one. And of course all the other yields.

The wonders that give Great people are also great since I could bulb an engineer on the wonder, get a Great Person and then use them.

Byzantium can produce so much faith, that once the world gets fully converted, I would buy a bunch of missionaries, and delete them all next turn, just to get rid of some of the faith. The faith is sorta like a bank that can't be raided by that pesky spies.

Border growth is a factor that you may not consider on the face for Veneration but is an extra bonus. It feeds some of the cultures back into faith through God of the expanse and gives a ton of land.