SnipedSoul
Warlord
- Joined
- May 30, 2011
- Messages
- 107
I have been playing a lot of charismatic leaders lately, so I try to chop out stonehenge when it's feasible. As a result, it's not uncommon for my first great person to be a prophet. I am curious about what others think of the options below.
1) Build a Shrine for an Early Religion (Med, Poly, Mono, CoL)
Pros: - If you got an early religion (or holy city after an axe rush), building the shrine is quite good. This increases the rate of random religious spread to cities connected to the shrine even if the borders are not open. The random spread can only happen to cities that have NO religion, IIRC, so this is strongest in the early game.
- You can get an extremely strong economy if you managed to oracle CoL. Courthouses, shrine income, and currency should make it quite difficult to wreck your economy.
- A shrine opens up 3 additional priest slots, so you can really crank out the great prophets if you have enough food and happiness.
Cons: - Grabbing an early religion is not usually recommended as you're probably delaying crucial techs like BW and writing to get a religion that doesn't do a lot until it is spread and the shrine is built. The exception is to oracle CoL, which is generally a good choice if you don't have the research base to get something like currency or machinery.
- Shrines are not very good until the religion is spread. A missionary costs more than an axe, so spreading your religion can be quite hammer intensive.
2) Settle
Pros: - A surprisingly good boost to your economy during the critical REX recovery period.
- Prophets are very strong in the settled specialist economy (SSE). The additional hammers will let your super wonder spam city build wonders even faster while the gold will help fund your expansion/conquest.
Cons: - I will often regret this move later if I manage to bulb philosophy or grab an AI holy city that doesn't have the shrine yet.
3) Bulb theology
Pros: - Found a religion.
- Get a decent tech for trading that doesn't provide a big bonus to the AI. They might even build the AP and spam missionaries for you if converted early enough.
- Send free missionary to your main military city, swap to theocracy, and start cranking out 5 XP units quite early.
Cons: - Need a second prophet to build the shrine. Not difficult if you make it a priority, but will delay your great scientists.
- Not that strong if there is already another religion nearby. You need to put a lot of effort into spreading your new religion and converting the AI to avoid being a pariah.
4) Bulb Civil Service
Pros: - A GP can bulb the majority of civil service if you avoid monarchy.
Cons: - Avoiding monarchy can be difficult, depending on your happiness situation.
- You already need to have theology, math, and CoL. This strategy seems stronger if you bulb theo with the first prophet and then bulb CS with the second prophet.
- Delays your shrine and/or great scientists.
5) Build the Taoist (Philosophy Religion) Shrine
Pros: - Bulbing philosophy is a pretty strong play as you get a good civic, high beaker tech that is on the path to lib, and a religion if you're the first to philosophy.
- Can avoid the feeling of having wasted a settled prophet if you spread your new religion around to make the shrine worthwhile.
- Don't need multiple prophets to get a shrine.
Cons: - Prophet is idle for a long time.
- Need a put a lot of hammers into missionaries to make a shrine worth much. A lot of players prefer to let the AI spread religions and then capture the mature shrine later.
6) Golden Age
Pros: - You can use the bonus GPP during a golden age, caste, and pacifism, to generate extremely large amounts of GPP to catch up on scientists or merchants.
- Prophets can be difficult to come by if you're not Egyptian, Arabian, have a lot of temple/cathedrals, or haven't spammed religious wonders. A prophet can give you a relatively easy fourth golden age (scientist, merchant, artist, prophet). A great spy might be preferred, but they are also tricky to get until constitution/communism.
Cons: - Prophet could be idle for an extremely long time. You're probably not even thinking about a fourth golden age until well into the renaissance or even industrial era. I will only save a great person this long if it's an engineer and I want Mining Inc.
7) Bulb Something Else
You could bulb divine right, but I don't see the point unless you're doing a dedicated religious strategy and you want AP, University of Sankore, and Spiral Minaret. The other prophet bulbs are pretty bad compared to scientist bulbs.
I personally like to bulb theology or build the Taoist shrine. Theocracy is quite nice on charismatic leaders as you are only 3 XP from the 3rd promotion (1 XP for mounted with a stable). Building non-aggressive shock axes out of the gate is nothing to sneeze at. Aggressive leaders can get formation spears out of any city with a barracks.
The second promotion is particularly nice on catapults. 4 to 6 accuracy cats can blast down walls and cultural defenses very quickly. CR2 catapults are also a lot stronger than CR1 cats, in my experience. This lets me get over the siege survival hump much sooner, resulting in fewer hammers dumped into suicide siege units.
All in all, I like getting an early great prophet when I get bored of the standard great scientist spam for academy and philo/paper/edu bulbs.
Tell me what you do with an early great prophet!
1) Build a Shrine for an Early Religion (Med, Poly, Mono, CoL)
Pros: - If you got an early religion (or holy city after an axe rush), building the shrine is quite good. This increases the rate of random religious spread to cities connected to the shrine even if the borders are not open. The random spread can only happen to cities that have NO religion, IIRC, so this is strongest in the early game.
- You can get an extremely strong economy if you managed to oracle CoL. Courthouses, shrine income, and currency should make it quite difficult to wreck your economy.
- A shrine opens up 3 additional priest slots, so you can really crank out the great prophets if you have enough food and happiness.
Cons: - Grabbing an early religion is not usually recommended as you're probably delaying crucial techs like BW and writing to get a religion that doesn't do a lot until it is spread and the shrine is built. The exception is to oracle CoL, which is generally a good choice if you don't have the research base to get something like currency or machinery.
- Shrines are not very good until the religion is spread. A missionary costs more than an axe, so spreading your religion can be quite hammer intensive.
2) Settle
Pros: - A surprisingly good boost to your economy during the critical REX recovery period.
- Prophets are very strong in the settled specialist economy (SSE). The additional hammers will let your super wonder spam city build wonders even faster while the gold will help fund your expansion/conquest.
Cons: - I will often regret this move later if I manage to bulb philosophy or grab an AI holy city that doesn't have the shrine yet.
3) Bulb theology
Pros: - Found a religion.
- Get a decent tech for trading that doesn't provide a big bonus to the AI. They might even build the AP and spam missionaries for you if converted early enough.
- Send free missionary to your main military city, swap to theocracy, and start cranking out 5 XP units quite early.
Cons: - Need a second prophet to build the shrine. Not difficult if you make it a priority, but will delay your great scientists.
- Not that strong if there is already another religion nearby. You need to put a lot of effort into spreading your new religion and converting the AI to avoid being a pariah.
4) Bulb Civil Service
Pros: - A GP can bulb the majority of civil service if you avoid monarchy.
Cons: - Avoiding monarchy can be difficult, depending on your happiness situation.
- You already need to have theology, math, and CoL. This strategy seems stronger if you bulb theo with the first prophet and then bulb CS with the second prophet.
- Delays your shrine and/or great scientists.
5) Build the Taoist (Philosophy Religion) Shrine
Pros: - Bulbing philosophy is a pretty strong play as you get a good civic, high beaker tech that is on the path to lib, and a religion if you're the first to philosophy.
- Can avoid the feeling of having wasted a settled prophet if you spread your new religion around to make the shrine worthwhile.
- Don't need multiple prophets to get a shrine.
Cons: - Prophet is idle for a long time.
- Need a put a lot of hammers into missionaries to make a shrine worth much. A lot of players prefer to let the AI spread religions and then capture the mature shrine later.
6) Golden Age
Pros: - You can use the bonus GPP during a golden age, caste, and pacifism, to generate extremely large amounts of GPP to catch up on scientists or merchants.
- Prophets can be difficult to come by if you're not Egyptian, Arabian, have a lot of temple/cathedrals, or haven't spammed religious wonders. A prophet can give you a relatively easy fourth golden age (scientist, merchant, artist, prophet). A great spy might be preferred, but they are also tricky to get until constitution/communism.
Cons: - Prophet could be idle for an extremely long time. You're probably not even thinking about a fourth golden age until well into the renaissance or even industrial era. I will only save a great person this long if it's an engineer and I want Mining Inc.
7) Bulb Something Else
You could bulb divine right, but I don't see the point unless you're doing a dedicated religious strategy and you want AP, University of Sankore, and Spiral Minaret. The other prophet bulbs are pretty bad compared to scientist bulbs.
I personally like to bulb theology or build the Taoist shrine. Theocracy is quite nice on charismatic leaders as you are only 3 XP from the 3rd promotion (1 XP for mounted with a stable). Building non-aggressive shock axes out of the gate is nothing to sneeze at. Aggressive leaders can get formation spears out of any city with a barracks.
The second promotion is particularly nice on catapults. 4 to 6 accuracy cats can blast down walls and cultural defenses very quickly. CR2 catapults are also a lot stronger than CR1 cats, in my experience. This lets me get over the siege survival hump much sooner, resulting in fewer hammers dumped into suicide siege units.
All in all, I like getting an early great prophet when I get bored of the standard great scientist spam for academy and philo/paper/edu bulbs.
Tell me what you do with an early great prophet!
