First post, yay o/ (out of general boredom more than much else 
)
Been playing immortal for a while now, and decided to try something slightly harder without ramping up the difficulty level up to deity. I'm sure someone has posted "atheist" games before and I'm not aware if there's a general consensus for a set of rules to follow, but this is what I set for myself:
- Never adopt a state religion
- Only Paganism and Free Religion religious civics
- Building temples, monasteries or cathedrals not allowed
- Building shrines not allowed
- Building spiritual wonders not allowed (Stonehenge, Parthenon, ToA, AP, Sistine, ...)
- Specialist priests not allowed (in conquered cities with wonders that allow this)
- Can found religions
- Can't use missionaries
- Can't vote for _myself_ in AP votes (can vote in my favor in war & city votes etc.)
I wasn't sure how hard this would be, so I picked Willem to make things smoother. Besides, he's a cool guy, but doesn't seem all that spiritual, right?
Settings:
- Immortal difficulty
- All victory conditions (maybe I'll try cultural, heh...)
- Pangaea
- Standard size, 6 AIs
- Choose religions
- No tech brokering
- Lock modified assets
- New random seed on reload (no, I don't employ this a lot)
So here's the start (as an attachment too, if anyone cares):
In place seems to be the strongest option; don't even need a riverside slot for building a dike later on. The terrain seems to be better than average, a nice snaky river and plenty of food to go around. I encounter Brennus to the west and Suleiman immediately to the south. Could be worse, though Brennus is a bit scary without the diplo-option to adopt his religion. Other parties are Peter, Gandhi, FDR and Suryavarman.
I decide that i need to establish some ground towards my 2 nearest neighbors. I also employ a rather different-than-usual tech path, in which I rely mainly on archers to protect my lands and skip BW for an unusually long time. This costs me quickly, as barbs ravage my improvements constantly and I struggle to get a metal up and going. Luckily Gandhi has founded Hinduism and is the big boys' first victim and I get to build up my infrastructure a bit.
I build 2 more cities, one to the north 3 squares away from a barb city with intentions to take it over with culture, while conquering another with swords. Of course, the northern barb city pops borders before i can reach 300c, and in return I conquer it very easily with swords. It had 2 archers defending on open ground, as opposed to the other with 5 archers on a hill with 2x cg1 ones... I swear the barb AI does this to me on purpose.
Right after this, Brennus finally turns his greedy eyes on me after having had his way with India, and brings Suryavarman along with his DoW to boot. Some emergency whippage later Utrecht is ready to welcome them. It could have been much worse, but luckily Brennus's first stack to come close to the city were 4 Cats and 2 Chariots. Yeah, standing in a jungle doesn't do them much good; though i lost some of my cr2 swords while thinning the cats. Easily worth it, anyway.
After I pacify the lot, things are looking pretty nice as we get closer to 1AD. Brennus finishes off Gandhi and everyone's greedy gaze turns to his fellow Hinduist, FDR. Seems that my atheist luck is holding
My science develops nicely at this phase, as I have 8 cities that are all pretty nice. I aim to get TGL in Utrecht for the required Academies in my best cities and some border culture against Brennus, and get it too. It ends up being the only WW I build throughout the game (I briefly considered Shwedagon Paya, but it's a royal pain to build without gold, and I realized I'm not allowed build it anyway as it is a temple).
Nice timing; my first GS appears 1 turn before I research CoL and I bulb Philosophy right away. I end up founding Confucianism, after which I promptly delete the accompanying missionary.
I further advance my tech rate; 120 beakers 1AD and over 200 before 500AD. At this point I'm aiming at Liberalism for Free Religion and Printing Press for my beloved cottages. Meanwhile, AP is built and I wince at the loss of +4 hammers per city. Nevertheless, I remain unharassed and get Liberalism around 600AD, while Brennus and Suleiman are making mincemeat out of FDR.
Around now it's a big love fest and I'm free to pursue my goal to get Rifling and decimate the lower-teched opposition. The option to not use Theology hurts, but I still prefer Bureu (over Vassalage) as I think my techlead should be enough to guarantee war success. Meanwhile, Brennus pairs up with Suleiman and Peter with Suryavarman via voluntary vassalage! Seems it's becoming 1v2v2.
I get Rifling at 1015AD while my decided first target, Suleiman, does not have even Gunpowder or Replaceable parts. At this point my victory is pretty much guaranteed.
When Brennus breaks up his voluntary vassalage with Suleiman, I jump at the chance and proceed to tear him apart. I almost manage to lose The Hague though, seems that 12 Catapults DO significant damage to ~8 defending riflemen.
Istanbul is one of the first cities to fall, along with its 7 wonders. AP is one of them, and people vote me to be the pope even though I abstain myself, blech. Peter is apparently giggling to his moustache and blowing up culture bombs literally left and right to flip the newly Dutchered Ottoman cities. Poor sod doesn't realize he has made himself my next target.
After Suleiman capitulates at 1245AD, the rest of the game is just mop-up; none of the opposing civs have decent military techs to combat a Rifleman/Cannon army. I proceed to win by domination at 1420AD, with 276k points.
So what did I learn? I guess I got pretty lucky in avoiding much hate even with no religion; anyway, what I missed most in this game, in order, were:
1. Relations bonus to brothers in faith
2. Theology for renaissance war preparation
3. Happy bonuses from temples + state religion
4. Shrines and other wonders
All in all, it was a fun experiment; not very often the world elects an atheist pope to be resident in the AP
)Been playing immortal for a while now, and decided to try something slightly harder without ramping up the difficulty level up to deity. I'm sure someone has posted "atheist" games before and I'm not aware if there's a general consensus for a set of rules to follow, but this is what I set for myself:
- Never adopt a state religion
- Only Paganism and Free Religion religious civics
- Building temples, monasteries or cathedrals not allowed
- Building shrines not allowed
- Building spiritual wonders not allowed (Stonehenge, Parthenon, ToA, AP, Sistine, ...)
- Specialist priests not allowed (in conquered cities with wonders that allow this)
- Can found religions
- Can't use missionaries
- Can't vote for _myself_ in AP votes (can vote in my favor in war & city votes etc.)
I wasn't sure how hard this would be, so I picked Willem to make things smoother. Besides, he's a cool guy, but doesn't seem all that spiritual, right?
Settings:
- Immortal difficulty
- All victory conditions (maybe I'll try cultural, heh...)
- Pangaea
- Standard size, 6 AIs
- Choose religions
- No tech brokering
- Lock modified assets
- New random seed on reload (no, I don't employ this a lot)
So here's the start (as an attachment too, if anyone cares):
Spoiler :
In place seems to be the strongest option; don't even need a riverside slot for building a dike later on. The terrain seems to be better than average, a nice snaky river and plenty of food to go around. I encounter Brennus to the west and Suleiman immediately to the south. Could be worse, though Brennus is a bit scary without the diplo-option to adopt his religion. Other parties are Peter, Gandhi, FDR and Suryavarman.
Spoiler :
I decide that i need to establish some ground towards my 2 nearest neighbors. I also employ a rather different-than-usual tech path, in which I rely mainly on archers to protect my lands and skip BW for an unusually long time. This costs me quickly, as barbs ravage my improvements constantly and I struggle to get a metal up and going. Luckily Gandhi has founded Hinduism and is the big boys' first victim and I get to build up my infrastructure a bit.
Spoiler :
I build 2 more cities, one to the north 3 squares away from a barb city with intentions to take it over with culture, while conquering another with swords. Of course, the northern barb city pops borders before i can reach 300c, and in return I conquer it very easily with swords. It had 2 archers defending on open ground, as opposed to the other with 5 archers on a hill with 2x cg1 ones... I swear the barb AI does this to me on purpose.
Right after this, Brennus finally turns his greedy eyes on me after having had his way with India, and brings Suryavarman along with his DoW to boot. Some emergency whippage later Utrecht is ready to welcome them. It could have been much worse, but luckily Brennus's first stack to come close to the city were 4 Cats and 2 Chariots. Yeah, standing in a jungle doesn't do them much good; though i lost some of my cr2 swords while thinning the cats. Easily worth it, anyway.
After I pacify the lot, things are looking pretty nice as we get closer to 1AD. Brennus finishes off Gandhi and everyone's greedy gaze turns to his fellow Hinduist, FDR. Seems that my atheist luck is holding
Spoiler :
My science develops nicely at this phase, as I have 8 cities that are all pretty nice. I aim to get TGL in Utrecht for the required Academies in my best cities and some border culture against Brennus, and get it too. It ends up being the only WW I build throughout the game (I briefly considered Shwedagon Paya, but it's a royal pain to build without gold, and I realized I'm not allowed build it anyway as it is a temple).
Spoiler :
Nice timing; my first GS appears 1 turn before I research CoL and I bulb Philosophy right away. I end up founding Confucianism, after which I promptly delete the accompanying missionary.
I further advance my tech rate; 120 beakers 1AD and over 200 before 500AD. At this point I'm aiming at Liberalism for Free Religion and Printing Press for my beloved cottages. Meanwhile, AP is built and I wince at the loss of +4 hammers per city. Nevertheless, I remain unharassed and get Liberalism around 600AD, while Brennus and Suleiman are making mincemeat out of FDR.
Spoiler :
Around now it's a big love fest and I'm free to pursue my goal to get Rifling and decimate the lower-teched opposition. The option to not use Theology hurts, but I still prefer Bureu (over Vassalage) as I think my techlead should be enough to guarantee war success. Meanwhile, Brennus pairs up with Suleiman and Peter with Suryavarman via voluntary vassalage! Seems it's becoming 1v2v2.
I get Rifling at 1015AD while my decided first target, Suleiman, does not have even Gunpowder or Replaceable parts. At this point my victory is pretty much guaranteed.
Spoiler :
When Brennus breaks up his voluntary vassalage with Suleiman, I jump at the chance and proceed to tear him apart. I almost manage to lose The Hague though, seems that 12 Catapults DO significant damage to ~8 defending riflemen.
Istanbul is one of the first cities to fall, along with its 7 wonders. AP is one of them, and people vote me to be the pope even though I abstain myself, blech. Peter is apparently giggling to his moustache and blowing up culture bombs literally left and right to flip the newly Dutchered Ottoman cities. Poor sod doesn't realize he has made himself my next target.
Spoiler :
After Suleiman capitulates at 1245AD, the rest of the game is just mop-up; none of the opposing civs have decent military techs to combat a Rifleman/Cannon army. I proceed to win by domination at 1420AD, with 276k points.
Spoiler :
So what did I learn? I guess I got pretty lucky in avoiding much hate even with no religion; anyway, what I missed most in this game, in order, were:
1. Relations bonus to brothers in faith
2. Theology for renaissance war preparation
3. Happy bonuses from temples + state religion
4. Shrines and other wonders
All in all, it was a fun experiment; not very often the world elects an atheist pope to be resident in the AP
