Work ethic is quite A BIT broken now....

[bengalryan9]

I kinda feel like Russia is kinda pulling away from the pack on this one, in terms of it being so powerful. If you start in Tundra that is. But it just fits in Peter's toolkit so well. He's going to build lavras anyway. He's going to take Dance of the Aurora. He's going to get a prophet even if he want the artists instead. He's going to take a monumentality GA, and then maybe build Grand Master's chapel, and so run Scripture card anyway.

Poland may get a bit more mileage than your average civ with this, their HS getting nice adjacencies from other districts.

Saladin Space Victory with work ethic?

I think Brazil with Sacred Path can give Peter a run for his money. Pedro already gets +1 adjacency from jungle for not just his holy sites, but also to his campuses, theater squares, and commercial hubs as well, so you'll be leaving all of that jungle around anyways. Sacred Path will double the adjacency bonus for the holy sites, so he'll get a bunch of Work Ethic production from that, but once mercantilism rolls around he'll also put lumbermills on all of the jungle, giving even more production (that Peter can't really match from his tundra tiles). And then to top it all off, Brazil gets cheap ECs which normally wouldn't seem like a big deal, but with all that jungle Pedro really benefits from zoos (+1 science on each jungle) so why not.

 

[Kouvb593kdnuewnd]

Strong/Broken with specific setups and strong/broken by itself is two different things. Yes with the right civ and parthenon combination it may be a solid choice but what if you don't get the right parthenon or your civ is not particular suited for holy sites? Compare it to Choral music which don't need anything other than holy site and its buildings to be solid choice.

 

[monikernemo]

I think Brazil with Sacred Path can give Peter a run for his money.

If you pull it off I guess, it should be better than Russia. However the AI prioritises Sacred Path quite a fair bit. Without early meet with religious CS (lets not talk about random goody huts that give you relic/ burst of 20 faith) it is quite difficult to get the pantheon consistently. I have restarted on Pedro for at least 10 times trying to hit this combo on standard map. Earth Goddess might be a better choice for Pedro.

On the other hand, as Russia, as long as you start near the tundra, you can get Dance of the Aurora before you unlock policy cards.

I haven't seen what the AI does, but I wouldn't even bet on getting work ethic if I'm playing a Civ that isn't capable of getting whatever pantheon it so chooses. And if I'm at the point where I've sort of settled for a last religion, like I'm the Arabs or something, and work ethic is still on the table, that looks pretty good compared to the field anyway.

I think Work Ethic is only good if you can manage high holy site adjacency. In my memory that is not something the Arabians do well/consistently. I think they are still better off with Jesuit Education if it is still available.

 

[PenngwynXVII]

I think Brazil with Sacred Path can give Peter a run for his money.

I just played a Brazil game where I took sacred path/work ethic. Worked out really well. I think the math on WE definitely comes out in Pedro's favor.

Sure, Lavras are half price. But Jungle is so much better than tundra that it doesn't matter in the long run.

 

[playshogi]

Work ethic is NOT broken. They changed it so it is more fun to play! (especially as Russia). I never realized until this game that St. Basil wonder is the Petra of Tundra and I hope I can get it in my current game.

 

[RealHuhn]

You can take World Chruch for the culture from followers (or Cross-Cultural Dialog for science if you prefer) as founder belief and still get Work Ethic as follower belief if you want to.

What? Of course you can. Never said you can't xD

Strong/Broken with specific setups and strong/broken by itself is two different things. Yes with the right civ and parthenon combination it may be a solid choice but what if you don't get the right parthenon or your civ is not particular suited for holy sites? Compare it to Choral music which don't need anything other than holy site and its buildings to be solid choice.

Agreed. Also I've tried to experiment with Feed the World and had to restart 6 times before I was able to get it. I've had to found a religion on turn 36(!!) on Deity/standard settings, completely crippling my early game. In most games, Work Ethic is the only belief you'll be able to pick (from the big 3) and Work Ethic's balancing is a mess. If that's Firaxis way to balance and buff religion, I'd say they have failed. Also what were they thinking when they changed Religious Community? It's a complete joke.

 

[Buktu]

It's not really a waste anymore though. In my last game, I've converted 3-4 civs to my religion and got roughly 100 culture per turn from religious followers on a standard map. The AI usually has terrible adjacency anyway. Not a big deal to give them a few more free hammers.
[...]

What? Of course you can. Never said you can't xD
[...]

You didn't say it maybe but your post heavily leads to believe it imo. I mean you just praise another belief immediately followed by I don't care about a few hammers. No paragraph, no other sign of beginning a new topic you talk about so it seems to belong together like who needs these few hammers when you can get this other great stuff instead.

 

[bengalryan9]

Work ethic is NOT broken. They changed it so it is more fun to play! (especially as Russia). I never realized until this game that St. Basil wonder is the Petra of Tundra and I hope I can get it in my current game.

The biggest problem with St.Basil's is that it's not limited to Tundra, so the AI will almost definitely build it in some random grassland city where it's wasted.

 

[monikernemo]

The biggest problem with St.Basil's is that it's not limited to Tundra, so the AI will almost definitely build it in some random grassland city where it's wasted.

If you play a relic based culture game you don't have to build it in the tundra. It is worth building it anywhere for the multiplier effect it brings for religious tourism. Then again, the AI dont really have a strategy of getting relics so....

 

[bengalryan9]

If you play a relic based culture game you don't have to build it in the tundra. It is worth building it anywhere for the multiplier effect it brings for religious tourism. Then again, the AI dont really have a strategy of getting relics so....

Exactly, it's not like the AI are taking advantage of that particular feature. Even as a player it can be pretty difficult to leverage outside of some very specific strategies or a lot of good luck.

 

[TomTorres]

...trying it with Brazil at the moment , lol

 

[igorsrs]

Finished a 162 SV using that map ATEX posted a few weeks ago, with Peter's Russia.
I expected it to be earlier, but pretty damn good.

Rushed my religion, building only one settler at first with this buid order:
Capital: scout - scout - settler - holy site - shrine - (bought one slinger) - 2x prayers
City 2: Holy site - 1x prayer

I tried waiting for the prophet to come naturally, but the difference in production is so high, you quickly get all of those "lost" hammers back.
Got the religion turn 30! (Work ethic, colonisation)
After that I used (or abused) the pair of cards Colonisation/Agoge, so I had more than 10 cities by turn 70.
I didn't simply used faith, I did build most of the settlers using my 3-4 earliest cities to the point they had trouble growing beyond 2 population.

Scripture was another gigantic boost, and after some testing, I got the best results by "rushing" one temple, to get one apostle for "World church".
People got too excited about work ethic, but many overlloked this other massively buffed belief.
Also, I mostly ignored temples, with so many holy sites with high adjacency, i found it better to build builders/settlers.

Barbarians were nightmarish... damn... never seen that many barb horseman.
I think the patch buffed barb spawn and behaviour. Their scouts seemed pretty objective on spotting cities and coming back to the camp.
It is also a lot easier to defend agains barbs, than it is to rapid claim barb infested territories... damn...

After this fast start, things complicated a bit, because there is only so much science you can make out of production.
After some reloads, I got better results after pushing harder for growth.
One important lesson, was: Don't build cities deep inside tundra, only the lavra must be there.
The best spots are those in the very "border" between grasslands and tundra. (or desert, same logic).

I only started Magnus touring around the time I reached Feudalism. I think this was a big bistake in a map with so much land, it should have been earlier.
Another complicating factor was settler travel times, as my strong production cities, those building settlers, were further and further from the empire frontiers.
Maybe maori would do a bit better on this problem.

I treid to use all the excess hammers to build as many eurekas as possible, even those 2 galleys, 3 privateers, 2 banks, and 3 late game airports.
Very few techs withour any eureka.

I did derp a bit as well, among those issues:
- bulding both Forbidden Palace and Big Ben... there are not that many great cards to use. 2 for science, scripture, serfdom are more than fine for my game, colonial taxes is rather weakish.
- I did not go straight to Replaceable Parts, to try to get more eurekas, while my cities had trouble growing.
- I put some effort into the Ruhr Valley, but in the end it was overkill (4 turns for the Offworld Mission, with a few builders but no chops is amazing though).
- Too many Harbors, 15 trade routes in the end, again, overkill production to the capital (main spaceport city).
- Too few theater squares, the first came around turn 120-ish.

So... my tips are:
- get that damn religion ASAP (literally!)
- settle your cities NEAR tundra/deserts, not deep into it
- small patches of tundra/desert may support multiple nearby cities, clump holy sites there for even more adjacency.
- abuse Colonisation to hard build settlers, don't only faith-buy settlers, and don't bother with Magnus provision (you can grow later).
- abuse Agoge if necessary
- rush World Church for early culture
- building both Forbidden Palace and Big Ben are overkill
- beeline replaceable parts after you get all the necessary Medieval stuff.
- getting Work ethic is not an automatic "I win early" thing, Work ethic seems to be not THAT broken after all...

 

[Casualty of war]

It will be interesting to see how many people start surrounding their Government Plazas with Holy Sites. I've already switched from seeing mountain cul-de-sacs as prime Campus spots to "I'm going to slap a Holy Site in there so fast!"

There's a little bit of an opportunity cost and a vulnerability to having your entire city get pillaged into uselessness if your HS goes. But the civs with the combination of discounted HS, terrain bias to maximize the Pantheon adjacency benefits and the ability to put all that Faith and Hammers to work are going to jump several tiers in effectiveness. Mali is great at getting a Pantheon but is sometimes too slow to get their Holy Sites up to get a religion. Brazil gets great adjacency but often has to wait for Bronze Working to be able to properly place districts. Australia can get great adjacency but has to hard-build their HS and hard research their Astrology. Japan gets half-price Holy Sites but often doesn't get an early pick at a Pantheon.

Work Ethic is a godsend to Russia. Natural Wonder bias for the Astrology boost. Incidental Tundra Faith to nab a Pantheon. Cheap Lavras to often have your Great Prophet in the Ancient. It's almost too good for Peter.

 

[walkerjks]

My thoughts on this for peaceful (defensive wars only) cultural wins after playing 3 games (2 as Russia, 1 as Mali) -

1) I don't get why the scripture card bonus gets hammers as well. Work ethic really shouldn't stack that way and it doesn't need to to still be good. But it does, and playing a cultural game where I actually have excess hammers is kind of fun.

2) The opportunity cost is definitely there. Normally, I go 2 or 3 campii and then theaters everywhere. Religion + work ethic delays either science or culture or both. Now sometimes you have nice ways to recover that science (I just finished a turn 184 Mali game where I didn't build a single campus and I did make it to computers before the end). But the extra district means either campus or theater has to wait to size 7 on a city (or 10 if playing Mali - which is why I chose to ignore campii). On the other hand, Mali does suffer the least from delayed theaters as they just buy all the district buildings. Peter's trade-offs were more severe, though they have the advantage of getting great writers before they have buildings to put them in due to lavras, so the impact of later theaters is somewhat muted. On the plus side, you should have plenty of faith to go crazy with rock bands. Unless you have an opponent aggressively building culture, rock band swarms will likely end the game soon after Cold War.

Overall, I would guess that using this religious strategy for peaceful cultural wins cost me 10-20 turns over not using it. That said, it was fun being able to build some wonders, for a change. Yet a different way to the same end.

Now I need to play a Kristina game to purge myself of all this sudden religiousness.

 

[ATEX]

View attachment 561502
Finished a 162 SV using that map ATEX posted a few weeks ago, with Peter's Russia.
I expected it to be earlier, but pretty damn good.

Rushed my religion, building only one settler at first with this buid order:
Capital: scout - scout - settler - holy site - shrine - (bought one slinger) - 2x prayers
City 2: Holy site - 1x prayer

I tried waiting for the prophet to come naturally, but the difference in production is so high, you quickly get all of those "lost" hammers back.
Got the religion turn 30! (Work ethic, colonisation)
After that I used (or abused) the pair of cards Colonisation/Agoge, so I had more than 10 cities by turn 70.
I didn't simply used faith, I did build most of the settlers using my 3-4 earliest cities to the point they had trouble growing beyond 2 population.

Scripture was another gigantic boost, and after some testing, I got the best results by "rushing" one temple, to get one apostle for "World church".
People got too excited about work ethic, but many overlloked this other massively buffed belief.
Also, I mostly ignored temples, with so many holy sites with high adjacency, i found it better to build builders/settlers.

Barbarians were nightmarish... damn... never seen that many barb horseman.
I think the patch buffed barb spawn and behaviour. Their scouts seemed pretty objective on spotting cities and coming back to the camp.
It is also a lot easier to defend agains barbs, than it is to rapid claim barb infested territories... damn...

After this fast start, things complicated a bit, because there is only so much science you can make out of production.
After some reloads, I got better results after pushing harder for growth.
One important lesson, was: Don't build cities deep inside tundra, only the lavra must be there.
The best spots are those in the very "border" between grasslands and tundra. (or desert, same logic).

I only started Magnus touring around the time I reached Feudalism. I think this was a big bistake in a map with so much land, it should have been earlier.
Another complicating factor was settler travel times, as my strong production cities, those building settlers, were further and further from the empire frontiers.
Maybe maori would do a bit better on this problem.

I treid to use all the excess hammers to build as many eurekas as possible, even those 2 galleys, 3 privateers, 2 banks, and 3 late game airports.
Very few techs withour any eureka.

I did derp a bit as well, among those issues:
- bulding both Forbidden Palace and Big Ben... there are not that many great cards to use. 2 for science, scripture, serfdom are more than fine for my game, colonial taxes is rather weakish.
- I did not go straight to Replaceable Parts, to try to get more eurekas, while my cities had trouble growing.
- I put some effort into the Ruhr Valley, but in the end it was overkill (4 turns for the Offworld Mission, with a few builders but no chops is amazing though).
- Too many Harbors, 15 trade routes in the end, again, overkill production to the capital (main spaceport city).
- Too few theater squares, the first came around turn 120-ish.

So... my tips are:
- get that damn religion ASAP (literally!)
- settle your cities NEAR tundra/deserts, not deep into it
- small patches of tundra/desert may support multiple nearby cities, clump holy sites there for even more adjacency.
- abuse Colonisation to hard build settlers, don't only faith-buy settlers, and don't bother with Magnus provision (you can grow later).
- abuse Agoge if necessary
- rush World Church for early culture
- building both Forbidden Palace and Big Ben are overkill
- beeline replaceable parts after you get all the necessary Medieval stuff.
- getting Work ethic is not an automatic "I win early" thing, Work ethic seems to be not THAT broken after all...

Wow I did not know that was even possible. That game was before the patch. I did not realize you could play the map with the new updates. Fun to see another SV win in the 160s. Well done! Im still aiming to Write a detailed guide about my run through the game, but didnt get there yet. I agree With Your asessment of border cities as the best for work ethics. I dont understand world Church at all? Do you spread Your religion activly? 120 theater squares I think is way to late. You have 3 Cultural CS on this map, and culture is key in so many aspects of SV, so that has to be higher on the priorities I think.


In the meantime I also wanted to test a game with Work ethics. I figured I would try a HOF game and see how it would run. Got to turn 64, and I think Im in pretty good shape, just got suz of rapa nui and my culture is about to explode. Only one Scientific CS found yet though. Without 2 I Guess im screwed.

 

[igorsrs]

World church is great if you massively expand early, and focus on growth, but you have to get "religious colonizaton".
With so many hammers, I found myself going for as much growth as possible anyway.
Also, with many cities, all growing, pressure builds up fast, converting nearby city states and AIs passively.

But I think work ethic, although exciting to look, is a bit of a "trap", leading to overexpansion, overproduction, and overshooting.
Building a ton of cities is attractive, but may make games go longer and become a chore by the mid-game.
And there is no point going to 23+ cities, more than 3000 science later as I did, it would be better to get a less tech but early.

This pantheon may be better for Domination, for its production-heavy nature.
And for Russia, culture, from lavra/amphitheater spam.

For science games, maybe it is better to open only several settler/builder factory cities, with holy sites first (4-5 of them), and then switch to campus first for the others.
Dunno.... still testing....
Although 162 is no slow victory, my game felt unoptimized, an overshot...

 

[ATEX]

World church is great if you massively expand early, and focus on growth, but you have to get "religious colonizaton".
With so many hammers, I found myself going for as much growth as possible anyway.
Also, with many cities, all growing, pressure builds up fast, converting nearby city states and AIs passively.

But I think work ethic, although exciting to look, is a bit of a "trap", leading to overexpansion, overproduction, and overshooting.
Building a ton of cities is attractive, but may make games go longer and become a chore by the mid-game.
And there is no point going to 23+ cities, more than 3000 science later as I did, it would be better to get a less tech but early.

This pantheon may be better for Domination, for its production-heavy nature.
And for Russia, culture, from lavra/amphitheater spam.

For science games, maybe it is better to open only several settler/builder factory cities, with holy sites first (4-5 of them), and then switch to campus first for the others.
Dunno.... still testing....
Although 162 is no slow victory, my game felt unoptimized, an overshot...

Im also unsure how good it actually is, but it is fun to play With at least. I hope to see some fast science games With other civs than russia as well. Maybe we can get a Brazil game Down to the 160s as well.

 

[ATEX]

Just finished a 167 SV HOF-game based on work ethics Peter. Will make a detailed post later in the HoF thread when I have time. But from this game at least work ethics seems very strong, but it also has limitation. There are only so many tundra cities you can build, so at least half your cities gets nothing from it. Also the faith gain compared to earth godess is much lower. In this game the output was about half of what I had with similar games with earth godess. Maybe Brazil will get more consistent use out of it...

 

[igorsrs]

Just finished a 167 SV HOF-game based on work ethics Peter. Will make a detailed post later in the HoF thread when I have time. But from this game at least work ethics seems very strong, but it also has limitation. There are only so many tundra cities you can build, so at least half your cities gets nothing from it. Also the faith gain compared to earth godess is much lower. In this game the output was about half of what I had with similar games with earth godess. Maybe Brazil will get more consistent use out of it...

Yes, faith is quite a bit lower, and you get it later, so you have a lot less upon the dawn of the classical era.
I sorta solved this "issue" by hard building most of my settlers (I had the "colonization" card plugged in all the way till feudalism), but I got into the problem of ssssslllloooowly walking those settlers through the map, more than 15 turns for some....

For non tundra cities, I don't even bother with Lavras

 

[ATEX]

Yes, faith is quite a bit lower, and you get it later, so you have a lot less upon the dawn of the classical era.
I sorta solved this "issue" by hard building most of my settlers (I had the "colonization" card plugged in all the way till feudalism), but I got into the problem of ssssslllloooowly walking those settlers through the map, more than 15 turns for some....

For non tundra cities, I don't even bother with Lavras

Yes I think you are right in only the tundra cities would get Larvas. But walking 15 turns to settle is painfull, and kind of illustrates why godess of the earth might just be stronger still for Russia.

Im trying something new fun with work ethics now. Norway! With a all tundra holy site with woods around and a stave church it should give me 30 hammers and faith from one holy site! =) That sounds fun at least!