[BNW] Would like to play learning games with players who are better than I am, and nice.

[mastrude]

Again, would like to play learning games with players who are better than I am, and nice. [Edited:] Maybe as allies in a game with three other pairs.

[Edited:] I've founded and augmented Catholicism (2d ciiv to pick a religion, but still I got Papal Primacy and Cathedrals, which are, I think, the luckiest choices in social policies, plus Monasteries and Messiah. These are the best choices I know in the startup game as I play it. I also got the Great Library. I'm playing for a Science Victory, not Religion.

This is obvious, I guess, but I'm not sure how the rule about founding cities near my enemy. Supposing all four numbered points in the picture were land, which could I found a city on?

And which is the better religion purchase next in my home city. a Cathedral to get points, then Missionaries to spread to my existing other two cities, (both of which have shrines and temples, but only Fertility Rites,) or Missionary first? What do you think about my next purchase with Religion?

Sorry if my capitalization offends your sense of English. If I've said anything unclear, let me know and I'll edit this post again.

 

[SirenSoule]

Again, would like to play learning games with players who are better than I am, and nice. [Edited:] Maybe as allies in a game with three other pairs.

[Edited:] I've founded and augmented Catholicism (2d ciiv to pick a religion, but still I got Papal Primacy and Cathedrals, which are, I think, the luckiest choices in social policies, plus Monasteries and Messiah. These are the best choices I know in the startup game as I play it. I also got the Great Library. I'm playing for a Science Victory, not Religion.

This is obvious, I guess, but I'm not sure how the rule about founding cities near my enemy. Supposing all four numbered points in the picture were land, which could I found a city on?

And which is the better religion purchase next in my home city. a Cathedral to get points, then Missionaries to spread to my existing other two cities, (both of which have shrines and temples, but only Fertility Rites,) or Missionary first? What do you think about my next purchase with Religion?

Sorry if my capitalization offends your sense of English. If I've said anything unclear, let me know and I'll edit this post again.

I'm aware this post was 2 months ago but just weighing in in case you're still wondering about certain questions here.

A few points:

1) The religion you formed is weirdly mis-matched. Papal Primacy and Cathedrals are both decent beliefs, the problem is that Papal Primacy requires you to be more active with your religion, where as Cathedrals demands you to be a bit more passive with it (compared to the other belief buildings it has the longest time to return your faith on investment). You indicated that you're not emphasizing religion too much, desiring a science victory. In this case I'd suggest using Pagodas as your belief building if they're still available - it has a faster faith return on investment than cathedrals, yields more culture and happiness and in return you don't get the great work of art slot. A worthy tradeoff, since science civilizations will typically use great artists to generate golden ages once they have enough culture to progress their ideology/rationalism (they only really care about making enough culture to fulfill their policy choices. Having more culture only becomes important if another civ is chasing culture victory, and even then if there's multiple highly cultured civs they will block eachother from winning anyway). For your founder belief, a bonus which is helpful even without spreading your religion outside your cities is ideal - Tithe is typically the best choice, though not always. (If you decide you want to run a papal primacy game you'll probably want follower beliefs that give you bonuses without needing to spend faith in your cities, and then spready religion quite aggressively with the faith you make).

2) As for your question about founding cities, tiles 2 and 4 in your picture could have a city founded on them if they were land tiles. You need 3 tiles minimum between 2 cities to found them, though whether you will build cities that close together depends a bit on your civ/social policy choice (Tradition will build cities further apart than that to give them the most space to grow. Liberty will pack them closer together).