Also btw, there's a Great Galeass prowling the waters down by New York. It's maaaaaaaaaybe possible to sneak a force around the south part of the mountain range. Would need a bit more siege to take it though.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Oh policy wise, I'm contemplating commerce. It has the single biggest happiness bonus in the game, we have a wide flung road network, are using caravans so that one helps, and buying stuff cheaper is always useful. Especially since my instinct here is to go Order, which I view as strictly superior to Autocracy. The other option is by the time we get our next policy we should be in the Renaissance, so I could just take Rationalism and then the specialist policy.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Just beat the game on Prince difficulty for the first time. Scientific Victory as Babylon, it felt weird since I usually go for Cultural or Diplomatic Victories.
I think it's diplo, at the moment. While space isn't the hardest I keep accidentally getting other wins along the way. I actually can't remember the last time I ended up with it.
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ShogunHair long; money long; me and broke wizards we don't get alongRegistered Userregular
Space is easy because you can buy parts if you want. Diplo is easy because it just involves money which it is impossible to not make/have truckloads of that. Cultural nearly always takes me the longest but there are always eleven other AI in my game. There are always two holdouts that take forever to surpass because I nuked their capital and they won't give me open borders.
So i revved up this game the other day, started off as Boudica, and was promptly reminded on why going wide is so much harder than going tall. Everybody hates you, plus tons of money/happiness issues. You really need religion to prop you up. However, going wide is way more interesting and rewarding.
The only time I end up with more than three cities is when I'm rolling over capitols. Even my 4 city NC first runs are three cities + a neighbor. I just can't manage wide civs.
Spain is actually not a bad wide civ. Getting that extra free happiness from finding natural wonders really helps, just gotta send those scouts far and wide.
Diplo and Science are far easier than cultural. A single distant runaway Civ can wreck cultural victories, and the increased difficulty of getting Renaissance wonders on higher difficulties hampers it as well.
It's just that the way I usually play makes me predisposed to Cultural and Diplomatic Victories. Since I normally try to get a ton of policies and befriend city-states. Also I try to avoid war, unless someone wipes out one of my friends, attacks me first, or really pisses me off. I rarely even make it into the Information Era before I win. Then again that win as Babylon was my first win on Prince, I played on Warlord before that.
The only time I end up with more than three cities is when I'm rolling over capitols. Even my 4 city NC first runs are three cities + a neighbor. I just can't manage wide civs.
How the heck do you play with that few cities? I haven't played much yet, but every time I end up getting 8+ cities and order, and then crushing anyone who annoys me, subjugating their cities for my own gain.
The only time I end up with more than three cities is when I'm rolling over capitols. Even my 4 city NC first runs are three cities + a neighbor. I just can't manage wide civs.
How the heck do you play with that few cities? I haven't played much yet, but every time I end up getting 8+ cities and order, and then crushing anyone who annoys me, subjugating their cities for my own gain.
Science & Social Policies have lower requirements with fewer cities. You can stack your population in cities with national wonders to get some great bonuses. You do not have the happiness penalties that wide empires do. Tradition is super good. You also don't piss off the entire continent by landgrabbing.
The only time I end up with more than three cities is when I'm rolling over capitols. Even my 4 city NC first runs are three cities + a neighbor. I just can't manage wide civs.
How the heck do you play with that few cities? I haven't played much yet, but every time I end up getting 8+ cities and order, and then crushing anyone who annoys me, subjugating their cities for my own gain.
Science & Social Policies have lower requirements with fewer cities. You can stack your population in cities with national wonders to get some great bonuses. You do not have the happiness penalties that wide empires do. Tradition is super good. You also don't piss off the entire continent by landgrabbing.
Huh, I guess that is how china is staying even with me on science in my current game with a third as many cities.
I just assumed the science penalty was not worth not getting more 100+ science cities. Although it does take a while for them to get that high I guess :P.
It's not a huge increase, 5% for each additional city, but it can add up. In my Babylon game I was producing over 1k science around 1900 with three cities so any city I put down had to produce 50 to be useful. That's not an impossible task, but it can be a bit of a drag on your progress between buying/producing a settler and pissing off your neighbors.
It's not like the ole Maya spam days.
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jakobaggerLO THY DREAD EMPIRE CHAOS IS RESTOREDRegistered Userregular
This non-war is pointless, let's get some money for it.
This one too, but let's burn down New York. Its existence in that crappy location offends me.
I think the first tech I've highlighted. But this one gives us:
1) Our kickass unique building, which will solve our happiness issues for a little while.
2) The Sistine Chapel, a 25% culture boost empire wide.
3) Puts us in the Renaissance (second to do it)
American Gothic is our first Great Artwork. So that's cool for us. I expect to make a lot of these, long term, so I won't be taking a shot of them all.
As promised, the Pyramids! Now our workers are crazy efficient. Which is important for all the jungle trading posts I need to make in Agaidika and Dublin. And to finish off some roads.
This was curious. A Venetian army finally showed up. And wandered over as if they were maybe planning on attacking a new Shoshone city they built on this side of the lake. Then wandered back. Was a little worrisome, though I could have crushed it.
Venice has started making Great Merchants beyond the free one they get at Optics. Took Ragusa, which is obnoxious, as I was just about to send a Trireme around the peninsula to try to get some exploration finished.
I need to send a Great Prophet out to start converting some cities to Druidism. The insanely aggressive Venetian missionaries have really crippled all faith related plans. But this gets all of ours + Cahokia converted, with a 40 relation basis with Cahokia and them back allied with us. Who is providing two luxuries so was somewhat vital for us at this particular point. Also, someone (Washington) stole Calendar. WTF, buddy?
Second Great Artwork is made, both are thrown in our brand new, pretty Sistine Chapel. Both Renaissance, so we get the theming bonus. Go us.
One of the two remaining unknowns (the AIs eliminated the third) finally comes and finds us. It's Askia of the Songhai. He's usually pretty aggressive. So it was probably him that took out the AI. We'll find out momentarily!
I'm just including this so that you know I'm the kind of person who is sorely tempted by that little island.
Last person remaining is Pacal of the Maya. He's all science-y and probably my favorite Civ. Him or Rome (BUILD BUILD BUILD), actually. One of his cities is... Delhi. So that's a thing. There used to be Indians, apparently. Anyway, between him and Askia we get three new luxuries, which is helping out our situation quite a lot.
Venice met them first and discovered Printing Press just after us (I detoured for that because I have a thing for the Leaning Tower). So they've founded the World Congress. And have four votes, because they got the Forbidden Palace, too (damn them). They propose that wonders be worth 3 extra culture (very good for them and the Shoshone, and increasingly us as we claim the tech lead). I propose Arts Funding, because it's sort of looking like this might be a culture win. Hard to say.
Pacal wants to go fight Askia. The other people on our continent are denouncing him like mad. I would kind of prefer to remain strictly neutral because they both are willing to trade luxuries with us. Which are necessary until we can take the others on our continent.
Venice buys Zurich. They are getting uncomfortably large, and this purchase also moves them passed us and into first in terms of military size. On the other hand, look at our research...
I was trying to bully Zurich (we were broke, I needed Cahokia before that conversion quest popped up) so he gets pissy when our troops are nearby, I tell him we're not invading, because we're not. And withdraw slightly.
I remember to actually check Askia's cities too. He's got Mumbai and Vijayanagara, so also beat up the Indians. Or he conquered them entirely, with the Mayans taking Delhi from him, based on their current tensions and the denunciations from our continent. Hard to say til we look at the replay.
Turn 218 is a big one, where we build the Globe, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and learn chemistry to dramatically improve our hammer rates and give us cannon. The Globe is also themed properly, so we're getting the bonus there. I choose a scientist with the free Great Person, because that's my default selection.
So now it's time for the major decision. Edinburgh is building a Grand Temple, and Cardiff is building the last necessary University before we can make Oxford. Once that's done in two turns, it can start turning out a fairly advanced Musket/Cannon army. We need a port on the east side of this continent at some point and honestly none of the potential sites are super appealing. On the other hand, we're ahead in tech, and getting more so pretty rapidly, to be honest. As you can see, we've got a happiness buffer finally, we're making some money, we're making enough faith to actually do some things with it now, and things are generally looking pretty OK. We could go for a peaceful win of some variety, probably a culture win.
CHOOSE A VICTORY TO PURSUE:
1) Conquest! Build some muskets and cannon and start the war machine. Next policies: Rationalism for the specialist boost and then Commerce (all of it).
1a) Conquer America first, it's easy and Washington is that port I want on the eastern sea.
1b) Go after Venice. Zurich should fall easily, and then hopefully you can sneak a landing in SE of Venice and take it too. It's got all those beautiful wonders, after all.
1c) Suicide for Moson Kahni! It's the strongest city on the planet, but it has so much nice stuff! Also they have the Great Wall and Himeji Castle.
2) Science! Fill out Rationalism, keep teching away, etc.
3) Culture! Go Aesthetics next. Build a couple more cities, prioritize Archeology and go nuts with Archeologists.
Diplomacy is probably out because of Venice buying all the city states, though I'm not entirely sure how the required vote total is calculated. It might be lower with them being eliminated.
I would guess that Venice will come after us now that they have the largest army, FWIW.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
As for general Civ thoughts.
You people are grossly misrepresenting Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia and the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
While both his civ bonus and special unit are defensive in nature they pale before the wonder of the Stele. No other civilization has such a powerful Piety building. Religion is a race, who ever arrives first at the next tier gets first pick and the best goodies, and the Ethiopians usually get the goodies. Because the Stele is just THAT good.
The celts CAN be better at it, but only if they find a good early war. The Ethiopian piety strategy relies very little on what or who you find, you can always adapt.
Regardless, in the beginning every city is generating more faith than your competitors. Celts can keep up if they get really good spots (but then they have to compromise their city locations).
If you want to sit and hoard, you can do that. You start with 1 or two advancements in Tradition to get the culture flowing and possibly wonder construction bonuses, then pursue the piety tree.
If you want to expand rapidly, you take a few advancements in Liberty, then you go for Piety.
Any way you wish to go, the right religious picks will help you immensly and the Ethiopians will get them for you.
More elaboration on the use of Religion:
After that you pick the tree that best suits your chosen strategy.
Aesthetics for Cultural victory, Patronage for Diplomatic victory, Honor for a military victory (although Commerce is really good too), Rationalism for a scientific victory.
Regardless, you WILL out-faith any competitor, so you'll be able to nab whatever religious beliefs that benefit your chosen strategy.
My first follower belief is always Pagodas or Mosques (Mosques for Power-Faithing, Pagodas for expansion). Both if you want to leverage your victory through Great Person explosion. Fairly quickly you'll be able to swim around in your luxury pool of excessive amounts of faith. If you decide to channel that faith into a static strategy then you'll rapidly end up with more Holy sites than israel (and the culture to go with it), if you expand you can expand so much further since you can drop a Pagoda/Mosque every two turns (which will practically nullify any unhappiness from occupation).
The rest of the religious policies are usually very dependant on starting conditions and your planned strategy, but they're usually very helpful.
Pantheon beliefs are all about the starting conditions and short term boosting (although God of the Sea and Desert Faith have pretty good long-term applications. God of Craftsmen sucks). For foundation beliefs I usually pick either Papal Primacy, Church Property or Ceremonial burial. Papal Primacy is only if I'm going the patronage route. Patronage+Papal primacy pushes every citys resting point above friendly. It also means that you're only one mission away from an Alliance.
Church property or Ceremonial Burial are both more multipurpose.
For followers belief, as I said before you should always try to get either Mosques or Pagodas. Then you can either get the other or some other follower belief. Holy Warriors, Religious Community or Swords into Plowshares are my top picks among the remaining follower beliefs.
With the exception of Just war/defender of the faith the Enhancer beliefs are all about spreading your religion. I don't have a ton of knowledge about the precise mechanics of faith spreading, but Messiah usually serves me well. For the combat related beliefs, in my experience Defender of the Faith is more useful than Just war. Defender of the Faith can work offensively, since your defensive efforts are now 20% more powerful. For Just War you need to spread your belief to an enemy city, which is hard IMHO against an opponent with some religion of his own. Because if you're thinking about picking Just War you're probably pursueing a strategy where it's not so easy to drop missionaries/prophets on other civilizations (no open borders for example).
The Reformation beliefs are again a matter of which strategy you pursue, but there are definite duds here.
Charitable missions is great for a Diplomatic victory, although Unity of the Prophets is really nice too and can make it really hard to dislodge your religious influence.
I don't have a good grasp on how effective Evangelism or Underground Sect are.
Jesuit education (scientific, but quite general purpose too), Religious Fervor (military power!) and Sacred Sites (cultural victory) are all good. Religious fervor isn't as good as Holy Warriors since by the time the industrial age comes around you'll have factories and economic builings capable of spewing out gold and production in important cities, and with the ton of military upgrades (barracks, Armories, wonders etc) it's not as useful to be able to purchase units in random cities. So even if you're pursuing military victories you might just want to pick Jesuit education anyway.
Because being able to faithbomb cities for science is just awesome for a conquering nation that still wants to stay relevant as far as science goes.
To the glory of god and Heathen Conversion are IMHO duds. Heathen Conversion because barbarians are...well, barbarians. To The Glory of God because you'll most likely already be able to buy the type of Great Persons you want by the time the Industrial age comes around.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Attacking Venice is going to give you a massive warmonger penalty since you promised him that you weren't invading. I'd say, hunker down, tech up to artillery, and then laaaaaaaugh
AssuranIs swinging on the SpiralRegistered Userregular
I prefer peaceful games, so I'd vote for culture.
However, if you insist on war, I'd point my troops at Venice after the message I got for keeping my word pops. The warmonger penalty would make keeping happiness to painful if you break your word so quickly.
As I see it, if you crush Venice (and get your hands on the forbidden palace) there will be no-one left that could actually challenge you. Not in terms of culture, military might or diplomatic might.
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
2 and 1b simultaneously. That is, keep teching, but try to get Venice to attack you so you don't have to worry about any penalties. Then obliterate them.
If they still haven't attacked by the time you get Artillery, well. Then you can probably take the initiative fairly safely.
If they attack you early and you conquer them, then you can probably do a complete 180 to Culture with all the goodies in Venice proper.
Triptycho: A card-and-dice tabletop indie RPG currently in development and playtesting
I'd probably sit tight all the way to plastics, get research labs, and then beeline either battleships or artillery. Battleships will let you hose both Venice's cities and fleets, but it's a long wait.
Posts
That's because the Venice threat goes uncontested. We are broadcasting our weakness by not dealing with the filthy canoe riding peasants.
Also: what's our religion like, Deity wise? Can we make up our pantheon?
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
What, so we worship Mother Dirt and her 12 happy trees or something?
Damnit. I was hoping we had a pantheon and some kind of war Deity.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
Penny Arcade Rockstar Social Club / This is why I despise cyclists
He sounds like a candy bar. Goddamnit. No wonder Venice is laughing at us.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
No update over the weekend, should be one tomorrow sometime.
Shogun Streams Vidya
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
How the heck do you play with that few cities? I haven't played much yet, but every time I end up getting 8+ cities and order, and then crushing anyone who annoys me, subjugating their cities for my own gain.
Science & Social Policies have lower requirements with fewer cities. You can stack your population in cities with national wonders to get some great bonuses. You do not have the happiness penalties that wide empires do. Tradition is super good. You also don't piss off the entire continent by landgrabbing.
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
Huh, I guess that is how china is staying even with me on science in my current game with a third as many cities.
I just assumed the science penalty was not worth not getting more 100+ science cities. Although it does take a while for them to get that high I guess :P.
It's not like the ole Maya spam days.
This non-war is pointless, let's get some money for it.
This one too, but let's burn down New York. Its existence in that crappy location offends me.
I think the first tech I've highlighted. But this one gives us:
1) Our kickass unique building, which will solve our happiness issues for a little while.
2) The Sistine Chapel, a 25% culture boost empire wide.
3) Puts us in the Renaissance (second to do it)
American Gothic is our first Great Artwork. So that's cool for us. I expect to make a lot of these, long term, so I won't be taking a shot of them all.
As promised, the Pyramids! Now our workers are crazy efficient. Which is important for all the jungle trading posts I need to make in Agaidika and Dublin. And to finish off some roads.
This was curious. A Venetian army finally showed up. And wandered over as if they were maybe planning on attacking a new Shoshone city they built on this side of the lake. Then wandered back. Was a little worrisome, though I could have crushed it.
Venice has started making Great Merchants beyond the free one they get at Optics. Took Ragusa, which is obnoxious, as I was just about to send a Trireme around the peninsula to try to get some exploration finished.
I need to send a Great Prophet out to start converting some cities to Druidism. The insanely aggressive Venetian missionaries have really crippled all faith related plans. But this gets all of ours + Cahokia converted, with a 40 relation basis with Cahokia and them back allied with us. Who is providing two luxuries so was somewhat vital for us at this particular point. Also, someone (Washington) stole Calendar. WTF, buddy?
Second Great Artwork is made, both are thrown in our brand new, pretty Sistine Chapel. Both Renaissance, so we get the theming bonus. Go us.
One of the two remaining unknowns (the AIs eliminated the third) finally comes and finds us. It's Askia of the Songhai. He's usually pretty aggressive. So it was probably him that took out the AI. We'll find out momentarily!
I'm just including this so that you know I'm the kind of person who is sorely tempted by that little island.
Last person remaining is Pacal of the Maya. He's all science-y and probably my favorite Civ. Him or Rome (BUILD BUILD BUILD), actually. One of his cities is... Delhi. So that's a thing. There used to be Indians, apparently. Anyway, between him and Askia we get three new luxuries, which is helping out our situation quite a lot.
Venice met them first and discovered Printing Press just after us (I detoured for that because I have a thing for the Leaning Tower). So they've founded the World Congress. And have four votes, because they got the Forbidden Palace, too (damn them). They propose that wonders be worth 3 extra culture (very good for them and the Shoshone, and increasingly us as we claim the tech lead). I propose Arts Funding, because it's sort of looking like this might be a culture win. Hard to say.
Pacal wants to go fight Askia. The other people on our continent are denouncing him like mad. I would kind of prefer to remain strictly neutral because they both are willing to trade luxuries with us. Which are necessary until we can take the others on our continent.
Venice buys Zurich. They are getting uncomfortably large, and this purchase also moves them passed us and into first in terms of military size. On the other hand, look at our research...
I was trying to bully Zurich (we were broke, I needed Cahokia before that conversion quest popped up) so he gets pissy when our troops are nearby, I tell him we're not invading, because we're not. And withdraw slightly.
I remember to actually check Askia's cities too. He's got Mumbai and Vijayanagara, so also beat up the Indians. Or he conquered them entirely, with the Mayans taking Delhi from him, based on their current tensions and the denunciations from our continent. Hard to say til we look at the replay.
Turn 218 is a big one, where we build the Globe, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and learn chemistry to dramatically improve our hammer rates and give us cannon. The Globe is also themed properly, so we're getting the bonus there. I choose a scientist with the free Great Person, because that's my default selection.
So now it's time for the major decision. Edinburgh is building a Grand Temple, and Cardiff is building the last necessary University before we can make Oxford. Once that's done in two turns, it can start turning out a fairly advanced Musket/Cannon army. We need a port on the east side of this continent at some point and honestly none of the potential sites are super appealing. On the other hand, we're ahead in tech, and getting more so pretty rapidly, to be honest. As you can see, we've got a happiness buffer finally, we're making some money, we're making enough faith to actually do some things with it now, and things are generally looking pretty OK. We could go for a peaceful win of some variety, probably a culture win.
CHOOSE A VICTORY TO PURSUE:
1) Conquest! Build some muskets and cannon and start the war machine. Next policies: Rationalism for the specialist boost and then Commerce (all of it).
1a) Conquer America first, it's easy and Washington is that port I want on the eastern sea.
1b) Go after Venice. Zurich should fall easily, and then hopefully you can sneak a landing in SE of Venice and take it too. It's got all those beautiful wonders, after all.
1c) Suicide for Moson Kahni! It's the strongest city on the planet, but it has so much nice stuff! Also they have the Great Wall and Himeji Castle.
2) Science! Fill out Rationalism, keep teching away, etc.
3) Culture! Go Aesthetics next. Build a couple more cities, prioritize Archeology and go nuts with Archeologists.
Diplomacy is probably out because of Venice buying all the city states, though I'm not entirely sure how the required vote total is calculated. It might be lower with them being eliminated.
I would guess that Venice will come after us now that they have the largest army, FWIW.
To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their canoes.
Currently playing: GW2 and TSW
You people are grossly misrepresenting Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia and the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
While both his civ bonus and special unit are defensive in nature they pale before the wonder of the Stele. No other civilization has such a powerful Piety building. Religion is a race, who ever arrives first at the next tier gets first pick and the best goodies, and the Ethiopians usually get the goodies. Because the Stele is just THAT good.
The celts CAN be better at it, but only if they find a good early war. The Ethiopian piety strategy relies very little on what or who you find, you can always adapt.
Regardless, in the beginning every city is generating more faith than your competitors. Celts can keep up if they get really good spots (but then they have to compromise their city locations).
If you want to sit and hoard, you can do that. You start with 1 or two advancements in Tradition to get the culture flowing and possibly wonder construction bonuses, then pursue the piety tree.
If you want to expand rapidly, you take a few advancements in Liberty, then you go for Piety.
Any way you wish to go, the right religious picks will help you immensly and the Ethiopians will get them for you.
More elaboration on the use of Religion:
Aesthetics for Cultural victory, Patronage for Diplomatic victory, Honor for a military victory (although Commerce is really good too), Rationalism for a scientific victory.
Regardless, you WILL out-faith any competitor, so you'll be able to nab whatever religious beliefs that benefit your chosen strategy.
My first follower belief is always Pagodas or Mosques (Mosques for Power-Faithing, Pagodas for expansion). Both if you want to leverage your victory through Great Person explosion. Fairly quickly you'll be able to swim around in your luxury pool of excessive amounts of faith. If you decide to channel that faith into a static strategy then you'll rapidly end up with more Holy sites than israel (and the culture to go with it), if you expand you can expand so much further since you can drop a Pagoda/Mosque every two turns (which will practically nullify any unhappiness from occupation).
The rest of the religious policies are usually very dependant on starting conditions and your planned strategy, but they're usually very helpful.
Pantheon beliefs are all about the starting conditions and short term boosting (although God of the Sea and Desert Faith have pretty good long-term applications. God of Craftsmen sucks). For foundation beliefs I usually pick either Papal Primacy, Church Property or Ceremonial burial. Papal Primacy is only if I'm going the patronage route. Patronage+Papal primacy pushes every citys resting point above friendly. It also means that you're only one mission away from an Alliance.
Church property or Ceremonial Burial are both more multipurpose.
For followers belief, as I said before you should always try to get either Mosques or Pagodas. Then you can either get the other or some other follower belief. Holy Warriors, Religious Community or Swords into Plowshares are my top picks among the remaining follower beliefs.
With the exception of Just war/defender of the faith the Enhancer beliefs are all about spreading your religion. I don't have a ton of knowledge about the precise mechanics of faith spreading, but Messiah usually serves me well. For the combat related beliefs, in my experience Defender of the Faith is more useful than Just war. Defender of the Faith can work offensively, since your defensive efforts are now 20% more powerful. For Just War you need to spread your belief to an enemy city, which is hard IMHO against an opponent with some religion of his own. Because if you're thinking about picking Just War you're probably pursueing a strategy where it's not so easy to drop missionaries/prophets on other civilizations (no open borders for example).
The Reformation beliefs are again a matter of which strategy you pursue, but there are definite duds here.
Charitable missions is great for a Diplomatic victory, although Unity of the Prophets is really nice too and can make it really hard to dislodge your religious influence.
I don't have a good grasp on how effective Evangelism or Underground Sect are.
Jesuit education (scientific, but quite general purpose too), Religious Fervor (military power!) and Sacred Sites (cultural victory) are all good. Religious fervor isn't as good as Holy Warriors since by the time the industrial age comes around you'll have factories and economic builings capable of spewing out gold and production in important cities, and with the ton of military upgrades (barracks, Armories, wonders etc) it's not as useful to be able to purchase units in random cities. So even if you're pursuing military victories you might just want to pick Jesuit education anyway.
Because being able to faithbomb cities for science is just awesome for a conquering nation that still wants to stay relevant as far as science goes.
To the glory of god and Heathen Conversion are IMHO duds. Heathen Conversion because barbarians are...well, barbarians. To The Glory of God because you'll most likely already be able to buy the type of Great Persons you want by the time the Industrial age comes around.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
Nintendo ID: Pastalonius
Smite\LoL:Gremlidin \ WoW & Overwatch & Hots: Gremlidin#1734
3ds: 3282-2248-0453
However, if you insist on war, I'd point my troops at Venice after the message I got for keeping my word pops. The warmonger penalty would make keeping happiness to painful if you break your word so quickly.
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
If they still haven't attacked by the time you get Artillery, well. Then you can probably take the initiative fairly safely.
If they attack you early and you conquer them, then you can probably do a complete 180 to Culture with all the goodies in Venice proper.
Bloody passive aggressive traders deserve it.