Part 24: I am Truly Holier than Thou!

The screenshot says it better than I can. We've got two prime locations to snap up, fast. One is south by the salt and the sea. The other is north of Delhi, by that delicious gold-generating river and the equally delicious cotton that we really want to snap up. Doing both of these things would help us hem in India and once we got our religion started we'd be able to pressure him and the surroundings.

I'm going to try to sneak the first settler we've got to the cotton. It'll hopefully get us more money and cut off the growth of India's cities over there by the holy mountain.

We have made several friends with religious city-states, too, so hopefully they'll be able to help us pick up the slack and remain competitive religiously.



Hmm. I'm not sure how happy we're going to be, but we'll do our best. The wine, the cotton, the salt: I'd like to settle all three.

My scout bumps into this fellow, again:



Idle curiosity, Emperor Bonaparte! That's what brings me here! Hey, who's that over there to your left?



Oh, brother. Well if you start any wars please do so far away from us, okay?



New policy time! There's actually a couple of good peacetime policies underneath it that I'll unlock next, and on its own this policy makes waging war against barbarians pretty easy and cool, provided you bring back-up.



Again with the insults, Ramses? Are you trying to tell me something? You know this is the game where if your neighbors have better stuff than you, you can storm over there and steal it and kick dirt in their faces, right?



Go, Settler! Let's beat Gandhi at his own nefarious game!



Yes. In a couple of turns I'll have enough gold to just instantly purchase a worker there and we can get things started!



Well, thank goodness he went for the Library and not Stonehenge.



Always a useful thing to research.



Oh, splintering surfboards. Not you again. You can't fool me! I know you're going to be a headache!



This is one of those pantheons that can pay off or not depending on how you play it. It's different every time.



Over here we can see India's dreaded war elephant. Going to need powerful stuff to take them on, but I'm feeling the need to kill them less and less as time goes on.

I lost the screenshot for it, but…



Stonehenge! Yay! We're almost sure to get our religion started in a handful of turns now.

…actually, is that two stonehenges in my screenshot? Huh.



Constructing Stonehenge pleased Zanzibar, who gave us spices, and getting spices pleased Monaco, who give us culture! I love supply chains.



Archers, kill this camp in the name of Vatican City! I want them to love us again!



Our quick acquisition of a bunch of luxuries leads to a Golden Age! Hoo yeah!



ALRIGHT! We have miraculously beaten India to the punch and may create the best nation in the world, by creating the best religion in the world!

Now, if we wanted to, we could create a religion with two enhancers, which would make spreading our religion utterly trivial. I want something a bit more unique than that, though. Something that will pay off in the long run. Something that will improve our relationship with the city-states and give us something from other cities too. Behold!



The religion of Asskissing! Papal primacy will increase our default influence with city-states, while Tithe will give us money with which to bribe them into loving us. We will get everyone to love us! Everyone!!!



Yesssss.

State of the world:




Politics of the world: