To summarize my game, I settled in place, (freshwater lake is not as good as a river, and no production was in sight anywhere, so I decided that I might as well accept the crappy Capital). I met Yerevan, Kandy and Buenos Aires first (nice bonuses)...
I built legions of warrior (to upgrade later to conquistadors), a few slingers, and declared multiple opportunistic surprise war in the ancient time. I nicked a settler from Cleopatra, one from Kongo in the east (which settled one of my best cities), and one from Greece. I was in a war with Greece which forward settled me apparently in the same way as in most other's games as well (to be fair, they had pretty poor tundra everywhere else), when Egypt re-declared and took back the city I had founded north of Buenos Aires with their settler. They took heavy losses however and I was able to get it back again soon after, made Pericles pay dearly for peace and turned to take Ra-kedet and finish Egypt.
I later re-declared to finish Athens as well.
I made few and late commercial hubs this game, because of the lack of river, and relied a lot more on harbors to get trade routes. I built 3 holy districts and captured a few more (Athens and Ra-kedet). I got the last prophet I think, I was delayed by the capture of Seville by the Egyptian, which reset the shrine building (one turn left !) and pillaged the district itself.
Still, with the double adjacency bonus policy, tobacco, and temples just in time for T100, I was generating almost 70 Faith per turn at the end of T100 (need to check screenshot for the exact number, 67 or 69 point something). I used Yerevan to get 4 debater apostles (lost the mahobadhi to Pericles), who converted some Kongo cities and a few french one by convincing Catholics missionaries to renounce their faith. After a while, I converted 2 of 3 french cities to "Randomized double-blind studies" (the religion I founded), and managed to extinguish Catholicism from the last city by demoralizing a last inquisitor. France could not produce apostle, missionaries or inquisitors for its own religion. France settled a city on my cost, but I was decided not to declare war again if I didn't need to for religious purpose, as I thought I had already bent the game quite a bit by exterminating two of my neighbors.
Since I didn't have much money this game, it was actually pretty hard to upgrade to conquistador, even with professional armies, when it became an option. I probably lost quite a bit of time trying to solve this, where I should have just swithed to theocracy and just faith buy a new army of zealots. In the end, France and Scythia jointly declared on me when I was getting my first frigates. I took the 2 new cities french had established (the one on the north coast of "Egypt" and one on the northern continent above it), and gave back the one not on my island in a peace treaty. I was finally able to upgrade my highly promoted warriors to conquistadors, and took most Scythia cities surprisingly fast with a few corps of them (I made corps using the highly promoted units plus fresh ones from faith buying in theocracy, as the XP from the most experienced unit apply), and gave back most of them in a peace treaty, converted by conquistador conquest of course.
I actually bought my first policy unlock ever on T197, just before making peace, giving back the cities and winning, to get the faith generating polices : I already used triangular trade which finally solved my money problems, but added back the "double faith from holy site district buildings" and "double adjacency bonus for holy site" policies.
I then made peace, and... didn't win. I think there is a bug in my game actually, for some reason : all civilization have randomized double blind studies as their dominant religion and are listed as such in the victory conditions panel, I have a single city (Athens) that is not yet fully convinced, and I think there are only one french city (on 4) and maybe a Congolese one (of 8 cities ?) that don't have my religion as the dominant one. I might try a few things to see if the victory gets somehow recognized by the game with a few more moves (ending the turn didn't do it tho), but that's where I left it last week, on T198 (199 with the additional end turn try), generating around 350 Faith per turn if memory serve (in "faith optimized" configuration, reason for the last minute policy swap when I realized I would win before T200).
I didn't invade any city state (I was planning on attacking Kongo and liberating Jerusalem which they had taken when France and Scythia attacked me). My pantheon was god of the open sky, which did a good job but I think In the end the one offering bonus culture for some plantation (cotton and banana being the most significant ones this time) would have been better. I didn't get Jesuit Education (wasn't available anymore sadly) to spend my faith on buildings, but I had papal primacy (love this one, +50% on type bonus from city state, that was 6 faith bonus per holy site instead of +4 with 6 envoys, 9 instead of 6 in the capital) which I often take when playing a religious game. I also took the one which give bonus religious pressure, and the religious building with bonus production (many of my cities had pretty sub-par production compared to my usual games, and I probably don't deal with this too rationally, synagogue would probably have been better given the scoring).
I think I got 3 relics from Kandy (finding natural wonders, IIRC crater lake, Galapagos and Pantanal, found Kilimanjaro too early to benefit), plus one I found In a hut, and I think I extorted one more in a peace deal.
Overall, I chased envoy via CS quest pretty hard to get maximum benefit from them (although their placement on the original continent put an hard constraint on the best city spots, and had I think 10 cities before the war against French and Scythia. I founded an additional one during the war, and kept I think one city from France and two from Scythia in the end.
I only built two settler myself, toward the last part of the game. I stole every single settler and city before that, and bought two during the second Egyptian war, using money accumulated mostly from previous peace deals. In the end, I was getting close from Oxford university, the Venetian arsenal, the forbidden and the potalla palace, but I won before finishing any of these.
For most of the game, Congo was actually the leader in both science and culture (I only got my first campuses very late by capturing Ra-Kedet then Athens), and he had a crazy city on my border with an insane Chichen Itza. In the end, I think it's lucky that Catherine and Tomyris declared, or I would have lost at least 20 more turns in a war with Congo to take that city and liberate Jerusalem (awesome suzerainship of Jerusalem, as it makes it count as a second holy city for your religion), which would actually not benefit this variant since Kongo was already largely convinced by Randomized Double Blind Studies at that point.
One of my main mistakes (apart from playing the game after the end date of course) was I think realizing the power of Theocracy too late. One nice thing is that the faith cost does not seem to scale up as the build/purchase cost does for multiple purchases of the same unit. I think a conquistador is 425 Faith, which was almost two free conquistadors every 3 turns with the faith I was generating at the end of the game, not to mention the huge accumulated amount I had by then (bought a chaplain to heal my troops, a few more inquisitors to stack on conquistadors, and probably 5+ conquistadors). Obviously the +10 strength when on the same tile as a religious unit is huge, that's a good reason to relegate inquisitors to support duty once you've spent all charges but one.
I hastened the spread of Randomized Double blind studies to Ra-kedet with 2 charges from an inquisitor without having any other religion there to "purge", to buy able to faith buy the tier 3 religious building in time for T150. I'm not sure if this was allowed by the rules, but well, there it is.
I built legions of warrior (to upgrade later to conquistadors), a few slingers, and declared multiple opportunistic surprise war in the ancient time. I nicked a settler from Cleopatra, one from Kongo in the east (which settled one of my best cities), and one from Greece. I was in a war with Greece which forward settled me apparently in the same way as in most other's games as well (to be fair, they had pretty poor tundra everywhere else), when Egypt re-declared and took back the city I had founded north of Buenos Aires with their settler. They took heavy losses however and I was able to get it back again soon after, made Pericles pay dearly for peace and turned to take Ra-kedet and finish Egypt.
I later re-declared to finish Athens as well.
I made few and late commercial hubs this game, because of the lack of river, and relied a lot more on harbors to get trade routes. I built 3 holy districts and captured a few more (Athens and Ra-kedet). I got the last prophet I think, I was delayed by the capture of Seville by the Egyptian, which reset the shrine building (one turn left !) and pillaged the district itself.
Still, with the double adjacency bonus policy, tobacco, and temples just in time for T100, I was generating almost 70 Faith per turn at the end of T100 (need to check screenshot for the exact number, 67 or 69 point something). I used Yerevan to get 4 debater apostles (lost the mahobadhi to Pericles), who converted some Kongo cities and a few french one by convincing Catholics missionaries to renounce their faith. After a while, I converted 2 of 3 french cities to "Randomized double-blind studies" (the religion I founded), and managed to extinguish Catholicism from the last city by demoralizing a last inquisitor. France could not produce apostle, missionaries or inquisitors for its own religion. France settled a city on my cost, but I was decided not to declare war again if I didn't need to for religious purpose, as I thought I had already bent the game quite a bit by exterminating two of my neighbors.
Since I didn't have much money this game, it was actually pretty hard to upgrade to conquistador, even with professional armies, when it became an option. I probably lost quite a bit of time trying to solve this, where I should have just swithed to theocracy and just faith buy a new army of zealots. In the end, France and Scythia jointly declared on me when I was getting my first frigates. I took the 2 new cities french had established (the one on the north coast of "Egypt" and one on the northern continent above it), and gave back the one not on my island in a peace treaty. I was finally able to upgrade my highly promoted warriors to conquistadors, and took most Scythia cities surprisingly fast with a few corps of them (I made corps using the highly promoted units plus fresh ones from faith buying in theocracy, as the XP from the most experienced unit apply), and gave back most of them in a peace treaty, converted by conquistador conquest of course.
I actually bought my first policy unlock ever on T197, just before making peace, giving back the cities and winning, to get the faith generating polices : I already used triangular trade which finally solved my money problems, but added back the "double faith from holy site district buildings" and "double adjacency bonus for holy site" policies.
I then made peace, and... didn't win. I think there is a bug in my game actually, for some reason : all civilization have randomized double blind studies as their dominant religion and are listed as such in the victory conditions panel, I have a single city (Athens) that is not yet fully convinced, and I think there are only one french city (on 4) and maybe a Congolese one (of 8 cities ?) that don't have my religion as the dominant one. I might try a few things to see if the victory gets somehow recognized by the game with a few more moves (ending the turn didn't do it tho), but that's where I left it last week, on T198 (199 with the additional end turn try), generating around 350 Faith per turn if memory serve (in "faith optimized" configuration, reason for the last minute policy swap when I realized I would win before T200).
I didn't invade any city state (I was planning on attacking Kongo and liberating Jerusalem which they had taken when France and Scythia attacked me). My pantheon was god of the open sky, which did a good job but I think In the end the one offering bonus culture for some plantation (cotton and banana being the most significant ones this time) would have been better. I didn't get Jesuit Education (wasn't available anymore sadly) to spend my faith on buildings, but I had papal primacy (love this one, +50% on type bonus from city state, that was 6 faith bonus per holy site instead of +4 with 6 envoys, 9 instead of 6 in the capital) which I often take when playing a religious game. I also took the one which give bonus religious pressure, and the religious building with bonus production (many of my cities had pretty sub-par production compared to my usual games, and I probably don't deal with this too rationally, synagogue would probably have been better given the scoring).
I think I got 3 relics from Kandy (finding natural wonders, IIRC crater lake, Galapagos and Pantanal, found Kilimanjaro too early to benefit), plus one I found In a hut, and I think I extorted one more in a peace deal.
Overall, I chased envoy via CS quest pretty hard to get maximum benefit from them (although their placement on the original continent put an hard constraint on the best city spots, and had I think 10 cities before the war against French and Scythia. I founded an additional one during the war, and kept I think one city from France and two from Scythia in the end.
I only built two settler myself, toward the last part of the game. I stole every single settler and city before that, and bought two during the second Egyptian war, using money accumulated mostly from previous peace deals. In the end, I was getting close from Oxford university, the Venetian arsenal, the forbidden and the potalla palace, but I won before finishing any of these.
For most of the game, Congo was actually the leader in both science and culture (I only got my first campuses very late by capturing Ra-Kedet then Athens), and he had a crazy city on my border with an insane Chichen Itza. In the end, I think it's lucky that Catherine and Tomyris declared, or I would have lost at least 20 more turns in a war with Congo to take that city and liberate Jerusalem (awesome suzerainship of Jerusalem, as it makes it count as a second holy city for your religion), which would actually not benefit this variant since Kongo was already largely convinced by Randomized Double Blind Studies at that point.
One of my main mistakes (apart from playing the game after the end date of course) was I think realizing the power of Theocracy too late. One nice thing is that the faith cost does not seem to scale up as the build/purchase cost does for multiple purchases of the same unit. I think a conquistador is 425 Faith, which was almost two free conquistadors every 3 turns with the faith I was generating at the end of the game, not to mention the huge accumulated amount I had by then (bought a chaplain to heal my troops, a few more inquisitors to stack on conquistadors, and probably 5+ conquistadors). Obviously the +10 strength when on the same tile as a religious unit is huge, that's a good reason to relegate inquisitors to support duty once you've spent all charges but one.
I hastened the spread of Randomized Double blind studies to Ra-kedet with 2 charges from an inquisitor without having any other religion there to "purge", to buy able to faith buy the tier 3 religious building in time for T150. I'm not sure if this was allowed by the rules, but well, there it is.