Best move without Desert Folklore? Well, Spain and restart until you find the Great Barrier Reef, then take the One with Nature pantheon. That's 24 faith in all and would keep up with Desert Folklore at least for a while. Another approach could be Siam or Greece and get faith from religious city-states instead of a pantheon, though that's still map dependent to find them of course.
There's no approach to religious snowballing that doesn't involve map cooking. Building shrines and temples and stonehenges just can't ever keep up with the big chunky faith sources. The Celt UA or Maya UB aren't enough either. And religious snowballing is required for high-end competition; you can't beat the dozens of happy or gold or culture from a founder belief that spreads itself widely and passively without additional investment.
All this flows from how religious pressure is so much better early than later, thanks to how cities convert much more easily when small. Anything that doesn't found a religion by turn 50 to start freely converting size 1-2 cities can't compete. To fix this, make cities convert at a constant rate regardless of size, and then slower faith has a chance.
I haven't beaten Deity, but not really sure I feel like trying. I'm sure I'm good enough to win but it's mostly hours of slogging through AI carpets of units.
There's no approach to religious snowballing that doesn't involve map cooking. Building shrines and temples and stonehenges just can't ever keep up with the big chunky faith sources. The Celt UA or Maya UB aren't enough either. And religious snowballing is required for high-end competition; you can't beat the dozens of happy or gold or culture from a founder belief that spreads itself widely and passively without additional investment.
All this flows from how religious pressure is so much better early than later, thanks to how cities convert much more easily when small. Anything that doesn't found a religion by turn 50 to start freely converting size 1-2 cities can't compete. To fix this, make cities convert at a constant rate regardless of size, and then slower faith has a chance.
I haven't beaten Deity, but not really sure I feel like trying. I'm sure I'm good enough to win but it's mostly hours of slogging through AI carpets of units.