If you can found all of the religions (I never been successful!) theorically it and if one can build the holy cities for each religion, it would result in an important flow of money by the middle and the end of the game, where city quantities reach the top.... It will be an adventageous position which will be effective trough the whole game...

Is it possible? any counter idea? or is this the perfect strategy???:lol:

In order to be able to do that, you'd have to play at such a low difficulty level that basically any strategy could work. So i wouldn't call this a strategy, more like wishful thinking.

It's a good idea in the sense that you'd have to be in the lead in the tech race to pull this off, which is where you want to be anyway. The problem is it's very hard to pull off and while you're getting monotheism the AI will be getting war elephants, catapults, or horse archers. While you're getting code of laws, philosophy, and divine right the AI will be getting knights, macemen, crossbowmen, not to mention the compass, optics, feudalism, etc.

The major problem with founding all the religions is that you have to skip some other important technologies (economic development techs and/or military techs). So you may find yourself behind overall in tech by chasing the 7 religious techs.

The major problem with trying to spread 7 religions is the sheer number of missionaries you need to build. There is a drop-off in missionary performance as cities get more religions. So you will find yourself building a ton of missionaries instead of useful buildings or military units. Yes, missionaries are cheap, but there is a real trade-off.

For example, assume that a city with 6 existing religions requires, on average, 7 missionaries to get the 7th religion to spread. Is 7 missionaries really worth +1 gold?

Of course this all assumes you can even get to all 7 religion techs first. That's not a trivial task, even on noble.

In order to be able to do that, you'd have to play at such a low difficulty level that basically any strategy could work. So i wouldn't call this a strategy, more like wishful thinking.

Indeed.
If you are able do do it maybe you can win with SS in 1500 AD :)

I once got 5 religions, but I had to use 2 great prophets to do it, and thus didn't manage to get all of the holy buildings. Still, it was pretty good, as I spread them all and used the "free religion" civic.

Idealy, you would gather as many religions as possible but spread only one. Minimize the number of missionaries, as Walkerjks alluded too and ensure that everyone is beholden to you, the motherland of their religion.

"founding all religions and spreading one", you are missing an important point my friend:

if you spread one religion you will get money from only one of your holy cities, but if you can spread as much as religion you will get the money bonus in each of your holy cities....

Also, you don't have to build so many missionaries, the religions will spread itself.

But the main problem would be the restrictions in the tech research. I mean when you limit yourself by searching the religion giving techs your opponents can search the military techs and soon overwhelm you militarily. :(

I like to found/control three holy cities. Judaism and Xtianity are my favorite because of the civics they come with.

And you are missing walkerjks point. I merely point out the benefit of having many religions and how you might maximize their use for diplomacy. Conversly if you're only reaping the benefits of one religion and the AI's get none that might prove to be a significant enough advantage to warrant using this strategy. Anyway this is a pointless coverstation unless you can chart how to gain this advantage on the higher difficulties without getting creamed.

"founding all religions and spreading one", you are missing an important point my friend:


He meant intentionally spread only one religion outside your empire. Spread all religions inside your empire, because all those monastaries is half the benefit of extra religions.

But if you only 'export' one religion, and everyone in the world is that religion, then wars are less likely between anybody, so they're less inclined to prepare for those wars, and thus less able to punish you for taking religious tech instead of military tech.

Is it even possible with a decent AI to found both Hinduism and Buddhism?

Usually while you try for one, an AI is busy grabbing the other..

I have a better strategy. Take all cities on the map. I mean how can you lose if you do that?

I can easily found all 7 religions on noble. But everytime Iv'e done this I have lost! So yeah it's easy to do, not too easy to win with it. To cash in you will need to use, count em 7GPs! Not to mention the ones you will have to sacrifice to make sure you get some of the religions first! My goal for gettign all these religions wasnt to get the gold thou, I planed on cashing in on atleast 5 monestaries a city and then have free religion to pick up the slack once they go absolite. I was not able to spread my religiosn en mass to anyone. And I was bruttaly massacred. Maybe if you can spread em very early, but that's not possible on continents

Is it even possible with a decent AI to found both Hinduism and Buddhism?
You either:

1) Need to get lucky on your opponent civs (i.e. nobody that starts with mysticism). Or...
2) Pick your opponents.

If you get one of the leaders that starts with mysticism and likes ealry religion, it's hard enough to get Buddhism, much less Buddhism and Hinduism. That's why many religion-based strategies go for the much more reliable Hinduism/Judaism/(Christianity or Confucianism) and concede the much more difficult Buddhism.

I once founded 4 religions in an emperor game, and even got all 4 shrines. the problems is that in order to get all the shrines built (by myself), I had to make one city focus on great prophet generation. I used one to found Christianity, then the next 4 for shrines. then comes the next one. no idea what to do with it so i saved it thinking that i'll use it to trigger a GA, the problem is that my next great person is also a great prophet. then the next, and the next...

great prophets are not exactly the kinda of great people you want in mid-late games.

so if you want to found all religion and build all shrines, use priests to get your great prophets so you can stop making them once you don't need them anymore. don't try to put stone hedges+oracle+ankor wat+... in the same city.

I have a better strategy. Take all cities on the map. I mean how can you lose if you do that?

Yeah, I mean if you want to controll all the holy cities, let the AI do all the leg work while you build a powerful nation and military, then go grab them. I think that's more feasable than trying to do it all yourself.

Anytime the AI or barbs can do work for you, let them.

I once founded 4 religions in an emperor game, and even got all 4 shrines. the problems is that in order to get all the shrines built (by myself), I had to make one city focus on great prophet generation. I used one to found Christianity, then the next 4 for shrines. then comes the next one. no idea what to do with it so i saved it thinking that i'll use it to trigger a GA, the problem is that my next great person is also a great prophet. then the next, and the next...
Which is an additional problem with "found lots of religions to build lots of shrines" strategy. One could argue that your first great prophet is effectively "free" if you build Stonehenge and/or The Oracle. But as you point out, to get lots of great prophets, you have to use priest specialists. And if you are using specialists, there really is a direct trade-off between gret prophets and the other great people types. One more great prophet really means one less great scientist or great engineer or great merchant. Is that a good trade-off? There no question that +20 base gold for a religion you have spread to 20 cities is huge, particulary when you factor in banks/markets/grocers. But it's still one less academy you can build or one less wonder you can rush with an engineer.

I've managed to nab all religions in an Emperor game recently. I started as Montezuma (hate the guy) and decided to settle on a Wine resource near an Oasis. With that much commerce I thought I'd try getting them all and I did. Got Code of Laws with Oracle, Theology and Divine Right with the help of Great Prophets and researched Philosophy. I didn't get any shrines though, since all my prophets went into teching. Doing this lets you more or less control the diplomacy of the world and you can get a huge population without worrying about happiness. But the most important andvantage is the slowdown for other civs who have to live without religion, that's two happy faces less atleast.

As for getting them solely for the money, I'd advice against it. Get Hinduism, Judaism and Confusianism, build shrines and spread those. It's unlikely that you'll have time to spread more religions than that. Make sure you found them all in your capitol to optimize the Wall Street.

I usually found only one or two religions. I take the rest of the religious holy cities by conquest so by endgame I do have control of all 7 of the holy cities. By this time though I have switched to free religion as the bonuses are awesome.

You'd have better luck gaining all the shrines through conquest, rather than founding them yourself.

"founding all religions and spreading one", you are missing an important point my friend:

if you spread one religion you will get money from only one of your holy cities, but if you can spread as much as religion you will get the money bonus in each of your holy cities....

Also, you don't have to build so many missionaries, the religions will spread itself.

But the main problem would be the restrictions in the tech research. I mean when you limit yourself by searching the religion giving techs your opponents can search the military techs and soon overwhelm you militarily. :(

The problem with spreading multiple religions is that they can convert to any of them. If you only give them one choice, then you guarantee they'll be of the same faith.

In toying around on a current game, I founded four religions, and have all four shrines. I spread them all through my civ, but only exported one. My entire continent is my religion, and I've been in zero wars (Industrial Era now). There were some early wars between other civs, but none since I finished the conversion.

While I didn't make as much GPT from all the shrines as I could, I guaranteed my ability to sit back and build peacefully. I really have zero infrastructure left to build, outside of more temples I don't need. I have seven cities, 100% science, and make over 100GPT. I lead in tech as well.

With no real threat of invasion (because of the religious factor), you can sit and build up your civ into a monster. I can build up a huge army and crush everyone, or cruise to a space victory. Possibly Diplo if I wanted that. I guess I could even do culture too, considering I've built nearly everthing possible. I really don't have any choice BUT to build army in a few of my cities.

It's pretty boring though. :lol:

I have a better strategy. Take all cities on the map. I mean how can you lose if you do that?

I just tried this strategy and won my first game on Settler difficulty. Thanks for the tips !!!

Make sure you found them all in your capitol to optimize the Wall Street.

How do you make sure they found in a specific city?

How do you make sure they found in a specific city?

Only way I know is to not have any other cities when you found them. Doesn't seem posible to me. I would rather let the religions be found in 3 cities and then when changing to free religion you get culture bonus in all three. Making it easier for culture win if need be :)

Just had a game with Arabians and founded 4 religions, but only spread Buddhism up to 40%+ world population. I used great prophets to build shrines and quicken the religious techs since I was focusing my research on military/econ.

Also, I found that great prophet shrines only spread religion to cities without a religion already, it doesn't spread to cities with a religion without a missionary. Other holy cities are tough to convert too.

If you head straight for Poly-Mono, then to Priesthood for the Oracle you'll get three religions really fast. Getting Meditation, Polytheism and Monotheism is even faster if you pull it off. Since you can't research worker techs anyway you wouldn't be able to expand that fast either way.