I don't know about you guys, but I switch to Organized Religion right when it becomes available and keep it for about 90% of the game, switching only for wars (Theocracy) and maybe near the very end of the game when I have built almost every building I need in all my cities. It just seems like the +25% to building construction is actually a better way to get science than the +10% you get from Freedom, since you can quickly build libraries, universities etc. PLUS the financial buildings to further fund your science rate. The happy face per religion present in your city from Freedom is nice, but again, you can build coliseums and things of that nature faster. It also takes too much work to spread several different religions to all your cities; not only this but you are putting money into your opponents' coffers by giving them +1 gold per city when they have its great shrine (unless you're playing on Chieftan and founded every religion in the game yourself).

Well now, am I really wrong about this? I'd honestly like to hear some constructive criticism of using Organized Religion over Freedom. I just really love making buildings now that they no longer cost upkeep money like in previous Civs. Another problem I find is that I usually use the religion I manage to found myself, which causes lots of rival civs to hate me. But I just see that as an opportunity to acquire more territory as long as I keep up a good military.

No, you're not wrong--or right. It's a matter of playing style, as has been said here repeatedly. Some people prefer to ignore religions completely, and Theocracy makes sense for them. So do other civics in the same category.

Personally, I do as you do, with rare exceptions. One of these involved Louis XIV acquiring my Hindu influence and converting, although I'd already accepted Buddhism as my state religion. He wouldn't consider converting until I did two things: 1) send a Buddhist missionary to at least one of his cities, and 2) make Hinduism my state religion, so our relationship was good enough for the conversion option to show. After that, I converted back to Buddhism. :D

I also stay at organized religion for a long time, but normally switch to free religion a short time after I get the tech (with exceptions if it is useful to have a state religion for diplomatic purposes or there are some wonders or other important things I´m building at the moment [and therefore the 25% production bonus might make a difference])

To benefit from organized religion you need to have a state religion and this really cripples your diplomatic abilities in most cases. You can live with it on lower difficulties, but on harder levels adopting state religion is really trying your luck in most cases. Exceptions are when you're isolated. Either alone, or with another civ (and you can convert to their religion) or with 2 civs you can convert to religion of one you want to befriend (but make sure you're ready to war with another civ first).

How does the 25% discount for Organized Religion work? Does it work on buildings that are already being built? I just cant see the discount at work in my games.

For example, I will start a far-flung island colony somwhere...My usual 'colonization' group for a Galleon is a Settler, a troop of some kind, and a missionary of my state religion. Ok, so I build the new city, and select a Granary as my first building. It might say 80 turns to be done. Then, its my missionary's turn, so I have him convert the city. And it STILL says 80 turns (with Organized Religion and that state religion)...I've even tried canceling the Granary and re-building it and I dont see any difference.

This has been fairly consistant in my games (ie, never seeing the discount applied). Is there something else you have to do? Am I just misunderstanding the bonus? (My impression is that the Granary should go from 80 turns to 60 turn--25% off).

Anyone? Thanks!

Ok, so I build the new city, and select a Granary as my first building. It might say 80 turns to be done. Then, its my missionary's turn, so I have him convert the city. And it STILL says 80 turns (with Organized Religion and that state religion)...I've even tried canceling the Granary and re-building it and I dont see any difference.

Does it say 80 turns on the following turn?

And if it does, have you watched it closely to see that it's correctly reflecting the change as building progresses?

Well, first of all, Granaries are only 60 hammers to begin with.

Secondly, your new city is only size one, and I'll assume you let the citizen work a pure food tile. So you're getting just one hammer, from the city square itself. With your civics that's 1.25 hammers, which is rounded to one. My suggestion? Bring a worker along.

I'm playing Epic if that matters, but I think I see the light bulb going on...its 25% more production, not 25% less cost....gotcha...thanx!

I'm a tried and true pagan until I can go with Free Religion. I don't make many friends during the course of the game but at least I don't make any unwanted enemies either. At worst I lose a point or two of diplomacy when somebody asks me to convert and I refuse which is far better than -2 or -4 for having a different state religion. I'll guess that the extra gold earned for every turn of paganism vs. organized religion adds up to quite a sum too. I also lose the +1 :) for state religions, as well as some additional happiness bonuses for buildings like cathedrals. Of course if my only neighbor(s) are of one particular religion sometimes it is worthwhile to convert but I don't always go with organized religion.

I'm playing Epic if that matters, but I think I see the light bulb going on...its 25% more production, not 25% less cost....gotcha...thanx!

Rounding off kills me in many situations. You need to have many hammers (or whatever) for a 10% increase to show up, otherwise it gets rounded off to the nearest integer which usually is the same base number, so you gain nothing :(

I wish if it was not rounding off numbers, this way even with a small base you still get benefits of techs/improvements ...etc.

I find Organized Religion very expensive. If you have a lot of cities the cost can be staggering. I believe it is cheaper to buy the last quarter of your buildings than pay the cost for 25% more production.

Freedom of Religion is very inexpensive in comparrison. The benifit isnt much to production but the cost isnt extreeme either.

How does the 25% discount for Organized Religion work? Does it work on buildings that are already being built? I just cant see the discount at work in my games.

It should show up if you mouse over the "current city production" hammer. It'll show your base production, then there should be a +25% bonus, with the bonus translated into hammers ... this is the Organized Religion bonus.

I generally do two religious civics in the game: Theology in early game to keep rival religions out while I spread my religion around the globe, and also for the military bonus, then after I've got the other religions in my region (through conquering cities, mostly), I'll spread those relgions and take free religion for the happienss.

Organized religion is useful only, and only if:

- you founded an early religion (anything after Judaism imho is too late)
- you are a warmonger and don't really care if you build good relations or not
- you are relatively isolated, with few AIs in your area (this applies at higher difficulties more than lower)

If you are a financial civ, there is simply no reason to take Organized Religion. Production increase is nothing when you can simply buy your buildings outright. The +10% research is OK, but I consider the +happy stuff very important when I go to war. I often need every +happy I can get. Given the +1 happy for every religion in a city, I welcome AI spreading religion to my lands. With +happy I can get more peeps to work on my towns, and that = wads of cash if you are financial.

I often find religion distracting in my overall strategy, so I almost never get any of the early religions. One game I got Christanity and one I got Islam, and that's about it.

I disagree here (at least with respect to the strategies I use with huge maps [you rarely see me playing anything smaller than large or huge]).

Even if you´re a financial civ you might be low on funds as the increase in commerce could also be used to grow faster (giving you more cities in a shorter time than for a non financial civ) instead of just letting you stockpile more gold for your treasury.
So the 25%+ in production might still have some worth, especially in being able to complete wonders before the AI does.

If the state religiuon damages your diplomatic relations is dependand on how widespread your state religion is,. often you can see a religion being shared by most of the civs that count.
Take their state religion and you have more friends than being without a state religion.

But in contrast to your strategy having and founding a religion normally plays an important part in my games and I try to actively spread the religions I have among my cities (so that at least 70-80% of my cities have believers of my state religion in them).

Founding a religion isn't always a part of my gameplan. And when it's not, Organized Religion is sometimes not worth it at all, much less right away. I often find myself jumping straight from Paganism to Free Religion.

Downsides to organized religion:
1) Requires a uniformity of religion throughout your empire. If you haven't founded a religion, that means giving a big boost to someone else.
1b) If you have founded a religion, you're either going to invest loads of production into missionaries or suffer a diplomatic hit with everyone.
2) Maintenance cost. This is one of the few "High" costs, and that can really hurt in a large empire.


Upsides to Free Religion:
1) No state religion means much easier to maintain diplomacy.
2) That 10% science boost can be pretty significant, especially for financial civs. And you can still build libraries/universities/monasteries in addition to taking free religion.
3) If you have to (e.g. you're playing on emperor and hitting the happiness cap), you can still spread religions around to increase happiness.
4) Culture boost. No state religion means +1 culture for each religion, +5 for each holy city. If you manage to found 2 or 3 religions, that can help out a bit.

I think because religion is a new twist on the game, people are placing way too much emphasis on it right now. Sure, founding an early religion and running the shrine can pay off in a big way. But so can lots of other prudent early game moves (conquering your neighbors, running atheist science (say pyramids for representation, great library, etc.).

Note that I'm not saying founding a religion or running organized religion is bad (I thought they were both completely necessary the first 2-3 games I played). But you have to look at your situation and determine the best possible course to develop your civ: not just use the same tactics over and over.

I disagree here (at least with respect to the strategies I use with huge maps [you rarely see me playing anything smaller than large or huge]).

Even if you´re a financial civ you might be low on funds as the increase in commerce could also be used to grow faster (giving you more cities in a shorter time than for a non financial civ) instead of just letting you stockpile more gold for your treasury.
So the 25%+ in production might still have some worth, especially in being able to complete wonders before the AI does.

If the state religiuon damages your diplomatic relations is dependand on how widespread your state religion is,. often you can see a religion being shared by most of the civs that count.
Take their state religion and you have more friends than being without a state religion.

But in contrast to your strategy having and founding a religion normally plays an important part in my games and I try to actively spread the religions I have among my cities (so that at least 70-80% of my cities have believers of my state religion in them).

Right now in my games I make so much gold per turn that I can buy wonders after 1-2 turns of production without issue, regardless of how little hammers the city produces. I purposely replace all mines (exception my city with ironworks) with windmills, so as far as my strategy goes, +hammers mean almost nothing.

If you are philosophical (ie., focus on GP production), or you want a cultural victory, then early religion and organized religion is very important. You'd be silly to not take that early. I will have to try that style of play one of these days, but right now I am having loads of fun with being financial.

One question about spreading religion: Wouldn't it be better if you try to spread to the far reach cities first, rather than your close neighbors, especially ones you intend to conquer soon? heh

Sorry for the double-post, but this got posted while I was writing mine. =)

But in contrast to your strategy having and founding a religion normally plays an important part in my games and I try to actively spread the religions I have among my cities (so that at least 70-80% of my cities have believers of my state religion in them).

I agree that this can be a good tactic, the problem is trying to universally apply it. If, for instance, you're playing Rome and start on a bunch of hills, trying to tech to one of the early religions is a huge mistake (and teching to a late religion almost always means a significant diplo hit). You're wasting your assets because you're trying to make this particular situation fit into a plan you made up before even seeing your start.

Oganized relegion is probably one of the most useful, versatile civics in the game. It's use spans a large era and it can benefit many strategies and playing styles. What seems to be ignored here is that OR comes much, much sooner than Pacifism and Free Relegion. It is an expensive civic to maintain though, it certainly doesn't work in every situation, and it should be substituted for another civic eventually.

Organized religion is useful only, and only if:

- you founded an early religion (anything after Judaism imho is too late)
- you are a warmonger and don't really care if you build good relations or not
- you are relatively isolated, with few AIs in your area (this applies at higher difficulties more than lower)

I can't find any reasoning for each of these arguments. Confucianism and Xianity come early enough to make great use of OR. OR does help the warmonger build improvements more quickly, but once they're going to create an invasion force Theocracy is probably a better choice. OR does not make good relations more of a challenge.

If you are a financial civ, there is simply no reason to take Organized Religion. Production increase is nothing when you can simply buy your buildings outright. The +10% research is OK, but I consider the +happy stuff very important when I go to war. I often need every +happy I can get. Given the +1 happy for every religion in a city, I welcome AI spreading religion to my lands. With +happy I can get more peeps to work on my towns, and that = wads of cash if you are financial.

I play as Financial civs frequently and OR is a great choice for the first half of the game. How exactly am I supposed to buy my buildings when I'm (1) focusing on research and (2) don't have the civic for at least 2500 years? Financial civs make great use of OR because they are second best at supporting its high cost (after Organized, theoretically).

Also, you seem to imply that OR stops the spread of non-state relegions, and that it is needed to build monastaries, neither of which are true. I will agree that non-state relegions are only a good thing in the long run. Having the opprotunity to build extra temples, cathedrals and monastaries is worth it if all it means is a few extra gold for another civ. This is an advantage OR has over Theocracy.


I often find religion distracting in my overall strategy, so I almost never get any of the early religions. One game I got Christanity and one I got Islam, and that's about it.

Founding a relegion or two is not required to win a game. Rather it's a mini-game that give you huge benefits and it shouldn't be ignored. For example, a Holy City with Wall Street can let you run 100% science if you spam those missionaries beforehand.

While many useful ideas have come up, nobody has mentioned another important (if situational) benefit of Organized Religion - building missionaries without monasteries. It appears unimportant - monasteries are relatively inexpensive and provide nice all around benefits. But if you just founded Judaism and need to convert a key neighbor before Gandhi makes him a diehard Buddhist, then getting a couple of missionaries out 10 turns sooner can have lasting impact on the game's diplomatic relations. Not something that's relevant in every game, but a good thing to keep in mind IMO.

I think I really need to experiment with religion and see the cost/benefit to OR. I expand rather quickly to 8-10 cities at game start (standard map) so the high maintenance cost of OR really really hurts early game. If it's a OCC or on maps where I'm limited to 5 or less cities, then definitely OR becomes more viable.

I must admit I've never had much success with religion so I kinda ignored it.

Darn, I forgot what technology obsoletes monasteries. I often get to that tech quickly enough that by the time I get to build monasteries they become obsolete.

I would like to see how people use organized religion to their advantage and how they grow financially. Some sort of strategy guide would be nice. Also, one big question: Would you spread a religion that you DIDN'T found?

Darn, I forgot what technology obsoletes monasteries.

That is Scientific Method, and it is indeed possible to reach it early on, especially if you forego the whole Industrialization line of techs, as I often tend to do. I'm always amazed to see Fission become availiabe before I've got Railroads:D

I've never used Organized much. I've always preferred pacifism because I usually have lots of specialists around. It's high maintenance has also been scaring me a bit.

I usually play peacefully & as Saladin, so I often use OR early in the game so I can hustle missionaries to my neighbors before they convert to a rel other than mine. But once Pacifism comes I switch to that so I can make the most of my Philo trait. Of course then I'd have to build monasteries for further missionaries, & hurry up before Sci Meth comes! As for FR, I usually wait on that until the UN res to make that civic global.

Personally, I never have used the OR civic, due to the fact that I rarely found a religion (at least, early on). I can see that if you found a religion early on, and want to be able to quickly spread your religion to neighboring civ's, then being able to produce missionaries without monastaries can be beneficial. However, due to the high upkeep and the banning of any new religions in your civ (which can cause bad relations), I generally stick with paganism for a long while. If I'm building a force for war, then I switch to theocracy temporarily. Once pacifism hits, I switch to that civic, so I can take advantage of the great benefits - especially the bonus to GPP. So my general plan seems to be; early game = pagan/theocracy; late game = Pacifism/theocracy.

I should mention that when I go to war, I REALLY go to war; I start producing military units in every single city except for the really new ones, and so the fact that I already had a religion in all of my cities from Organized Religion allows me to get the free promotions from Theocracy immediately.

Well, I think this thread has gone a bit off topic to the benifits of Organized Religion overall, not specificly contrasted against Freedom of Religion. On that note I would say that OR, in my opinion, isn't really that good. The high maintinence costs are a real crunch in the early game, and I would say that the +25% production on buildings and being able to build missionaries without monestaries doesn't offset that. I'd say that you'll likely be putting about 2/3 of your hammers into units in the early game, and building a monestary or two in cities to crank out missionaries isn't that big of a problem.

Free Religion wins over Organized Religion pretty easily, I'd say. That +10% research is massive, and by the time FR comes along you'll likely have more than 1 religion established in your nation, so the extra happiness benifts should be signifigant. FR has a low maintinence cost, which helps. Also, OR gets worse and worse as the game goes on, because the +25% production bonus becomes a smaller and smaller relative increase as you start putting forges/factories/power plants in your cities.

Basicly, I'd say you should just stick with Paganism until FR, unless you get into a lot of wars, in which case I'd take Theocracy until FR.

Well, I think this thread has gone a bit off topic to the benifits of Organized Religion overall, not specificly contrasted against Freedom of Religion. On that note I would say that OR, in my opinion, isn't really that good. The high maintinence costs are a real crunch in the early game, and I would say that the +25% production on buildings and being able to build missionaries without monestaries doesn't offset that. I'd say that you'll likely be putting about 2/3 of your hammers into units in the early game, and building a monestary or two in cities to crank out missionaries isn't that big of a problem.

Free Religion wins over Organized Religion pretty easily, I'd say. That +10% research is massive, and by the time FR comes along you'll likely have more than 1 religion established in your nation, so the extra happiness benifts should be signifigant. FR has a low maintinence cost, which helps. Also, OR gets worse and worse as the game goes on, because the +25% production bonus becomes a smaller and smaller relative increase as you start putting forges/factories/power plants in your cities.

Basicly, I'd say you should just stick with Paganism until FR, unless you get into a lot of wars, in which case I'd take Theocracy until FR.
Curious. I agree with your conclusion that Paganism to FR is the best choice, but because of totally different reasons :) And I also think you should stick with Paganism/FR if you get into a lot of wars. With state religion you'll be forced into some wars, without it, you can choose the wars that better suits you. For experience, I'd rather take vassalage with its large free unit support. With barracks it's enough for 2 promotions.

Also, OR gets worse and worse as the game goes on, because the +25% production bonus becomes a smaller and smaller relative increase as you start putting forges/factories/power plants in your cities.

It has been a while, but isnt that 25% production compounded? If you are getting a boost from other buildings, that 25% should be magnified huge.

Hehe, doesn't sound like there's a lot of other fans of Organized Religion. Thanks for the comments, I modified my strategy a bit. Now I'll switch to Freedom of Religion simultaneously with Universal Suffrage once it becomes available. The money saved from the upkeep cost will go toward buying buildings. I still maintain that Organized Religion is THE civic to have mid game though. might keep it around longer if I play as a leader that has the Organized trait (I usually play as Qin Shi Huang though).

I play on Prince right now, and I imagine when I get to the higher ones I might be forced to do the Paganism to Freedom of Religion switch since the high upkeep cost and other civs hating me will be an even bigger killer.

That is Scientific Method, and it is indeed possible to reach it early on, especially if you forego the whole Industrialization line of techs, as I often tend to do. I'm always amazed to see Fission become availiabe before I've got Railroads:D

I've never used Organized much. I've always preferred pacifism because I usually have lots of specialists around. It's high maintenance has also been scaring me a bit.

Wave the mouse over it on the civics screen and you can see how much the increase will be. You might be surprised how little it is.

For example, last time I did it (the other day), it only cost 4 gold more.

4 gold to have +25% production in ALL my cities? :goodjob:

Wodan

Personally, I never have used the OR civic, due to the fact that I rarely found a religion (at least, early on). I can see that if you found a religion early on, and want to be able to quickly spread your religion to neighboring civ's, then being able to produce missionaries without monastaries can be beneficial. However, due to the high upkeep and the banning of any new religions in your civ (which can cause bad relations), I generally stick with paganism for a long while. .

Founding a religion = not a problem (your neighbors will spread to you well before the time you get to OR, unless there's a LOT of space between you on a huge map).

Producing missionaries without a monastery = yep, this is awesome, especially since you want the religion in all your cities to max your benefit from OR.

High upkeep = not a problem (see my last post)

Bad relations = not a problem, especially if you didn't found a religion yourself (as you suggest). Often, I'll take my most-pissy neighbor (Isabella, Tokugawa, or Alexander) and adopt their religion on purpose, spreading it throughout my civ. I mean, seriously, who cares if you don't share a religion with Asoka? He's not going to declare war on you unless you really piss him off regardless of what religion you are.

Wodan

Theocracy all the way. Monasteries are handy and missionaries cheap, so I get total control over the spread and type of my religion. The AIs are a problem though: with Buddism coming so early, it spreads like wildfire across their territories, and I hardly ever get it, instead nearly always ending with Judaism (due to it's place in the tech tree, it's usually the first "religion" tech that I'm the first one to research), and face a diplo penalty. I try and spread my religion using missionaries, but the AI often cancels open borders after I send in the missionaries, then agrees to open them again, one turn after adopting theocracy themselves.

Those free promotion points are well handy too...

I don't bother using theocracy at all.. even when being the aggressor.

When I first played Civ 4, I stuck with Organized Religion all the time. But let's be frank here, it has some real disadvantages:
-high maintenance cost
-the 25% production bonus becomes increasingly insignificant as you build forges and other types of production-enhancing buildings (and it's increasingly less significant if you're industrious and building a wonder). Additionally, it won't help you when building up units for a war, and still handicaps you with its high maintenance
-it's not theocracy or pacifism. This seems quite a stupid argument, but it needs to be considered. Theocracy is a compelling deal for a militaristic civ, and pacifism is quite excellent for a peaceful civ with enough GPPs, generating many more great people. Both of these advantages are, in my opinion, quite better than the OR benefit if you're going for more of a polarized strategy (peace or war).

We should also consider the great benefits of freedom of religion.
-cheap upkeep
-extra science
-lots of extra happiness if you've got many different religions in your empire
-less reasons for the AI to become enraged at you

This isn't to say OR is a lame civic. It's versatile and powerful in the right circumstances. I find that with Theocracy, your religious expansion is so limited that you're stuck with theocracy the whole game. Only with OR or Pacifism can you reasonably expect to transition to freedom of religion, due to free religious expansion, and OR has a lead over Pacifism because you can make missionaries of any faith without monastaries, which can allow you to take a minimalized religion from a border town and spread it everywhere.

What I'm trying to say is that OR's advantages are mostly good early-to-mid game advantages. The extra production is quite potent at that level, and not so important later. The only reason I would want to keep OR over Freedom of Religion in the renaissance or later period would be:
-I need to make missionaries but I didn't build enough monastaries earlier to be able to make them.
-It's a tight wonder race. I mean very very tight.
-The allies I have from a state religion are more important to me than the enemies I have due to it. Even then, I might consider transitioning to theocracy because natural religious expansion is usually over by the late mid game.
-There's only one religion in your state because AIs on another continent horded all the rest.

What I would consider is how well OR transitions into Freedom of Religion. The quicker building of religious buildings and less prerequisites for all your missionaries give you a lot of temples and a lot of different religions running through your lands, all of which work well with Freedom of Religion.

Theocracy all the way.

I haven't played too many games of Civ IV yet, but I tend to agree with this. With Barracks, vassalage, AND Theocracy, it doesn't matter whether you're making a lot of enemies with a state religion because as long as you have iron or copper, and horses or elephants, as well as a couple of decent production cities, you can knock down any neighbouring civs without too much of a problem.

I also agree with that other post about the small difference between the costs of civics, I never saw a big change in income after switching to one high maintenance civic. Also, the ripple effect of having a bunch of level 4 or 5 units that don't have anti-melee or anti-archery promotionsm, but only stars or medic is significant late game when you suddenly have a huge force of anti-armor infantry. I know you can get these promotinos without theocracy, but the higher you start your units, the faster they get there.

Again, this really only applies if you war a lot, but if you're not warring a lot, theocracy and vassalage would be non-options anyway.

The AI seems to stick with some sort of state religion for awhile, so I find the organized religion a good option most of the time

Unless ive got one of those warlike neighbors...

Rounding off kills me in many situations.

Nitpick: It's not rounding off. It's flooring. You do all your calculations, and then round down to the next highest integer.

You can have a +95% bonus on something, but if your base is only 1, you're only going to get 1 (1 + 0.95 bonus = 1.95, rounded down to 1). Get a +100% bonus, and you're 1 + 1 bonus = 2.