Is it worth Forgoing other techs for Being the first to religions sich as Hinduisim Judisim and Christianity or not?so far Ive been doing the first to found thing but am wanting your opinins on the matter.

Is it worth Forgoing other techs for Being the first to religions sich as Hinduisim Judisim and Christianity or not?so far Ive been doing the first to found thing but am wanting your opinins on the matter.

From what I've read, it can be very useful to have the holy cities you get for founding religions for a couple of different reasons. First is the fact you'll get +5 culture per turn from any holy cities, +1 culture further for each religion you have in the city. That adds up over time.

Second, having holy cities allows you to build the religion special building with great prophets. This allows you to collect gold from every city that has that religion, including your rivals cities. So founding and spreading at least one religion could be very profitable over time.

That said, you probably shouldn't concentrate only on founding religions. As I understand it, it becomes increasingly difficult on higher difficulties to found a religion, so it's usually better to concentrate on other tech strategies.

Personally, I try for Hinduism if I start with Mysticism, and if that falls through I can usually pick up Confucianism from COL on my way to CS slingshot.

My humble opinion lays on whom my leader is and what I want to do with them. If I start off with mysticism and spiritual I usually will attempt a religion. Then I'll decide if I'm going adapt to it. I'll see who my neighbors are. If I do adapt that religion I founded I figure I had better start spreading that religion with capable allies quick. Don't want my would be friends thinking I'm some sort of heathen!

All in all I do generally try to get at least one religion I and at least spread it in my own territory and then other civ's lands if only lazily.

Your mileage may very per game. If you are war mongering I would focus on killing people and stealing their religion (and shrine), but if you are a benevolent leader founding and spreading the good word sounds like a very good way to control the diplomacy. Or of course found two and that gives you the ability to put two civs at war with each other!

Isabelle, I usually grab two religions. Washington, I may accidentally grab Con. with CoL. Just depends! Shrines are great, having a say in diplomacy early in the game is very powerful. Just one last point, having that extra happiness helps out a ton in those ealier days instead of waiting and hoping the person you want as a friend spreads their religion into you lands. Anyway its how I play and sure more people will chime in with even greater opinions.

Much depends on what you are going to do with it - how does founding the religion play into your long term plans?

Letting somebody else research those techs first gives you a bunch of advantages - your research is less expensive, you can prioritize other technologies, somebody else burns a GP on the shrine.

But the religious civics are nice, and you need a state religion to take advantage of those. Can you wait for one to spread to you naturally?

Also, unless you found the religions yourself, you don't have any control over where the holy city is. (see this discussion (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=169716&page=2) for possibilities in control the "random" placement of holy cities).

If you haven't already, check out The Cuban Isolationists (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133492
) where two good players demonstrate what is possible with a religion first strategy.

It's worth it if you spread the religion. This requires missionaries to deal with friendly civs, and military units to deal with infidel civs.

Founding a 2nd religion is almost never worth it.

It's usually more efficient to take a holy city by force.

At lower levels (up to about Monarch) you may as well found a religion. Above that you require extreme amounts of luck, or burning a great prophet to get one. It's usually easier then to let an AI go to the trouble of spreading a religion, and then capturing the holy city for yourself.

As usual, it's situational. I believe that most of the time, you are better off not trying to found any of the first three religions. Almost always, it's best to go for BW first. At higher levels, that drastically decreases your chances of founding a religion.

Another trouble with founding an early religion: To take full advantage of it, you want to build missionaries. That automatically means you are weaker, because some of your resources are diverted from building military units. You may already be weaker if you put off researching BW. As a result, your Civ will look like an easier target to the AI's. Fighting an early war that was not of your choosing is not a formula for success. Not having strong units (e.g. axemen) to repel barbarians doesn't help, either.

If you go for BW immediately after founding the religion then you get your axemen somewhat later. You may end up paying a price for that.

I typically get Confucianism by because of getting Code of Laws first but prefer to take holy cities rather than beeline to a specific religion. Holy Cities make good targets for capturing.

Below Monarch, I'd found 'em all, if I could. Monarch and above, you can't afford to waste techs on religions except for Code of Laws which you'll want early anyway.

If I start with Mysticism, I'll make a run for Hinduism or Buddhism. If I don't get one of those, I'll wait around until I can research or do a slingshot to get one of the later ones.

I don't think that it's really worth it to try for Judaism, though. If you miss one of the early religions, it's because an AI civ is going the religion route and is researching faster than you. Much of the time, they continue onto Judaism and grab that too. That means you've spent all this time on the religion research path and have avoided getting bronze working or the worker traits, which are far more valuable in the early going.

As others said, if you have mysticism, grab Buddhism or Hinduism (Hinduism is a safer bet). If you don't, then you probably will beeline to Code of Laws if you are warring or being peaceful, which would award you with Confucianism. Warmongers may also go for Theology, giving you theocracy, a very useful wartime civic, as well as Christianity. The AI is pretty ambivalent about Theology, so you could proably delay before getting it. If you are going for a cultural victory, try to get at least three religions for the income and culture. Founding Hinduism, Judaism, and all of the others is annoying, but very possible below Prince. This gives you the ability to get tons of temples and money to jack up the cultural slider ASAP.
-jcw

Unless I start with Mysticism, I usually don't bother with the three early religions. I have more important priorities.

As for the latter four, each of their associated techs have other benefits; I usually regard the religion as a bonus. To wit:


Philosophy (Taoism) opens up the Pacifism civic (if you want to go after Great People) and the Angkor Wat wonder. It also is a pre-requisite for the Liberalism race.
Code of Laws (Confucianism) opens up one of the game's most important buildings, courthouses, as well as the very useful Forbidden Palace and the Caste System civic. It's also a pre-requisite for Civil Service.
Theology (Christianity) opens up the warmonger-friendly Theocracy civic and the Sistine Chapel wonder.
Diving Right (Islam) is a dead-end tech, but it opens two useful wonders, the Spiral Minaret and Versailles, and it makes Nationalism cheaper.


The other benefit of founding these religions is that you keep them out of the hands of the AI civs. Through most of the game, religions are valuable diplomatic tools. But it can be frustrating and costly (in many ways) to spam missionaries to convert another civ, only to have them discover DR and convert to Islam shortly thereafter.

Okay, let's get this straight. Favourable conditions for a city to become holy are, if I understand VoU's post correctly:

- High population. (Sounds reasonable)
- Old age.
- Few religions. (Makes sense)
- No palace. (How about Forbidden and Versaille?)

In other words: Spread no religions where you want your shrine. Spread as many as possible to the other. Maximize population where you want the shrine, minimize it elsewhere. Found the shrine-city early. Don't build, or move, the palace.

Particularly the age thing sounds weird to me.

Particularly the age thing sounds weird to me.

To me too - where did that come from?

Edit: ah - the tie breaker. This is the least important, by a whole lot, of the terms listed.

How about Forbidden and Versaille?

Don't matter at all. The game distinguishes between isGovernmentCenter (palace, FP, Versailes) and isCapital (palace). The latter function is the one used to determine the handicapping.

I specifically go for a religion under the following circumstances: I'm playing continents, and none of the first three religions were founded on my continent. As soon as I see 'Judaism has been founded in a distant land', I'll generally drop whatever I'm doing and grab any religion possible. I will then pop-rush a monastery and a couple missionaries and send one to each of my opponent's best production cities.

When the missionaries are in production/in transit, I'm pushing for Alphabet and bribe the opponents with techs to start wars with each other, since this can often become expensive/impossible once they are all the same religion.

After they start fighting, I convert a city, triggering them to grab that state religion and start pumping missionaries to the rest of their cities. While they spend their hammers building missionaries to convert the rest of their cities, I spend my hammers building troops to conquer them.

I generally don't convert from Paganism without a really good reason. Sometimes I'll prepare a most of my cities with a handful of buildings in the build queue ready to be pop-rushed at half price with Organized Religion. The insanely high upkeep on Org Rel makes it not worth spending more than a few turns in it, especially if you use it to rush forges that provide the whipping bonus to both buildings and troops.

When you finally meet the other continents, it's usually bad to be running a state religion. Becoming everyone's worst enemy right off the bat isn't worth the civic bonuses. You want to be able to get some long distance open borders for the commerce boost and bribe them to keep fighting each other and keep their hands full.

Q: Is religion founding worth it?
A: Only if you're going cultural victory. Otherwise, founding religion: 1) can hurt you diplomatically; and 2) takes your attention away from warmongering, which is more important.

As others have mentioned, it takes a lot of hammers and time to convert neighbouring civs and then they will just convert to another civ's religion because you fall behind on the power graph and the civs will convert to a more powerful civ's religion generally. Just let the AI determine the religions, decide which allies you want, and then go for the appropriate holy city.

On the question of religions, what do you do if you end up capturing more than one shrine? Do you try to spread all religions that have shrines to all cities or do you only focus on one religion and its shrine?

I am guessing that it is not worth the trouble to spread multiple religions because of the increased failure rate. Also, all those lovely hammers could go to warmongering instead :hammer:

Q: Is religion founding worth it?
A: Only if you're going cultural victory. Otherwise, founding religion: 1) can hurt you diplomatically; and 2) takes your attention away from warmongering, which is more important.

The phrase "Founding a religion" needs some clarification. There are several separate steps involved that are appropriate at different times in different games.

A) Be the first one to research a religious tech
B) Build missionaries and actively spread the religion
C) Adopt a state religion for civic or diplomatic reasons

Just because you found a religion or capture a holy city does not mean you need to adopt that religion or try to spread it. In a continents game, it can be well worth shooting for a religion tech if your continent lacks one, even if you currently have no plans to convert to that religion. Hard cash is useful for any victory type.

The phrase "Founding a religion" needs some clarification. There are several separate steps involved that are appropriate at different times in different games.

A) Be the first one to research a religious tech
B) Build missionaries and actively spread the religion
C) Adopt a state religion for civic or diplomatic reasons

Just because you found a religion or capture a holy city does not mean you need to adopt that religion or try to spread it. In a continents game, it can be well worth shooting for a religion tech if your continent lacks one, even if you currently have no plans to convert to that religion. Hard cash is useful for any victory type.

founding a religion doesn't need any clarification. if you're the first to research the required tech, you found the religion. spreading the religion isn't founding it. if you have a religion's shrine (preferably acquired through conquest) then you spread the religion, regardless of whether you adopt it or not. you only adopt a certain religion when it's diplomatically strategic or if you need it for a religious civ (e.g., theocracy).

Researching a religion is pretty important in multiplayer games. I wont explain why cause i still enjoy DOMINATING EVERY DAMN GAME I PLAY.

P.S.: IM THE BEST AT MP

^^imo founding a religion would only be important for theocracy. beyond that, i can't see how it helps that much in mp. while someone is researching religious techs, i'm in their empire with axes...

^^imo founding a religion would only be important for theocracy. beyond that, i can't see how it helps that much in mp.

errr wrong try again.

I suppose you could send a missionary to all your opponents cities and spread your religion. That way you can spy on what they have in the city. Which I would assume would actually be very important for war in MP.

and whos going to accept open border agreements in MP?

Let's see.... Religion or axemen? Axemen or religion...? I think I'll go axemen.