I just got Civ 4 actually, and I am am just getting familiar with the diffs from Civ 3. I refuse to play on anything other than deity. Anyone who, like me, only plays deity with standard rules please respond. I wouldn't mind discussing some stuff, like for instance is there ANY point in trying to found a religion? This seems impossible. Also, I am confused as to how the whole religion thing works. Is it basically the more you have in each city the better (because you can build more temples)?

Anyways, anyone who plays on deity respond please. The discussion of people who are playing on lower levels is basically meaningless because the game needs to be played so much differently on deity.

Not to sound abrasive or anything, but why don't you try the game a few difficulty settings down from deity, and figure out some of the relationships in the game. It's pretty different from civ3. There are threads dedicated to your question regarding religion here. It's not that simple. You're right that the game needs to be played different on deity, however, I haven't seen too many deity players hanging out in the strategy and tips forum.

btw, welcome to the forums.

I don't play deity, so feel free to ignore me. However, I read a lot of the deity threads. Founding the early religions is probably out, but the mid-to-late ones are possible via lightbulbing, especially taoism with a great scientist on philosophy.

Having a state religion gives +1 :) in each city that has that religion. Each temple gives +1 :) . Monasteries give +10% research. These are buildings that can only be built if you have a religion in the city.

The cons of religion are that having a religion different from another civ gives you diplomatic penalities. Some leaders, like Isabella have major penalities.

I believe most higher level players obtain religions mostly via conquest and then adopt a religion as it becomes useful (e.g., religious civics require a state religion to benefit the cities and sharing a state religion with someone gives diplomatic bonuses).

Once you get liberalism you can adopt free religion which gives you +1 :) for each religion in a city.

There are some good deity threads kicking around (uberfish, acidsatyr, snaaty) that you should check out, they're solid.

Hi thanks Johnny, I appreciate the welcome and the advice.

I knew Civ3 inside and out and read the entire manual for Civ4 before even installing the game. I have played a few times now, and I agree it is much different, but I feel I already know enough to try my luck at Deity. Anyways I will look for any discussion on religion, I couldn't find anything directly answering either of my questions though.

But ya, I still am hoping some other people who have played deity a lot who could help me might be on here. BTW is it hard to get started playing online vs real people? I have never done that but wouldnt mind trying it.

Most online players suck. When I was playing solely on monarch I could beat 90+% of the people I played against. Many of them don't even know the basics of the game. I walked into one empire with a small army one time and there were no developed tiles, no defenders...I was like: "What are you doing?"

I haven't played any MP. That is a different game for sure.

futurehermit sums up religions nicely on upper levels of difficulty. On deity, taoism is probably the first you could found via using a great scientist to lightbulb the philosophy technology.

After that, there's lots of happiness to be had with religion and lots of war as well.

Hey futurehermit, thanks to you also for your reply and help. I will definitely look for those guys you said who play deity.

One quick question though, is there any penalty, assuming just all the basic civics are in place, to having more than just your state religion in your cities?
Also, say your state religion is Budhism, but all your cities have BOTH Budhism and Hinduism. If Victoria is a Hindu, will she still not like you? How does that work?

Any time you have a different religion from another civ, it will be a reputation demerit with them. Different civs have different feelings towards religion though. Brennus and Isabella are religious nuts and it won't be long be they're very unhappy with you. Other civs aren't as fanatical. Either way, the longer you have a different religion from another civ, the larger the demerit will be. It is a cumulative modifier based on time.

You can only have one state religion at a time, regardless of how many different religions have spread to a particular city. Later on in the game, there is a free religion civic, which sort of makes all religions state religions.

She will still not like you. State religion is what they care about. Different state religion = dislike, hatred, and even war depending on the personality of the leader.

There is no penalty for having multiple religions in a city. In fact, it is often a good thing since you can then build multiple temples, monasteries, etc.

However, "wasting" time producing missionaries to fill all of your cities with multiple religions probably isn't the way to go at deity level unless you're going for a cultural victory.

Like you said, deity is a whole different ballgame and that often involves a high priority on warfare. Early and often.

Land is power. Land is power. Land is power.

I do believe I had an impact.:D

On religions: First and foremost as a diplomatic tool, to make some AIs like you (and, yes, some hate you. As a consequence I often don't adopt a state religion at all). Secondarily is for the good civics, OR and Pacifism (sometimes Theocracy, though I don't use it much). Happiness is tertiary, and shrine income is incidental. Nice if you can capture it, but don't spend your time in pursuit.

Quite frankly, you can do just fine without religion. I think many players put more focus on it than it's worth (unless your goal is "fun" or "flavor" of course, but then you shouldn't be playing deity). If you know civ3 but not civ4, I'd recommend you focus your attention on cottages, specialists, and great people.

peace,
lilnev

Founding Hinduism is fairly possible on standard deity. Buddhism - no. I don't believe that going for early religion is worth it on deity most of the time.

I don't think you will get full enjoyment out of the game playing only on deity, it is a poorly balanced difficulty level and you won't be able to experience the true wealth of different strategies possible in civ 4. But good luck.

Founding Hinduism is fairly possible on standard deity. Buddhism - no. I don't believe that going for early religion is worth it on deity most of the time.

in warlords it is the other way around. there are two wonders associated with Polytheism so that almost always goes first

Actually, I've run Brennus tests on Warlords 2.08. Many starts. Those are the results I got.

I do play deity on standart rules, but I will tell you go and play on lower levels first.

You need to figure everything on lower level and practically any strategy could be used on Deity if you know what you are doing.

You can found early religion on deity or do not have a war befor liberalism. Example:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=192600

But you will find a lots of post there that this statedies have no place on higher level. Wrong. Civ4 is very complex game and eveyrhting could be used in RIGH SITUATION!

In provided example people who were trying "standard" higher level stategies lost and give up. Religion base stat worked.

And yes, Deity is unballanced, you have very little controll on deity.

Last enjoyable level is Immortal, where you still can enjoy wealth of the game with out AI capable of making 10000 shields/turn. (I am not overstating, on deity AI can upgrade 100 units by 100 shields for just 1500GP which they useally have in reserve.

and man, if you still want discussion about religion...

Religion give you happiness bonuses from state religion or temple or other religious buildings, but it main bonus in my opinion is in religious civics one can use.

If you did not figure it out yet, you are not going to be able on emperor.

I'm with Mutineer on that. Immortal is the last level where you can feel like the AIs' equal all the time. Defeating deity is certainly satisfying, but it always plays out as some crazy chase after the leading AIs, and you win only because of their horrible strategic mistakes.

You can see that in my posts about my deity game and my earlier post about a game on Immortal. On deity: the AI could have won by simply reverting to Representation and concetrating on research/spaceship construction. Even easier, the AI could have won by invading me most of the time, instead of letting me choose when to war. On deity, you must concetrate your entire empire on one game aspect, teching/war/etc and freeze all others, that's the only way to match the AIs insane bonuses.

Compare this to my Immortal game. Prepare rush army while the AIs still expand/fight barbarians, conquer, fortify borders with remaining AIs once you have enough land. Then whip courthouses, get some trade routes and *snap* you are now #1 in GNP and Mfg, you have the resources to build some wonders, you have the resources to found and spread your own religion, you have the resources to join a colonization spree, and generally just relax and play a fun and awarding game.

@ Multineer:

Hope you will finish your succession game (I´m still lurking)...:goodjob:

Bad luck that most players dropped out


@ all:

You should really check out Multineer´s link and have a look at this game. I never would have expected a religous civ to be that strong on deity (I tend to ignore religion, but that seemed to be a bit hasty when looking at that game)

"I'm with Mutineer on that. Immortal is the last level where you can feel like the AIs' equal all the time. Defeating deity is certainly satisfying, but it always plays out as some crazy chase after the leading AIs, and you win only because of their horrible strategic mistakes."

Yup, exactly right. So IF you want to play on deity, move your way up. And after playing on deity you will very likely find out that you go back to immortal or emperor (my favorite level) quite often because there you really can play for fun and try out various strategies. Deity is pure challange and not much fun...

I should add that emperor on civ4 is harder than deity was on any previous version, you won't be lacking for a challenge.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I have learned I guess everything there is to know about religion, I just wanted to know if anyone thought it possible to actually found one on deity. I am the kind of player that would play 1000 times on deity, tweaking here and there until I get a good start or something happens and I get lucky and actually found one. I am gonna do this unless someone told me that it was actually IMPOSSIBLE to found one.

I also was interested if there were any negative affects without talking about civics or buildings or anything of having multiple religions in your cities (beyond your state one). I guess from the info you guys have given and play, there are not, so its safe I guess to say I should welcome them because they just mean more temples can be built.

Specifically to lilnev, I agree with your strategy but I am concerned about religion because in civ 3 it was often a strategy of mine to stay at peace with everyone (hoping the AI's will spend resources warring heavily with each other) and try to build a huge culture and usurped cities. It seems, the scoring and success in Civ4 isnt baded AS MUCH on the number of cities and amount of land you have so this may not be as effective. But on deity it seems improbable i will be able to compete AT ALL in a war with an neigbouring civ so i am going to pursue the culture take over strategy for a bit to see if I can't win a game...

thanks again

There are two negative effects of religion.

1. The more religions in a city, the harder it is to spread a new one. Sometimes you will need to spread your state religion, but your missionaries will fail.

2. Only matters in multiplayer. The owner of a holy city, if under the religion of the said holy city, sees all cities of this religion.

You can found religions with a leader that starts with Mysticism and a bit of luck. Conquest by culture though is unfortunately one of those strategies that just don't work on deity.

Most online players suck. When I was playing solely on monarch I could beat 90+% of the people I played against. Many of them don't even know the basics of the game. I walked into one empire with a small army one time and there were no developed tiles, no defenders...I was like: "What are you doing?"


This is no way a bad thing. I love sending an axeman rush (or even warrior) only to find that my neighbor civ has built his city in an awesome spot, but began building stonehenge after building 2 workers (uselessly keeping his city at a 1 hammer, size 1 state anyways).

if you don't have the same state religion they do, they're mad, period, even if you have no access to their religion. if their religion spreads to one of your cities, it can be a good thing, in a weird way. if you have even one city of that flavor, they can ask/demand that you to change to it. if you can afford the 5 turns and the anarchy if not spiritual, making the switch earns you + modifiers with that leader, and the + does not go away when you switch back to what you were before they asked.

feel free to consider my point meaningless tho, see sig.

Thanks for all the replies everyone. I have learned I guess everything there is to know about religion, I just wanted to know if anyone thought it possible to actually found one on deity. I am the kind of player that would play 1000 times on deity, tweaking here and there until I get a good start or something happens and I get lucky and actually found one. I am gonna do this unless someone told me that it was actually IMPOSSIBLE to found one.

I also was interested if there were any negative affects without talking about civics or buildings or anything of having multiple religions in your cities (beyond your state one). I guess from the info you guys have given and play, there are not, so its safe I guess to say I should welcome them because they just mean more temples can be built.

Specifically to lilnev, I agree with your strategy but I am concerned about religion because in civ 3 it was often a strategy of mine to stay at peace with everyone (hoping the AI's will spend resources warring heavily with each other) and try to build a huge culture and usurped cities. It seems, the scoring and success in Civ4 isnt baded AS MUCH on the number of cities and amount of land you have so this may not be as effective. But on deity it seems improbable i will be able to compete AT ALL in a war with an neigbouring civ so i am going to pursue the culture take over strategy for a bit to see if I can't win a game...

thanks again

...lol
Your posts shows you don't know some basic things, why would you want to start with deity? You won't survive BC period.
Get over yourself and start playing on lower levels first, its the only way you can develop strategy that can evolve over time as you take up stronger levels.
Deity is about luck as it it about skill anyway.

Deity is about luck as it it about skill anyway.

I couldn't agree more. Even on Prince you need little bit of luck not to mention Deity. I think you should start with Prince or Monarch.