Ive found that recently I almost never end up converting to a single religion and taking advantage of its benefits, mostly in order to stay happy with everyone to keep as many trade routes up as possible. At what stage is it typically best to convert to a religion? I win pretty much 100% of my monarch/epic games, and am going to move up to emperor.

There are several uses for religion in this game.

1. Happiness. State religion cities get +1 Happy. Not a huge deal, but nevertheless good if you're lacking luxury goods.

2. Diplomacy. Choosing a religion makes everyone of the same religion like you better, and everyone of a different religion like you worse. Since it's vital for the higher difficulties to keep your friends and your enemies seperate and fighting each other, you absolutely need to convert to your best ally's religion to keep him as happy as possible.

3. The Religious Civics. When I'm Organized, I usually get and stay in Organized Religion (+25% building production). The other useful one is Theocracy which is great for Charismatic leaders as it allows them to potentially build ground units with 3 promotions right out of Barracks WITHOUT West Point (Barracks+Vassalage+Theocracy+Military Instructor).

To answer your question, the best time to convert is when you can spread it and build temples OR you need a diplomacy buff to trade techs. So generally, once you've discovered Meditation/Priesthood and Alphabet. But this depends a lot on the situation at hand. You'll obviously want to wait with converting if you need something from an opponent who has a different religion, otherwise he'll be pissed at you.

every single game... the first tech i go after is theology, so that i can be the first to discover christianity. does not matter what level i am on, nor does it matter who i am. i want to be the first one to find christianity... and i am.

of course, it makes the game much more difficult in the higher levels, but that is another story :eek:

neismond

In my current game, I have 4 different religions in my cities, but I haven't switched to any of them. Why? Because I don't have Hinduism, and the 4 civs on my northern and eastern borders are all Hindu. If any of my cities ever got Hinduism, I'd switch in a second. But until then, I have to stick with no state religion to keep everyone happy.

Usually in my games, I'll either found an early religion and switch to it, or get an early religion from a neighbor and switch. The extra +1 :) (+2 with a temple) is too useful on the higher levels (I play Monarch too). Doesn't Emperor have a lower happy cap than Monarch? That makes a religion even more useful.

I try to found one, and then spread it around as much as possible - the shrine is often the only thing keeping me out of bankruptcy!