Hi I haven't been able to play for many months but hopefully in a month I hope to be playing again...

We all know that certain civs work well with certain religions (e.g. Ljosalfar and FoL) but what I'm asking is which civs are suited to specialising in the divine path? E.g. the Ljosalfar work well with FoL but work best following the recon path not the divine path (correct me if I'm wrong). Perhaps the Sheaim if they use the AV? What do you think (and why!)?

well, the Ljos obviously need to at least start with the devine path, in order to spread their forests. The malakim have a religious hero (fire and law summoning if i'm not mistaking), so they'd seem like good candidates aswell. Both of the calabim late-game miracle units (vampire lord and bruja) require religious techs, so they really haven't got much of a choise eighter. Besides that, i suppose both AV and order civs get some good benefits from the religious line, in terms of units and heroes, but they can follow a different line if they wish (sheiam and summoning for example).

Divine path ? Elohim all the way.

yep,
monks ... altar powered monks ... hordes of altar powered monks ...
with the reliquary spirit guide, each time one of your units dies, every xp he learned will go to another warrior ... (half) thus you almost don't care to launch huge stacks of monks agains big bad vilains... with 4 free xp... each newly created monk that die gives 2 to a friend :)

you may then want either FoL or AV for the disciples heroes
or RoK for the spiritual hammers...


furthermore, Elohim hero starts with 3 manaI promo : no other arcane hero get this advantage.
... with the 3 of the palace, he make an archmage knowledgeable in 5areas... (3without spending xp)

Agreed. Elohim is the best in that regard. Monks are a great disciple unit that requires no resources or buildings. With RoK path, you get Stonewardens and Spiritual Hammer to get a horde of +1S Monks and Stonewardens. With Order you get Ring of Flames to pound the enemy down. Follow with Paramanders or Crusaders. Headed down a religion path, you might even manage to pick up both.

As second place, I would say Dwarves and RoK. I haven't tried it specifically, but I made notes for a strategy. Rush for RoK, cats, Stonewardens and adepts, in that order. Go to war with a stack of cats, adepts to repair them, and Stonewardens w/ Spiritual Hammer to finish off the cities and garrison. Follow on with Paramanders w/ Spiritual Hammer.

Anyone with a spiritual trait gets free mobility.
Any civ with a religious tech hero, such as the Bannor, Malakim, and Calabim who have heroes on the fanatacism tech (maybe Elohim too, I forget where Corlindale is), will naturally want to head that way soon, and might as well specialize while there.
Elohim ane the only ones with a unique, extra unit down on priesthood, I think.
Any civ (barring Grigori, I don't need to add) that you build the Altar with.
Khazad might want to to make up for missing arcane spells.

Corlindale also requires the fanaticism tech

FoL is not just for Ljosalfar; it is also very wicked with Kuriotates. The health and hapiness bonus means you don't need to tie up the archmages in your cities casting unyielding order. If you don't like lumbermills, go capture some elven workers.

Another combination I like is Bannor with overlords, (Sabethiel, not Capria). Keep one city with overlords so you can switch to it. Go on a war, spread The Order to all your conquests, then when the dust settles, whip out courthouses in your newly acquired cities. End the war, switch to The Order again, and then with the hammer overflow from the previous whipping, build/buy basillcas. Don't do it more than once though, because then your basillcas disappear.

Another nice thing for FOL and Kuriotates is the growth of Ancient Forests. The sprawling cites can afford to have extra greenspace, which pays off in Health.

Those are good thoughts sylvan and charles but in this thread I was talking about which civs are good for taking the religious research path not what religions go with which civs.

You may also want to try amurites...
I know it is counter intuitive.
but think about it :

if you go neutral until you get druids... with the ranger-druid path you can get lichs with divine and summon and sorcery ...
thus with one lich that specialise in enchantement you have spiritual hammers... and shields of faith.
then switch to the religion of your needs...
you can then have hammered + shielded (+1, +10%str, +20%str defending)eilodons or ritualists or crusader... or Ywain the woodelf or maredero, sphener...etc.

it is a long run to have druids then lichs but maybe worthwhile.do converted priest of foreign religion stay with you ?
in the same field : do priests (stonewardens, ritualists..) leaves you when you change religion ? (it is neither written in wiki nor in civilopedia and I never change religion so late, already having the powerful heros) (in those sources it is only written that you cannot build them if not state religion and that high priests leaves you if you change religion. nothing is written about that for priests nor inquisitors...

if they don't leave you, you don't need amurites to have hammed/shielded sphener.
go RoK, go priesthood, build 3-5 stonewardens. change to your prefered religions. then use hammer to boost your disciples, wait for 1stonewarden to get enough xp, upgrade him to inky... you get shield of faith. don't let him die.

priests stay, but high priests don't. You can't build any more of the priests of your old religion, but you don't lose those you already have. Also, they can still be ungraded to inquisitors (although I forget whether inquisitors will abandon you if you switch religions again) to gain access to the top tier divine spells. But if I remember correctly, an inquisitor must have the same religion as your state religion in order to use inquisition in a city.

every single civ is good to take down the religious path. some are just better then others.

elohim have the biggest advantage. they have a reason to get priesthood before the actual religion (monks).

calabim have a nice boost because if you pick up losha you can avoid researching vampires all together. Also , losha is on the way to brujahs.

everything else basically falls into combos (like sheiam and AV) so its up to you on how you veiw those.

Explain why the Grigori are good on the religious path (without using unrestricted leaders), specifically how they can even take said path. ;)

euh..

luonnatars ??

and immortals with hero promo ..
that's all !!

Well, Luonnatars require arcane techs not religious ones (although they replace inquisitors, they have the requirements of Archmages).

Still, Immortal heroes are nice, and unfortunately do have religious prerequisites.