Early religion rush + Spiritual: why?

Having spent much of my first few months on Civ 4 mucking around with Hannibal's Cottage Economy and Boudica's shock tactics, I'm intrigued to play with Specialist Economies, especially building a Wall Street + Shrines Bureaucracy capital.

I've built such cities before, but only by capturing a Capital that founded Buddhism or Hinduism and building my Palace there. I'd like to build my own from scratch.

Most of the suggestions I see for getting religions say to use a Spiritual leader. Aside from a common - but not guaranteed - overlap with Mysticism starting tech, how exactly do quicker Temple building and no anarchy when changing Civics help with farming religions, other than running Priests a bit sooner to generate Great Prophets sooner?

It seems to me that Capitals tend to have great food opportunities, so I want my Shrine to be in my Capital. This in turn suggests an early Religion - Buddhism, Hinduism, or Judaism - or, failing that, a Wonder rush dropping Confucianism or Christianity my way via Oracle or GP. Islam and Taoism just seem to end up appearing in a remote outpost settlement sitting on an Iron tile in the middle of Tundra or whatever; I want to control my holy site, and as far as I can tell the only things that really guarantee that are having Mysticism and a turn 1 source of commerce, or on the outside Mining to beeline Monotheism. I'm not getting the importance of Spiritual, other than perhaps enabling Organised Religion/Theocracy musical chairs after a faith's been snagged?

Don't get me wrong, I like Saladin and he's my number one choice for this stuff so I'm running SPI anyway, but when I read up on Civ 4 religion I'm feeling like there's a page missing from my understanding of the game.

Espionage. If you have multiple holy shrines, you might want to swap religions just to get the espionage discount against different targets.
Diplomacy. If you found a religion but it isn't the dominant religion on your continent, you might not want to make it your state religion most of the time... but for stuff like creating the Apostolic Palace, it could be worth a brief stint in your own religion.
Cheaper temples is bigger than you make it out to be. Those things are good normally; if you're farming religions then there's a good chance you'll be going for cultural victory too, in which case you'll be building a lot of temples. Also, if you're on a challenging difficulty for you, generating a Great Prophet or two for bulbs can really help you with grabbing an extra religion; temples give priest slots. Saving 40 hammers on an early temple might save you 2-3 turns on your first Great Prophet, which might make the difference between winning Theology and... not. Plus you'll be wanting GP to make shrines.
A lot of the religious civics are tied together with techs you'll get early if going for religions.
Monotheism -> Judaism and Organized Religion.
Theology -> Christianity and Theocracy.
Pacifism -> Taoism and Pacifism.
And you will want to swap religious civics; OR, Theocracy, and Pacifism all have very distinct uses but you can micro. and coordinate your empire to get good benefits out of all if you're swapping freely.

Spiritual has no bearing on getting an early religion afaik. Just that the likelihood of starting with mysticism is higher typically for someone spiritual. Mysticism is always what we care about. It then all depends on the start (do we have immediate gold to work?), which AIs have spawned (that also have mysticism) and what difficulty we're playing on (on highest levels getting Budd/Hindu is pretty much impossible if other civs start with mysticism).

Unless you start with some riverside gold I get pretty good results with Isabella. Having both myst and fishing and a coastal start you get to work 2 gold tiles immediately. You can then synergise this "not doing anything" start by building workboats slowly with your 1 hammer. If you miss Hinduism you can then beeline to Monotheism.

Alternatively with any other leader you can 1 base Oracle to grab CoL. Although it might be worth putting your settlers in place so on the next turn you can found a few cities to catch up quickly.

Coanda has already stated most of the points why founding a religion can be a good move.

Just two things:

1. Get Sailing asap to get a bigger Trade Network -> Autospread
2. Huayna Capac is the best Leader for this, as he's FIN + starts with Mysticism, you can have 12 starting with him. On IMM / Deity you'll have to cripple the other Leaders by denying Mysticism to then and settle on a Lux and work a Lux to be successful.

Spiritual is a very nice trait but has no direct advantages to religious approaches.

P.S.: Go for Mediation, because by that you deny Monestaries to the AI -> less religous spread from them.

On IMM / Deity you'll have to cripple the other Leaders by denying Mysticism to then and settle on a Lux and work a Lux to be successful.

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Wait, what? Are you saying there is a way to get to meditation first on IMM/Deity? Is that by specifically choosing leaders that don't have Myst? I'm guessing by settling a lux (+3c?) will increase the amount of gold you get in your city tile? Which ones are good enough? Riverside gold perhaps?

I find meditation really hard to tech first even on immortal, I suppose it is only reliable with Seraiel's tactic of settling on a lux / working a lux with a FIN leader to get an Early religion (Inca, Mali, and Korea?).

Polytheism is a lot more useful because its a prerequisite for a lot more religious techs. Getting an early religion is a lot more useful than a lot of players give it credit for, it normally spreads automatically to your first few cities, building a coastal capital and teching sailing makes it spread easier too, and getting organised religion set up very early on in the game is a huge boost to your early game economy.

Isabella and Justinian are very good leaders for teching religions first on higher difficulties. Look for a seafood start with Isabella so you can build workboats first, or a decent production start (plains hill capital + plains forest or plains hill tile to work) as Justinian to build a settler first with IMP bonuses. Also having either EXP or IMP with these leaders significantly helps to speed up your early game with the amount of turns saved building settlers as Justinian or Workers + Granaries as Isabella. Abuse these traits as much as possible to speed up your early expansion and you can get a very decent and productive 6 city religious focused empire set up very quickly.

Even on Immortal difficulty games where I played as Justinian with both Isabella and Asoka among my opponents, I can still reliably tech Polytheism first because both of those go for Meditation. To make it easier you can hand pick opponenets that dont start with mysticism.

As for Spiritual, being able to freely swap civics and religions every 5 turns with no anarchy can easilly make it the most powerful trait in the game when correctly used. It just needs a lot more micromanagement to take advantage of compared to the other traits. You can swap to Slavery + Organised Religion to get buildings built faster, Caste + Pacifism for peace time great person farming, and Vassalage + Theocracy during war for +4 experience to new units whenever you need to without any anarchy.

Founding your own religion is not usually something I do deliberately. I do it sometimes if I oracle CoL, but I never, NEVER, NEVER found the religions that go with meditation, polytheism or monotheism. Why? Because doing that takes away from the pool of early religions and increases the chance that all or most of the AI's will be in the same religion, thus liking each other, thus trading furiously with each other and peacevassalling to each other etc.

Ideally you want each of the AI's in a different religion, meaning they don't like each other and don't trade and don't help each other out. So you don't want to reduce that pool of early religions.

I know, it seems like a cool idea founding buddhism, but it just doesn't make sense gameplaywise. You have to skip valuable early techs. This hurts especially if you don't start with the right techs for what you have. What is your poor worker supposed to do all those turns?

If you really want an early religion, oracle CoL. It's not hard to do on immortal and below. You even get a free missionary, unlike meditation / poly / mono. You also get a very valuable tech which the AI's will likely avoid if you get it first.

If for some reason you ignore my advice and really want to found an early religion the best way is to get a leader that starts with mysticism, and hope for a tile with extra commerce like an oasis or something. Then you're pretty much guaranteed to get either meditation or poly first. Spiritual doesn't have much to do with it really, just cheaper temples.

AbsoluteZero said:

I know, it seems like a cool idea founding buddhism, but it just doesn't make sense gameplaywise. You have to skip valuable early techs. This hurts especially if you don't start with the right techs for what you have. What is your poor worker supposed to do all those turns?

If you really want an early religion, oracle CoL. It's not hard to do on immortal and below. You even get a free missionary, unlike meditation / poly / mono. You also get a very valuable tech which the AI's will likely avoid if you get it first.

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It makes plenty of sense gameplay wise to found an early religion:

- Early Organised Religion for the production boost
- Access to more temples and shrines for a religious economy
- Opening up a possible culture win.

Teching a religious tech first doesnt 'hurt' or 'slow down' initial progress in the slightest bit for Isabella or Justinian. Your 'poor worker' wont be wasting any turns because you will ideally be building a work boat or a settler first instead.

I like early religions for a culture game. I can have all of Hinduism, Confucianism, Christianity, Toasim and Islam founded reliably on Immortal difficulty along with faster city growth and development than worker first starts by playing Justinian with a 2-3 gold / gems start. Only founding a single religion does not provide enough culture for me to win a cultural victory.

Most high level players dont value early religious techs not because it isnt a viable strategy, but because they personally choose not to attempt religious culture wins on higher difficulties (I have no idea why apart from on Diety, up to Immortal it is very valid and easy to win a culture game using several religions).

Of course if you stick to only playing on Diety, then it probably doesnt make any sense to you for that difficulty, but your advice is bad for anyone actually wanting to play and win a religious culture game on any difficulty up to Immortal.

^^^there is so much wrongness with just about everything in the above post, I don't know where to start....

Good advice around there, thanks! I especially like that metagame analysis from AbsoluteZero there; food for thought, indeed...

lymond said:

^^^there is so much wrongness with just about everything in the above post, I don't know where to start....

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Ok, please start by telling me whats wrong with these screenshots:



- Then spam missionaries, temples, monasteries, culture buildings, cathedrals in 3 cities and win.

Not sure if anyone pointed this out yet but if you found another city other than your capital then your religion will be founded there. So if you want your shrine in your initial capital you must found a religion before you build your second city, which can be pretty difficult on higher levels.

I have had some luck rushing the oracle and taking code of laws. Not only do you get your own religion but I think it's the first religion where you get a free missionary. Send that missionary to the capital of your biggest/strongest neighbor who has not yet founded their own religion. If you can spread to that city very early then they will usually convert and spread your religion for you. Not the greatest play but not the worst I've tried either. Besides code of laws is a nice tech to get anyways and right on the path to civil service (beaurocracy), which I'd imagine you'd want for your shrine capital anyway.

7721 said:

which can be pretty difficult on higher levels.

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Only on Deity unless you are trying for meditation which is virtually impossible.

Polytheism / Hinduism have been possible for me to found on multiple consecutive Immortal maps, even with working a production tile first for a settler.

bhavv said:

Ok, please start by telling me whats wrong with these screenshots

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C'mon now, you know damn well there is a ton wrong with those screenshots

No worker at turn 18??

Cities not connected, robbing you of 2 commerce per turn.

No barb defense even as late as 2200 ( barbs typically break culture at 2500 on deity and 1800 on immortal ).

You're building the ToA at size 1 and without marble, and not even industrious.

Late oracle, even for immortal, and you oracled theology which can be bulbed and is really a dead end tech. Should have oracled CoL or Currency.

Late CoL, I would have oracled around 1800 BC and been on my way to a really early CS, then I could have self teched or bulbed Theology, and would have been in a much stronger position to build the AP and whatever else.

Looks like about 80 beakers per turn at 100% slider by 50 BC. Doing things right could have gotten you double that at least, and still grabbed 2-3 religions ( not that you need them ).

What you're doing here is very inefficient, would not work on deity and is even questionable on immortal, especially on a fractal map. How do you know the other AI's aren't all in the same religion now that you grabbed 4 of them? They could be all happily teching away, and then when you finally meet them they all declare on you before you can even spread your religion.

Even assuming you're going for an AP win on immortal, why do you need to found hinduism?? Are you really going to make 4 shrines? Are you really going to be able to spread all 4 religions in enough cities to make those shrines worth it?

What AbsoluteZero said are some of things that I found odd, too. More importantly (in my mind, at least) is "What's the point of founding all of those things yourself?"

How much production will you have to throw at your cities to get all of those religious buildings? Surely there's an easier and more dependable way? Honestly, how have you not gotten declared on or seriously attacked by barbs yet?

Even what you have would've been hard to achieve with your methods, were it not for those floodplains and the fact that you're on a peninsula--effectively left alone. Also, the last screenshot shows you clearly farming plains tiles.

There are clearly plenty of mistakes here, but I am interested in the big picture. How fast are you able to get your cultural victory using your method? What does everything look like when you do have your buildings in place? How can you defend yourself with such a skeleton army and not many resources for diplo points?

bhavv said:

Ok, please start by telling me whats wrong with these screenshots:

<snip>

- Then spam missionaries, temples, monasteries, culture buildings, cathedrals in 3 cities and win.

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Simple question.

What do you do when one of your four neighbors--none of whom share your religion and one of whom is Shaka--decides that he doesn't want you to win a culture game and stomps you into paste? Spam missionaries at him?

AbsoluteZero said:

C'mon now, you know damn well there is a ton wrong with those screenshots

No worker at turn 18??

2 cities at turn 18 for IMP leaders > Worker at turn 18

Cities not connected, robbing you of 2 commerce per turn.

All my cities were connected? Where are they not? First three connected by river, all the rest had roads built to them before they were even settled

No barb defense even as late as 2200 ( barbs typically break culture at 2500 on deity and 1800 on immortal ).

I had several warriors in hill cities, I had no copper and the nearest horses were very far away, and I didnt want to research archery. The warriors were managing fine for barb defense on this penisula start

You're building the ToA at size 1 and without marble, and not even industrious.

I didnt need to build warriors just yet and had no other builds available but barracks, worker, settler, so fail gold is still fail gold and better than the other options

Late oracle, even for immortal, and you oracled theology which can be bulbed and is really a dead end tech. Should have oracled CoL or Currency.

I've managed to build Oracle and grab Theology on over 5 consecutive games (new maps, random opponents) without any problem. I dont think its a 'late oracle' for Immortal, its just that very rarely (less than 1 in 5 games), an AI can build it really fast. And again, I only started out building the oracle for fail gold, I never actually realized I could reliably build it in almost every game at Immortal difficulty due to listening to bad advice like yours

Late CoL, I would have oracled around 1800 BC and been on my way to a really early CS, then I could have self teched or bulbed Theology, and would have been in a much stronger position to build the AP and whatever else.

But then an AI might build AP before you!

Looks like about 80 beakers per turn at 100% slider by 50 BC. Doing things right could have gotten you double that at least, and still grabbed 2-3 religions ( not that you need them ).

BPT is one way to win the game sure, but it isnt the only way. I wasnt focused on BPT, I was focused on culture.

What you're doing here is very inefficient, would not work on deity and is even questionable on immortal, especially on a fractal map. How do you know the other AI's aren't all in the same religion now that you grabbed 4 of them? They could be all happily teching away, and then when you finally meet them they all declare on you before you can even spread your religion.

Not everyone is bothered in the slightest about what does and doesnt work on Deity, I'm definately not, and as questionable as this looks to you for immortal, I can manage it in just about every game I play at Immortal difficulty

Even assuming you're going for an AP win on immortal, why do you need to found hinduism?? Are you really going to make 4 shrines? Are you really going to be able to spread all 4 religions in enough cities to make those shrines worth it?

I wasnt going for an AP win, I said I was going for a culture win. More religions = easier to spread to your own cities with Organized Religion = more temples and monasteries sooner in your 3 culture cities.

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Replies in red.

The Oz-Man said:

Simple question.

What do you do when one of your four neighbors--none of whom share your religion and one of whom is Shaka--decides that he doesn't want you to win a culture game and stomps you into paste? Spam missionaries at him?

Click to expand...

Same as what would happen in any case where you didnt start with copper or horses nearby, this map was still playable however due to the defensive location, and I would have had 2 - 3 cities dedicated to spamming axes / chariots / HAs on a 'normally acceptable start' with either copper or horses in the capitals BFC. Even if you share religions with several leaders such as Shaka, they will still stomp you into paste. Best thing to do is give in to their tribute requests in any case.

Um the Muse said:

Even what you have would've been hard to achieve with your methods, were it not for those floodplains and the fact that you're on a peninsula--effectively left alone. Also, the last screenshot shows you clearly farming plains tiles.

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Its not hard to achieve, I've done it several consecutive times on multiple maps. I just had 3 floodplains, compare this start to all the multiple 5-6 gem / gold starts that other people keep on posting. THis tactic is 100% possible with just two workable golds or gems in your capital, or lots of floodplains (3 floodplains really is nothing, everyone needs to build commerce early on in an Immortal level game). And whats wrong with farming riverside plains?

Heres the full start location, cities and resources. My nearest available Iron and Horses were in terrible locations and required time to get to as I had already placed down my first three cites before revealing those resources:



If I had horses or copper within my first three cities, then my third city would have been spamming axes or chariots, not warriors. Whereas I think all the Deity players would have ragefaced and rerolled the map. The only thing 'special' in any way about this map is the defensive peninsula start. Everything else is average / far less than average especially the resources.

Just because you can win playing a certain way on immortal does not mean the method you're using is the best way to do something. What you're trying to do could be done better if you skipped founding the early religion, built a worker first and oracled CoL. You don't need a ton of religions to win culture. 2-3 is fine. Actually, you can do it with 1, especially on that difficulty.

bhavv said:

No worker at turn 18??

2 cities at turn 18 for IMP leaders > Worker at turn 18

Ya, that's a lot of turns working unimproved tiles. Very slow start.

Cities not connected, robbing you of 2 commerce per turn.

All my cities were connected? Where are they not? First three connected by river, all the rest had roads built to them before they were even settled

I don't see where the rivers met each other in the first and second city, or is that connection along the coast ( I think you need either fishing or sailing for this, did you tech fishing? ). Even so, in many cases you'd need to build a road, but you have no worker for a while.

No barb defense even as late as 2200 ( barbs typically break culture at 2500 on deity and 1800 on immortal ).

I had several warriors in hill cities, I had no copper and the nearest horses were very far away, and I didnt want to research archery. The warriors were managing fine for barb defense on this penisula start

Screenshots don't show several warriors ( maybe you should give more info next time ). How many is several warriors? If the barb rush is bad for some reason ( someone on the continent built the great wall ) you're going to be overwhelmed with barbs, so it's risky.

You're building the ToA at size 1 and without marble, and not even industrious.

I didnt need to build warriors just yet and had no other builds available but barracks, worker, settler, so fail gold is still fail gold and better than the other options

I'll give you that, but I didn't know whether or not you had a granary or something else useful to build.

Late oracle, even for immortal, and you oracled theology which can be bulbed and is really a dead end tech. Should have oracled CoL or Currency.

I've managed to build Oracle and grab Theology on over 5 consecutive games (new maps, random opponents) without any problem. I dont think its a 'late oracle' for Immortal, its just that very rarely (less than 1 in 5 games), an AI can build it really fast. And again, I only started out building the oracle for fail gold, I never actually realized I could reliably build it in almost every game at Immortal difficulty due to listening to bad advice like yours

Well if you've managed a 1200 BC Oracle in 5 consecutive games on immortal then congrats, you've been lucky or possibly you've been playing a lot of heavy water maps ( which slow down the AI on wonders ). Typically for pangea / fractal maps you want to grab oracle about 1500 BC on immortal. Any later then that and it gets pretty risky, this is loads of experience talking here.

Late CoL, I would have oracled around 1800 BC and been on my way to a really early CS, then I could have self teched or bulbed Theology, and would have been in a much stronger position to build the AP and whatever else.

But then an AI might build AP before you!

So what, you're going culture right? That's 400 freaking hammers man! You built it in 50 BC, I could have matched that Oracling CoL and heading for an early CS.

Looks like about 80 beakers per turn at 100% slider by 50 BC. Doing things right could have gotten you double that at least, and still grabbed 2-3 religions ( not that you need them ).

BPT is one way to win the game sure, but it isnt the only way. I wasnt focused on BPT, I was focused on culture.

Ya, but getting to later techs that allow you to pump out more culture is faster then trying to pump out measly culture in the early game.

What you're doing here is very inefficient, would not work on deity and is even questionable on immortal, especially on a fractal map. How do you know the other AI's aren't all in the same religion now that you grabbed 4 of them? They could be all happily teching away, and then when you finally meet them they all declare on you before you can even spread your religion.

Not everyone is bothered in the slightest about what does and doesnt work on Deity, I'm definately not, and as questionable as this looks to you for immortal, I can manage it in just about every game I play at Immortal difficulty

Even so, it's poor play. Even on immortal it matters in terms of winning. If you don't mind and that's how you want to play then fine, I can respect that. But you shouldn't argue with me about something being a good strategy unless you can argue it's more efficient then other strategies.

Even assuming you're going for an AP win on immortal, why do you need to found hinduism?? Are you really going to make 4 shrines? Are you really going to be able to spread all 4 religions in enough cities to make those shrines worth it?

I wasnt going for an AP win, I said I was going for a culture win. More religions = easier to spread to your own cities with Organized Religion = more temples and monasteries sooner in your 3 culture cities.

Well, building the AP really confused me there

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well 1280 BC Oracle is late even for Emperor... not sure why you argue that such late Oracle is fine, except you knew what the AI's will be doing based on handpicking (which doesn't look like being the case, I wonder what Augustus did this game...)

you need 3 religions for good culture game, since you want to go for Liberalism early (free speech), you should plan for Confu, Tao, meaning you need 1 more, most probably from some nearby AI

Those 2 first cities were most probably connected through coast and I very vaguely remember you don't need fishing for this connection, which is a bit nonsensical, but I saw it I think.

vranasm said:

Those 2 first cities were most probably connected through coast and I very vaguely remember you don't need fishing for this connection, which is a bit nonsensical, but I saw it I think.

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Pretty sure that only applies if the coast is covered by your culture. Otherwise you need either fishing or sailing, I forgot which.