So here is my take on a religious victory, inspired by the (rumored) title of the next expansion called One World.
A religious victory would be something akin to a smaller domination victory with a time limit on it.
One world, unite everybody under one god instead of one king.
The Goal:
'To win a religious victory you will have to meet the condition of having your enhanced religion be the dominant religion in more than 90% of the world's cities including all holy cities for more than 10 turns.'
Once this condition is met you can construct a religious order wonder in your holy city to win.
It's quite a bit different from going full domination as you will only fight against civilizations that have their own religion.
You focus on getting a strong religion, build many missionaries and inquisitors so you can make your religion the most dominant one.
Of course you can (and most likely will) still use war in the form of crusades in order to destroy competing religions.
Ideally you will want to win before the industrial era because..
New Game Mechanics:
Religious Crusades
Once you have an enhanced religion you can declare a religious crusade against another civilization that has a competing religion.
A religious crusade is a declaration of war where things work quite differently:
Religious crusades are quite different from regular wars as you can see. Penalties are less severe as civilizations that didn't create a religion or adopted your religion wont suffer a diplomatic penalty at all.
At the same time you wont have to worry about happiness as you wont need to worry about puppeting, annexing or razing enemy cities.
Yet at the same time the war functions pretty much the same.
Spies
Once somebody enters the Renaissance you know that religion will lose power soon.
Spies can be used in new ways to help you spread your religion.
Spies can quickly turn the tide, not much time is left after all for if you want a religious victory.
Rationalism and Atheism
When in the Renaissance you can adopt the social policy tree rationalism.
Once you take on this tree the empire will start gaining atheist pressure that works the same as religion.
The pressure that it applies is twice as strong as religion (+12 per city in range instead of +6). It does not give any bonuses and it only applies 1/4th of the pressure to cities outside your borders (+3) which will only apply 1/4th of the pressure.
When atheism is dominant there will be no religious symbol in the city name. It's purpose is to mimic the decline of religions and to make the victory condition harder near the end.
Industrial Era
As soon as a civilization enters the industrial era all religious pressure will be cut in half. Slowing down religious spread.
At this point it will be significantly harder to win a religious victory. Religions are slowly going away in non-religious civilizations and religion spreads a lot slower. With 2 spies you can do some quick changes but if you aren't very close you might want to consider other options..
Summary
A unique victory condition that focuses on a combination of war and religion to win the game. A victory condition arguable easier than early domination as you can simply convert a few civilizations with a few missionaries.
At the same time it's a victory condition that will become harder as you enter later era's because religious spread slows down due to rationalism.
It gives you something to be wary of during the earlier parts of the game as religion is quite a bite more dangerous.
The only ways you can combat it is by creating your own religion, becoming allies with another religion, making sure that one never takes over the world or take out holy cities.
One world, unite everybody under one god instead of one king.
I really wish to see something like this in the next expansion as a religious victory was really missing in the first expansion.
Support me if you can and if it's possible to send suggestions to the developers that would be great information for me to have. It seems like a few days of programming is all it takes to implant this as the new game mechanics are build on top of existing mechanics.
A religious victory would be something akin to a smaller domination victory with a time limit on it.
One world, unite everybody under one god instead of one king.
The Goal:
'To win a religious victory you will have to meet the condition of having your enhanced religion be the dominant religion in more than 90% of the world's cities including all holy cities for more than 10 turns.'
Once this condition is met you can construct a religious order wonder in your holy city to win.
It's quite a bit different from going full domination as you will only fight against civilizations that have their own religion.
You focus on getting a strong religion, build many missionaries and inquisitors so you can make your religion the most dominant one.
Of course you can (and most likely will) still use war in the form of crusades in order to destroy competing religions.
Ideally you will want to win before the industrial era because..
New Game Mechanics:
Religious Crusades
Once you have an enhanced religion you can declare a religious crusade against another civilization that has a competing religion.
A religious crusade is a declaration of war where things work quite differently:
- Military units gain the Religious Devotion effect when fighting against units from the civilization you declared a religious war on. This gives them a 25% increase in attack strength.
- When attacking cities: Once the hp of the city is down to zero you wont take over the city, instead the city will be religiously occupied.
It wont be able to attack, grow or build but stays in control of the enemy. (Garrisoned units will die.) At this point you can safely use inquisitors, missionaries or great prophets and move further with your crusade. (You will pillage the city for money too.)
- When attacking holy cities: Once the hp of the holy city is down to zero you wont take over the city, instead the city will be religiously occupied.
It wont be able to attack, grow or build but stays in control of the enemy. (Garrisoned units will die.) At this point you can safely use inquisitors, missionaries or great prophets to completely remove the holy city status (by removing all followers of it's religion). (You will pillage the city for money too.)
- Once the holy city status has been removed the religion will no longer have a holy city. The civilization can no longer purchase missionaries, inquisitors or great prophets.
The religion will also no longer apply pressure in all cities it's currently present and can be overtaken by other religions.
- Once the holy city status has been removed the religious crusade is ended as it was successful in eradicating the target religion.
A peace treaty for 10 turns is activated and open borders is granted for 30 turns to pull back military units.
- A religious crusade can be ended at any time the same way that regular wars can be ended but you will never get any spoils from it.
- Once a religious crusade is ended, the religiously occupied cities will function normally again with the exception that any religious building is destroyed (pillaged).
- Diplomatic penalties are present.
- Civilizations with their own religions will get the 'They don't approve of your crusade.' diplomatic modifier which is similar to the warmonger modifier.
- The target civilization will get the 'You declared a religious crusade on them.' modifier and if you are successful will have the even heavier 'You eradicated their religion with a religious crusade.' modifier.
- Civilizations with no religion of their own/that have your religion will have no diplomatic modifier.
- You can't both declare war and declare a religious crusade on the same civilization at the same time. But you can declare multiple religious crusades against different religious civilizations at the same time.
Religious crusades are quite different from regular wars as you can see. Penalties are less severe as civilizations that didn't create a religion or adopted your religion wont suffer a diplomatic penalty at all.
At the same time you wont have to worry about happiness as you wont need to worry about puppeting, annexing or razing enemy cities.
Yet at the same time the war functions pretty much the same.
Spies
Once somebody enters the Renaissance you know that religion will lose power soon.
Spies can be used in new ways to help you spread your religion.
- Once stationed in an enemy city they get multiple tasks they can preform. These tasks are:
- Cause religious scandal (low-risk): Every few (10) turns your spy will attempt to cause scandals relating to other religions, when successful a few religious followers will become non-religious. Possibly changing the city's dominant religion.
When unsuccessful nothing happens. - Assassinate religious leader (high-risk): Every few (20) turns your spy will attempt to assassinate a religious leader, when successful all followers of the dominant religion will become non-religious unless your religion is dominant, in which case it targets the second most powerful religion.
When unsuccessful the spy is captured and you suffer a diplomatic penalty.
- Cause religious scandal (low-risk): Every few (10) turns your spy will attempt to cause scandals relating to other religions, when successful a few religious followers will become non-religious. Possibly changing the city's dominant religion.
- When stationed in your cities it will try to capture enemy spies the same as it does now, also protecting against these new tasks.
Spies can quickly turn the tide, not much time is left after all for if you want a religious victory.
Rationalism and Atheism
When in the Renaissance you can adopt the social policy tree rationalism.
Once you take on this tree the empire will start gaining atheist pressure that works the same as religion.
The pressure that it applies is twice as strong as religion (+12 per city in range instead of +6). It does not give any bonuses and it only applies 1/4th of the pressure to cities outside your borders (+3) which will only apply 1/4th of the pressure.
When atheism is dominant there will be no religious symbol in the city name. It's purpose is to mimic the decline of religions and to make the victory condition harder near the end.
Industrial Era
As soon as a civilization enters the industrial era all religious pressure will be cut in half. Slowing down religious spread.
At this point it will be significantly harder to win a religious victory. Religions are slowly going away in non-religious civilizations and religion spreads a lot slower. With 2 spies you can do some quick changes but if you aren't very close you might want to consider other options..
Summary
A unique victory condition that focuses on a combination of war and religion to win the game. A victory condition arguable easier than early domination as you can simply convert a few civilizations with a few missionaries.
At the same time it's a victory condition that will become harder as you enter later era's because religious spread slows down due to rationalism.
It gives you something to be wary of during the earlier parts of the game as religion is quite a bite more dangerous.
The only ways you can combat it is by creating your own religion, becoming allies with another religion, making sure that one never takes over the world or take out holy cities.
One world, unite everybody under one god instead of one king.
I really wish to see something like this in the next expansion as a religious victory was really missing in the first expansion.
Support me if you can and if it's possible to send suggestions to the developers that would be great information for me to have. It seems like a few days of programming is all it takes to implant this as the new game mechanics are build on top of existing mechanics.
