Al right. So far I've been quietly observing (for a change) some of the things stated here but I feel I have to say something now. 
Too far spread religions? I don' think that is a problem and early religions are still religions regardless of if they can't have monasteries or come before Meditation. Monasteries aren't really what makes a religion spread. Missionaries and people showing all the good things coming from a religion is. Is anyone trying to say that missionary type people didn't exist before Buddhism was founded, even if they weren't called missionaries then? Ideologies spread, usually like wildfire, and religions are imo basically just advanced and/or more complex and/or stricter ideologies. The only time it might not spread is when the people already follow one ideology, and even then it spreads anyway (multiple religion spread simulates this well).
Changing the amount of missionaries at any one given time won't really solve the problem, I don't think anyway, and the only thing the initial missionary type units will do is increase the early spread rate a little. Limiting missionary type units will only slow down the rest of the conversion as you have to build a few at a time and use them before building new ones.
What I think makes it a problem is less incentive to switch for the AI. A human does change over from an early religion when it's served it's purpose, or at least I do. Thus the AI needs to have some kind of weight, other than having a single favourite religion and potentially gaining/losing diplomacy points, telling it how good a religion is so that it will abandon the early religions in favour of newer and more potent religions. For this reason religions should very possibly not be equal, or even near equal, to each other and later religions should be considered to take more into account the way people work and thus make itself more attractive to people. (yes, religions aren't alive, but someone controls the direction a religion takes) The religions of today mostly do that and those that don't aren't very popular. As an example Christianity accepted Slavery when it came but as the view on slavery changed across the general populace so did the Christianity view as well.
At least this is if C2C is aiming for having the early religions fade away over time. If not then it's a totally different ballgame and we don't actually currently have a problem.
Unless AI and Human players alike don't take towards having a late game civic with the No State Religion effect, which, imo again, should be what C2C really should aim towards; religious freedom. If this is the case then that/those Civics might need a buff as well as an increase in AI weight.
Then there's the option of going for a few later religions dominating. This would be hard to accomplish in C2C though considering the amount of religions available, unless;
A radical thought which isn't so radical after all is that today's religions haven't just popped up; they have evolved, and not only most often but always, from something else, most often other religions.
Early religions evolved because nature was all they knew about and a lot of that was mysterious; how to explain it except through myths, or folklore, leading to a belief system.
Later religions evolved through combinations of early religions, scientific advances, a charismatic visionary, and an adherent group of followers to spread the word.
Sooooo, the radical thought would be to have early religions lead into the newer religions, thus naturally fading the old away.
Though those early religions' buildings, or rather their effects, should also become readily available at some point in time even when not having said religion as state religion any more. Tengriism with it's bonus to mounted units should get that only by having Tengriism present in a city, after a certain tech, of course. After all the knowledge that created it in the first place isn't really lost, just not requiring a state religion to be able to get it.
Anyway, that was me butting in with some observations.
Cheers
Too far spread religions? I don' think that is a problem and early religions are still religions regardless of if they can't have monasteries or come before Meditation. Monasteries aren't really what makes a religion spread. Missionaries and people showing all the good things coming from a religion is. Is anyone trying to say that missionary type people didn't exist before Buddhism was founded, even if they weren't called missionaries then? Ideologies spread, usually like wildfire, and religions are imo basically just advanced and/or more complex and/or stricter ideologies. The only time it might not spread is when the people already follow one ideology, and even then it spreads anyway (multiple religion spread simulates this well).
Changing the amount of missionaries at any one given time won't really solve the problem, I don't think anyway, and the only thing the initial missionary type units will do is increase the early spread rate a little. Limiting missionary type units will only slow down the rest of the conversion as you have to build a few at a time and use them before building new ones.
What I think makes it a problem is less incentive to switch for the AI. A human does change over from an early religion when it's served it's purpose, or at least I do. Thus the AI needs to have some kind of weight, other than having a single favourite religion and potentially gaining/losing diplomacy points, telling it how good a religion is so that it will abandon the early religions in favour of newer and more potent religions. For this reason religions should very possibly not be equal, or even near equal, to each other and later religions should be considered to take more into account the way people work and thus make itself more attractive to people. (yes, religions aren't alive, but someone controls the direction a religion takes) The religions of today mostly do that and those that don't aren't very popular. As an example Christianity accepted Slavery when it came but as the view on slavery changed across the general populace so did the Christianity view as well.
At least this is if C2C is aiming for having the early religions fade away over time. If not then it's a totally different ballgame and we don't actually currently have a problem.
Unless AI and Human players alike don't take towards having a late game civic with the No State Religion effect, which, imo again, should be what C2C really should aim towards; religious freedom. If this is the case then that/those Civics might need a buff as well as an increase in AI weight.
Then there's the option of going for a few later religions dominating. This would be hard to accomplish in C2C though considering the amount of religions available, unless;
A radical thought which isn't so radical after all is that today's religions haven't just popped up; they have evolved, and not only most often but always, from something else, most often other religions.
Early religions evolved because nature was all they knew about and a lot of that was mysterious; how to explain it except through myths, or folklore, leading to a belief system.
Later religions evolved through combinations of early religions, scientific advances, a charismatic visionary, and an adherent group of followers to spread the word.
Sooooo, the radical thought would be to have early religions lead into the newer religions, thus naturally fading the old away.
Though those early religions' buildings, or rather their effects, should also become readily available at some point in time even when not having said religion as state religion any more. Tengriism with it's bonus to mounted units should get that only by having Tengriism present in a city, after a certain tech, of course. After all the knowledge that created it in the first place isn't really lost, just not requiring a state religion to be able to get it.
Anyway, that was me butting in with some observations.
Cheers
They still complained loudly.
