better religious civ: Spain or Egypt?

My next game is going to be a religion-fueled cultural victory (if things go according to plan). Of these two, which do you think you'd roll with?

Spain is a bit of a roll of the dice, but One with Nature gives some nice Faith generation, and Faith output gets crazy if something like Mt Sinai is on the map. This obviously allows pilgrims and great prophets to be spammed. Natural Heritage Sites can also help boost tourism since, if memory serves, the Culture output it generates is also doubled by Spain's UA. Finally, Spain's UU helps make it easier to settle distant natural wonders in the mid rounds of the game.

Egypt is more geared towards building wide and going with Sacred Sites (not that I won't also take that Reformation with Spain). Their UB doesn't directly help with religion, but free Happiness is free Happiness. Their UA, as with their UB, doesn't directly boost religion, but it does make it easier to build Stonehenge, Borobudur, Haiga Sophia, and the Great Mosque. Since three of these are all in the same era, being able to build them quicker makes it far more likely I'll be able to snag all three.

Egypt appears to be the more reliable way to go, but a religious victory, so to speak, using Spain looks like it has the potential to be the more fun playthrough (though it could easily be the less enjoyable, depending on natural wonder placement). What do you guys think?

On a "normal" map, meaning standard size Pangea you are definitely not guaranteed to have a NW somewhere next to you. Often times there is none you can settle. If that is your playstyle then definitely go Egypt. Though personally I think Ethiopia, Celts and Maya are by far the best Civs for religious play.

If you want to play Spain I would probably use a map set up like Lakes or Great Plains and make sure the water level is set to high. More water tiles means NW will be cramped together. High water level means you'll often start next to or near the coast, so coastal NW are also an option. With this setup you will often be guaranteed at least one NW that is somewhat near you. It does not guarantee that it is a good one though, you could still get Krakatoa, Grand Mesa, Barringer Crater or Old Faithful. God how I hate those..

Grand Mesa is actually worse than a freakin Gem tile. How can that be a Natural Wonder?

As Spain my favorite NW are Sri Pada, Mt Fuji and King Solomon's Mines, not because they're necessarily the best, but because they're original, they're varied and they're rare in my games. Have fun!

agree with Yung. Neither Egypt nor Spain are reliable for religion. Spain is complete RNG and only some of the NW are faith ones even if you get lucky enough to have one to settle. If they are far away then you have to hike too far and the religions are gone by the time they make a difference.

Egypt's only advantage is if you can build stonehenge using the wonder UA. I personally think a unique temple is far too late to make a religious difference. I don't know what level you play at but both those civs frequently lose the religious race to better civs.

The best ones for founding a reliable religions are:

Celts: just settle near forest for free early faith, you hardly even need a faith pantheon and pictish also harvest faith

Maya: their shrine provides 2 faith 2 science rather then 1 faith, really powerful especially if you make cities quickly and build pyramid early.

Ethiopia: can immediately build stele (2 faith 2 culture monument replacement) immediately. Huge advantage.

Pick one of those 3 and you'll have no problem getting a religion on any level if you prioritize it.

Here's a Spain game I rolled with Fountain of Youth
Enjoy that.

edit: For some reason it won't let me upload the same file twice on the site? I dunno.
It's on this page: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=563022&page=9

Agree with dan and carl, the best civ for the game you've described a desire to play is Ethiopia by a very long shot. The Stele = guaranteed religion in multi and up to Immortal sp. The Celts would also be nice but Ethiopia has access to immediate and game-long faith that no other civilization has access to. Faith buys more faith buys tourism with sacred sites buys a religious victory, as it were.

However, I'd say for maximum fun as well as maximum efficiency for a religious tourism victory, Egypt definitely edges out Spain if just the two are the option. Wide Egypt is very very strong and they have a few hidden bonuses to mid game religious generation that haven't been mentioned in this thread. Namely, every city will be building temples just because Burial Tombs are fantastic, and this leads to the availability of Grand Temple (assuming you do found). Which Egypt is then able to build faster than other wide empires would be. As for getting a religion, Egypt has the fourth best thing in the entire game, after Ethiopia, Maya, and Celts: a desert bias.

inthesomeday said:

Egypt has the fourth best thing in the entire game, after Ethiopia, Maya, and Celts: a desert bias.

Click to expand...

That would be great, but alas, Egypt's start bias (according to the wiki) is to avoid Jungle and Forest.

desert bias is so broken.

If you want to know the math behind why these starts usually turn out great here it is:

The game always tries to "balance" every start with a mix of luxuries and resources. But it also counts the terrain around you and assigns a score to it. plains/grassland is considered high scoring. Tundra lower, and desert very bad. However, they forgot to program the balancer to realize that floodplains are just like grassland and desert hills are just as good as any hills. So as a result every floodplains desert start has a higher than usual amount of extra balancing luxuries or resources that the game gives you to "make up" for the "bad" terrain it thinks you have. Put on top of this the opportunity to sometimes get petra or desert folklore and you can get truly insane desert games.

darkace77450 said:

That would be great, but alas, Egypt's start bias (according to the wiki) is to avoid Jungle and Forest.

Click to expand...

Hm, I didn't know that. Guess I need to be better about fact checking. I feel like I get desert more often with Egypt than some other civs, though it's quite likely confounded with the actual bias.

danaphanous said:

desert bias is so broken.

If you want to know the math behind why these starts usually turn out great here it is:

The game always tries to "balance" every start with a mix of luxuries and resources. But it also counts the terrain around you and assigns a score to it. plains/grassland is considered high scoring. Tundra lower, and desert very bad. However, they forgot to program the balancer to realize that floodplains are just like grassland and desert hills are just as good as any hills. So as a result every floodplains desert start has a higher than usual amount of extra balancing luxuries or resources that the game gives you to "make up" for the "bad" terrain it thinks you have. Put on top of this the opportunity to sometimes get petra or desert folklore and you can get truly insane desert games.

Click to expand...

Dont think this is entirely correct, Floodplains are treated as 4F, same as wet grass in ASP for start locations.

anyway on topic - if you dont mind rerolling, Spain with NW will be the most fun CV. Settle Cap next to Faith NW and snowball away!

Regarding OP (Spain vs. Egypt, re: religion), I think difficulty level factors in quite a bit, or more accurately whether or not you're playing at Deity. Anything lower than Deity and I'd go with Egypt (also Arabia, Morocco, etc.) as their likelihood of starting near desert is considerably better than Spain's chance of starting near a NW (although note that Spain near a NW is just an "extra" option of sufficient faith generation. Spain, or any other civ, that randomly rolls a desert start is just as good as Egypt. Additionally on this point, Egypt is not guaranteed a desert start, so if you're of the "re-rolls are evil" persuasion, and you are going into a game pre- turn0 with religion in mind, they're not a reliable pick.)

On deity level, I'd say Spain is more reliable since the standard Egyptian-religion game (desert start, DF, religion very shortly thereafter) is completely dependent on Desert Folklore being available when you qualify for a pantheon, which it often isn't. DF is almost always one of the first three "pantheon draft picks" by the AI, but in over 200 games I've never seen the deity AI pick One with Nature, even as one of the last picks. Due to AI bonuses, they'll often get to pick a pantheon, often several will, before it's possible for you to do so, even if you do everything perfectly to make founding a pantheon happen. Another possible (though unreliable) advantage of Spain is their potential to have an extra city due to 500 gold from being first to find a NW. The 500 gold is usually best used at purchasing a settler as soon as your capital reaches size 2, and this usually serves as an extra city; if you usually wait before founding your second city you'd have two cities instead of one, if you found a city quickly then you'd have three instead of two. That's always an extra shrine which can make the difference in getting a pantheon now and later a religion or missing out, plus it's potentially more pantheon-boosting terrain.

After trying both, as well as Rome (I'm trying too hard to find a spot in my rotation for Rome), I've decided to rule Spain out. A Natural Wonder with One With Nature and Natural Heritage Sites passed is fantastic, they're just not as consistent as I'd like them to be. And Since I'm trying to build Stonehenge early, followed shortly by the Great Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and Borobudur, Egypt's UA makes it a much more reliable goal to shoot for (particularly when I have Marble nearby).

I'm thinking of giving the Celts a try. Having first pick and usually being first to found a religion has it's definite appeal. The draw back is I'd be giving up that extra production towards those early religious Wonders I want to build. I'll give them a run to see how things go.

have fun! You want a 3-forest capital for an immediate 2 fpt for the best result. Then just settle some early cities near 1-3 forest for more faith. You don't even have to pick a faith pantheon and shouldn't since they basically already have the equivalent with their ability. Pick a better pantheon.