tips for a "Religious Victory"?

darkace77450

Emperor
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Since this is my first post here, let me start by saying hello.

Okay, onto my question now. I'm new-ish to the game. But new as I am, I know there's no such thing as a Religious Victory. What I'm actually asking is if there's a way to pursuit a Cultural Victory primarily using Religion as the driving engine (i.e. not just spamming Great Writers, Artists, and Musicians while grabbing every +Tourism bonus I can get).

From a glance, it looks like World Church, Cathedrals/Monasteries/Mosques/Pagodas, Religious Art, and Sacred Sites a good start towards this end that is eventually runs out of steam before falling into the usual Cultural Victory trappings. And while there's nothing wrong with that, I'm looking for something to distinguish my Byzantine or Spain playthrough (I haven't decided which yet) from my France playthrough.

Since I'm wanting Great Prophets - not Great Artists, et al - to be the propelling force to victory I was considering Holy Warriors, Defender of the Faith, and Just War to take others' Great Works by force after converting their cities to my faith, but giving up Cathedrals/Monastaries/Mosques/Pagodas means giving up Sacred Sites, so that looks like a non-starter.

So, do any of you guys have any advice on how I can achieve a Cultural Victory using Religion that won't feel pretty much like a Cultural Victory that doesn't? I'm not playing on the highest difficulty settings yet, so it doesn't necessarily have to be a strategy optimized for Deity. Something that's effective and fun while not feeling like "more of the same" will do. Thanks.



PS - On a related note, it's too bad Great Prophets can't be used to declare war (a Holy Crusade) on civilizations with reduced or negated diplomatic ramifications from other civilizations of the same Religion.
 
Since this is my first post here, let me start by saying hello.

Okay, onto my question now. I'm new-ish to the game. But new as I am, I know there's no such thing as a Religious Victory. What I'm actually asking is if there's a way to pursuit a Cultural Victory primarily using Religion as the driving engine (i.e. not just spamming Great Writers, Artists, and Musicians while grabbing every +Tourism bonus I can get).

From a glance, it looks like World Church, Cathedrals/Monasteries/Mosques/Pagodas, Religious Art, and Sacred Sites a good start towards this end that is eventually runs out of steam before falling into the usual Cultural Victory trappings. And while there's nothing wrong with that, I'm looking for something to distinguish my Byzantine or Spain playthrough (I haven't decided which yet) from my France playthrough.

Since I'm wanting Great Prophets - not Great Artists, et al - to be the propelling force to victory I was considering Holy Warriors, Defender of the Faith, and Just War to take others' Great Works by force after converting their cities to my faith, but giving up Cathedrals/Monastaries/Mosques/Pagodas means giving up Sacred Sites, so that looks like a non-starter.

So, do any of you guys have any advice on how I can achieve a Cultural Victory using Religion that won't feel pretty much like a Cultural Victory that doesn't? I'm not playing on the highest difficulty settings yet, so it doesn't necessarily have to be a strategy optimized for Deity. Something that's effective and fun while not feeling like "more of the same" will do. Thanks.



PS - On a related note, it's too bad Great Prophets can't be used to declare war (a Holy Crusade) on civilizations with reduced or negated diplomatic ramifications from other civilizations of the same Religion.

So you're trying to use religion to try to get to some kind of victory. Have you used the piety tree? The piety tree could get your faith per turn started sooner and increased.
 
Doesn't look like there's one to me at least not when you've reached the industrial phase (or maybe renaissence (sp?))...

Religion in Civ5 seems just like some early phase of the game - it'll become pretty minor later on or so it seems to me. If you want to achieve any of the victory conditions using religion, you probably need to get it done before the industrial phase.
 
It's not a culture victory, but you could always go with some form of Holy Warriors faith-spam-buy.... you will need to have a VERY strong Faith income from your Pantheon, however (i.e. Desert Folklore or One With Nature as Spain), and if possible, a Faith-based Natural Wonder with plenty of Holy Sites worked by your cities. Buy your pre-industrial land units, preferably with a civ that has a land Unique Unit in the Medieval or Renaissance era, and push for an early domination victory.

If you're looking for a cultural victory using religion as a spring-board, have you considered Byzantium's Sacred Sites cheese? The idea is to use your enhancer and bonus slots to secure 2 of (in order of usefulness) Pagoda, Mosque/Cathedral, Monastery, and use your reformation belief on Sacred Sites, which nets you +2 Tourism per building purchased with Faith, then go infinite city sprawl (much easier if you have Pagodas for the +2 happiness to offset unhappiness) to rack up the tourism.
 
byzantines isnt required
any religious civ would be as good or better (because byzantines are bad at getting a religion)
also you can use captured missionaries/prophets to create religious buildings of other religions

A civ that has early access to faith (i.e. Ethiopia) would indeed be better on higher difficulties to secure the necessary beliefs in time before the AI does.... but Byzantium is still preferred on lower difficulties due to the ability to snag more than just 1 Faith-purchasable building (also, who wouldn't like to play with Dromons on a watery map? :lol:)
 
With BNW, getting Cathedrals and possibly a second (or third if you a very lucky as BYzantium) Faith building (Monasteries with local Wine and Inscense is very prefered since it's cheaper than other buildings) and getting Sacred Sites (beelining for Reformation would be a key strategy).

Getting Religious Texts (or whatever it's called) Enhancer is also key, since the amount of pressure it creates is insane if done right, but there's a catch that the religion will also sadly cause OTHERS to benefit from your stuff.
 
With BNW, getting Cathedrals and possibly a second (or third if you a very lucky as BYzantium) Faith building (Monasteries with local Wine and Inscense is very prefered since it's cheaper than other buildings) and getting Sacred Sites (beelining for Reformation would be a key strategy).

Getting Religious Texts (or whatever it's called) Enhancer is also key, since the amount of pressure it creates is insane if done right, but there's a catch that the religion will also sadly cause OTHERS to benefit from your stuff.

Yeah, that's the reason why faith in small amounts could still get you to do big things with religion.
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm leaning towards a Spain run using Conquistadors and Missionaries to grab a foothold on foreign continents from which to launch battle with Holy Warriors and spread religion to trigger Defenders of the Faith or Just War for a Domination Victory. I haven't ruled out a Byzantine run for a Cultural Victory using Cathedrals and Holy Site, though.

My concerns about the former are crapping out with Natural Wonders that don't produce Faith, leaving me with too little to benefit from Holy Warriors. My concern with the latter is a lack of things to spend Faith on after the Cathedrals are built and the religion spread.

I ultimately may run a hybrid of the two, using Spain to produce Holy Warriors, who then capture Great Works of Art to place in the Holy Sites. Has anyone tried a similar approach? If so, did you enjoy the war-fueled Cultural Victory?
 
Thanks for the replies. I'm leaning towards a Spain run using Conquistadors and Missionaries to grab a foothold on foreign continents from which to launch battle with Holy Warriors and spread religion to trigger Defenders of the Faith or Just War for a Domination Victory. I haven't ruled out a Byzantine run for a Cultural Victory using Cathedrals and Holy Site, though.

My concerns about the former are crapping out with Natural Wonders that don't produce Faith, leaving me with too little to benefit from Holy Warriors. My concern with the latter is a lack of things to spend Faith on after the Cathedrals are built and the religion spread.

I ultimately may run a hybrid of the two, using Spain to produce Holy Warriors, who then capture Great Works of Art to place in the Holy Sites. Has anyone tried a similar approach? If so, did you enjoy the war-fueled Cultural Victory?

I'm sure I have done that before land from what I remember is that cultural artifacts and great works are all part of larger capital cities. What I'm not sure is how the artifacts and great works sometimes don't get transferred to my cities and fill up until there's no space. It's almost as if they were evacuating their great works and artifacts before it captured the city that they were on particularly if the city in captured had very little artifacts and great works.
 
Doesn't look like there's one to me at least not when you've reached the industrial phase (or maybe renaissence (sp?))...

Religion in Civ5 seems just like some early phase of the game - it'll become pretty minor later on or so it seems to me. If you want to achieve any of the victory conditions using religion, you probably need to get it done before the industrial phase.

It's actually greater in the later game if you have 50-100 faith per turn, as it allows you to buy great scientists or whatever you looking for.

In my last game as Maya I bought at least 5 scientist to win that victory.
 
You can push for gold/ turn for civs that have your religion and become world religion, netting you like hundreds of gpt, combined with something like pagodas to get tons of happy per golden age, you can win diplomatic pretty ok. You can probably do better just building tons of trading posts haha but if you want to try a religious victory that is a possibility. Spend faith on more merchants or whatever you need, probably scientists too. It is pretty sweet as well because playing religionistic, you'll be able to get plenty quests with the city states helping you with your diplo victory

EDIT oh you said cultural victory. Hmm, if thats what you want go India, go wide with pagodas or cathedral, gotta make sure to get a good folklore or faith wonder, your castles give you 2 tourism as well.

yea, i know go wide with india? well yea, you start slow and you go wider only middle of the game. you start off tall focusing on your initial faith and happiness.
 
In the spirit of an actual tip for this victory, I can't emphasize enough that you have to build your faith buildings early.

Like medieval early.

This is tricky because you also have to spread early, and two hundred faith is hard to eat. However, if you are going to construct 2-3 faith buildings per city, you have to do it while it's cheap. It's been pointed out before, but if you construct a pagoda in the medieval era, it will pay for itself in 100 turns. Renn era, it will take 150. Beyond that, you are throwing faith away because there's better ways to get +2 faith, culture, and tourism by then. Might as well buy an artist and go for a theming bonus at that point, just as a "for instance."

I have run this setup quite a few times (mosques and pagodas are awesome), but I find that any buildings I don't get up by the mid renaissance era will never get built. The other reason, of course, is that early tourism is very strong.

Just a tip: build early!!!
 
In the spirit of an actual tip for this victory, I can't emphasize enough that you have to build your faith buildings early.

Like medieval early.

This is tricky because you also have to spread early, and two hundred faith is hard to eat. However, if you are going to construct 2-3 faith buildings per city, you have to do it while it's cheap. It's been pointed out before, but if you construct a pagoda in the medieval era, it will pay for itself in 100 turns. Renn era, it will take 150. Beyond that, you are throwing faith away because there's better ways to get +2 faith, culture, and tourism by then. Might as well buy an artist and go for a theming bonus at that point, just as a "for instance."

I have run this setup quite a few times (mosques and pagodas are awesome), but I find that any buildings I don't get up by the mid renaissance era will never get built. The other reason, of course, is that early tourism is very strong.

Just a tip: build early!!!

Hey.. the parthenon gives you a free 2 tourism in your city. Once you have the parthenon, will that be enough for á tourist strong start?
 
In the spirit of an actual tip for this victory, I can't emphasize enough that you have to build your faith buildings early.

Like medieval early.

This is tricky because you also have to spread early, and two hundred faith is hard to eat. However, if you are going to construct 2-3 faith buildings per city, you have to do it while it's cheap. It's been pointed out before, but if you construct a pagoda in the medieval era, it will pay for itself in 100 turns. Renn era, it will take 150. Beyond that, you are throwing faith away because there's better ways to get +2 faith, culture, and tourism by then. Might as well buy an artist and go for a theming bonus at that point, just as a "for instance."

I have run this setup quite a few times (mosques and pagodas are awesome), but I find that any buildings I don't get up by the mid renaissance era will never get built. The other reason, of course, is that early tourism is very strong.

Just a tip: build early!!!

I agree, in modern era great people usually become better but they increase incrementally remember- so there's going to be a time where its better to go back to the buildings. It's hard to know when to do that. Oh did you mean to not include the happiness there?
 
I will take the Parthenon any day. That stupid thing is always gone on turn 3 though!

Parthenon isn't as bad as its made out to be. I managed to get it in my last Diety game it was on average keeping me at around 7% influence over AI before I started getting Great Works going. Not bad so I was able to get Exotic influence over AIs quite easily.

To the OP using religion for cultural victory you mentioned some of the strategies already

- Sacred Sites (this strategy obviously needs a Liberty opening to the Settler bonus with a religious civ and then moving straight into Piety. You should build the Pyramids to get worker bonuses & probably StoneHenge as well). The Great Mosque Wonder is essential as it gives you a free Mosque (saving you 200 faith) and generates loads of faith.

- Holy warriors to conquer Great Works for your cities. You don't need to play domination just capture the AI cities with great works and then sell the city back to them. You'll make heaps of gold and you'll also accrue less hatred from the AIs.

- Religious Art (aka Hermitage) I think is pretty useless. I don't think it gets the benefit of many modifier effects outside of Internet & International Games

- The other approach which you take that you haven't mentioned is settle wide, accrue heaps of faith and take the belief Messiah (optional). Plant all the Great Prophets after you enhance your religion into Holy Sites - if you capture enemy Great Prophets even better!
Fill out Piety & Build Hagia Sophia for additional Prophets.
Piety will grant you 3 culture per Holy Site so it becomes like a mini landmark & will generate tourism in the later game.

You want most of the Holy Sites around the city that will have the Hermitage, Hotel, Airport & National Visitors Centre. The key here is to use Great Scientists to bulb your way to internet ASAP. Probably once you research Ecology use your accrued Scientists to get that tourism bonus earlier & to get National Visitors Centre up.


The last thing I can think of is which is easy to forget - as soon as you have tourism make sure you have open borders to every civ on the map. You'll probably need most of your early trade routes to run internally but if you can convert other civs to your religion you'll also get a tourism bonus. This is where Colossus or Petra can come in handy. Extra trade routes mean you can reach more civs and get a stronger tourism bonus over them.
 
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