Any suggestions on how to handle not founding a religion?

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KingOfDefense

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In my current game this won't be much help, but for future ones it will.

In the event, say on a Large or Huge map size, you don't found a religion, what is recommended to keep the disadvantage to a minimum?

Thanks in advance
 
Just try to grab the best religion of a neighbor you want, such as trade with them.
 
If you attempted but failed, then Deprioritize Temples in remaining cities, unless one or more of your immediate neighbors has a belief allowing construction of faith buildings or Jesuit Schools.

Watch for being able to faith buy faith buildings.
Otherwise save up for Industrial era when you can faith buy great people.

And if you are on a high enough difficulty level, there are cases in which its better not to try.

Open borders with civs who founded a religion that you want. Keep borders closed against those who founded a religion that you don't want.
 
It hurts more when you have a lot of cities - liberty. Religion in tall tradition games is not as powerful.

Most of the time you go tradition so the way to think about it is you could have lost a lot more!

Pick someone else's religion and still get some benefits.
 
The founder benefits are pretty weak, gold from Tithe being arguably the best, but it does not account for much. For me, the thing I miss most about not founding is the EZ conversion quests offers from the CS.

As others have pointed out, you can get plenty of faith and GP without founding.

There are actually a couple diplomatic opportunities that become easier if you don’t found yourself! Better tourism/influence from shared religion. Passing World Religion in the Congress.
 
In my current game, I saw the first pantheon chosen on turn 6. I said to myself, "Hi, Boudicca." Sure enough, Celts were a near enough neighbor to me. Which meant if I founded a religion, I'd be making an enemy early. As it turns out, she ended up choosing Pagodas and Cathedrals. Which are my go to follower beliefs. So I just let her have her religious way with me. Made things a bit easier for me and it was the first time I saw her ask for a DoF!
 
Celts as neighbors is not enough reason IMHO to give up religion. You only have to beat the two slowest civs.
 
IMHO conquest is the surest way to making the most of faith dynamics. If you control the holy cities, you control the religions.
 
It's a shame conquering a holy city doesn't transfer (some of) the founder benefits.

[I have to say I preferred the Civ4 system of state religion as an explicit diplomatic choice. It gives an interesting mechanic in the hands of the player and imho is a better reflection of real life. They could have kept that and integrated it easily with the faith/tenet system, e.g. if you choose to have a state religion only the benefits of that religion are kept and the religion has a boost in spread, and maybe have a +happiness boost for state religion followers and a -happiness for 'heretics'. ]
 
consentient said:
If you control the holy cities, you control the religions.
Click to expand...

How so? Sure, with sufficient fpt one can purchase inquisitors and missionaries -- but that might require annexing cities you would rather puppet. You don’t get founder benefits from conquest. You can’t fulfill CS quests. You cannot faith purchase GPr.
 
beetle said:
How so? Sure, with sufficient fpt one can purchase inquisitors and missionaries -- but that might require annexing cities you would rather puppet. You don’t get founder benefits from conquest. You can’t fulfill CS quests. You cannot faith purchase GPr.
Click to expand...

Annex, then use an Inquisitor from your preferred religion to knock out the Holy City status, then send a Missionary or GP.

Annexing is generally preferable if happiness allows, and in my conquest games I rarely struggle with happiness, especially after ideologies.

In the Sweden ICL, I took advantage of this exact mechanic to push a shared religion into an AI and gain the crucial tourism modifier. Something I would have FAR less control of had I remained peaceful.

If a flurry of people post peaceful CV times on that map that are faster than my violent one, then it undermines my case that conquest > founding, but I don't see that happening given the starting dirt.
 
consentient said:
Annex, then use an Inquisitor from your preferred religion to knock out the Holy City status, then send a Missionary or GP.
Click to expand...

As I recall, an Inquistor can only remove Holy City status after there are no local followers of it.
(With Inquistors you'd need 2, one to eliminate the followers and then the second to knock out Holy City)

Conquestely it looks more efficient to first use Great Prophet of preferred religion to both eliminate local followers and give some followers for your preferred and second on same turn use Inquisitor to knock out Holy City status.
 
consentient said:
Annex, then use an Inquisitor from your preferred religion to knock out the Holy City status, then send a Missionary or GP.
Click to expand...

Why annex? Removing Holy City Status just requires owning the city.

But all that could have been done if you had founded.

In the Sweden ICL, I took advantage of this exact mechanic to push a shared religion into an AI and gain the crucial tourism modifier.
Click to expand...

Would it not have been easier to adopt the religion of the last AI you were trying to influence?
 
beetle said:
Why annex? Removing Holy City Status just requires owning the city.
Click to expand...

Are you sure? I think I learned from experience that you need to Annex, purge and then spread the Religion you want, to get it in there and remove all pressure.

But all that could have been done if you had founded.
Click to expand...

'Tis true, but

a) You're not guaranteed to found (even if you try)

and

b) I think the resources are better spent on other things. A BO without Shrines and Temples and where the 2nd scout doesn't need to look for Religious CS so urgently, is better, IMO.



Would it not have been easier to adopt the religion of the last AI you were trying to influence?
Click to expand...

He didn't have one. And even if he did, it's not easy to get yourself converted. Especially late-game when cities are massive.
 
consentient said:
Are you sure?
Click to expand...

Yes. Inquisitors only work on cities that you own, but cities don’t need to be annexed. You can’t faith-purchase the religious buildings without annexing.

I think I learned from experience that you need to Annex, purge and then spread the Religion you want, to get it in there and remove all pressure.
Click to expand...

Thinking about this more, I have annexed when (1) I have lots of faith and (2) need inquisitors and/or missionaries from a city I captured -- since none of my own cities followed that faith. Say you capture a Holy City that has pagodas. If you want to build those back home, you need inquisitors and missionaries from the foreign Holy City first. This burns through faith fast. The pagoda will come at 3x its normal cost (for the inquisitor and half a missionary) and then you will want to convert it back at some point.
 
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