Religion - What to do with your faith and when?

Assume non-religion oriented civ. Assume 7-12 cities (liberty).

Say you get a pantheon going, you've got a bunch of faith rolling, and then your first great prophet comes.

Seems pretty obvious: Found religion unless all the religions are gone, in which case, holy site.

Should I found in the capital or in a location that captures the pressure range of the most cities?

Say you found your own religion. Now what?

Normally I go for another great prophet. What should I do with it? Spread religion or enhance?


I find that if I enhance my religion is too weak to spread because the AI has spammed missionaries because it inevitably gets all the religious wonders (usually because I'm going for machinery for Xbows, metal casting for workshops, physics for Notre Dame). So enhancement doesn't work for me.

But on the other hand if I spread with the 2nd prophet the cities flip to AI religion by the time the 3rd prophet rolls around.

Finally, when if ever should I use faith to buy missionaries or inquisitors?

BTW if you didn't know, inquisitors passively block missionary conversions if you place them inside your cities. I never knew this and only found out today! I used to think the only way to stop the AI missionaries was to block them with units. However they don't block religious pressure, which makes me wonder if they are ever going to be used. I know i've never used one.

1. Found in capital because you don't want to have to risk not founding walking matey boy to another city. "OK Zoroaster, off you go on the road to Pasargadae, oops Bismarck just founded Protestantism."

2. Your cities should be small and nearby, so with any luck your religion will spread passively. Send Missionaries to nearby CS that want your religion, and to peripheral cities, and most importantly to neighboring AI cities without a religion that a) will exert pressure back onto your own fringe AND b) will encourage the AI to assist you in spreading.

3. Use the 2nd prophet to enhance, so you can pick up IP or RT, whichever is going to help you most in the long run. Nothing wrong with buying a couple of missionaries between 1st and 2nd prophets.

4. Buy Inquisitors when an AI wants to knock out your religion. This isn't always the case, but can be a pest. Stand the Inquisitor in the city and they won't be able to convert it.

5. The guy who made the Small Piety strategy guide included a great section on short-term vs. long-term religious benefits. I suggest you have a look at that.

The only way I have a good religion is if I manage to found super early and have a neighbor or two that accepts it. Other times, it just won't stick so even if I spawn a prophet, I just plant him for FPT

Yeah I think that's fair. The other thing as well is getting your expectations in order about spreading. On Deity, unless you are combining it with conquest, you are really not gonna keep a bunch of cities all game. Unless of course it's a continents map and no one else on your continent founded.

stormtrooper412 said:

The only way I have a good religion is if I manage to found super early and have a neighbor or two that accepts it. Other times, it just won't stick so even if I spawn a prophet, I just plant him for FPT

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I've posted before about doing this in specific circumstances, which mainly involves an immediate neighbour founding a strong religion (perhaps with the faith pantheon I wanted and benefit most from) before I found.
However, I do think it's often better value to found a weak religion that may not spread outside you empire, perhaps not even outside your capital. Consider
1) a capital with +15% growth and +15% production, along with 4-8gpt from Tithe
2) some benefits don't require you to spread. Reliquary gives 50 faith for great person used, which in an SV game could mean faith-buying a GE for Hubble, along with your GS.
3) similar to 1, you can choose religious benefits targeted mainly at your capital, knowing your expos will be converted, and perhaps letting it happen so you can buy the buildings or get a few cities with Jesuit Education.
Most of my games (just SV lately), I'm founding a religion and spreading to my expos, but not actively spreading to any other city, as I either buy faith buildings or plant prophets until I hit Industrial era.