Heathen Conversion

I don't often go with the Reformation belief, but when I do, I struggle to find one that I like. I think that Jesuit Education is the consensus as the gold standard, but even with that, you only get a few buildings out of it. I've been experimenting some Heathen Conversion. For fun, I tried playing with domination minded Civs (Celts and then Poland) with raging Barbarians on with difficult to settle maps (Arboretum and Ice Age) to make sure as few cities are settled as possible to get even more Barbarians.

It seems so powerful at first, like its a cheat or something. You only need one Missionary, it has fast movement, doesn't lose MP when it converts, and the Barbarians can never attack the Missionary. I got insane 20-30 unit militaries in a matter of a few turns.

The problem: the maintenance costs are staggering and you will over your unit limit. This is usually not a problem, but its more often than you realize early in the game. I agree to take the production hit early on, but I can't take it and the maintenance costs for too long, so I need to find my target and strike. Unfortunately, in addition to their price tags, the units are usually total crap, and just having 20-30 units doesn't always help when there's nowhere to put them, or they're gearing up for their rush too and they have advanced units. And we're talking units like the Brute and the Axhand. Although, I will say that another advantage is that while you pay the gold, you don't have to use your iron or horses for their units that would ordinarily require them.

Another issue is that Barbs don't last the whole game, so I want to try to rush to get the most use out of them.

Has anybody else had success with Heathen Conversion, or is it more or less a lemon of a religious belief?

Heck no, it's the way you first described it: almost OP. If you hit unit supply limits, you can gift the outdated units to CS. It's instantaneous, you get the influence (more, if you get Freedom), and your CS allies will upgrade the units. On most maps, getting raging barbs even late gate is not too hard--send multiple missionaries to the snow and ice and do not convert their camps. Furthermore, the units you keep are expendable, and you can camp even junk units on archaeological sites, which frustrates the AI to no end. My strongest tourism games have been not Sacred sites games, but heathen conversion ones.

I think that all reformation beliefs are OP. but the thing with them is that there's a huge cost to get them.

I mean, I often focus on getting Reformation Belief (primarily the 30% influence boost and tourism from cathedrals/pagodas/monasteries/mosques) because they are just so good, but in order to get that you often need to buy somewhat questionable policies (cheaper faith buys, second pantheon, etc.)

So I guess the cost for that much power is there, since those policies are thus going to something else)

TheKingOfBigOz said:

I think that all reformation beliefs are OP. but the thing with them is that there's a huge cost to get them.

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Really? That's an odd thing to think given that some of them don't do anything at all.

Gort said:

Really? That's an odd thing to think given that some of them don't do anything at all.

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Yeah, I think that the spy one is universally thought to be pretty useless. And the to Glory to God one isn't great because you get social policies that will already allow you to purchase GP with faith.

The poster who recommended gifting the barbs to CS is a home run though. I completely forgot about that. That would especially come in handy for the useless Ax Man and Brutes. You hit on the good point that its tedious to get the Reformation Belief and those policies could be used on something else. I've only gone for the Reformation Belief with Civilizations that are centered around religion.

I don't think the upkeep costs are worth it unless you go autocracy or have a UA that lowers unit maintenance, from the way you describe it. And you need to use them really early for a rush.

Sessy said:

I don't think the upkeep costs are worth it unless you go autocracy or have a UA that lowers unit maintenance, from the way you describe it. And you need to use them really early for a rush.

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Yeah, that's the way that I see it. There are only so many tiles available when you try to take it city, it's tough to take it when most of the units that you're using are antiquated and you have a small window before the units crash your economy and supply limit. Mostly, beelining Piety is rough, especially for a domination minded game.

Gort said:

Really? That's an odd thing to think given that some of them don't do anything at all.

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Well if you are picking all the worst

Charitable Missions - 30% influence boost when gifting gold - speaks for itself, stack it with the +15 standing point when religion is present, both of the first two initial patronage policies and you can nearly ally ever city state with just 250-500 gold.

Evangelism - Spread Religion erodes pressure from other religions - Maybe not as useful in typical game, but defeniately keeps your bonuses longer for a while since pressure no longer erodes your own religion, and if the religion is present in a city far away from a religious-zealot even better.

Heathen Conversion - Don't play with barbarians but you can build up an army FOR FREE.

Jesuit Education - Speaks for itself, you can focus on building other things if you get to Industrial Era and can avoid having to hammer or gold build your SCIENCE

Religious Fervor - Same as above, you avoid spending your gold (or can purchase twice as much) or hammers on units

Sacred Sites -VERY powerful if you manage to get lucky (especially with Cathedral and Monasteries combo, and if you are VERY lucky with Byzantium you can win with THREE religious buildings

Glory of God - Very powerful given the fact that you need to finish trees in order to faith buy great people

Underground Sect - I'll admit the weakest of them all. But if you have a dominating religion you could surely use this for your advantage

Unity of Prophets - Pretty much guarantees that your relgiion doesn't die away because of a prophet/inquistior.

I think that Underground Sect could have been intriguing if its effects were stronger. Especially against real humans. Like if they kept seeing your religion dominate their cities and they could never figure out why!

Heathen Conversion works on Rebels so it can be useful mid and late game not just early.

Underground Sect doesn't do anything. It's literally bugged and does nothing.

Trackmaster said:

Yeah, I think that the spy one is universally thought to be pretty useless. And the to Glory to God one isn't great because you get social policies that will already allow you to purchase GP with faith.

The poster who recommended gifting the barbs to CS is a home run though. I completely forgot about that. That would especially come in handy for the useless Ax Man and Brutes. You hit on the good point that its tedious to get the Reformation Belief and those policies could be used on something else. I've only gone for the Reformation Belief with Civilizations that are centered around religion.

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Glory of God goes really well with liberty. Completing Libery and Piety basically prevents you from completing any other tree that allows faith buying great people. The massive faith you get from many cities and the ability to buy great people makes up for it. It is a very powerful strategy.