Rate the Beliefs - part II: Founder beliefs

4 - Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion
4 - Church Property: +2 Gold for each City following Religion
3 - Initiation Rites: +100 Gold when each City first converts to this Religion
2 - Interfaith Dialogue: Gain Science when a Missionary spreads this religion to cities of other religions
0 - Papal Primacy: +15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion
2 - Peace Loving: +1 Happiness for every 5 followers of this religion in non-enemy foreign cities
0 - Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion
5 - Tithe: +1 Gold for every 4 followers of this religion
3 - World Church: +1 Culture for every 5 followers of this religion in other civilizations

Votes are pretty clear for Founder beliefs; Tithe is clearly overpowered (4.8 on average!), Ceremonial Burial is also very strong compared to the others (4.3) whereas in the other end, Pilgrimage is a plain joke (0.4 on average) and Papal Primacy also needs an adjustment to be a worthy option (1.5 on average).

Suggestions to changes would be to lower the Gold from Tithe (+1 Gold pr. 5 or even 6 followers instead of current 4) whereas Papal Primacy could not only shift resting point but also grant an influence bonus when a citystate gains the religion first time (stacking with the religion quest if that one is active). As for Pilgrimage ... a major overhaul and not only an increase in bonus as is planned with patch is probably necessary.

Votes are as follows:

4.3 - Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion
3.4 - Church Property: +2 Gold for each City following Religion
2.8 - Initiation Rites: +100 Gold when each City first converts to this Religion
2.5 - Interfaith Dialogue: Gain Science when a Missionary spreads this religion to cities of other religions
1.5 - Papal Primacy: +15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion
2.2 - Peace Loving: +1 Happiness for every 5 followers of this religion in non-enemy foreign cities
0.4 - Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion
4.8 - Tithe: +1 Gold for every 4 followers of this religion
2.5 - World Church: +1 Culture for every 5 followers of this religion in other civilizations

PS: I'll still add votes to broaden the database.

For Pilgrimage I could see +2 per any city with the religion work.

I rank ceremonial burial at least as high as tithe. The ceiling of just about all my games, regardless of victory condition, is the amount of happiness that I can generate. Getting tons of more money, of course, incredibly helpful, particularly in very wide empires or empires that you go out of your way (i.e. buy 3 or more missionaries to) spread religion beyond your own borders.

As far as fixing pilgrimage, make it comparable to tithe but only for non-enemy foreign civs. i.e. " +1 faith/4 citizens in non-enemy foreign cities."

slapshot2119 said:

I rank ceremonial burial at least as high as tithe. The ceiling of just about all my games, regardless of victory condition, is the amount of happiness that I can generate. Getting tons of more money, of course, incredibly helpful, particularly in very wide empires or empires that you go out of your way (i.e. buy 3 or more missionaries to) spread religion beyond your own borders.

As far as fixing pilgrimage, make it comparable to tithe but only for non-enemy foreign civs. i.e. " +1 faith/4 citizens in non-enemy foreign cities."

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I normally take Tithe over Ceremonial Burial because there are other beliefs and also other game features that give me happiness fairly reliably (several social policies for instance) but there aren't any other beliefs or social policy that gives me such an easy and significant input of gold as Tithe does (and gold can buy you happiness, if that's what you need).

That being said, Ceremonial Burial has the huge advantage compared to something like Pagodas in that you don't have to annex the city to get the advantage - you'll get it as soon as religion is in the city. Religious Centers works pretty well in this regard also, because puppets actually seem to build Temples reasonably fast, at least if you have Theocracy.

Perhaps one should try a "super happiness religion build": Ceremonial Burial + Religious Centers + Pagodas.

kaspergm said:

Perhaps one should try a "super happiness religion build": Ceremonial Burial + Religious Centers + Pagodas.

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And with Egypt's Burial Tombs...

kaspergm said:

Perhaps one should try a "super happiness religion build": Ceremonial Burial + Religious Centers + Pagodas.

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This is my warmonger build. Although I often go aesthetics rather than Religious Centers, since the shrine comes in the puppet build very quickly, and are very cheap.

slapshot2119 said:

As far as fixing pilgrimage, make it comparable to tithe but only for non-enemy foreign civs. i.e. " +1 faith/4 citizens in non-enemy foreign cities."

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Why should pilgrimmage have friendly/non-enemy constraints? Iranian Shia travel to shrines in Iraq, despite fighting for centuries. Since religion is much less important to relations in CiV (Cannot set state religion), followers are just followers, regardless of the relations between their heads of state. Pilgrimage should be exactly tithe.

Okay, maybe +1 faith per 5 followers.

5 - Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion
5 - Church Property: +2 Gold for each City following Religion
3 - Initiation Rites: +100 Gold when each City first converts to this Religion
3 - Interfaith Dialogue: Gain Science when a Missionary spreads this religion to cities of other religions
2 - Papal Primacy: +15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion
3 - Peace Loving: +1 Happiness for every 5 followers of this religion in non-enemy foreign cities
1 - Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion
5 - Tithe: +1 Gold for every 4 followers of this religion
2 - World Church: +1 Culture for every 5 followers of this religion in other civilizations

Jatta Pake said:

Today
-Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion

Post Fall Patch
-Pilgrimage: +2 Faith for each foreign city following this religion

What It Should Be
- Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each follower in a foreign city following this religion

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That might be a bit OP. If they changed it to every 4 followers like Tithe then fair game.

tithe is so OP I won my last 1v1 mp mostly on the gold advantage from tithe alone

Founder Beliefs:
5 - Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion
4 - Church Property: +2 Gold for each City following Religion
4 - Initiation Rites: +100 Gold when each City first converts to this Religion
3 - Interfaith Dialogue: Gain Science when a Missionary spreads this religion to cities of other religions
3 - Papal Primacy: +15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion
1 - Peace Loving: +1 Happiness for every 5 followers of this religion in non-enemy foreign cities
1 - Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion
5 - Tithe: +1 Gold for every 4 followers of this religion
3 - World Church: +1 Culture for every 5 followers of this religion in other civilizations

Ceremonial Burial is obviously good for ICS type strategies and any wide empire really. If you intend to spread your religon this should always be a good belief.
Church Property is a good gold generating belief. Better if going wide and even better on standard size plus maps. However, if your neighbor's cities can't be flipped it will become redundant in comparison to Tithe.
Initiation Rites is clearly very powerful early game, where it can give even 10 turns worth of gpt in a moment. You get 50 turns worth of Church Property in a single turn and you do not need to hold onto the city. But it is a one-time thing.
I have never used Interfaith Dialogue and I am unsure of how much science it gives exactly, so I gave it a middle rating. If you get something like the Mosque of Djenne then it seems potent.
I've never used Papal Primacy, but it seems powerful when using Greece with that Patronage Policy plus pledge to protect but if not, it does not look apealling.
As far as Peace Loving goes, it seems as though Ceremonial Burial will be better in almost all cases. If your trying to be peaceful, you will probably want to go tall, and if you go tall, you will probably have trouble earning faith points, and if your having trouble earning faith points, your religon probably wont be spreading. Not to mention that you can't rely too heavily on it, as if that civ has seven cities converted dows you, you are suddenly in low happiness.
Pilgrimage is such a small benefit that it seems almost redundant. Not to mention it provides a resource that basically becomes redundant by the end of the game. Not to mention the developers know it is bad enough that they need to fix.
Tithe, in my opinion, is better than Church Property and Initiation Rites simply because it does not have to be the majority religion. If you are not actively spreading your religon you still make a profit and, if you are actively spreading your religon, you make a bigger profit. I'm not at deity level, but I've seen the size the AI cities regularly get to 20 population, and this would then provide five gold for that city. Also, I may be wrong about this, but I don't believe those four citizens have to be in the same city.
World Church is better than it looks. Culture is hard to come by, and if your religon reads enough, this belief can almost single-handedly take care of your social policies while you focus on other buildings. I recently finished a Songhai Domination Game on Emperor, and this policy allowed to fill out Tradition, Honor, and Autocracy before the game ended.

3 - Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion
3 - Church Property: +2 Gold for each City following Religion
3 - Initiation Rites: +100 Gold when each City first converts to this Religion
5 - Interfaith Dialogue: Gain Science when a Missionary spreads this religion to cities of other religions
1 - Papal Primacy: +15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion
3 - Peace Loving: +1 Happiness for every 5 followers of this religion in non-enemy foreign cities
1 - Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion
5 - Tithe: +1 Gold for every 4 followers of this religion
4 - World Church: +1 Culture for every 5 followers of this religion in other civilizations

If I have my pick it's always a choice between Tithe and Interfaith Dialogue. Which one depends on the map layout. Usually it's pretty easy to figure out who will be founding religions on the map. If there is going to be a significant part of the map where I won't have to fight much for religious influence I'll pick tithe combined with a natural spread enhancer. If there are going to be other holy cities right next to me and/or no civs without a religion that are closer to me than anyone else I'll go interfaith dialogue with cheaper missionaries and mosque of djenne. Even if you can win a religious spread war with a nearby AI it's pretty unlikely that the payoff will be worth the cost.

There are quite a few that do more or less the same thing as tithe and generally don't do it as well. I would include ceremonial burial and peace loving in that list since happiness and money are so fungible. World church does what it does very well and it's hard to convert money into culture so it gets an honorable mention.

I wonder if people giving Interfaith Dialogue 2's and such don't totally understand how it works. When you use a missionary on a city of another religion it gives you 10 science for every person in the city following another religion. For the most part you want to use it on the holy city of another religion. An AI holy city will be a capital and generally have no more than 1-2 unbelievers, meaning a size 20 capital gives about 180 science per missionary spread. Get the mosque and cheap missionaries and that will easily be 450-500 science for 140 faith. As an added bonus it seems to trigger the AI to use its prophets to cleanse the city and fill it back up, meaning your next missionary does just as well and there are less AI prophets running around being annoying. I just finished a game where for the vast majority of the game after I enhanced I was getting 175 bpt from interfaith dialogue. An interesting side effect of it is that it doesn't depend on spreading your religion at all beyond your capital, so if you've picked a pantheon that really only benefits your capital and another nearby religion is actually better for your cities you can feel free to let that spread.

5 - Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion
5 - Church Property: +2 Gold for each City following Religion
2- Initiation Rites: +100 Gold when each City first converts to this Religion
3- Interfaith Dialogue: Gain Science when a Missionary spreads this religion to cities of other religions
0 - Papal Primacy: +15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion
3 - Peace Loving: +1 Happiness for every 5 followers of this religion in non-enemy foreign cities
0 - Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion
4 - Tithe: +1 Gold for every 4 followers of this religion
3 - World Church: +1 Culture for every 5 followers of this religion in other civilizations

I always pick church property. I still don't get why people prefer tithe over church property. It gives you an earlier edge which is always better. Tithe could work hypothetically if you can get your religion to spread quickly, but I spend all my faith on pagodas and cathedrals and build tall so unless the spacing of civs/your cities/city states is right or you're Theodora and can get both religious texts and the one that spreads religion further it takes a while to move the word on. I would never do that with Theodora though, church property and ceremonial burial are just too god a combo...

Papal Primacy and Pilgrimage are virtually worthless.

They should probably balance some of the beliefs in the patch, they are all either really awesome, practically neutral but useful, or completely worthless.

Clearly, you guys who have voted Papal Primacy so low have never played a game with 42 City-States. Let me tell you, combine it with the benefits of Patronage, and you get a constant stream of ludicrous amounts of culture, faith, happiness, and military.

ThisNameIsTooLo said:

Clearly, you guys who have voted Papal Primacy so low have never played a game with 42 City-States. Let me tell you, combine it with the benefits of Patronage, and you get a constant stream of ludicrous amounts of culture, faith, happiness, and military.

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I've been meaning to try a Siam game with Papal Primacy - perma-friend status with double the benefits.

4 - Ceremonial Burial: +1 Happiness for each City following Religion
Happy is good

3 - Church Property: +2 Gold for each City following Religion

4 - Initiation Rites: +100 Gold when each City first converts to this Religion

1 - Interfaith Dialogue: Gain Science when a Missionary spreads this religion to cities of other religions
I dont use Miss. - they seem to do too little for the cost

4 - Papal Primacy: +15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion
Great on large/huge maps; prolly less valuable elsewhere

1 - Peace Loving: +1 Happiness for every 5 followers of this religion in non-enemy foreign cities
too restrictive

1 - Pilgrimage: +1 Faith for each foreign city following this religion

5 - Tithe: +1 Gold for every 4 followers of this religion
Yes! Extra gold every turn.

4 - World Church: +1 Culture for every 5 followers of this religion in other civilizations
Good when the situation (map/other beliefs/enemy mix) means that you might need the C help. Very helpful for CV (no such thing as a FV).

church property is really my preference over tithe, tithe though could be useful in situations of playing very tall, where you're struggling to spread your religion around and can only reasonably hold onto it in your own cities, even then though you'd have to have cities at 12+ population before you see any advantage and have to wait for those cities to reach that population before it kicks in, where church property is instantaneous +2 gold for even 1 population cities and assuming you manage to convert some foreign cities you can really rake in the gold.

Also, I see people saying they don't use missionaries.. that seems odd to me. They are great for seeding cities strategically to cause an explosion of pressure on other cities around. I usually build at least one, sometimes two missionaries per game and seed cities strategically to cause some huge pressure to hit all the cities surrounding, this seems better than wasting a belief to get religious texts or any of the other spreading-help beliefs.

One of the good things about Tithe over Church property is that you can get a lot of gold from enemy cities mid to late game without ever ticking anyone off.

The AI hates when you convert a city, but spreading your religion won't bother them as long as you don't actually covert it. That means, with Tithe, you can be picking up 3-5 pop fairly easily in even smaller AI cities, and I've managed to get a full 3 or 4 gold from capitals late game, from friends.

The immediate impact of Church Property or Initiation Rites is big and must be considered, but due to tithe not needing to be the majority religion and (as far as I can tell) not needing even a full 4 pop per city to get the gold really increases it's value, so long as you're willing to throw some missionaries around.

I've been experimenting with these founder beliefs, and I found that Peace Loving is now my favorite belief and can be the most powerful. It is extremely powerful given the right conditions:

1) Works best in single player (of course) with larger maps. I've been playing standard size maps, so there's more AI cities to spread this to. In the end, this belief usually accounts for plus 20-30 happiness.
2) You are able to found a religion early. For example, you get an early pantheon that can boost your faith production (i.e. +1 for Desert tiles). This allows you to find a religion before anyone else. The point of picking Peace Loving is to spread your religion early, and establish a following before others can. So getting your religion early is a must.
3) Actively spread your religion using either prophets or missionaries. Missionaries work best since they are cheaper and only increase in price with the current era. Target CS and civs without any religions. Again, this works best with larger maps since there will be more targets for you to spread to. Try to enhance ASAP, then start spreading your religion. Peace Loving also works well with the enhanced Missionary strength belief and Great Mosque of Djenne, allowing you to spam missionaries and actively spread your religion before others can.
4) Get Astronomy so you can find cities without a religion yet. Look for more areas to spread your religion.
5) Something to consider is if there is another civ that is heavy on religion, and will require a lot of work to counter their religion (I'm looking at you Ethiopia. Stop spamming your missionaries everywhere damnit).

And that's it. Once you setup your following, religious pressure will continue to spread the religion to new cities and ensure it doesn't get removed. With this strategy, I was getting 20-30 happiness and didn't have to worry about building happiness buildings past colosseums. I had 3 other civs using my religion, which was supporting my 8 cities ranging from sizes 8-20, and I still had +12 happiness.

All this happiness allows you to select other non-happiness beliefs (who needs pagodas now?)