Swords into plowshares, what difficulty is it worth it?

15% is best at peace but not if you are constantly in war with enemy civs. It seems when I take it enemies DOW and never make peace. Do you like this follower belief?

I've had pretty good luck with it. When I go for small-civ cultural wins, I can usually stay out of wars pretty well. But if it's obvious from the map and the nature of the other civs that I'm probably not going to be able to stay at peace as much as I'd like, I grab something else though.

I used it in the first Immortal game I won as the Celts.

80% of the time it accounted for what was around 3-4 food, so it can be an additional farm if your growth is good. The 20% was warring with Japan.

I would say it's a good choice if you are aiming for high growth and peaceful game. Just watch out what civs you got near and don't expand a lot.

Be careful not to rely too closely ont it, otherwise cities will starve when an AI DOWs you. An extra slap in the face

Problem is you sacrifice other goodies to get it usually.

I'd rather have monasteries or pagodas than that one, and the 15% hammers are awesome no matter what you play. Get the 10% fertility rites instead, that works all the time and the AI seems to pick it very rarely.

i do like it but you cant rely on it, i.e. operating at the bare minimum before starving. imo, its good on emperor and lower, but i might not handle immortal+ diplo well enough to try it.

edit: really king or lower. on emperor i expect to spend time in war in 100% of the games.

Swords into Ploughshares is a pretty hit-or-miss belief, in my opinion.

At King and below, it might be a pretty good pick if you need the extra food. Bear in mind, if SiP stacks with a lot of food production, you will also need extra happiness than usual, which could be a problem depending on the civ and the strategy you want to go with. Otherwise, unhappiness will hold you back much of the time; think Aztecs with Floating Gardens combined with SiP... you'll grow fast, sure, but the unhappiness will build quickly as well unless you find a mercantile CS or two.

At Emperor and up, it becomes less and less valuable, since almost no matter what you will see DoW's coming quicker and lasting longer from the AI's.

Overall, SiP and Fertility Rites are two nice ways to not have to build Temple of Artemis to pick up a food % bonus, and to be honest, Fertility Rites may be 5% less of a bonus, but it's an unconditional bonus, and given the random nature of what civs appear, what the map looks like, and what the bonus resources will be as you explore and expand, I'd say FR is the better choice.

I don't use it on king or higher, because the AI is too crazy.

I never pick it personally. Your benefits are not controlled by you alone if you do, and you can suffer for AI choices. Given there are plenty of other options something is going to be better.

Well barring some insane luck with ancient ruins, by the time you get to a religion you'll have a pretty good idea of what's around you in terms of terrain & AI neighbors, as well as a pretty good idea of what victory condition you're going to be pursuing in that game. If you feel confident that you can play the large majority of the remaining turns in peace it's a really solid belief, especially when combined with other growth enhancers. On the other hand, if you're sandwiched between Attila, Oda, Montezuma, and Caesar you're probably not going to want to go this direction.

You also want to consider what founder belief you've chosen, and how far you plan to expand your religion outside of your own borders. Agreeing that this is probably not a belief you're going to choose on Immortal/Deity, even on King or Emperor it's probably not something you're going to want to gift to your neighbors when they aren't dealing with any of the happiness issues you'll have...particularly not when your neighbors are leaders who typically go tall to begin with.

So yeah, it has it's uses, but there are definitely scenarios where you'll want to avoid this belief like the plague.

Be careful: +%Growth only affects EXTRA food.
It is different from the Aztec +15%Food.