If I'm warmongering, should I build my own religion?

I was thinking that if I'm taking cities I could potentially buy missionaries from varies different religions. I could then micro which cities get different religions, food beliefs could go to science cities, culture beliefs to tourism cities and so on.

I think that religion is the same whether you're warmongering or not: you either have the pantheon to generate enough faith to found, or you don't. If you do, you spend the faith differently than if you're playing peacefully - probably on GMerchants and maybe units. But trying too hard to found can be a distraction early game.

I usually don't bother.

depends on a few things (terrain, ai, map type, difficulty, etc). religion can provide happiness/gold you might need but it isnt something to go very far out of your way for a dom vic. you can recognize the fpt generating sources and see if it is worth it/convenient to get a religion. you will capture AI missionaries and Prophets later in the conquering, just check to see if any of those religions will help with your happiness. and dont get sidetracked with keeping the religion unless losing it puts you in a deep hole happiness-wise.

As the other posts have stated it is situational. If I can get around 10fpt or more and get Holy Warriors I find it helps being able to buy archers and warriors for only 80faith. I have been testing out a Full Piety Warmonger style of game and it is a bit tricky but viable. It also depends on what Civ you are playing. If you have Celts, Maya or Ethiopia it is not hard to found a Religion although my last game with the Maya I just got to the last Religion because I put the other Religious Civs in the game.

You could try to mix the SPs and get into Piety to get faster Shrines and more faith and move over to Honor, Liberty or Tradition. If you have enough room I like to go Full Piety and get up 4 cities asap. Remember you are most likely going to have to keep your population low if not enough luxes around and you should build your cities close together (4 hexes). You might not enjoy this strategy but something I like to do is to keep my Capital no larger than 5 pop and my expos at only 1 pop usually working a hill. This will either make your religion spread very quickly or if you have a close neighbor with a strong religion it will spread to your cities faster so it sort of depends on how strong your neighbors church is. However, if you stay at 1 pop and get your church in those cities it will block any religion getting to those expos until you decide to grow. If you have a nearby NW you can take the +4 faith per turn or you can get into MoG and build your roads asap for the +2spt which can be a big help early game. Build those Shrines and Temples asap. Remember that in Piety you can get into temples that give you gold. Now you get Holy Warriors and your fpt could be around 20 so your getting a unit with faith every 4 turns helping you build other things while faith is giving you your army. You probably won't get any happy faith buildings but if you can it also will be a big help as you take your cities. If you get into buying a mix of warriors and archers it isn't a bad plan to get up to gunpowder quick so you can upgrade those warriors as well if you like messing about with those type of units. Of course range units are stronger but a nice mix of muskets with your range units can be very useful.

Now if you are able to get your faith pumping out at around 70-100 you can start buying things like Pikes and what not for 150 faith making your army even stronger. It is a tough balance but viable. It is just not as easy as say playing a Full Tradition or Full Liberty or even a Full Honor game.

I am finding that a good strategy is to play as peaceful as you can. Get the world in love with you and perhaps each other or get the world mad at your closest neighbor and get him on your side being his/her only friend so they send trade routes to you and you can trade while your faith buying this large army getting ready to upgrade later. If you really want them to hate your neighbor get them to DOW and capture a CS or genocide another Civ. Keep playing nice until you get the tech advantage and time it so you don't back stab anyone and denounce this Civ that the world hates before you DOW them.

As stated before you can't always get this Piety/Warmonger Strategy to work but on certain maps against certain Civs who don't try to find a fast religion it can really start to snowball and it can be a different way to play than the usual standard strategies. This strategy is more situational on Deity but on Immortal or below it is very easy to get your faith over 100 per turn and you most likely can build or capture all the faith wonders. Not the fastest way to Warmonger but it is a viable strategy. If Shaka or Monty is next door I would not even think about trying this!

Map dependent for sure but throw in a little luck as well. I had a game where I started off with an honor opening with russia having 5, yes 5 forested citrus, (and no, not a legendary start) and one wheat tile AND uluru 8 tiles away from the cap. With 2 scouts and the warrior exploring, I hit the jackpot with a faith ruin and selected sun god for the extra food. I actually built the krepost instead of a granary since my early growth woes were solved instantly. 8 fpt is lol compared to what the AI can produce but to ignore that early massive food and would be insane.

Granted these starts are anything but common. But it does show that you don't need a strong faith generating start for a religion to be useful. Then just monitor other religions as they found and hope to see a GP coming your way that would help you and willingly submit... you heathen.

Do the One with Nature Pantheon double with Spain for sure? A Mt Sinai with One With Nature could get what 24 fpt....could make Holy Warriors work pretty decent. Go Honor and reduce upgrade cost would get get a great Holy Warrior army and upgrade it on the cheap

I think from now on if I'm pushing for a DV I won't bother trying to start my own religion, unless the terrain is screaming for it. In my last couple of games since I started this topic I've just taken the holy city of the civ who chose the best combination of happiness beliefs, even just having access to pagodas is enough to keep the regime going.

z284pwr said:

Do the One with Nature Pantheon double with Spain for sure? A Mt Sinai with One With Nature could get what 24 fpt....could make Holy Warriors work pretty decent. Go Honor and reduce upgrade cost would get get a great Holy Warrior army and upgrade it on the cheap

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This is a perfect set up with Spain and Mt. Sinai! After some Honor mix in Commerce with Merc Army and Big Ben and it gets very fun buying and upgrading.

Stacked_Deck said:

I think from now on if I'm pushing for a DV I won't bother trying to start my own religion, unless the terrain is screaming for it. In my last couple of games since I started this topic I've just taken the holy city of the civ who chose the best combination of happiness beliefs, even just having access to pagodas is enough to keep the regime going.

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This is the easiest route! Just get into Honor and go on your rush. Your thread is good though for players looking to try other strategies and mix in Piety which is most likely the worst Policy of the 4 but it can be fun and frustrating messing about with it and combining it with other policies for a non-standard strategy type of game where you get to experiment out of the normal box. Most players will look at this and not like it or say it isn't possible but I am finding that it is viable just not a very fast type of start and your game is going to go into late turn times most likely.

My last game with the Inca my Church was spreading like wildfire and had almost half of the map converted by around turn 140.

Stacked_Deck said:

I was thinking that if I'm taking cities I could potentially buy missionaries from varies different religions. I could then micro which cities get different religions, food beliefs could go to science cities, culture beliefs to tourism cities and so on.

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Seems like a contradiction to me, as if you are war mongering, then you are less apt to be micro managing the food/culture/tourism of your cities. There are better things to spend your faith on than missionaries. Maybe try this first peaceful with the Piety tenant that gets you the second pantheon benefit, using trade routes and Religious Texts to manage the minority religion? I have tried this, but it was a lot of micro, without too much obvious pay back.

consentient said:

I think that religion is the same whether you're warmongering or not: you either have the pantheon to generate enough faith to found, or you don't. If you do, you spend the faith differently than if you're playing peacefully - probably on GMerchants and maybe units.

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I think both halves of this are right on the mark.

But trying too hard to found can be a distraction early game.

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It is one early shrine in cap for the pantheon. There are several faith-based pantheons, and, more often than not, you can get one that matches your dirt. Most games that will be enough to found. So hardly a distraction at all.

beetle said:

Seems like a contradiction to me, as if you are war mongering, then you are less apt to be micro managing the food/culture/tourism of your cities. There are better things to spend your faith on than missionaries. Maybe try this first peaceful with the Piety tenant that gets you the second pantheon benefit, using trade routes and Religious Texts to manage the minority religion? I have tried this, but it was a lot of micro, without too much obvious pay back.

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Yeah I already discounted the idea after trying it in a few games.