Does Faith actually help?

I am knew to the Gods and Kings expansion. I don't know much about the Faith aspect of the game. I have played through one game and I can't really see that much of advantages from the faith. I show the start of this game in this short video. Linked here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKlIsYGQjnU So what do you guys think is the best strategy for faith? Is it actually helpful?

I think the bonuses you get from religion add up. I am playing Boudica and I have a pretty solid religion going. Lots of gold bonuses as well as fertility... city growth. I think it gives me just a bit of an edge... especially if your bonuses match up with your landscape. I got two GS already.

how do you actually see that your getting the bonus?

I can help you out quite a bit in both bonuses and great people. Check out the guide I am working on in the strategy forum: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=474504

In my current game (Maya/King) I have about a dozen cities in the late Middle Ages, all of them have Pagodas, a few of them have Cathedrals and I get 30 something happy from Ceremonial Burial. So all-in-all my religion gets me about 60 happy and 30+ culture, at the cost of having a Temple in each city (Mayan Pyramids you want in each city anyway).

Calouste said:

In my current game (Maya/King) I have about a dozen cities in the late Middle Ages, all of them have Pagodas, a few of them have Cathedrals and I get 30 something happy from Ceremonial Burial. So all-in-all my religion gets me about 60 happy and 30+ culture, at the cost of having a Temple in each city (Mayan Pyramids you want in each city anyway).

Click to expand...

How much faith are you generating per turn?

JakeIL7 said:

How much faith are you generating per turn?

Click to expand...

70-80.

Pyramid+Temple+Pagoda in pretty much all 12 or so cities plus a few Cathedrals. Once you get some Pagodas, you get some kind of avalanche effect. Pagodas give more faith, which allows you to buy Pagodas faster, and they also gives happiness which allows you to found a new city which can build a Pyramid that gives more faith, etc, etc.

Kinda. Remember, the cost of religious buildings goes up as you go through the eras. So the Pagodas will get a bit more expensive.

One question for you though: were 2 buildings worth it? Or should you have considered a different belief? After all, faith becomes quite a bit less useful later in the game.

Calouste said:

In my current game (Maya/King) I have about a dozen cities in the late Middle Ages, all of them have Pagodas, a few of them have Cathedrals and I get 30 something happy from Ceremonial Burial. So all-in-all my religion gets me about 60 happy and 30+ culture, at the cost of having a Temple in each city (Mayan Pyramids you want in each city anyway).

Click to expand...

I typically run a happiness deficit because I don't prioritize happiness buildings. Faith was huge for helping me get out of the happiness hole. When I can get a strong religion going unhappiness becomes a thing of the past.

JakeIL7 said:

Kinda. Remember, the cost of religious buildings goes up as you go through the eras. So the Pagodas will get a bit more expensive.

One question for you though: were 2 buildings worth it? Or should you have considered a different belief? After all, faith becomes quite a bit less useful later in the game.

Click to expand...

2 buildings are worth it. Pagodas give 22 besides the faith and Cathedral 13 so you will get quite a bit of benefit from them. And of course you use faith to buy Great Scientists and Great Engineers once you hit the Industrial era, rather than buy Pagodas or Cathedrals.

Thing is, if you ICS with the Maya, you are going to get a lot of faith because of the Pyramids, and you need to do something with that faith, otherwise you are just popping out Great Prophets that you don't really have a use for. Because if you have a lot of cities, the pressure of all those cities is enough to spread your religion, no Prophets or missionaries needed.

Calouste said:

2 buildings are worth it. Pagodas give 22 besides the faith and Cathedral 13 so you will get quite a bit of benefit from them. And of course you use faith to buy Great Scientists and Great Engineers once you hit the Industrial era, rather than buy Pagodas or Cathedrals.

Thing is, if you ICS with the Maya, you are going to get a lot of faith because of the Pyramids, and you need to do something with that faith, otherwise you are just popping out Great Prophets that you don't really have a use for. Because if you have a lot of cities, the pressure of all those cities is enough to spread your religion, no Prophets or missionaries needed.

Click to expand...

I totally agree with you on the Maya ICS but why not the mosque instead of the cathedral? In an ICS game I would think the extra faith over the extra culture and slot would be better...

Nobody mentioned that you can purchase Great People with faith. The type depending on policy choices.

JakeIL7 said:

I totally agree with you on the Maya ICS but why not the mosque instead of the cathedral? In an ICS game I would think the extra faith over the extra culture and slot would be better...

Click to expand...

Used Mosques in one game and ran out of things to do with Faith before I hit Industrialization. It depends on how many cities you get, if you can get a lot of cities, Mosques will be better to generate the Faith to get all those buildings up.

Civsassin said:

Nobody mentioned that you can purchase Great People with faith. The type depending on policy choices.

Click to expand...

It was mentioned in post #10.

In my oppinion I guess that adding the faith factor in the game makes it more impredictable to play, I mean, once your (and AI) choices made in the early beggining afects almost the entire game, the probability of having two similar games is much less. So maybe this is the higgest point of G&K comparing with vanila.

A few things:

1) Faith is not like culture in terms of how it accumulates. Culture accumulates more rapidly as you get more cities, but the threshold for that culture actually doing anything (adding up to a SP) goes up with each city as well (assuming the cities aren't puppet-ed cities). Faith, though, accumulates more rapidly with more cities and has no such penalty for having extra cities. Thus faith can usually benefit a wide civ more than a tall civ.

2) Faith is always good, but never at the expense of hammers/beakers/food/gold. The bonuses of founding your own religion first are minor compared to the potential lost hammers/beakers/food/gold to get there. After all, you will usually get someone else's religion in your territory soon enough anyways, and generally any religion will have at least one bonus you can use fairly well. Thus hard-building Stonehenge or Hagia Sophia are not necessarily good choices unless you've picked up Marble or are Egypt.

3) Massive amounts of Faith in the early game aren't always useful. Since you can't buy Great People with faith until mid game or later, having massive early faith production will give you just more faith, since Great Prophets will automatically spawn and remove any faith you have. The one time lots of faith early on is a good thing is if you took a belief that lets you buy buildings or units via faith. Otherwise, you end up having faith lead to Great Prophets, then more faith, then more Great Prophets, which is not entirely useful. So there's less incentive to rush Faith production early on then, say, hammer production or culture production.

ahawk said:

2) Faith is always good, but never at the expense of hammers/beakers/food/gold. The bonuses of founding your own religion first are minor compared to the potential lost hammers/beakers/food/gold to get there. After all, you will usually get someone else's religion in your territory soon enough anyways, and generally any religion will have at least one bonus you can use fairly well. Thus hard-building Stonehenge or Hagia Sophia are not necessarily good choices unless you've picked up Marble or are Egypt.

3) Massive amounts of Faith in the early game aren't always useful. Since you can't buy Great People with faith until mid game or later, having massive early faith production will give you just more faith, since Great Prophets will automatically spawn and remove any faith you have. The one time lots of faith early on is a good thing is if you took a belief that lets you buy buildings or units via faith. Otherwise, you end up having faith lead to Great Prophets, then more faith, then more Great Prophets, which is not entirely useful. So there's less incentive to rush Faith production early on then, say, hammer production or culture production.

Click to expand...

I disagree with statement two. Faith is always good, and it is often worth expending hammers, food, beacons, etc. It depends on the beliefs you choose and the aggressiveness with which you spread it. I've been taking the Pagoda, Monastaries, and other building (I forgot what it's called) fairly often when available, and it's proven very helpful all game long. Another belief I've chosen that is helpful all game long is the 1G per four citizens. If you spread your religion aggressively, that is a huge gold influx late game.

I also agree/disagree with statement 3. I find the great prophets helpful for several reasons. First, they will often fulfill a CS quest. Second, they are outstanding for converting other cities to your religion or enhancing your religion. Later on, fewer GPs appear, and the faith builds for you to create missionaries, special buildings, or other Great Persons.

Faith/religion can be very useful for a small-civ culture victory game. Especially if you can get cathedrals, as the +3 culture helps a lot early on, and the +1 artist specialist slot will help you get great artists faster all through the game. Also, there are a number of pantheon beliefs that add culture based on resource types within your civ... and the belief that adds +8 culture from building the Hermitage is nifty, too. And once you get to the Freedom SP tree, you can spend faith on more great artists to plant or pop. All in all, the right religion choices can really boost a culture victory.

I don't think I really knew all the possibilities of faith. It has such a wide range of different beneficial upgrades to your civilization. So complex.