Monasteries

IMBC2

IMBC2

"Friends of Eidolon" lead
Joined
Aug 17, 2006
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Being a Civ2 nut, I have not really played Civ4 before, but I have done some research.

If I played at the easiest difficulty setting, I noticed that in the early going, one could found two different religions relatively quickly if his civ started with Mysticism by beelining for Meditation (Buddhism) & Polytheism (Hinduism). The 10% research bonus for a monastery sounds appealing. To build a monastery, your city needs to practice the corresponding religion.

Would it be possible to have more than one religion in the same city? (And therefore two or more different monasteries in the same city that provide a cumulative 20%, 30%, 40%, etc. bonus to research?)
 
Yes, at higher difficulties you can't found multiple religions so easily (and never both hindu and budhist), but you can easily have more than 1 religion in a city even if you don't found them.

The monasteries are good for science + culture, but imo lower priorities than the likes of libraries/universities/obs. However, it's kind of interesting in a super science city if you get like 3 monasteries in there.
 
Yeh they seem to obsolete fairly fast. I will build them though if I think for whatever reason I'll want/need missionaries later in the game but don't want to be stuck in organized religion. Even after their obsolete, you can still build missionaries without org religion in cities that have them.
 
When i started into culture games, my initial strat was to beeline every religion, thus ensuring an absolute bucketload of culture rich temples for my cities, and it was ridiculously easy to win.

However, at Prince and higher, it is practically impossible to beeline every religion before the AI, unless you preselect opponents to ensure none have Mysticism, and even then you'd struggle given how gimped you would be from only learning religious techs.

I find it much easier now to just open borders with EVERY civ, and i never take on a religion, even if i found it. This has a very strong positive diplomatic effect (open borders and no opposing religion penalties), for the slight trade off of 1 less :).

Then you simply continue to play and let other's religions infect your cities, they spread VERY quickly, and you can then capitalize on the associated benefits, ie multiple temples and monasteries, with the massive happiness bonus that comes from having multiple religions under the Free Religion civic.
 
IMBC2 said:
Would it be possible to have more than one religion in the same city? (And therefore two or more different monasteries in the same city that provide a cumulative 20%, 30%, 40%, etc. bonus to research?)
Click to expand...

Yes, you can, but I usually find other uses for my production. Three religions are quite easy to get, four is possible, more than five it's very hard.

TheMeInTeam said:
Yes, at higher difficulties you can't found multiple religions so easily (and never both hindu and budhist), but you can easily have more than 1 religion in a city even if you don't found them.
Click to expand...

Never, say never in Civ IV. Yes, you can found Buddhism, Hinduism and Monotheism in any level. I haven't picked up my opponents. I'm not saying it's the best strategy, I'm just pointing out this is possible. I have tested this four times, in Warlords, Quick speed, Standard map, Deity level. I tried a Large map, but my machine really couldn't handle it.

Map Type: Archipelago
Civilization: Spain (Isabella)
Build: Just Workboats
You must work just water tiles.
Research Order: Meditation, Polytheism, Masonry and Monotheism.

On my first try I missed Monotheism because I was working other tiles other than water, but the AI got Monotheism just in 2680 BC. You can get Monotheism as early as 2380 BC. It's a tied race. I'm convinced it works only for Isabella and sea starts. Games attached.
 

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Hmm.. if that holds true, it would be fairly easy to knock off a very quick cultural win with an isolated start even at Emperor difficulty or higher- simply make sure you have at least six religions, and the insane cultural multipliers from all the shrines would ensure a win long before anyone made an SS component, at least at Epic.

Then, of course, there is dealing with the AI. One thing I have noticed, even if I have maintained very cordial relations with them, once I near a cultural victory, the tech leader/s invariably come gunning for me.
 
If you have an isolated start, how are you going to get those 6 religions into your cities? It's gonna be tough, depending on how isolated you are.
 
IMBC2 said:
Would it be possible to have more than one religion in the same city? (And therefore two or more different monasteries in the same city that provide a cumulative 20%, 30%, 40%, etc. bonus to research?)
Click to expand...

Hi IMBC2, you can found 3 religions on your capital as high up as Noble if you start with Mysticism and the AIs don't.
 
Their beaker bonus/cost is the same as an observatory and better than a university. They're especially good in a cottaged bureaucracy capital.
 
with any of ap/us/sm monastaries get quite good and with all of them they are nuts. Delaying sci meth isn't very hard anyways so it is not that big harm... definatly build them before universities if not philo. That said you often build monastaries way before you get access to any other multipliers than libraries or academies in your science cities anyways...
 
I love to pop rush monasteries in size 4-5 cities to pop borders quickly and/or have the flexibility to immediately spread religion. The beaker bonus / cost and culture / cost of Monasteries is very effective when expanding or conquering. To build a Library in such a city would involve a delay to either build conventional hammers, chop trees or grow the city to size 6. This delay leaves my opponents with more scope to threated the city.

If it's a production city I won't need the Library anyway but I'll be able to build missionaries without running Organised Religion. So for Production centres I would prefer a Monastery even for larger cities. The lower science bonus is not an issue and by the time the Monastery is obsolete I won't be worried by the loss of culture and I will retain the Missionary zeal.
 
Good points Perugia. Actually a monastery won't lose its culture when it goes obsolete, it still pumps out 2 :culture: . Obsoleting them just means they lose the 10% research bonus and the ability to build new monasteries, plus any special bonusses from wonders like AP, UoS and SM. They retain the culture and the ability to build missionaries.

I always try to build at least one monastery of each religion that I have in my empire before Scientific Method. I like to put several monasteries in any of my science cities just for the 10% bonus. Any city producing more than 40 beakers a turn deserves a monastery for the 4 beaker bonus as long as there are more than 50 turns before Scientific Method, that is a very worthwhile investment (i.e. > 200 beakers for 60 hammers). I find monasteries very useful but they are overlooked by many players.
 
Monasteries are great...

First, there's the science bonus, which is a great way to increase the science multiplier of a science city beyond the normal maximum (without monasteries).

Unlike other buildings, monasteries don't become less valuable after they become obsolete. In some ways, they actually become more valuable after becoming obsolete, because it means that you depend on the cities that already have monasteries, if you want to build missionaries.

Lastly, the value of a monastery built in the Ancient or Classical era becomes greater for the culture it produces, if you reach the time when its culture doubles. If you're playing for a culture victory, it's helpful to have multiple monasteries in a single city that have double culture bonus.
 
At least for monasteries of a state religion, there's also the possibility of adding Sistine Chapel and University of Sankore: suddenly those monasteries are +7:culture:, +2:science:, and +10%:science:. The Sankore beakers don't expire until computers and can help offset the tech advantages of free religion, allowing one to continue reaping the culture benfits and great people of staying in pacifism.
 
The Sankore Beakers (and any other Bonus) do expire with Scinetific Method, as Monasteries get obsoleted. The only things that staye is the base culture (2 :culture:, probably doubled if the Monastery is 1000 Years old) and the possibility to make missionaries.
 
Perugia said:
I love to pop rush monasteries in size 4-5 cities to pop borders quickly and/or have the flexibility to immediately spread religion. The beaker bonus / cost and culture / cost of Monasteries is very effective when expanding or conquering. To build a Library in such a city would involve a delay to either build conventional hammers, chop trees or grow the city to size 6. This delay leaves my opponents with more scope to threated the city.

If it's a production city I won't need the Library anyway but I'll be able to build missionaries without running Organised Religion. So for Production centres I would prefer a Monastery even for larger cities. The lower science bonus is not an issue and by the time the Monastery is obsolete I won't be worried by the loss of culture and I will retain the Missionary zeal.
Click to expand...

Someone made this point with spiritual temples, and then I realized you'd have to have a religion in the city in the first place.
 
My general guide to building monasteries:

- In my super science city (usually the capital; where all the great scientists are settled in SE, and where Oxford is).
- In cities where I might want to produce Missionaries on a later date.
- In just about all cities, if I have one or more of the religious building -boosting Wonders.
- In any city that needs culture (border cities, culture cities when aiming for a cultural victory).


The thing is, Monasteries are cheap and provide two different bonuses... They just seem so good, but if you just keep building them everywhere for every religion you get, you'll never have time to build other stuff.
 
On a pangaea map you can win domination games pretty easily without ever teching sci method. Cannons + Infantry should be enough to win you the game. But multiple continents you really want flight so you need to tech sci method for physics.
 
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