Do you attempt religions on higher difficulties, or just plant them for faith.

This was the last game that I played where I was on the same Continent as the Celts. I founded my religion with my first GP and then improved my religion with my second GP. 20 turns after I expanded my religion, I had the Celts destroying my religion.

This was only on Emperor, but this is the Celts, so I'm assuming that the Celts on Emperor will have about the same religious presence as any random civ on Immortal/Deity.

I finished the game pretty well, but I was kicking myself for even bothering to create a religion and to not just spam the GPs just to plant them on my satellites cities sheep, deer, cattle, etc.

What do you do when you have to compete with a religious civ like the Celts on the higher difficulties? Thanks for your perspectives.

That's actually easy.

First GP : Religion
Second GP : Enhancer

1 Missionary to jump start your religion within your own territory.
Then get 1 or 2 Inquistors and passively station them. (Also keep the borders closed to give AI Missionaries attrition and use unit blocking to block AI's Great Prophets as needed)
Don't bother actively expanding past your own cities unless its for a city state quest (which grants a bonus instantly, and should an AI then convert it the city state may ask to be converted again)

joncnunn said:

That's actually easy.

First GP : Religion
Second GP : Enhancer

1 Missionary to jump start your religion within your own territory.
Then get 1 or 2 Inquistors and passively station them. (Also keep the borders closed to give AI Missionaries attrition and use unit blocking to block AI's Great Prophets as needed)
Don't bother actively expanding past your own cities unless its for a city state quest (which grants a bonus instantly, and should an AI then convert it the city state may ask to be converted again)

Click to expand...

does spending all that faith end up being worth it in the end, especially when I have Pagodas, Engineers and Scientists to buy as well?

My religion strategy is this - and it usually works quite well especially on Diety. On Diety I find I can never out-compete AI pressure initially even if I get Religious Texts & prioritize Grand Temple which is what most people try.

So Found religion asap to pick choice beliefs.

Now if I'm not in a rush to enhance (i.e all the good follower beliefs have gone) I will check if my cities are already converted by AIs to see if I can buy any of their religious buildings. The earlier you get religious buildings the more turns you have in the game to get the benefit of faith and culture points.

If there is another follower belief I really want I will prioritize on enhancing first then I will buy any other AIs religious buildings. At this point in time your religion is probably confined to just 2-3 cities or maybe even just 1.

Now here's what you do to spread your religion, Choose Messiah as Enhancer belief and collect faith until you pop 2 Great Prophets. So you keep your first 1 unused in your city until the 2nd one arrives. Providing you have reasonable faith generation this won't take too long with Messiah. Now you have the ability to convert 8 cities at once to your religion and completely wipe foreign religious pressure from all those cities.

It is important to convert 8 cities at once rather than 4. If you just do 4 from 1 Great Prophet & there is a high enough density of cities on the map that still have foreign religious pressure you will still find your religion being diluted again. But if you hit 8 separate cities in close proximity to each other within several turns it is extremely powerful and you will find that you can keep your religion over a decent area.
It works much more effectively than Missionaries which are only really useful on cities that have had no previous outside religious pressure and works out cheaper in faith in the long term.

I am with Redaxe on this: After founding, faith goes to buildings while they are relatively cheap -- and I buy the foreign ones first (since the opportunity may be temporary). GPr costs are fixed, not dependent on era, and the first few are cheap, so no real harm waiting on them. Plus, GPr can be purchased in any city with a religion, not necessarily yours, so re-converting mid to late game is not an issue (and GPr will be of your faith). It can be advantageous to re-convert later rather than sooner. Unlike Redaxe, I prefer Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers over Messiah, but all three are great, and the player can always get one of those three.

I only rarely purchase missionaries -- those games where there is no AI is trying to convert my cities. I only purchase inquisitors when I anticipate that there might be a future opportunity to burn them later on a captured holy city.

Think of foreign religions as an opportunity to get their religious buildings. Once your full up on them, then replace with your religion. On the higher levels you might not get the buildings you want so you need those that do to spread them to you.

wayneb64 said:

Think of foreign religions as an opportunity to get their religious buildings. Once your full up on them, then replace with your religion. On the higher levels you might not get the buildings you want so you need those that do to spread them to you.

Click to expand...

So are you better off not picking buildings when you take beliefs? You can't really count on a neighboring religion having buildings, or the right one.

It could work, but everything would have to be just so.

beetle said:

I am with Redaxe on this: After founding, faith goes to buildings while they are relatively cheap -- and I buy the foreign ones first (since the opportunity may be temporary). GPr costs are fixed, not dependent on era, and the first few are cheap, so no real harm waiting on them. Plus, GPr can be purchased in any city with a religion, not necessarily yours, so re-converting mid to late game is not an issue (and GPr will be of your faith). It can be advantageous to re-convert later rather than sooner. Unlike Redaxe, I prefer Religious Texts or Itinerant Preachers over Messiah, but all three are great, and the player can always get one of those three.

I only rarely purchase missionaries -- those games where there is no AI is trying to convert my cities. I only purchase inquisitors when I anticipate that there might be a future opportunity to burn them later on a captured holy city.

Click to expand...

Yep. Well I guess religoius texts is still pretty competitive with Messiah. I suppose the +50% pressure is going to outstrip the +250 pressure from the Prophet quite fast so your strategy actually probably is better unless your really handicapped for faith in which Messiah will get you those 2 prophets a lot quicker.

And I'll reinforce that you need to convert all your cities with the Great Prophet (yes that means your holy city so long as it is emitting any foreign religious pressure. So even if your cities are only have a small minority of foreign religious pressure you still want to knock it out initially to give your religion a good jump start.
The only time you might think twice about this is if you are getting a good 2nd pantheon from Religious Tolerance.

sunbeam said:

So are you better off not picking buildings when you take beliefs?

Click to expand...

No, get one if you can. Some players give up on their own religion if they miss all the buildings, but I think that is short sighted. There are good follower beliefs that can come late without much lost opportunity cost. Religious Art is almost always available and it is quite strong.

You can't really count on a neighboring religion having buildings, or the right one.

Click to expand...

All the faith buildings are good, so they are “the right one.” AI spammers with no buildings might not be of any use to the player.

It could work, but everything would have to be just so.

Click to expand...

No, going with the flow is an easy tactic that works most games.

Redaxe said:

Messiah will get you those 2 prophets a lot quicker.

Click to expand...

That is a huge perk, but only discounts the 3rd and subsequent GPr. Messiah works very well for CS questing. Don’t get me wrong, I like it very much!

And I'll reinforce that you need to convert all your cities with the Great Prophet

Click to expand...

Absolutely! If you are going 4-city Tradition, no reason to wait to have a second GPr on deck. I agree completely that you want to hit all your core cities over just a fewturns. If I have a wide empire, yes, that might meaning waiting for two GPr for the sweep. It is much better to wait than to do only a partial re-conversion.

I generally wait quite a while before spreading my own religion. AIs take a while before they stop spamming, and all the faith required to build all those buildings takes a lot of time to pile up, although it does start piling up faster as you build all those buildings. Also if you spread to early you risk your effort being wasted.

I may use an inquisitor or two to protect certain cities with particularly good pantheon benefits however.

fallout3dc said:

does spending all that faith end up being worth it in the end, especially when I have Pagodas, Engineers and Scientists to buy as well?

Click to expand...

With a religious building follower belief, then the religious building takes precedence over the missionaries (unless you can't build a building because your religion isn't a majority yet in enough cities) and inquisitors.

There is also though less need to defend a city that already has your religious building present. (Pagodas keep on working if the city gets converted.)

On Emperor, I always start the game with the intention of creating a strong religion and can usually get one, although I have a habit of purposely settling areas where I can get FPT pantheons. On Immortal, it's harder to get the territory you want so I just try to get a decent pantheon based on my start and see where that takes me.

I always try to get a religion on Deity, but it can be the 4th or 5th; the AIs don't value Tithe/Religious Community very highly and they're normally still available. That's just for the cap at the start so that the AIs spread their religions to my other cities and I can buy the faith buildings. After that I enhance with cheaper prophets/something else and get prophets to spread it at least to my cities and further afield If possible. Religious dominance on Deity is very rarely possible and I feel it uses up too many resources if attempted.

Basically I think Religious Community is excellent and I found religions to have it in my cap.

Bimblecrumbs said:

I always try to get a religion on Deity, but it can be the 4th or 5th; the AIs don't value Tithe/Religious Community very highly and they're normally still available. That's just for the cap at the start so that the AIs spread their religions to my other cities and I can buy the faith buildings. After that I enhance with cheaper prophets/something else and get prophets to spread it at least to my cities and further afield If possible. Religious dominance on Deity is very rarely possible and I feel it uses up too many resources if attempted.

Basically I think Religious Community is excellent and I found religions to have it in my cap.

Click to expand...

Also feed the world is quite a strong belief too
Choral music can have its uses
Religious Art for a bit of culture and tourism.

beetle said:

That is a huge perk, but only discounts the 3rd and subsequent GPr. Messiah works very well for CS questing. Don’t get me wrong, I like it very much!

Click to expand...

Interestingly Byzantium can actually pick Messiah as a bonus belief and essentially get the second Prophet for just 225 faith. But I can't imagine a scenario where using your bonus belief on Messiah is worth your UA.

Redaxe said:

Interestingly Byzantium can actually pick Messiah as a bonus belief and essentially get the second Prophet for just 225 faith. But I can't imagine a scenario where using your bonus belief on Messiah is worth your UA.

Click to expand...

If you are going full blown piety, you can plant the great prophets and have good faith, culture, and money tiles. I've done this a good bit with Byzantium.

The money seems really good, but it is definitely a step below what you get with trade routes. And you pretty much get everything but happiness with these, and the default food and hammer values of the tile.

Not sure I have ever gone Freedom with Byzantium, but the tenet that enhances these kinds of improvements might be interesting.

I started planting these guys because I got good and tired of competing spreading my religion. Now I just take religious texts and let that and printing press do whatever they are going to on their own.

sunbeam said:

If you are going full blown piety, you can plant the great prophets and have good faith, culture, and money tiles. I've done this a good bit with Byzantium.

The money seems really good, but it is definitely a step below what you get with trade routes. And you pretty much get everything but happiness with these, and the default food and hammer values of the tile.

Not sure I have ever gone Freedom with Byzantium, but the tenet that enhances these kinds of improvements might be interesting.

I started planting these guys because I got good and tired of competing spreading my religion. Now I just take religious texts and let that and printing press do whatever they are going to on their own.

Click to expand...

Yeah if you get Historical Monuments from the world congress and with the culture from Piety HolySites make quite a bit of tourism too.

New Deal only enhances the faith from a holy site. You don't get +4 culture +4gold.

Redaxe said:

But I can't imagine a scenario where using your bonus belief on Messiah is worth your UA.

Click to expand...

Two enhancers is strong play.

I think it's situational, I'm playing a game where there are so many cities around me, I used my first GP to found a religion, second to try and bring it back to life (my capital had been flipped to AIs rel!). My cities were in a line so all far more exposed to AI cities than each other. I feel I'd have been better off going for a food/culture pantheon and planting the prophets.