Do you switch to "free religion" as soon as possible?

In all my Civ IV games, I've switched to free religion as soon as it became available, because of it's happiness benefits and because you get along well with civilization of any religion, but what about you, people? Do you stay with one religion to the end and if you do, what benefits it has over 'free religion'?

No. I like OR and theocracy a lot. The latter tends to get a lot of mileage for drafting purposes or war during the time FR is usually available.

the building bonuses of OR and the xp of theo are often too nice for me to pass up.

Of course I use pacifism to get GP's when I need them to bulb for lib, but I don't consider pacifism to be in conflict with FR because usually by the time I can run free religion I've gotten what I wanted from pacifism.

12ea56 said:

because you get along well with civilization of any religion

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By the time I discover Liberalism, all the heathens are dead.

I like using the Apostolic Palace, so I'm not tempted to throw away half my votes there for 10% extra science.

Recently I have mostly run SE economies with one super science city, and the 10% extra science is neglegible compared to the 200% you get from Oxford + University + Library + Academy. Happiness is also not as relevant as you can use the culture slider for that.

For a cottage or trade economy Free Religion is more helpful.

Also dropping your state religion has serious diplomatic consequences, both positive and negative, so you need to time that well.

I almost never use free religion. Either I am getting too much use out of theocracy or I lose the race to liberalism so I don't bother finishing the research. On a recent game I had to back fill liberalism because I needed to suck up to Liz for a diplomatic win, but that was a somewhat unusual case.

I never switch to Free Religion, usually.

1. Organized Religion is a very nice civic, very general use
2. Pacifism is also awesome, I love using it for tons of GP
3. Theocracy is the only civic to ever use for a military game

I can name very few games where I switched to Free Religion.

(there are exceptions, such as that game with Darius, Elizabeth and Asoka )

I am running way too often a religious economy where you get 2H, 2 beakers, 2 gold and 5 culture per religious building with the right wonders.

A much better player than me once said that two words you should nver use in Civ are 'always' and 'never'. Like everything else it depends on the circumstances and what you are trying to do. If you've already decided to go for space when you reach Liberalism than by all means switch at once. If you are building a load of CR2 maces to upgradde to CR2 rifles or redcoats then theo is a must. If you are going for culture then Pacifism is bettter. If you only have one religion in your empire than sticking wwith OR could well be an option.

WOW, I thought alot more would be using it!

I use it strategically. Let's say I use it most times (for the 10% scienceboost) with the following exceptions

1) I need theocracy too much for warring.
2) I have control of the AP and did not build it.
3) I want to make friends of any unkilled heathens (some of us take our time with teh Heathens Dave!)
4) Diplomacy is too important to revolt out my friend's religion.
5) Several leades you can balance diplomacy while having a different religion bu running theocracy (Zara, Isabella, Sal, Justinian are the big ones)

So besides the AP, I generally revolt to FR unless I need to stay in a state religion FOR diplomatic reasons or need to war. I never adopt FR to help diplomacy out unless it's directed at LIz, Asoka, or Darius (their favorite civic is FR).

I use it a LOT more with an SPI civ than non-SPI, for the science benefit, biut for the most part, I stay in OR and Theo.

When I am conquering, I like OR to get those key building up fast in new cities. I also like OR early in the game as long as having a religion wont make me a target.

When I am building for war, I love Theo, its especially nice when drafting, since you get 1/2? the XP for a unit. Theo + barracks means my drafted units gets at least Combat I or Drill I.

I will use FR later in the game for Space races, the extra science is nice to go through those techs that are so expensive.

One of the reasons I like the AP is that you get the hammers no matter what religion or civic you are in. I generally try to capture or build the AP myself, jsut because of those hammers.

I use the Revolutions mod, and one of its chief features is that parts of your empire can rebel. Having heathen religions in your empire can cause rebellions if situations get bad, so I usually get FR asap to keep religions from causing revolts. An exception might be the game that I'm currently playing, where Hatshepsut has been a military superpower, so I've stayed Buddhist to stay on her good side (and everyone else's, seeing that all of the non-Buddhist strong players have been wiped out or converted). I've also got the Spiral Minaret and University of Sankore, so I need to keep my religion to keep my economic bonuses.

it depends, i usually don't stick with organized religion because by that time upkeep is higher and ideally i have built the larger portion of my buildings.

I am not very warlike or expansive, so most of the time the 10% applies to 80-90% of my commerce at the time, so the extra science per turn often outweighs the great person bonus from pacifism. 150 science per turn or an extra 1/10th - 1/15th of a great person every turn? I'll take the science, and the reduced gold cost if i was having to pay for military.

If i was running pacifism by that time the great person rate may have slowed down a lot anyways due to already popping a lot. I might pop a few more before the switch if they are still going quick.



Sometimes the extra happiness from those multiple religions is necessary to be able to run representation or universal suffrage, so sometimes that is the deciding factor. If pacifism or OR is still useful at that point, i'll often wait just to adopt representation, US, mercantilism, or Free market at the same time to minimize anarchies.

Free Religion is a great civic to have in combination with Vassalage, assuming that your most important buildings are already up (otherwise you should use Organized Religion).

You could also use it without Vassalage, but then your military units will begin with the normal 3 XP instead of 5 XP.

free religion is only good at late game, especially if you aim for spacerace
mainly because +10% science at industrious/modern era is huge
and more likely GPP becomes less meanigful

but otherwise,
pacifism is better than free religion for peacemongers
and theocracy for warring
also free religion is useless for cultural victory

Killroyan said:

I am running way too often a religious economy where you get 2H, 2 beakers, 2 gold and 5 culture per religious building with the right wonders.

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Ditto.

It's nice to have those benefits until they become obsolete. After that I might do so, depending whether I haven't already won the game by being the biggest empire in the world.