Obtaining a Religion is far too important to Securing a late game win

[Resipsa]

On Standard and smaller maps, if you fail to secure a religion you are creating an opportunity for the AI to easily obtain a religious victory. I realize you can create holy sites in different cities that have different religions and create missionaries to avoid a predominant religion but there's still chance involved that you've obtained the religion you need to fight of predominant status.

OTOH given a healthy faith giving pantheon religious victories are the easiest to obtain. I would recommend increasing the amount of cities required 67%-75% OR making it such that converting cities after asking them not to convert results in a Casus Belli. I'm sure I could have done better to avoid defeats but this is the only thing that trips me up late game. Barring these changes I'm going to focus in on obtaining a religion every game.

 

[Esperr]

154 hours played. 120ish on Deity. Have yet to see the A.I ever win period, let alone religious.

 

[Tech Osen]

Conquer the country with the leading religion, problem solved.

 

[Cymsdale]

I fail to see how the AI can win a religious victory "easily" unless you intentionally remain oblivious to the whole religion system. Founding your own religion certainly helps defend from it more strongly, but there are plenty of ways to be proactive in stopping it if you miss the founding boat.

 

[Resipsa]

154 hours played. 120ish on Deity. Have yet to see the A.I ever win period, let alone religious.

You haven't logged enough hours and you may not have played many games on small or tiny maps

 

[Resipsa]

Conquer the country with the leading religion, problem solved.

I recently lost a tiny 4 leaf clover map where the other three religions were basically even, my cities were pretty fluid they would change every few turns and none of the other Civs seemed interested in a religious victory Scythia starts a war with England and she loses several of her cities but Russia was still cruising through the tech tree all of a sudden England bombs Russia with missionaries and apostles and gets a religious win.

I fail to see how the AI can win a religious victory "easily" unless you intentionally remain oblivious to the whole religion system. Founding your own religion certainly helps defend from it more strongly, but there are plenty of ways to be proactive in stopping it if you miss the founding boat.

I don't see what I could have done in the above example save starting a war with Russia and taking the cities that England bombed.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

You haven't logged enough hours and you may not have played many games on small or tiny maps

I have two deity domination games in a row on small map this past week (default size), neither of which I founded a religion. In one of them I took every non-CS city on the board. The closest AI still needed to convert 2 more civs, and that's not going to happen when I'm taking said AI's cities.

On the contrary, I find religion sufficiently weak that founding one comes with a significant opportunity cost burden. Arabia is the only easy exception, maybe Russia to a lesser extent.

The only adjustment here is to attack that AI a little earlier if necessary. I don't see a reason we should conclude this makes founding "far too important".

 

[Ramalhão]

In my last game as Japan, I couldn't found a religion. My neighbour China got Buddhism and spread in some of my cities. I easily conquered all its cities and "got" a religion to spread the world and avoid losing due religion. While my civilization has a different religion, no AI would win. Then I eliminated Rome on the same continent and Arabia on other continent, remaining only England, who has founded a religion but all its cities where converted to Islam, which was founded by Arabia. Later I won the game by science (first science win at Civ6).

Not having a religion is not a certain lose in this game, even with AI spreading apostles and missionaries everywhere.

 

[darkace77450]

If the solution to any given problem is "go to war/destroy your neighbors" in a game where the AI is notoriously bad at combat, then we've got a problem. I'm not saying I agree with the OP as I don't have enough experience in the game to make an informed decision one way or the other, but I just felt that needed to be said in response to the suggestions that war is the answer to aggressive religious expansion from the AI.

 

[Victoria]

I am turning the point over in my head and I think I see the logic you are making.

If you do not have a religion and do not / cannot attack them then there is little defense to them winning, especially if they convert your civ first.
If you take a religion they have to conquer you and your apostles can defend very well. So they cannot win unless you have a jolly good discussion with them first.

Your point has validity, some points against
1. Taking a religion slows your start build down and that is important
2. The religious lens is used a lot more than the settler lens and they are both annoying and I avoid them where I can.
3. If not taking the violent path to victory and they are beating you either work out how to do it better or drop a level or 2 .... i do not play on deity. I play about half prince, half immortal now. I prefer prince for pure pleasure explore, do what I like. Immortal for more of a challenge,

 

[TheMeInTeam]

If the solution to any given problem is "go to war/destroy your neighbors" in a game where the AI is notoriously bad at combat, then we've got a problem. I'm not saying I agree with the OP as I don't have enough experience in the game to make an informed decision one way or the other, but I just felt that needed to be said in response to the suggestions that war is the answer to aggressive religious expansion from the AI.

If you don't go to war OR found a religion OR come up with some other means to stop missionaries, you should lose.

For religious victory to be viable, it has to be something that is costly to do but successful when opponents don't invest against it properly.

 

[Wintervoid]

I have yet to lose a game due to religion. I play Immortal Standard normally, and I generally don't even build a holy site let alone found a religion. All of my games so far have been Culture or Science victories. Many could have been Domination, but it feels a bit unfair beating up the AI in combat. I have not had to take cities to prevent a Religious victory, but I have sped up my own victory at times to make sure there were no surprises.

Maybe because I generally do not conquer much, that makes a religious victory tougher for AI?

 

[Victoria]

If you don't go to war OR found a religion OR come up with some other means to stop missionaries, you should lose.

I play mostly cultural victory, standard continent map on prince of immortal. I do not take a religion, never go to war and have never lost to a religious victory. It seems they just struggle to convert each other.

 

[Resipsa]

I think the problem is exacerbated the smaller the maps go; although I lost a domination victory on Standard size with one city left to a religious victory. The problem there would have been solved by razing some of the cities that had the predominant religion so that's certainly on me but in that 4 player map I just got out of I can't see a way out of it other than taking cities from Russia that have England's religion so that Russia isn't in predominant status from England's religion. Also due to being denounced and hated by Russia the only way to see if cities are being flipped is through a Spy.

It just seems like a weird mechanic, for me the set backs in production from getting a religion outweigh the chance that the AI achieves a religious victory because that's the only way the AI can win after the first 60 turns or so from an early rush.

 

[westyofoz]

I have lost once which was to a religious victory playing Kongo. I was happy for someone to spread religion to me so I score some added benefits. The problem was, I hadn't realised that civ had already spread their religion to the other players. So it was my own fault for not paying attention and inexperience playing Kongo.

You can always turn off religious victories. I have started too because a) it is just too easy to win that way and b) you don't get spammed by religious units thrown at you during the game. You still get some which makes it interesting, but not the spam that makes it tedious.

 

[Esperr]

You haven't logged enough hours and you may not have played many games on small or tiny maps

Aaaaaand you haven't played the game at all. The AI cannot win. If your really that worried about it either DOW and kill there missionarys or surround your citys with scouts so they cant get close enough to convert.

 

[Yzman]

The one victory the AI seems to be pretty good at and people want to get rid of it or gimp it.

 

[NukeAJS]

My only loss was due to an Aztec religious victory. There was plenty I could have done to prevent it, but I was determined to play that game 100% peaceful.

That being said, not founding a religion and getting completely converted before any other religions come to your land can be the beginning of the end. Your only options are win before they do or take them out. I've found that it's often not necessary to take them out completely. If you can take enough cities (IE -- faith generating hubs) it'll usually be enough for the other religions to bounce-back.

 

[CoconutTank]

I do admit that missing out on my own religion or losing my holy city before I can convert any other cities is rather frustrating. I don't understand why religion count need to be capped, and I wish holy cities were harder to convert than they are currently. If uncapping the number of religions means Saladin needs to have a new ability, then I'm totally down for Saladin getting something else.

Now with that said, I've still won games without having a religion of my own. I've had to burn a lot of missionaries and apostles for the greater good, but I think it's worth it since all the other civs suck, seriously why would anyone want to be chummy with them.

 

[Resipsa]

Aaaaaand you haven't played the game at all. The AI cannot win. If your really that worried about it either DOW and kill there missionarys or surround your citys with scouts so they cant get close enough to convert.

It's completely over your head or you're pUrposefully trolling the thread DOWing England who won wouldn't have helped. In that situation I would have had to know that she was flipping Russia's cities through a spy and then attacked and took the converted cities faster than she reached predominant status. Your other solution is to kill any civilization that ever gets close to your civ but that's a bad solution as you're basically advocating only domination if you don't found a religion.

Moderator Action: Please do not accuse others of trolling. If you have a problem with someone's post, please report it and let us handle it.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889