Question on religion

[HughFran]

Hi all,

I have a question on the impact of taking a religion in BNW. I am currently playing as Babylon and obviously I have heavily focused on Science and Great Sceintists are being born at a really good rate (which is obviously what I want). Problem is, I neglected religion and have been unable to found my own religion as another Civ has spread theirs in my territory - all four of my cities now follow the religion of another Civ and no Great Prophets have been born in my Civ. The one plus side is that by having the other Civ's religion, I am able to buy Pagodas and Mosques which is good for happiness, etc but as a result of no Great Prophets, I have not been able to get the Pantheon beliefs that bring advantages to your Civ. I am confident I will 'out-science' the other Civs but my question is this: Will having another Civ's religion as my dominant religion, am I at a disadvantage?

 

[Dushku]

Will having another Civ's religion as my dominant religion, am I at a disadvantage?

You don't get a pantheon, founder, or enhancer belief. Otherwise, not really. The main problem is that if you neglected faith generation, you lose out on great people buying. Not as bad for Babylon since their UA will make up for not buying GSs. But why get into bad habits?

 

[claudiupb]

It depends, on higher levels it is pretty hard to keep your religion and spread it (even if you manage to spread it in all of your cities, and the AI does not send prophets your way, the pressure form other cities may cause your own cities to flip). If you invested in getting a religion and you failed, it may be a problem, but in most cases it is not since you keep that generated faith and use it late game.

What you miss from not having a religion is: the Founder belief (which is very weak in most cases), the choice of pantheon (so you lose your initial pantheon if you had any, and you are stuck with one that may not be useful for you), and of course the choice for followers beliefs (but sometimes the AI chooses nice follower beliefs, like in this case). Also you miss the possibility to build the Grand Temple, so less Faith Per Turn.

The Pantheon is important in early game and it's importance fades as the game progresses (with some exceptions), so if you had your own pantheon, you most likely managed to keep it long enough for it to matter, and even if the new pantheon is really bad, it won't affect you as much. But you can get multiple religions because most of the times AIs will want to spread their religion, and at least one should have a decent religion for you to have.

A plus in having the AI religion is that you can get Jesuit Education and Sacred Sites bonuses from the AI religion, so you get a reformation without investing anything in Piety. This is situational since you most likely don't have enough faith to buy schools and labs, and buying them with gold may be a better option anyway.

 

[HughFran]

In this case, the religion that spread to me had really good perks as I noted above so it actually helps with happiness and culture. I am generating a little bit of faith but I missed out on the Hagia Sophia and Borobudur as they were built very quickly by a very close neighbour (hence their religion spreading so quickly to me). But I don't mind as I got the wonders I wanted that help me scientifically (GL and Oracle) so there had to be a trade-off.

 

[Browd]

As noted by Dushku, one advantage of having a religion in at least one of your cities is the ability to buy Great Persons with faith in the Industrial and later eras. If you are playing a Babs science game, you probably completed Tradition (for Great Engineers) and will soon complete Rationalism (for more Great Scientists). Pagodas and mosques in 4 cities should be generating 5 faith per city, and shrines and temples should add another 3 faith per city. At 24 faith per turn, you should be able to generate 2000 faith (enough to faith purchase one GE and one GS) in 84 turns. A late-game GE for another wonder (hello, Hubble!) and a bonus GS are always helpful.

 

[HughFran]

I've already got four academys around my capital and now starting to use GS to boost research, no joking they are spawning like crazy!! I was worried that missing out on religion would hamper me but as long as I have enough faith later in the game I should be fine. One thing is for sure, this will be an interesting challenge as I've never went a full game without a religion before!!

 

[beetle]

Just touching on a couple points...

...no Great Prophets have been born in my Civ.

Right, no GPr ==> not founding ==> no spawning or buying GPr

You don't get a pantheon, founder, or enhancer belief. Otherwise, not really.

Just to clarify, from a foreign religion, you do get a pantheon -- but it probably does much match your dirt. You get the enhancer too, but probably don't much care.

on higher levels it is pretty hard to keep your religion

I don't think this is really true. You might loose your religion in some cities for a while, but getting it back (and then keeping it) is as easy as late purchase of a GPr (from any city following any religion) and then covert 4 core cities over four turns.

 

[claudiupb]

I don't think this is really true. You might loose your religion in some cities for a while, but getting it back (and then keeping it) is as easy as late purchase of a GPr (from any city following any religion) and then covert 4 core cities over four turns.

I find that it really depends on the position of the cities. If I have a triangle of cities, and a 4th city that is a little bit off, and getting pressure just from one city, that 4th city will almost always lose it's religion and get converted by pressure from other religions. I don't think spending faith on great prophets just to keep your religion in your cities is an easy choice to make, that faith could mean one less GE or GS in the end, so it really depends on the religion bonuses. Sometimes I don't bother reconverting my cities, and just don't buy another great prophet. If I do get an unwanted prophet before the industrial era, most of the times I plant it for the extra faith.

 

[beetle]

Yes, city positioning can be key to keeping your religion in your core.

1. Ideally all four cities are within 10 hexes of each other.
2. If all four cities are within 13 hexes (but some outside of 10) of each other, see if you can pick up Itinerant Preachers as your enhancer.
3. If neither (1) nor (2), then (pick Religious Texts as per usual and) run a trade route between your Holy City and the outlier.

I agree that you should not be spending much faith on GPr just to keep your cities converted. If you need a second one, in almost every case I would argue, you either went wide or made some poor choices. After founding and enhancing, that next GPr is just 500 faith, so less than half a GE or GS. That is a pretty modest investment for the benefit of having your religion in all your core cities.

 

[Sclb]

If some of your border cities are more than 10 hex from the capital, the internal trade route with the grand temple in holy city (capital preferably) should be enough if you picked RT. The only case where even that might not be enough is if your border city lies within 10 hexes to a foreign religion's holy city. In that case, you might have to use some spare GPr.

 

[HughFran]

In my current game as Babylon I am generating very little faith (which is rare for me) and I never was able to found a religion. Therefore I am spamming the hell out of Science and I'm way ahead of the other Civs in that sense but they are starting to get aggressive towards me because I chose Freedom (to help with GP generation) and they all went for Order. My Civ is carrying the religion of Egypt who funny enough, just got wiped out by Sweden so that makes it quite interesting. This is definitely one of the most unique games I've ever played because I usually always have a strong faith and normally get Hagia Sofia/Borobudur early enough. I was going to give up once my cities all started converting to another religion but decided to crack on with it. Problem is, my closest neighbour is the damn Iroquois who have tons of Frigates just outside my borders and I fear war is coming!! I've spent a fortune buying Ironclads just in case (it's a very watery map)!!!

 

[Sclb]

There is no reason to worry about religion as long as you have enough faith generation to buy 2 GS at the end. Even without any faith generating pantheon or follower belief, you should get 3 per city + 8 from grand temple. That is 20 fpt if you have 4 cities. You will generate the 2500 required by 2GS in 125 turns, which is certainly doable. If you have faith CS helping out, you can easily get 5000 for the 3 GS.

 

[Dushku]

they are starting to get aggressive towards me because I chose Freedom (to help with GP generation) and they all went for Order.

Order also has the GP generation tenet. Did you at least generate some tourism along the way to offset sudden unhappiness?

 

[HughFran]

Yeah I managed to build some very good Cultural Wonders that also have works of art in them or generate tourism or both (Broadway, Uffizi, Eiffel Tower) so I'm not too bad that way. Some of the Freedom tennants are also good for happiness such as Specialists producing half unhappiness

 

[Sclb]

Yeah I managed to build some very good Cultural Wonders that also have works of art in them or generate tourism or both (Broadway, Uffizi, Eiffel Tower) so I'm not too bad that way. Some of the Freedom tennants are also good for happiness such as Specialists producing half unhappiness

Why are you building culture wonders when you're aiming for SV? You shouldn't need any although I sometimes do build Eiffel Tower for the happiness when I have free time before SoL. Investing in some happiness SP with some happiness buildings should be enough. Freedom is strong enough that even at revolutionary wave, it's still enough for positive happiness. It happened to me on the Assyrian DCL.

 

[HughFran]

Why are you building culture wonders when you're aiming for SV?

Simple reason really, I had built every useful science improvement in all four of my citites and my production was high enough that I could build these wonders quickly without much impact elsewhere. Also, the extra culture can't be a bad thing as it helped me complete social and ideology tennants quicker!!

 

[Dushku]

And keeps them out of the hands of your enemies

 

[HughFran]

Exactly! Why give the AI the opportunity to build them and thus improve their position when I can have the culture/happiness/tourism instead??!!

 

[shaglio]

Exactly! Why give the AI the opportunity to build them and thus improve their position when I can have the culture/happiness/tourism instead??!!

You could have converted those hammers to beakers by using the science "Production" until there was something else you needed to build.

 

[HughFran]

I could have, but I wanted to build the wonders to keep the others from jumping too far ahead culturally speaking