This is why you can't count on neighbors for religion... xD

[Matthew.]

I found in half my Deity games, maybe more. Your characterization of the odds is not correct.

Why you purposely take that quote out of context, leave the other half out? That is borderline just being rude. You've read my other posts, you know I specifically was talking about putting religion aside for aggressive play with fast universities.

Cherry picking for whatever reason without looking at the bigger picture.

My first post in this thread was specifically in response to the statement of little opportunity cost and significant benefits.

There is opportunity cost, the opportunity cost is map control. Sitting in the corner of the map playing Sim City with 4 cities and hoping the AI doesn't attack isn't map control. Hoping to beat out AI cheat bonuses before they launch isn't map control. Being able to limit a runaway, to control where and how war plays out is map control.

Is religion and map control mutually exclusive? Of course not. Nobody said it was, replying about it is a waste of my time to read.

However, map control does need quick timings and hefty resources. You may be building a single shrine, but you aren't mass building shrines and you certainly aren't building temples, not without giving up map control. The difference of waiting 10 turns to build temples could be the difference of Washington starting to spam minutemen and never being able to break him early on.

A competitive time to enter industrial is around 150. You aren't likely to invest much further into religion after that point. If you found on turn 80, that leaves you with 70 turns to work with. Let us consider another 300 faith to enhance, 1,200 minimum for 6 pagoda purchases, and another 200-500 to help the initial spread. You aren't getting that in 70 turns off of a single shrine and a couple stone circle quarries.

Alternatively, you could build the single shrine and get a pantheon. Or not. Then ignore religion, use any acquired faith through various sources to just purchase any cheap religious buildings from adopted religions, and focus on getting map control. At that point who cares what the religious landscape looks like? You are already swimming in gold from number of city connections, you still get some happiness from various religions, and more importantly you have all the time in the world to finish any victory you want, because you've got artillery spammed across the map.

It is just a different approach to the game. I've already stated I understand a lot of people don't play this way, but that is the trade-off. It is absolutely pointless to suggest the trade-off doesn't exist if you don't play that way and utilize the same trade-off. If you do play that way and insist religious dominance with map control by turn 150 is "ezpz 80% of my games I play", then by all means, post those screenies.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

You seem to be ignoring the fact that in 75% of games, there is zero opportunity cost. No one builds temples to get religion ... no one. And I'd venture to say that very few high level players build more than one shrine (maaaybe 2). Why do you keep saying that? And what does that have to do with Sim City type play? In fact, religion is far more beneficial for Liberty wide empires that require active play.

Why you purposely take that quote out of context, leave the other half out? That is borderline just being rude. You've read my other posts, you know I specifically was talking about putting religion aside for aggressive play with fast universities.

Cherry picking for whatever reason without looking at the bigger picture.

My first post in this thread was specifically in response to the statement of little opportunity cost and significant benefits.

There is opportunity cost, the opportunity cost is map control. Sitting in the corner of the map playing Sim City with 4 cities and hoping the AI doesn't attack isn't map control. Hoping to beat out AI cheat bonuses before they launch isn't map control. Being able to limit a runaway, to control where and how war plays out is map control.

Is religion and map control mutually exclusive? Of course not. Nobody said it was, replying about it is a waste of my time to read.

However, map control does need quick timings and hefty resources. You may be building a single shrine, but you aren't mass building shrines and you certainly aren't building temples, not without giving up map control. The difference of waiting 10 turns to build temples could be the difference of Washington starting to spam minutemen and never being able to break him early on.

A competitive time to enter industrial is around 150. You aren't likely to invest much further into religion after that point. If you found on turn 80, that leaves you with 70 turns to work with. Let us consider another 300 faith to enhance, 1,200 minimum for 6 pagoda purchases, and another 200-500 to help the initial spread. You aren't getting that in 70 turns off of a single shrine and a couple stone circle quarries.

Alternatively, you could build the single shrine and get a pantheon. Or not. Then ignore religion, use any acquired faith through various sources to just purchase any cheap religious buildings from adopted religions, and focus on getting map control. At that point who cares what the religious landscape looks like? You are already swimming in gold from number of city connections, you still get some happiness from various religions, and more importantly you have all the time in the world to finish any victory you want, because you've got artillery spammed across the map.

It is just a different approach to the game. I've already stated I understand a lot of people don't play this way, but that is the trade-off. It is absolutely pointless to suggest the trade-off doesn't exist if you don't play that way and utilize the same trade-off. If you do play that way and insist religious dominance with map control by turn 150 is "ezpz 80% of my games I play", then by all means, post those screenies.

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[Matthew.]

Post those screenies.

Turn 150, you with map control, several of your cities under your enhanced religion.

I was going to leave it at that, but you decided to up the ante. Do all that now with only a single shrine.

One shrine, turn 150 map control, your religion flourishing.

Post the screenies.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Post those screenies.

Turn 150, you with map control, several of your cities under your enhanced religion.

I was going to leave it at that, but you decided to up the ante. Do all that now with only a single shrine.

One shrine, turn 150 map control, your religion flourishing.

Post the screenies.

I don't need my religion to dominate the map. I just need it in my cities. Why are you switching the argument? Why do I need to enhance my religion? That's never been argued. And why do ineed religious dominance by turn 150? Where are you getting all this from. Considering the highest and more respected deity players go for religion especially in their wide games, I think there's quite a bit to founding religions. Not so sure why you're so adamant about it. Keep playing your own way, man. I don't need to convince you. But all my statements still stand. There is basically no opportunity cost to going for religion in a majority of map rolls. If I'm not dominating the globe by turn 150, it's because I didn't go for early domination, am going for a different victory condition, or am not doing well overall. It would have nothing to do with the fact that I built a shrine.

I'm not at home this week. I'll gladly post screenshots of my religion in all my cities when I get back.

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[danaphanous]

I've got an Aztecs game in progress doing exactly that, but you'll probably reject it because I spawned near Uluru and 2 religious CS. I could have gotten a religion with just the barb quests from the religious CS but uluru may make me first or 2nd founder as early as turn 60.

Since you enjoy early rushes though you'll be interested to note as an experiment that I used an early jaguar rush with build order of 4 Jags and 3 archers to take over the Huns nearby capital while doing this as well.

From my experiments with the jag rush trying your strategy I can tell you: my empire got nerfed far more by early warring then going for a religion though. How do you keep early rushing prep from slowing your science? I seemed significantly worse off then if I'd just stayed peaceful for 100 turns and REXed with a liberty religious strategy and this sets me up for later conquest. Do you rush later then I did? it seemed turn 0-50 was the right time to topple the AI before they got too strong with an early warlike civ but I guess I could wait for comps and play it peaceful longer.

Thanks for your input, regardless this Aztecs game is fun!

EDIT:
- 80 is on the late side for religions, too far past that and even the 5th place is gone on Deity, but I was saying for an average start it's a common time. However, if you are founding 4th or 5th you aren't getting pagodas and buying them everywhere. You pick beliefs like happiness from temples and religious community which don't require faith and just buff you directly. Then you sit on your faith saving it for a slow enhancement, a missionary or prophet to get the ball rolling on conversion, and then just buying industrial GP. This is how I'd apply a late religion. There is no pagodas or strong need for faith in this build. It's not as good a religion true, but it also didn't require me to do much. I just sat there doing my normal stuff while I got 4-5 fpt from terrain or CS. Now I have up to 15% early bonus to production and potentially 2 more happiness per city--very valuable for a big empire.

- Early religions mean you got a strong early faith source and your religion spreads without missionaries because you found around the same time you are settling and it spreads with you as you expand. I can buy pagodas before they become expensive and each one gives me more and more faith. I'm quickly buying them every 10 turns or less and will have them everywhere far before turn 150. Sometimes I even accidentally spawn a GP before industrial because I run out of faith buildings.

- Depending on your expected faith output you either choose something to spend it with or don't if you don't expect to have a lot. But there is no situation where I found last on Deity at turn 80 and also try to get pagodas everywhere and several missionaries. I know I won't have the faith so I pick beliefs that buff my immediately and don't require faith. Religion is flexible in this way. You are confusing things by claiming every religious game requires buying religious buildings and all that, that's only a small subset that you apply when you have a strong early source of faith that enables it. I would say the majority of games you have weaker faith and are founding later if you are playing on Deity but the religion is still very little effort so the smaller bonuses are still welcome.

Immortal level even what I call "weak" faith can net you even the 2nd religion though--it's only on Deity where it's so competitive which may be why blitz above is having trouble understanding your argument. But from my experience Deity still allows religions you just have to know when to do it and recognize the signs. at least 50% of the time with minimal effort and up to 2/3 of the time if you want it and make a couple extra shrines to have a few extra faith points. This is the opportunity cost you speak of but it isn't in every game.

 

[sugerdady87]

You seem to be ignoring the fact that in 75% of games, there is zero opportunity cost. No one builds temples to get religion ... no one. And I'd venture to say that very few high level players build more than one shrine (maaaybe 2).
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What are you talking about? This discussion is about having a religion. Are you going to grab a religion with a single shrine?

 

[Matthew.]

I'm not switching any argument, the argument was simply not clarified.

If anyone is switching, it is you guys. I specifically state what I was referring to the opportunity cost as, and you guys keep referring it back to building a single shrine and picking up a faith pantheon.

Whatever. You founded a religion. Congratulations. What are you going to do with it now? Let it fade and die? That is an option, but I don't see why you would be making this many replies here if that is all you do with it. At that point you may as well just settle the prophet for the fpt.

No, you try and benefit from it. You seriously have not made this many replies to simply argue you found a religion then let it fade and die, right? So how are you going to support it off of a single shrine? You aren't. Two stone circles and a shrine is still another 60 turns to spawn a second prophet, another 40 for a single missionary.

Is it really that confusing? If you don't invest into the religion, it goes nowhere. If you do, you aren't getting map control. If you are doing both, you are playing on a lower difficulty with longer games, or have massive amounts of free faith from outside sources. That is the opportunity cost. You are trading off the opportunity to invest into your religion in favor of gaining map control through military push.

If anyone wants to argue that point otherwise, post screenshots. I tire of talking in circles.

Turn 150 is because that is a competitive time to enter industrial, or close to it. A more conservative number is closer to 160. Regardless, you aren't investing into religion after that point. Mathematically you aren't getting any returns. You purchase a mosque for 400 faith, in another 100 turns you've made back 300 faith and the game is over.

 

[sugerdady87]

I've got an Aztecs game in progress... I spawned near Uluru and 2 religious CS.

If the game throws me the religion, of course I will take it. It isn't like I actively ignore the mechanics.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Someone should tell Acken that he's playing the game all wrong.

Faith Buildings, extra faith from duplicate resources (often the case) and maybe a temple or two if I'm not spamming units provide plenty of faith. You guys are seriously over exaggerating the amount of effort to get and spread a religion. Religious pressure often helps spread your religion without any extra effort.

What is really confusing is how you guys keep insisting that a religion is some kind of investment that takes away from other things. Nope. Religion develops in parallel to everything else. It really isn't that hard LOL I just don't know why you guys think it is

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[Matthew.]

Oh I am quite positive that if you asked Acken how he values religion in a game where you are pushing aggressively with military early on, he will probably tell you to ignore it unless the game gives it to you for free.

He is pretty active, you can send him a message and see what he says

 

[claudiupb]

I usually go for pantheons but if the initial start doesn't recommend an obvious one I often go for AH first and move Pottery to 2nd or even 3rd in the queue. If you have religious civs in the game you can often find yourself not even founding a pantheon, even if you went for Pottery and started on the shrine after your 2nd scout.

I only go for religion if there is an additional source of faith like faith NW or faith producing pantheon. Unless you have a big enough FPT without having to build temples in your cities, I don't think founding a religion is worth it at all.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

Oh I am quite positive that if you asked Acken how he values religion in a game where you are pushing aggressively with military early on, he will probably tell you to ignore it unless the game gives it to you for free.

He is pretty active, you can send him a message and see what he says

I've watched plenty of his games. Not every game is early rush. And I'm fairly sure that having several copies of one of the 11 resources or a natural wonder means that you get a religion "for free" in a majority of games.

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[Sclb]

I'm starting to sense that some of you are playing immortal and below and using that experience to argue about deity. Remember that when you create your religion with first prophet, only your holy city has a religion. On deity usually you aren't going to be able convert your own cities before another piety AI convert your cities from passive pressure. So you will have to invest in additional prophets or inquisitor to actually keep your religion, and that's before talking about how much fpt you actually need to be able to buy additional things such as religious buildings. In the end, all that matters is to have enough faith banked up so that you can buy great people near the end, and you can do that without a religion anyway.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

And perhaps when I play deity I will come to the same conclusion as you guys. I can't help but think that maybe you have a point about spreading the religion. I mean on the immortal I can do it pretty easily with passive pressure and getting enough Faith from religious buildings and a decent amount from Pantheon tiles. I can only speak for deity games that I have watched in which I have seen plenty of high-level players getting religions.

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[danaphanous]

Hey Matthew thanks for your response. Let me see if I understand your argument.

I see you are more interested in the long-term usage of the religion in fast conquest? Is this correct? This is a very narrow subset of games and I don't think we were talking about that here. If you want to be as fast as possible about early aggression (aka Turn 150 conquest victory) then yes a religion is not worth it if it requires any effort. You can simply invade the Holy Warriors AI and buy your troops there if you want a use for religion or ignore it altogether. No need for your own.

If by "map control" you just mean run a solid, big empire, and be leading in all stats then yes a religion helps with that and it's what we've been saying. I won't bother to repeat all the reasons as I feel I've mentioned them time and time again on this thread and it's getting tiresome. The main thing though is in a large empire you hit a wall with growth and have to stop growing in the Renaissance and end of medieval on Deity without the happiness from religion. Religion can bring in 2-4 more happiness per city making your midgame growth and resulting science/production much better. This makes it a very valuable thing for running a large empire peacefully. Yes, there are happiness sources you can also get from a religion by not founding but they are uncertain and also require you to spend faith which you won't have unless you do something to get early faith. You'll end up wasting MORE hammers and time if you ignore religions and then later try to build shrines to buy some late pagodas. You'd be better off getting the faith earlier when the building was cheaper. Not to mention the other benefit of building a bit of passive early fpt: more great scientists you can purchase after industrial. Religious games you can by 2-3 more great people which by itself is a time advantage as long as weren't stupid and built shrines before the critical growth and science buildings.

World conquest is a whole other thing and if that is all you care to argue about then fine. I'll concede trying to found a religion is a waste of time if you want to wipe out the world as quickly as possible. Just play Pangaea, pick a civ with solid midgame UU and go win. The strat is completely different then what we are talking about--which is mainly peaceful early game strategies.

 

[sugerdady87]

I'm starting to sense that some of you are playing immortal and below and using that experience to argue about deity.

That is exactly the problem here. There's nothing else but that in my opinion.

In the end, all that matters is to have enough faith banked up so that you can buy great people near the end, and you can do that without a religion anyway.

Agreed.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

That is exactly the problem here. There's nothing else but that in my opinion.

Then I'm not sure you're actually reading a lot of the posts. It's pretty clear what we're arguing. I said time and time again I'm arguing personal experience on immortal and dozens and dozens of games I've watched high level diety players play.

I think the real problem is that some posters are just arguing for the merits (or lack thereof) of founding a religion with game long domination runs and specific situations like that. I also think there's some confusion in what we all consider to be "easy founding of religion". I'm pretty sure a lot of these guys are saying "I'll found a religion when it's free or obvious" and I'm saying that this kind of situation is apparent in more than half of my games. More like 75%.

In the end I really do think we can all agree that if you can't get a religion from one shrine and Pantheon boosted tiles, Faith city states, or faith NW, then it isn't worth trying to found one. I'll agree to that. But I also know that in about 50 to 75% of my games, I am able to found under such conditions. And I don't think being on immortal or deity has anything to do with that. As far as I know, GP and religious building costs do not scale with difficulty.

 

[danaphanous]

You may have missed it but Blitz already has admitted like 5 times that he doesn't play Deity and still feels the argument is valuable since MOST players don't. I think you guys are being a bit mean by continuing to bring this up every time he says anything.

That said, I do play Deity and use these strategies to support competitive wide empires, and so does Acken, Chum, Beetle, and other Deity players I've talked too that like to run larger empires. If I can get a religion without dramatically changing my build orders or competitiveness I do. On deity blitz's number is reduced to, I'd say 50% of games are low-effort religions like this. Requiring only a couple shrines at most after I build the other important growth buildings because I found faith some other way: CS Quests, a bit from terrain faith pantheon, Great prophet ruin are the most common. If you ever play Celts, Mayans, or Ethiopia at all you'd have to play badly to not get a religion essentially for free too so there is a civ dependence as well.

My religions that come from faith natural wonders are very, very rare. I hadn't seen one I could settle in more then a year until this past month.

 

[adsin15]

I look at it like this:

The opportunity cost of building an early shrine is 1-2 Ancient Ruins and whole lotta 15 gold from CSs instead of 30.

Now depending on your starting dirt...skipping the shrine is a better deal. I typically ONLY go for a pantheon if I have starting dirt which can give me faith. Quarries, desert, tundra, wine/incense, pearls/ gems etc etc. Or if I have like 4 cattle so I grab the +1 culture form pastures one for the sick culture boost.

If not...skip it and build your monument.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

I look at it like this:

The opportunity cost of building an early shrine is 1-2 Ancient Ruins and whole lotta 15 gold from CSs instead of 30.

Now depending on your starting dirt...skipping the shrine is a better deal. I typically ONLY go for a pantheon if I have starting dirt which can give me faith. Quarries, desert, tundra, wine/incense, pearls/ gems etc etc. Or if I have like 4 cattle so I grab the +1 culture form pastures one for the sick culture boost.

If not...skip it and build your monument.

Well here's where I can learn other deity players' strategies other than the ones I've watched in "Let's Play" series. My usual build order in my capital is Scout -> Monument -> Scout -> Shrine or switch the monument and second scout depending on starting dirt. I think pantheons are always worth the hammer investment in a shrine. Even if I just take God King or Swords into Plowshares and don't go for a religion.

Am I really missing out on ruins with 2 scouts and the starting warrior? It seems a little unbelievable that a third scout is going to reach ruins or city states before the AI. I could push the shrine back 1 more slot and get a 3rd scout if I don't have optimal dirt to get a religion.

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