What's so good about religions?

[Ramesses-Rules]

What's so good about it beside modifying diplomatic relations and outputting culture?

If you have Spiritual trait, religion has many benefits. That is why the AI's with Spiritual trait generally beeline the religion tech track to found a religion (or two!). They are my main competitors in nearly every game.

It increases your happiness cap in all cities that have state religion. We Spiritual leaders can build Temples faster than other civs, and that adds to the happiness cap.

The Shrine is good for culture, for gold, and for spreading the religion. Depending on the situation, I will sometimes uses one of my early Great Prophets to build it.

Then, when you get Organized Religion, you can build anything 25% faster. That is a huge advantage over civs that have no religion.

If you are good at diplomacy, you can use religion to create or avoid wars, or maintain alliances. That gives you better results in tech trading.

There's more, but these are the main benefits of religion. I have noticed that most people on this forum do not value religion. My theory is that most of them are warmongers. I agree. If warmongering is your game, you have more important priorities. But then, if you want to go that route, you should not choose a Spiritual leader in the first place!

 

[Doshin]

There's also an espionage bonus, right? I can't remember the specifics, but I think that if you control the holy city of a religion you receive a discount on espionage missions against any civ running that religion. The holy city might need to be shrined, I'm not sure.

 

[damerell]

There's more, but these are the main benefits of religion. I have noticed that most people on this forum do not value religion. My theory is that most of them are warmongers. I agree. If warmongering is your game, you have more important priorities. But then, if you want to go that route, you should not choose a Spiritual leader in the first place!

Shouldn't you? There's a lot to be said for hopping in and out of war civics as circumstances demand.

 

[rfcfanatic]

Theocracy - your units receive +2 experience points in every city where your state religion is present. Of course, Vassalage produces the same effect, but it locks you away from other useful civics like Bureucracy.

The only thing you would have to do is to spread your state religion at least to your military cities. This often requires missionaries.

 

[snakeseare]

The rule for missionaries is only three at the same time. You can build hundreds, but only three can exist at once. Same goes for corporate execs. Note that the rule is per religion or corp, so in theory you could have three missionaries from each religion for a total of 21. And as soon as you use one, you can build another.

Maybe it's because I play huge maps and marathon, but I love religion, one of the best features of CIV: happiness, gold, and a 25% discount on every building you construct when in Organized Religion. That's so great I hate to run anything else sometimes.

 

[Kid R]

Pacifism. Not many things in the game give +100% of anything.

 

[duckstab]

I have noticed that most people on this forum do not value religion. My theory is that most of them are warmongers. I agree. If warmongering is your game, you have more important priorities. But then, if you want to go that route, you should not choose a Spiritual leader in the first place!

I don't think you're correct in saying we don't value religion. The only consistent advice I've heard on the topic is that one should not normally go out of one's way to found one of the three early religions. The price you pay for making the necessary research detour(s) rarely makes it worthwhile. But many good players will actively gun for one of the later ones.

Personally, I also think SPI is one of the stronger traits for warmongering. I won my first diplomation victory with Justinian. Some very good players on HOF have won conquest victories with Gandhi at fairly high levels. The value of being able to switch into and out of civics easily as you cycle from preparation to war to recovery and back again is considerable.

 

[MilesBeyond]

The big thing that's been only briefly touched on is civics.

Theocracy is great for warmongers. As said, it allows you to run Bureaucracy while still having an XP boost. Alternatively, if you're really set on war, you could run it alongside Feudalism. Combine that with Barracks and possibly a Stable, as well as either AGG or CHA (or both, Boudica) and you're looking at some pretty ferocious troops coming right out of the gate.

Pacifism, on the other hand, is great for development. +100% GPP is potentially massive (though, as with PHI, it doesn't actually equal out to double the amount of GP). It's gold cost per military unit is frustrating for military leaders, but if your army is sparse, it's the cheapest civic in the game.

Both Organized Religion and Free Religion are versatile civics that are effective for both warmongers and pacifists. A +25% bonus to building construction (including wonders) on the one hand, and an all-around research boost on the other. Not too shabby.

But all of these bonuses (except FR) only applies to cities where your state religion is present. No religion, no benefits. FR gets happiness bonus for each religion, so it benefits from spread as well.

The other bonus is religious buildings. Keep in mind that you can have one of each building per religion in every city, and their bonuses are cumulative.

Monasteries are great. +10% science for minimal hammer commitment. That means potentially up to +70% science in a city. You stack that with Academy, Oxford, etc... Well, I'm sure I don't need to spell it out for you. The only disadvantage is the fact that it becomes obsolete.

Temples aren't bad. The happiness boost can be valuable. Whether it's worth the hammers or not depends on the situation, but think of it like this: Every religion you have in a city is an extra population that city can grow that it ordinarily wouldn't be able to maintain. Double that with FR. Not too shabby. It helps smooth the transition from HR to Rep, or lets you grow cities bigger if you build Mids and skip HR altogether.

Cathedrals are invaluable for culture games. Utterly indispensable. That 50% boost is incredible. Whether they're worth it in other games depends. They are very situational - or rather, their hammer cost is very, very high for what you get. Even with the double production bonus, you're still spending 150 hammers for, at most, 3 happiness - technically more efficient than many other happiness buildings, but keep in mind that temples are a prerequisite for it, and that if a cathedral's not your state religion, and if you don't have incense, then you receive NO happiness from it. Also, 2 priest slots... But how often do you use priests?

That 50% culture boost is what makes them great, and man, it can be amazing. But if that doesn't interest you, skip it.

Anyway, these are just some of the things unlocked by religions that, in my opinion, make them very worthwhile

 

[fantsu]

We, who play on "always peace", religion is the most important thing in the whole game.
Organized Religion is OP.
Happycap also skyrockets.

 

[AdamCrock]

Ol' Grandpa says:

Here's just a few reasons:

1) Shrine: (religious building build by Great Prophet in holy city which gives +1 for every city with given religion + Wallstreet = late game corporations Headquarters which can finance You entire empire with the tax meter set to minimum if not 0%)

2) Organized religion: +25% for improvements + capital bureaucracy (+50% ) = fast capital developement. (Not to mention industrious trait which gives the abillity to greatly speed up the wonder production in capital given that combination)

3) Monasteries before Scientific method: +10% , the more religions in the city the better.

4) Religious wonders like the amazing Apostolic Palace (abillity to win a game and +1 for each state religion building), Angkor Wat, The Spiral Minaret and others are very well worth the time for religious players.

5) Abillity to switch to Theocracy to get +2 exp in times of war - this is especially usefull for Spiritual trait leaders.

I might missed a few good points for having a state religion but Im sure other will cover that

Cheers and have fun

 

[Koning]

4) Religious wonders like the amazing Apostolic Palace (abillity to win a game and +1 for each state religion building), Angkor Wat, The Spiral Minaret and others are very well worth the time for religious players.

Religious wonders are great. If you run the AP religion and have built the University of Sankore, the Spiral Minaret, and the Sistine Chapel you receive a bonus of respectively 2, 2,2, and 5 per religious building(representing your state religion). So, having a temple, monastry and cathedral (mosque/../pagoda) in a city gives you a very powerful boost in medieval and renaissance eras!
In such games it is wise not to switch to free religion and postponing some disabling techs such as mass media to keep benifiting from your religious bonanza as long as possible.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Religious wonders are great. If you run the AP religion and have built the University of Sankore, the Spiral Minaret, and the Sistine Chapel you receive a bonus of respectively 2, 2,2, and 5 per religious building(representing your state religion). So, having a temple, monastry and cathedral (mosque/../pagoda) in a city gives you a very powerful boost in medieval and renaissance eras!
In such games it is wise not to switch to free religion and postponing some disabling techs such as mass media to keep benifiting from your religious bonanza as long as possible.

It's true. It's a very specialized strategy that may not be the best way to win a game but sure is a ton of fun to play. Then use Angkor Wat combined with Rep and Sistine to get SuperPriests. I tried to look up the exact amount, but unfortunately CivFanatics doesn't seem to have specialists in their Online Civopedia and I haven't got time to boot up the game. But I think it would be roughly 2 hammers, 2 culture, 4 beakers and 1 gold coming from one specialist (IIRC Priests give 1 hammer, 1 beaker, 1 gold?). Not too shabby.

 

[AdamCrock]

HeHe nice name : "Super priests" : are sometimes heavily exploited by me I prefer free religion and diplomacy unless I am the supreme overlord with vassals under my religion I don't remember exactly the full potential thay may receive from wonders like sistine and angkor wat but it's a very worthwhile bonus. One must be cautious though using them becouse AI city governor will favor them above all others and if You're not cautious You may receive only Great Prophets as Your GP's and some situations call for other specialists like engineers and scientists which are of great use since REN era and under caste/rep system That's one more reason it's worth the time to micromanage You're grown cities once a few turns and don't be so trusting to AI city Governors Sometimes it's worth to turn them off and do the job Yourself

 

[SquirrelCensus]

What's so good about it beside modifying diplomatic relations and outputting culture?

Flimsy excuse for war, a zealous military, extra gold in your coffers, a little bonus to scientific research...just like in real life.

But this is useless to me since I would need a great prophet for it.

A bunch of those really good early wonders (I'm talking Stonehenge, The Oracle, Moai Statues, and if I'm not mistaken one of those massive Greek temples) all give Great Prophet GPP. I try to get one Great Prophet for each religion I found, then spend the rest of my points on other kinds of Great People.

 

[AdamCrock]

Flimsy excuse for war, a zealous military, extra gold in your coffers, a little bonus to scientific research...just like in real life.


A bunch of those really good early wonders (I'm talking Stonehenge, The Oracle, Moai Statues, and if I'm not mistaken one of those massive Greek temples) all give Great Prophet GPP. I try to get one Great Prophet for each religion I found, then spend the rest of my points on other kinds of Great People.

If I dare to say so I see some error in Your reasoning First issue Civ is not exactly like the real life, there are some exploits to religion (it's not only an excuse for war) that You can use to estamblish Your domination on the globe (flat or torroidal) world Monasteries are specific exception to that since each type of them give You the bonus for science no matter if You have state religion or not besides the mentioned "super priests". And the thing with the Apostolic Palace: bonus applies not only for their followers but to infidel cities with AP religion as well. The real deal exploit with religion is getting diplomatic victory Everything is second but nevertheless worthwile and flavoured Imho

Second issue - getting Great Prophet first is not a good deal. You will be far better off with Great Scientist to build Academy in Your capital and it really doesn't matter if You're planning to be religion all the way or just partially exploit it to deal with some situations. Great Prophet will show up eventually to shrine that holy city for You so it's not the true issue, the true issue is getting to some religion before others and spreading it. Without spreading religion You can forget about religious play

Cheers

 

[MilesBeyond]

Flimsy excuse for war, a zealous military, extra gold in your coffers, a little bonus to scientific research...just like in real life.


A bunch of those really good early wonders (I'm talking Stonehenge, The Oracle, Moai Statues, and if I'm not mistaken one of those massive Greek temples) all give Great Prophet GPP. I try to get one Great Prophet for each religion I found, then spend the rest of my points on other kinds of Great People.

Temple of Artemis does not give Great Prophet GPP but does give you a free Priest. Kind of a mixed blessing as IIRC the wonder itself gives GM GPP, so your GPP are being polluted either way.

 

[elmurcis]

Flimsy excuse for war, a zealous military, extra gold in your coffers, a little bonus to scientific research...just like in real life.


A bunch of those really good early wonders (I'm talking Stonehenge, The Oracle, Moai Statues, and if I'm not mistaken one of those massive Greek temples) all give Great Prophet GPP. I try to get one Great Prophet for each religion I found, then spend the rest of my points on other kinds of Great People.

I would better get 1 Great Prophet to build 1 shrine that gives incomes from >50% of world cities (on Huge map can get >100 golds/turn without +% bonus from buildings) and all rest GPP would be Great Scientists or Great Engineers (not bad to get Taj Mahal, Statue of Liberty or Kremlin done fast)

 

[SnipedSoul]

The best thing about religions is letting a zealot like Izzy spread it like crazy before killing her and taking the shrine.

A religious dogpile against heathens is an easy way to get lots of diplo points with your neighbors too.

 

[Ramesses-Rules]

I don't think you're correct in saying we don't value religion. The only consistent advice I've heard on the topic is that one should not normally go out of one's way to found one of the three early religions. The price you pay for making the necessary research detour(s) rarely makes it worthwhile. But many good players will actively gun for one of the later ones.

Personally, I also think SPI is one of the stronger traits for warmongering. I won my first diplomation victory with Justinian. Some very good players on HOF have won conquest victories with Gandhi at fairly high levels. The value of being able to switch into and out of civics easily as you cycle from preparation to war to recovery and back again is considerable.

I can win easily at Emperor level or below founding Hinduism. At Immortal, if I don't have Alex or Monty as a neighbor, I can build Oracle and bulb Confucianism to get my early religion. Players who are good warmongering can do that a lot better than me, but I still say there are better traits than Spiritual for warmongers. I confine my warmongering to early rushes with War Chariots when the opportunity arises.

 

[midget_roxx]

I find the gold the best thing about it. Get a holy shrine, with cottages, corporation HQ with wall street and you're making huge amounts of gold a turn. I know I had one of my cities generating around 500/turn