AI Piety, but no religion

[Atlas627]

I have seen many AIs start Piety with BNW, but many of them not only never found a religion, but never found a PANTHEON. It seems they just never build any shrines, but I check the diplo overview and they fill out the whole tree! Anybody know what's up with that?

 

[krozman]

I think the AI is, to some extend, pre programmed to go a certain way. If I see alexander I know he's filling Patronage (and for good reason). Meeting all the civs and knowing their policy path is actually a very strategic move, b/c if you get lucky and are the only tradition opener, for example, you know you can get hanging gardens easier (or in the reverse, if you have Gandhi, etihopia, and Egypt on the same map you can kiss that wonder goodbye probably).

 

[kingofsealand]

I had this happen in my most recent game as portugal. Some of the civs founded and even beat me to religion. But the shoshone in particular took over 300 turns to found one. They might just not be building shrines? Why they would do that mistifies me but then this is a map where the AI was starved for gold as well, crippling their war-making abilities for the first few hundred turns so the piety issue could be related to the gold shortage (maybe the civs were not building only buying the religious buildings? )