Any reason why Hinduism dominates?

[djvandrake]

Geography has more to do with it than anything else IMO. I usually found confucianism and then push hard to spread my religion to my neighbors. If the neighboring civs have 5-6 cities and I spread my religion with a missionary to several of them then they'll likely convert and then spread it for me to get the benefit. I had a game where it was my immediate neighbors in the south and another block in the north. Boudica founded Hinduism in the north and it spread to a few cities and civs around her. I founded Confucianism in the south and agressively spread it to my neighbors in the south and the civs in the middle. Once the civs who had both religions had more confucian cities than Hindu cities, then they converted. We were enlightened and went on an enlightened spree of kicking their tail.

Another thing I like to do is bee-line to optics and send out caravels with a missionary onboard. When I discover an isolated civ that has no religion yet (about 2/3rds of my games) then I show them the light, they convert and then spread the religion like wildfire through their civ for the benefit. I then have a new best friend after we just met!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Actually, "Choose Religions" dosen't fix anything, as the plrblem reamains the first or second religion will still dominate. Not to mention realism.

On high difficulties the 3rd gets founded pretty quick making it a factor in many games. Of course any aggressive pursuit of confuc or christianity can also make them a factor, especially with the free missionary.

For fun, play as egypt, build a monument, research the theology pre-reqs while runing priests, and use the prophet to bulb theology in the still-early BC's. Or oracle it with anyone basically. Or do that with code of laws. These can become a factor then.

Taoism is pretty rare unless you have someone hogging on another continent and you bulb it or something. Islam is the least common by far. I've seen it dominate a continent a couple times because of it being the only religion founded there, otherwise its presence is mostly in choose religion.

 

[budweiser]

A lot of time and energy was spent by humans to spread their religions. The ai does it but most human players do not. Who here fights wars with the goal of forcing their state religion upon their enemy? Not many I bet, but that is the sort of thing that happened all across the americas and now christianity is the biggest religion.

 

[Magma_Dragoon]

Later religions should get a fudge factor to help them spread.

 

[budweiser]

Later religions should get a fudge factor to help them spread.

They do. It's called the sword, the lance and the musket. I just think no one bothers.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They do. It's called the sword, the lance and the musket. I just think no one bothers.

They also give a free missionary at start, so if you get them fast you can put them in a rival civ instantly and immediately convert a pagan civ. Sometimes another civ will outspam missionaries there or you'll get unlucky with auto-spread, but often that's their religion for the rest of the game if you do it.

The easiest way to wreak havoc has been mentioned: Oracle code of laws and send the missionary out to convert a civ and cause diplo trouble. You don't even have to convert to that yourself .

 

[Charonicus]

Actually, "Choose Religions" dosen't fix anything, as the plrblem reamains the first or second religion will still dominate. Not to mention realism.

True to a certain extent.
If a civ with mysticism is on the mainland I often see the "polytheism" religion (default, hindu) dominating because it tends to get researched first, being more useful than meditation.
However, I see the COL religion (confucianism by default) can also spread quite rapidly, especially if no one has mysticism and so polytheism gets put off until later. I've had many games where this dominates.

And then there's Judaism/Christianity. Judaism I see spread a lot if there are three civs with mysticism all racing for a religion. Judaism then tends to pop up fast and gets spread by missionaries. Christianity I see become dominant when the other three are founded away from the main landmass. I also see the AI reluctant to pick up theocracy early, meaning a human player (me! ) who has spotted that the main landmass is religionless, can pick this up and spread it around nicely.

Choose religions at least ensures some variation.

 

[Fistleaf]

They should allow Theocracy the ability to convert captured cities to the State Religion. That's how Islam was able to spread. Or if that is hard to implement, just give a free missionary with every captured city obtained during Theocracy.

 

[Draknith]

In my current game, Saladin founded Hinduism in the east, and Toko founded Buddism in the middle east. Early in the game I was exposed to both religions. I joined in a small alliance with the Hindus around 1000 BC, but after founding Christianity myself I adopted that religion, spread it to almost all of my cities, and actually had a random event spread it to the rest of my cities plus 4 of Saladin's. After that, Saladin actually converted to Christianity even though he founded hinduism. By 300 AD or so, Christianity was the dominant religion in the east, while Judism was in the west.

Although Hinduism and Buddism were founded first and actually were the largest ancient world religions, now that I'm in the early middle ages, it's Christianity and Judism. So it isn't necessarily the case that you can't beat out those early religions.

 

[Hardin]

Yeah those conversion random events are really helpful. I've also noticed with BTS that a lot of civs actually keep their state religion instead of converting to free religion.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

They should allow Theocracy the ability to convert captured cities to the State Religion. That's how Islam was able to spread. Or if that is hard to implement, just give a free missionary with every captured city obtained during Theocracy.

Do you have ANY idea how this would affect gameplay balance? Oh man, the AI would use this constantly for zealots like izzy/sury/zara/sal/justinian/etc...and it could be abused even more by a human player! You'd NEVER need a culture building in a captured city, you'd have 2 promo units as trained like normal, and without any hammer investment at all those cities would have instant +1 with the potential for a 2nd and access to the 2nd most hammer-efficient science building in the game without any effort by the player. God help the AI if you have the shrine too...conquests would barely cost anything .

It's a fun idea but sooooooooooooooo broken in balance.

 

[champ82]

Actually, "Choose Religions" dosen't fix anything, as the plrblem reamains the first or second religion will still dominate. Not to mention realism.

I always play with choose religions. It's the only “special” option I always play with.

The problem of the first four religions having an edge on the latter three remains with choose religions. The problem of those first four being Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Confucianism goes away. While this may be less realistic in terms of the tech tree (meditation possibly discovering Islam, Islam or Christianity coming before Judaism) I enjoy it as a role playing option. When I was playing without this option on vanilla on noble all my civs were founding Hinduism or Judaism – I simply got sick of it, and I got sick of those religions + Buddhism being the most important and practiced.

Also, one could argue that the default setting is not in line with realism, as Islam is unimportant in the game when in real life it is the second most practiced of the seven.

I would like to see another option where you can change the name of the religions. Some cultural aspects of your civilization are ignored. You only get to choose your civilizations culture to a certain extent – the rest is left undeveloped. Since the game is a strategy game with real historical elements but in an alternate setting (I.e. the landmasses being different than Earth, the possibility of Khmer bordering the Incas) I say why not? So my people discover polytheism – why should they be worshiping the Hindu gods and goddesses? Why not the Greek, Norse, Egyptians or ones made up by me?

Another problem IMNSHO with the religion setting with chose religion is the computers' favorite religion. If it's early in the game and Hinduism has been founded, there is a pretty good chance that it was India on the other continent. If Christianity is founded, there's a pretty good chance it was Isabella or Justinian. In a sense I like the role playing element though, and I don't think it's a huge problem.

Side note – for others who choose choose religions – when I started doing this I only considered role playing elements. Now that I'm playing more in an “in it to win it” style than a roleplaying style I consider my resources – Islam and Hinduism make their +50% culture buildings with marble, Christianity and Judaism make it with stone, and the rest make it with copper. Usually I find copper is the best, as even if you have marble or stone in a safe location, you will likely have fewer of them to be safe from espionage threats.

 

[crazyunits]

200. ¬¬
There's actually over nine thousand!

Charonicus do u happened to play/played WoW? your sig betrays u

 

[Jabarten]

Still remember that game I used the Great Artist (after I had discovered music) towards research of Divine Right, and it was founded in a far away city (I really wanted to build Versailles and the Spiral Minaret). Sure enough, no fewer than 5 civs nearby (I always play huge maps, with 18 civs), convered to Islam, and quickly dominated the world by 850 AD.

 

[Charonicus]

Charonicus do u happened to play/played WoW? your sig betrays u

Haha. No. I refuse to pay a monthly fee for any game, regardless how amazing it is. My bro and I did recently make Runescape characters though, just to go see what it's all about. Turns out it's pretty sucky but we did have fun asking people how to mine for fish. Gotta love video game humour and WOW did at least provide the world with an awesome episode of South Park and the immortal battlecry Leeeroooy Jeeeenkiiins.
I played Neverwinter for the longest time though and still do occasionally. Just as fun as WOW and free too. Oh and WC3 as well.
But now we're off topic and I have to quickly think of something to say about religon! :O
...
...
Nope can't think of anything...
For the Horde!

 

[TheMeInTeam]

After the current gauntlet forcing me to play on "quick" as the game speed, let me say this:

Quick distributes religions far more evenly. Time passes relative to movement a lot faster on quick, so guess what that does to religion spread? Those first missionaries that come with CoL and later mean something. A shrined confucian holy city can get over 20% of the world confucian without lifting a finger to make a missionary. Similar with christianity if gotten early.

On slower game speeds it's just the opposite.

I don't recommend playing quick for just that though, quick sucks.

 

[Turquoiside]

I always play with choose religions. It's the only “special” option I always play with.

The problem of the first four religions having an edge on the latter three remains with choose religions. The problem of those first four being Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Confucianism goes away. While this may be less realistic in terms of the tech tree (meditation possibly discovering Islam, Islam or Christianity coming before Judaism) I enjoy it as a role playing option. When I was playing without this option on vanilla on noble all my civs were founding Hinduism or Judaism – I simply got sick of it, and I got sick of those religions + Buddhism being the most important and practiced.

Also, one could argue that the default setting is not in line with realism, as Islam is unimportant in the game when in real life it is the second most practiced of the seven.

I would like to see another option where you can change the name of the religions. Some cultural aspects of your civilization are ignored. You only get to choose your civilizations culture to a certain extent – the rest is left undeveloped. Since the game is a strategy game with real historical elements but in an alternate setting (I.e. the landmasses being different than Earth, the possibility of Khmer bordering the Incas) I say why not? So my people discover polytheism – why should they be worshiping the Hindu gods and goddesses? Why not the Greek, Norse, Egyptians or ones made up by me?

Another problem IMNSHO with the religion setting with chose religion is the computers' favorite religion. If it's early in the game and Hinduism has been founded, there is a pretty good chance that it was India on the other continent. If Christianity is founded, there's a pretty good chance it was Isabella or Justinian. In a sense I like the role playing element though, and I don't think it's a huge problem.

Side note – for others who choose choose religions – when I started doing this I only considered role playing elements. Now that I'm playing more in an “in it to win it” style than a roleplaying style I consider my resources – Islam and Hinduism make their +50% culture buildings with marble, Christianity and Judaism make it with stone, and the rest make it with copper. Usually I find copper is the best, as even if you have marble or stone in a safe location, you will likely have fewer of them to be safe from espionage threats.

It would seem you missed my point. The problem still remains the first four religons dominate. I also said 'Choose Religons' dosen't help because the problem is still there, and that post didn't really make me think 'Choose Religons' fixed the problem

 

[champ82]

It would seem you missed my point. The problem still remains the first four religons dominate. I also said 'Choose Religons' dosen't help because the problem is still there, and that post didn't really make me think 'Choose Religons' fixed the problem

@NarutoAvatarDBZ

Perhaps I should have just quoted "not to mention realism" Currently I think the game with or without choose religions is not very realistic (I give examples in my last post.)

There are 2 issues here.

1.) Game mechanics - the early religions seem to dominate (generally speaking.) Chose religions does not solve this problem.

2.) Role playing - The early religions (which generally dominate) are always Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Confucianism. This can be solved with choose religions.

If the title of the thread was 'why do the 4 earliest religions always dominate?' then I wouldn't have posted what I did.

I never pretended that choose religions solved the game mechanic issue. It doesn't. I understand why you're not convinced and I never wanted to convince you.

 

[digitCruncher]

I've had Islam being the dominant religion...

OK, I was on a continent with no-one who wanted to get a religion (I mean I had Isabella, Monty, Giggles, and Justinian... they don't often get a religion, right? Honestly, however, I have no idea how I managed to go so long without a religion). Eventually, I got sick of it, and beelined Christianity, missing by 4 turns, so I beelined Islam, and got it (I think... just >.<). This got me a holy city which spread so insanely quickly, I soon was just rolling in the

However, it is my experiance that latter religions get MASSIVE passive spread probabilities. I will found Confusism, and within 5 turns, it passively spread to almost every un-converted city in the island (epic speed). Founded Islam, and the entire continent was Islam within 30 turns...

So there is a 'fudge factor' Unfortunatly, it almost never comes into play...

 

[Emiliano]

"Choose Religions" here too...

The "because budism and hinduism are the first two" seems, at least to me, the most logic anwser.

Also, if you play a game in different continents, you'd find that until the arrival of caravels, they may have another dominant religion, if it was founded, of course...