Best beliefs to choose for your religion?

[Nefelia]

You still wont get it most times on Deity. Stonehenge is built around turn 22-24 normally, so unless you get an early natural wonder you won't hit it in time.

Is there a reliable way to get religion on Deity, or is it better to just ignore that aspect of the game altogether?

 

[joncnunn]

Is there a reliable way to get religion on Deity, or is it better to just ignore that aspect of the game altogether?

Yes, playing as Arabia will the moment the AI gets the second to last Great Prophet give you the last one. Still; you'd need to get a Temple up plus some faith stockpiled for apostles / inquisitors if you don't want it snuffed out.

 

[KmDubya]

If you get Divine Spark for double Great Prophet points a single holy site and shrine will get you 3 per turn. You can add in some holy prayer projects for more if needed. Getting another holy site online will net you another 2 per turn. You want to go heavy right off as if you don't the Ai will get multiple holy site up and overcome you. Also watch out for faith purchasing the Prophet out from underneath you, happened to me as I was coasting to a Prophet a comfortable ten points ahead with my prayer project ending next turn and then wham! no Prophet and the next one is 60 points off with the AI getting multiple sites online. Ended with nothing.

If religion is a big part of your civ then you need to make the sacrifices needed to get it, your not going to be able to half ass it and still get a religion.

 

[lamaros]

Is there a reliable way to get religion on Deity, or is it better to just ignore that aspect of the game altogether?

Early Holy site plus shrine + district project will get you one. If you also get the divine spark you will be able to get the second religion if you want to most time.

 

[gberetfr]

In Deity, my experience is that if you don't build many units right at the start of the game you get wiped out either by barbarians or your neighbours, making it impossible to get a religion if not playing Arabia. I don't see an early holy site or stonehenge feasible (maybe on an isolated island start ?)

 

[lamaros]

In Deity, my experience is that if you don't build many units right at the start of the game you get wiped out either by barbarians or your neighbours, making it impossible to get a religion if not playing Arabia. I don't see an early holy site or stonehenge feasible (maybe on an isolated island start ?)

Scouts runs from warriors. You have to get really really really unlucky to lose to barbs.

 

[Frank327]

You can also get a religion as Russia. The lavra is really cheap and it gives +2 great prophet points instead of +1 for a normal holy site.

 

[gberetfr]

Scouts runs from warriors. You have to get really really really unlucky to lose to barbs.

I'm not sure to understand what you say. You mean that you keep your first warrior in your capital and with him you manage to "scare" barbarian scouts so that they don't come close enough to your capital to see it ?

Because yes my problem may be there, once they spotted me, they come quickly with 3-4 horsemen, 2-3 horse archers, ... You have to be ready !

Also often two scouts come at the same time and I find it hard to chase them without building units right from the beginning.

 

[budweiser]

So you can pay gold to acquire a GP. I saw one in my current game for 960 gold today. Then I heard that you can disband units and get gold. Is this a viable method??

 

[CivilizationAce]

I wonder how many people writing about Work Ethic know that it's per follower in the city, not per follower anywhere?

 

[EpicWestern]

Unfortunately I feel its the same for every religious victory game nowadays (all deity):

divine spark (faster great prophet points which is extremely important as the most difficult part of RV on deity is simply getting a religion while not dying to rushes)

production follower bonus (I'm only 90% sure this is best here, the relic faith bonus and housing bonuses both seem decent)
missionaries and apostles are 30% cheaper to produce
mosques (+1 spread)
+2 faith for each foreign converted city

 

[EpicWestern]

I wonder how many people writing about Work Ethic know that it's per follower in the city, not per follower anywhere?

Yeah its not much, really only about +1 production per city on average. I just still think that's better than what's usually available.

 

[CivilizationAce]

+1 production per city on average. I just still think that's better than what's usually available.

Each point of population is worth:

• 0.7 Science
• 0.3 Culture
• Whatever you can get from working the person, normally at least 3 of something
• 1/3 on the district cap
• Minus the 2 cost to feed it

Total: 2 or more of assorted benefits (I won't attempt to evaluate 1/3 on the district cap, but it's not chickenfeed). Overall I think just one to population cap (which you will hit) dwarfs +1 production.

But for Religious Community we don't get just one to population cap — we get 2.

 

[The Islander]

I'm a big fan of crusader. Send a wave of missionaries to convert a city just before you send in the troops, you get +10 combat strength!

 

[SlySlySly]

I may be odd. But I often do religious settlements. I like having faster expansion on smaller maps, gives you a territorial edge of enemies. But sometimes I do monuments to the gods. Useful when i'm building wonders for culture win,

 

[EpicWestern]

Each point of population is worth:

• 0.7 Science
• 0.3 Culture
• Whatever you can get from working the person, normally at least 3 of something
• 1/3 on the district cap
• Minus the 2 cost to feed it

Total: 2 or more of assorted benefits (I won't attempt to evaluate 1/3 on the district cap, but it's not chickenfeed). Overall I think just one to population cap (which you will hit) dwarfs +1 production.

But for Religious Community we don't get just one to population cap — we get 2.

You make a pretty convincing argument, I'll just counter that I feel like since RV is the fastest by far, once your shrine is up the battle is already about halfway over for that city. The capital doesn't really need housing compared to other victory types since its population count is low due to churning out settlers while expansions are building their holy sites. That said, thinking about it some more, even my +1 production estimate is probably too high. Next religious game I'll have to check around turn 100 or so what housing needs are vs production.

 

[Callduron]

We can probably put some numbers to the beliefs. Let's calculate for a hypothetical 10 city civ in the mediaeval period, size 10 cities.

Follower Beliefs

Divine Inspiration. In a typical mediaeval game state you might have 3 wonders in the capital (12 faith/turn) and one somewhere else (4 faith/turn). Total = 16 faith/turn.

Feed the world. +6 food/ fully developed holy site. Total = about 30-40 food/turn.

Jesuit education. I don't like this one. It's not an income like the others. So while it's nice to faith-buy universities instead of building them for 10 turns it is not only costing you faith (which you need for apostles etc) but it's also costing the loss of the income you'd get from one of the other options. (However I love it when I don't have a religion and other civs spread it to me).

Reliquaries. Relics are 4/turn (6 for Jadwiga) so this adds 8 faith and 8 tourism (12/12 for Jadwiga). So to match 40 food from Feed the World you probably want about 5 relics (3-4 for Jadwiga). Doable, but quite a specific strategy probably requiring Mont St Michel or Yerevan. It seems clearly good to get your tourism ticking early for cultural victories.

Religious communities: 2 housing/fully developed holy site. +20 housing across our civ.

Work ethic. 1% per follower in that city. Let's suppose our pop 10 cities have 30 production each and 5 followers. Each city gets +1.5 hammers or 15 across our whole civ.

Zen meditation. +1 amenity, pretty much to every city. So +10 amenities across our civ.

Looking at the numbers I think it's between Feed the World, Religious Communities or Zen Meditation depending how you value food, housing and amenities unless you're pursuing a relic based strategy, probably as Kongo or Poland.

 

[EpicWestern]

Small thing, but in my games for some reason feed the world is a lot less likely to be available than the other beliefs.

 

[Victoria]

If I am going religious I always go for the cheaper missionaries.... it's +20% faith all game unless you buy units / GP.
It is a question of style of gameplay. If you like large cities then growth/amenities. If you spend a lot on border growth... welll there are better ways but it is an option.

Having done a lot of testing, unless you understand how religion grows in your cities you will think you get more production than you could/do get or any other follower per city benefit for that matter. For production you will be getting a lot more than the AI anyway so a little bit more may be excessive but sure, a city of 20 will get 10% production at least.

Divine spark is pretty good for GP... I mean +1 per district does not sound like a lot but it is and considering the AI does not build many districts it is the GP answer as well as helping with prophets.

 

[CivilizationAce]

cheaper missionaries

The problem with that is that the costs scale, so you don't get 20% extra — you get a few extra and then you're paying what you would have before. Compared to Mosque, a flat 33% all game, it's poor.