Best beliefs to choose for your religion?

[DrDuckman]

Any advice on the best choices depending on playstyle? Seems like an interesting discussion to have.

When playing on a non religious victory civ, I tend to find that the best choices are :

Pantheon :
Fertility Rites : + Growth Rate

Religion :
Work Ethic : +1% production per citizen
Papal Primacy : 50% bonuses from city states
Religious Building ???
+1 action for missionaries.

Any advice on what you found works best? The food/housing from temples/shrines looks interesting.

 

[brs112]

Work Ethic for me without a doubt. For pantheon I usually go Divine Spark out of laziness unless I'm near an excellent spot for Dance of the Aurora / Sacred Path. In my most recent game I took the +1 production for fishing boats only just to try and it's an inland sea map where I had tons of fish / crab nearby and it's been useful for getting cities off the ground.

I've experimented with the buildings a little. Pagodas are nice for the little extra bit of housing before you can reach neighborhoods. I've also tried Wats thinking it might be nice to get a little science without having to build another district due to the cost-scaling. However I'm not sure if religious buildings really have much of an impact if you're like me and only build 1-3 holy sites as opposed to putting them in every city. Building an industrial zone / commercial hub in every city, and then adding in one of encampment/campus/theater square depending on my victory condition makes me reticent to put in a holy site (though if going for religion I suppose that's the way to go).

I feel like the beliefs that improve your apostles or religious spread could be especially necessary for a religious victory while not really being useful otherwise. Apparently another strategy worth trying is taking the tripled bonus from relics and rushing the wonder that gives all your apostles Martyr (Mont St Michel?) - have yet to try this though so I can't comment.

 

[DrDuckman]

Yeah I've seen the Martyr Apostles bit, though instead of the wonder I used the city state bonus that allows you to choose level ups for apostles. You definitely build up faith FAST. However, you have to choose that over Work Ethic. Unless you are going for that victory, I already get enough faith as is. And if you are going for that, perhaps the +4 Faith per wonder is just less fiddly for similar output?

What do you think about the other Follower Beliefs? The food per temple/shrine is powerful early on, but later food becomes somewhat irrelevant. I've been considering the extra housing, as +3 housing (with pagodas), is pretty bit

I've been thinking the food per shrine/temple one would be powerful, but food becomes no issue later on. Perhaps the housing per shrine/temple would be more useful? I am not sure how much housing is an issue end game.

For the others, Papal Primacy is almost always the best I feel. But the last ones, I feel the cheaper missionaries/apostles is probably the best? After all, it means that you can better control how much Faith to spend for the moment.

 

[avl8]

There are different "best" options for different kind of strategies and goals.
For my cultural victory I went

+faith from rainforest around holy site (best faith generator available early for mine France)
Tithe for extra gold (extra builders, extra units),
-faithcost for apostles (need many of them for martyr job),
+amenity from districts (great support for ICS)

If I have rolled more starting faith Id consider Jesuit Education for my cultural game. Rushing important stuff with faith if I miss a Martyr world wonder is huge.

 

[Xenotitan]

Work ethic is always my first pick for that type. Defender of the faith can be really good, +10 is a large bonus and it also applies to religious combat. I like papal primacy if I'm near a few city states. Buildings I don't have much of a preference, I'll take the meeting house if possible but they are all similar enough I don't worry about it.

For pantheon it really depends on the start. If I'm expecting to fight a tough opponent I'll take the forge belief (it seems to go fast so I can't always get it). Stone circles is really good if the right resources are around. I might take another pantheon if there's a lot of resources around for it.

 

[Ulthwithian]

Russia likes Cathedrals because

• They get GAs before anyone else (even Greece, generally)
• Early GAs' GWs are generally Religious
• They need places to put stuff

Honestly, I feel that Russia's Religion will look like the following, almost always:

Pantheon: Dance of the Aurora
Follower: +Food from Shrine/Temple (counteracts bad food from Tundra)
Building: Cathedral (for above)
Other: I like the cheaper Missionaries and Apostles because if you can get them with Martyr you just spam them everywhere.

 

[Nefelia]

Best belief is Feed the World. +2 food from Shrine and +4 food from temple. Allows for fast city growth and for placing more 'citizens' on mines.

Also great for settler-building cities built near mines, as they can have good growth and production, thus pumping out settlers quickly.

Couple this with the religious building that gives +3 faith and +2 food and you can have +8 food from your Holy Site.

Edit: Also forgot to mention: Feed The World allows you to settle in areas (Tundra/Desert/Coast) that would be otherwise unviable.

 

[Promethian]

Pantheon my top 3 are: God of the Forge (25% prod to ancient and classical units), Religious Settlements (15% border growth rate) and Divine Spark (Great people points). Border growth is a big deal in Civ 6 and over the course of the game Religious Settlements gets you a lot of free tiles over time. God of the Forge is great for early advantage, especially if you have an early UU, like the Aztecs, or need to counter an aggressive neighbor, like the Aztecs. Divine Spark is the clear choice for pursuing a culture victory or if you intend to build a lot of campuses.

Founder beliefs I don't have a clear set of favorites. They are all situational.

Follower beliefs my top 3 are: Work ethic (MOAR HAMMARZ!), Religious Community (housing), Reliquaries (triple relic output). Work ethic is obviously obvious. Religious Community is a big deal because housing is the primary restriction on city growth in almost all situations. Additionally the 2 housing allows the Holy Site to nearly pay for itself in terms of the population district cap (1 district per 3 pop). Reliquaries is a specialized selection for pursuing a culture victory and it is very effective at doing so if you make the right choices.

Worship building my top 3 are: Pagoda (3 faith, 1 housing), Mosque (3 faith, +1 religion spread per unit), Meeting House (3 faith, 2 prod). Pagoda is again more housing, see above for why housing is good. Meeting House is good because obvious is obvious. Mosque is noteworthy because if you are going for a religious victory it is clearly the best choice.

 

[mzprox]

feed the world is usually taken first.. i never got the option to choose it on high difficulties

 

[Monthar]

I almost always take cheaper missionaries and apostles when I found the religion so I can buy the first 2 apostles to get the other picks asap.

Divine Spark is great for pretty much any VC.

Everything else depends on which VC I'm going for.

 

[isau]

The +1 Culture from pastures one s excellent, because pastures are everywhere. It really adds up in a wide strategy, and saves a ton of money due to border pops.

 

[Nefelia]

feed the world is usually taken first.. i never got the option to choose it on high difficulties

Warrior > Builder > Builder > Stonehenge (chop with Builders or use China's Builder UA). Most reliable way to get the first religion on Emperor+.

 

[discord_ian]

Best belief is Feed the World. +2 food from Shrine and +4 food from temple. Allows for fast city growth and for placing more 'citizens' on mines.

Also great for settler-building cities built near mines, as they can have good growth and production, thus pumping out settlers quickly.

Couple this with the religious building that gives +3 faith and +2 food and you can have +8 food from your Holy Site.

Edit: Also forgot to mention: Feed The World allows you to settle in areas (Tundra/Desert/Coast) that would be otherwise unviable.

I haven't done the math but my gut says food beliefs early allows you more hammers if you micro your cities correctly. I think this could be more than the production bonus especially if you are going wide. Easily being able to build more mines instead of farms and focus citizens on hammers pans out.

 

[Promethian]

I haven't done the math but my gut says food beliefs early allows you more hammers if you micro your cities correctly. I think this could be more than the production bonus especially if you are going wide. Easily being able to build more mines instead of farms and focus citizens on hammers pans out.

The housing from religious communities outperforms feed the world for growing your cities by several orders of magnitude. Food is almost never the issue with growing your cities. Housing is the primary blocker.

 

[Wulf38]

I definitely recommend Missionary Zeal for a religious victory, that extra mobility on apostles helps immensely. I took it in my first religious game and it allowed me to outmaneuver my main religious rival's apostle army, sweep my own apostles through his empire and convert everything in a handful of turns, too fast for him to react.

 

[Nefelia]

The housing from religious communities outperforms feed the world for growing your cities by several orders of magnitude. Food is almost never the issue with growing your cities. Housing is the primary blocker.

Depends entirely on how large you are growing your cities, how often you are pumping out settlers, the quality of your land, etc. Increased housing can indeed be the better choice if you have a farm rich empire. The purpose of Feed the World is not to grow huge cities, but to provide food for cities that would otherwise not have enough food to fulfill their niche (cities in hill/mines pumping out settlers, Russian cities in the tundra). Larger cities that focus on placing citizens or working food-poor tiles also benefit greatly. Feed the World basically translates to a lower reliance on farms.

 

[Promethian]

Depends entirely on how large you are growing your cities, how often you are pumping out settlers, the quality of your land, etc. Increased housing can indeed be the better choice if you have a farm rich empire. The purpose of Feed the World is not to grow huge cities, but to provide food for cities that would otherwise not have enough food to fulfill their niche (cities in hill/mines pumping out settlers, Russian cities in the tundra). Larger cities that focus on placing citizens or working food-poor tiles also benefit greatly. Feed the World basically translates to a lower reliance on farms.

So about 5% of cities. You are arguing for edge cases when someone deliberately worded what they said to account for the fact there are edge cases. If you are placing a majority of your cities in such a way that they cannot get enough food to grow you are already playing a losing strategy. It is trivially easy to hit housing cap and the only thing that really breaks the upper housing limit is the late game neighborhood. Thus in any kind of strategy that isn't deliberately gimping yourself more early access to housing is dramatically better than some food.

 

[lamaros]

Warrior > Builder > Builder > Stonehenge (chop with Builders or use China's Builder UA). Most reliable way to get the first religion on Emperor+.

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.

 

[KmDubya]

So about 5% of cities. You are arguing for edge cases when someone deliberately worded what they said to account for the fact there are edge cases. If you are placing a majority of your cities in such a way that they cannot get enough food to grow you are already playing a losing strategy. It is trivially easy to hit housing cap and the only thing that really breaks the upper housing limit is the late game neighborhood. Thus in any kind of strategy that isn't deliberately gimping yourself more early access to housing is dramatically better than some food.

It really depends on the map.

I like to play out what I get. I like new age for the world for the cool mountains, wet for more trees and rivers and random on the temperature, mainly on Inland Sea. this frequently gets tundra or hilly plains both are short on food. My current Spain game had tundra so bad I walked for three turns to get to plains that had me pop capped at two until I could farm, all while being rushed by Egypt. For this game Feed the World gets me six food which lets me work six riverside lumber mills or mines.

Who cares about housing when you can get cogs?

 

[Nefelia]

So about 5% of cities. You are arguing for edge cases when someone deliberately worded what they said to account for the fact there are edge cases. If you are placing a majority of your cities in such a way that they cannot get enough food to grow you are already playing a losing strategy. It is trivially easy to hit housing cap and the only thing that really breaks the upper housing limit is the late game neighborhood. Thus in any kind of strategy that isn't deliberately gimping yourself more early access to housing is dramatically better than some food.

5%? Maybe if you spread out your cities far apart and have an abundance good farm land. That has not been the case at all for most of my games. Between luxuries, strategic resources, districts, wonders, mines, lumber mills, mountains, desert, tundra, and even plains, farm land and food is at a premium.

Is housing important as well? Yes, it is. But when one is playing wide and has an abundance of specialized cities, +6 food from shrines and temples allows for better specialization as you need to work less farms in your cities and can place those citizens on mines, lumber mills, libraries, encampments, markets, etc, etc.

For players focusing on tall cities, housing is a better option. For those building wider empires with more specialized cities, Feed the World is worth considering. It depends entirely on one's play style and the geography of their map, but Feed the World is certainly very useful for far more than just 5% of one's cities.