Best (or Worst) Possible Religion (Belief Combinations)

[phaethon16]

Yeah but as Korea you're going to want to take secularism and build the statue of liberty (so freedom ideology) to get the +2 science +1 productivity from all specialists. That is assuming they haven't changed the statue of liberties' bonus. +4 +1 Per Specialist, including their base bonus. That's 7 science from each scientist.

You can do both piety and rationalism now, and piety starts in the ancient era, so go for both.

 

[HorseshoeHermit]

Worst possible religion:
Pilgrimage, Divine Inspiration, Choral Music, Missionary Zeal/Religious Texts, Underground Sects. Pantheon Ancestor Worship. (I mean, for pantheon, you could just pick a tile pantheon for a tile you don't have.)

Underground Sects reveals your spy with any unaccounted pressure. Everything else just allows faith to spawn more faith so players can get faith in their faith while they faith from their faith.
*Xzibit pic here*

Yet nothing, apart from Zeal, even helps you spread the religion, and we all know Missionary Zeal is actually lies because it does nothing. You could consider the whole setup a counter to opposing religions, except that the faith generation it lends to enemies lets them fight back with manual spread if they want to (hence the weirdness of religion). Religious Texts would make it harder for useful religions to enter your cities since your own would push back faster.
But still, even this setup looks useful in a way. Perhaps:

Religious Center
Liturgical Drama
Peace Loving
Reliquary
Sacred Sites (tourism from religion-buildings)
Religious Settlements

No benefit in particular, Sacred Sites wasted belief, gets washed out before making a difference?

 

[Arachnofiend]

I love tundra starts for that pantheon. Hills, quarries, luxuries (gems/gold/silver/marble are all in tundra), and sometimes unforrested deer or foxes all get coverage from Dance of the Auroras.

My highly productive Civs can use that Pantheon to drive their religion...which will also be production/war focused.

I honestly prefer Goddess of the Hunt for tundra starts. Your best tiles are going to be deer and the trapping luxuries, which generally show up in forests (and are better in forests anyways).

 

[Gucumatz]

Worst possible religion:
Pilgrimage, Divine Inspiration, Choral Music, Missionary Zeal/Religious Texts, Underground Sects. Pantheon Ancestor Worship. (I mean, for pantheon, you could just pick a tile pantheon for a tile you don't have.)

Underground Sects reveals your spy with any unaccounted pressure. Everything else just allows faith to spawn more faith so players can get faith in their faith while they faith from their faith.
*Xzibit pic here*

Yet nothing, apart from Zeal, even helps you spread the religion, and we all know Missionary Zeal is actually lies because it does nothing. You could consider the whole setup a counter to opposing religions, except that the faith generation it lends to enemies lets them fight back with manual spread if they want to (hence the weirdness of religion). Religious Texts would make it harder for useful religions to enter your cities since your own would push back faster.
But still, even this setup looks useful in a way. Perhaps:

Religious Center
Liturgical Drama
Peace Loving
Reliquary
Sacred Sites (tourism from religion-buildings)
Religious Settlements

No benefit in particular, Sacred Sites wasted belief, gets washed out before making a difference?

Worst possible religion?????
Pilgrimage, Divine Inspiration, Choral Music, Missionary Zeal/Religious Texts, Underground Sects. Pantheon Ancestor Worship

That's not even close to the worst possible religion.

 

[Gucumatz]

Pilgrimage is incredibly powerful if used correctly. +2 Faith per city outside of your own can be useful depending on your neighbours.

Divine Inspiration is situational too, but not the worst either.

Religious Texts is incredibly powerful too. If you want to get as much faith as possible, Pilgrimage spreads that religion across AI lands without problems. Underground Sects can be powerful for spreading religion to your enemies. Take something like the Just War Enhancer and selectively target your victims with spies
========

Worst Religion is this:

Oral Tradition: 1 culture per plantation
Papal Primacy/Initiation Rites: Initiation Rites only works once per city and scales down to be even less useful on quicker speeds. Papal Primacy is largely un-needed. You can get 30 influence with a pledge + Patronage already. 15 more resting won't do pretty much anything
Liturgical Drama: 1 Faith for an amphitheater? Right... not enough faith, takes too much production to get to, still requires a 3 pop city and most good players don't build ampipheaters in every city to begin with
Peace Gardens: 2 Happy for a Garden? Few cities on a map can ever build a garden. If you are a player who rerolls every time he/she doesn't get a river until you do then it might seem better but its completely unflexible
Missionary Zeal: +25% Missionary Strength. Completely useless. Missionaries don't have the power to convert much once religions get in place, that's what a great prophet is for then.
Unity of the Prophets: Whats the point of this... If you let your cities get captured by AI with a different religion they founded, they will convert it no matter what - just a matter of time. You shouldn't be converting cities from empires that have founded their own religions anyways, its just bad gameplay

 

[joncnunn]

Worst combo:

Pantheon: Normally the Tundra one (unless you actually see Tundra when you found a pantheon; in which case its likely to be the Jungle one); but what I really mean is some terraign Pantheon in which you don't have any tiles that qualify and would still have very few even if you go conquering.

Founder: World Church.

Follower 1 & 2: Double dipping faith buildings. There's no time to build multiple types in all cities while they are still cheap. The same would apply to choosing the combo of Holy Warriors and faith buildings.

Enhancement: Discount on Missionaries; or perhaps Messiah. Again, if your have a faith discount chances are your not building Missionaries or Great Prophets.

 

[Seek]

I'll play the Worst Religion game:

Pantheon: God of craftsmen (+1 Production in cities with Population of 3+)
Founder: Papal Primacy (+15 to Influence resting point with City-States following this religion)
Follower: Choral music (Temples provide +2 Culture in cities with 5 followers)
Follower: Liturgical drama (Amphitheaters provide +1 Faith in cities with 3 followers)
Enhancer: Reliquary (Gain 50 Faith each time a Great Person is expended)
Reformation: Underground Sect (Spies exert religious pressure in the city they occupy)

 

[tomtom5858]

You guys are completely off

Worst:
Pantheon: Like jon said, Dance of the Aurora.
Founder: Papal Primacy. Nearly useless, PtP and Aesthetics gets it anyways.
Liturgical Drama: Too much investment for not enough payoff.
Holy Warriors: While excellent with a large faith base, it isn't with this setup.
Enhancer: Reliquary. Can't believe you guys missed this one. jon, Holy Order is fantastic, it makes spreading your religion so much easier, though with double faith-buildings, it is bad
Reformation: Underground Sects

 

[Seek]

You guys are completely off

Worst:
Pantheon: Like jon said, Dance of the Aurora.
Founder: Papal Primacy. Nearly useless, PtP and Aesthetics gets it anyways.
Liturgical Drama: Too much investment for not enough payoff.
Holy Warriors: While excellent with a large faith base, it isn't with this setup.
Enhancer: Reliquary. Can't believe you guys missed this one. jon, Holy Order is fantastic, it makes spreading your religion so much easier, though with double faith-buildings, it is bad
Reformation: Underground Sects

Completely off?? Our lists are nearly identical!

I chose Craftmen because DotA is okay once in a while, but GoC is always horrible (by the time the city is at 3 pop, 1 production is moot).

Holy Warriors is something to spend faith on, in my terrible religion there is nothing, muhahahaha!

 

[Antarion]

yes, Desert Faith works on Floodplains.

It's likely the most powerful Pantheon as, *if* you start in a desert, you will get your religion very fast just by working the hexes you always work.

Ofc, if there's not much desert around then it's not as useful - though, with at least 6ish hexes of workable desert (not flat/non-resource desert) it's just as good as Stonehenge.

The tundra faith pantheon works the same, but there's rarely non-forested tundra that you'd want to work.

it is with tundra hills. in addition the standard tundra tile offers +1 food, while desert offers nothing. just try the tundra panthenon, its better then u would believe.

 

[Antarion]

I honestly prefer Goddess of the Hunt for tundra starts. Your best tiles are going to be deer and the trapping luxuries, which generally show up in forests (and are better in forests anyways).

the only problem is, if u cant get a religion your whole panthenon will vanish in the future. i prefer first to get a certain amount of faith before i start to take other bonuses. atleast as long as u cant get a prophet by an addiontal way like liberty finisher or hagia sophia.

 

[Kruppe]

it is with tundra hills. in addition the standard tundra tile offers +1 food, while desert offers nothing. just try the tundra panthenon, its better then u would believe.

It depends on where you start, if I play with Russia is sure that I take Dance of the Aurora, but in general desert folklore is better because you go to try the combo with Petra.

 

[Merciorum]

Merciorum: It's an open question, and one that I can see answered either way. The Byzantine's biggest weakness, of course, is that barring a rework of their Unique traits, they get no bonuses towards actually making use of their UA.

Actually playing with the Byzantine Peristyle mode now, and while it's rather brutally OP, it's also quite refreshing to see the Byzantines regularly able to found a religion.

All I can say is that I certainly hope that they can.

Definitely. I tend to play on Prince or King, where it's easier to found a religion, so I find them to be one of my favourite civs. It would perhaps be useful if they got a bonus to faith until they founded a religion, and at that point it stops. Maybe only on higher difficulties.

 

[VainoValkea]

With religion playing an important role for the culture game, I think any beliefs that facilitate the religion's spread will become a powerful weapon in one's cultural arsenal. Can't wait to see how religion spreading along trade routes is implemented and how the beliefs will change that.

 

[Halcyan2]

Focusing on Byzantium, since it's the most interesting religion-wise:

Pantheon: Faith-generating
Founder: Any
Follower: Pagodas
Bonus: Sacred Sites
Follower: Cathedrals
Enhancer: Any
Reformation: Jesuit Education

Though there is a good chance that Sacred Sites won't apply to the science buildings you get from Jesuit Education. I am guessing it just tracks the generic religious buildings and does *not* specifically track how you acquire a building. Thus it wouldn't work on the science buildings (even if bought with faith) and would work on all Mosques (including those not bought with faith, such as from Great Mosque).


Backup option if Sacred Sites doesn't work with Jesuit Education:

Pantheon: Faith-generating
Founder: Any
Follower: Pagodas
Bonus: Cathedrals
Follower: Monasteries
Enhancer: Any
Reformation: Sacred Sites

and don't forget to build the Great Mosque for a free Mosque!



Not sure how Evangelism works in terms of eroding pressure, but if it is a permanent effect and allows you to neutralize any pressure from other religions, that can be strong in making a dominant religion.

To the Glory of God can be used well with faith generating beliefs to buy lots of great people for cheap. Also means you don't need to concentrate on finishing policy trees so much. Could also have synergy with the Mausoleum and Reliquary.

Underground Sect could be interesting with Religious Texts + Itinerant Preachers. Each Spy essentially gives you additional pressure.

 

[Merciorum]

I like how nobody can agree on anything in this thread.

 

[TPangolin]

I like how nobody can agree on anything in this thread.

I beg to differ.

 

[Desolira]

For a Domination Victory (Used it to get "No One Expected the Spanish Inquisition" in the most literal sense.)
This is a late bloom strategy utilizing some beliefs AI basically never shoot for anyway, so no rush on faith per se.

Pantheon: Depends on start. If location is poor on food(Heavy production), going for growth and rushing Temple of Artemis and Hanging Gardens is recommended (Within discretion.) Otherwise, you'll want a faith producer.
Founder Belief: Tithe. As a warmongering civ, you will lack friends. Better to just take everyone's money imho. Culture will be fairly irrelevant to Domination, and Happiness by spreading religious is a pain in the ass. I avoid anything that's a PITA. Ceremonial Burial is ok if you really think you'll struggle with happiness, but if you properly rush Notre Dame for Faith + Happiness, and steal Chichen Itza (Why build what you can just conquer?!) Then you're set for that anyway.
Follower Belief: Take Divine Inspiration for the immediate faith generation, because over time it'll grow as you snipe more Wonders. This is where the long-term planning begins. By this point in the game, you'll be able to have as many as five wonders, perhaps even built by your neighbor. By then, you should think about scouting other civs and sending a spy to dabble into who built what, and the victory type they're trying to achieve. Plan your conquering based on a sliding scale, prioritizing happiness first, gold second, and science third. Cultural Civs may confuse you as a peacekeeper until it is too late. Religious civs will dismiss you because you have no visible spread of religion at first, just inquisitors for preservation. Anyone trying for a cultural victory you can save when ideologies come into play, even if their faith production seems juicy, the immediate warmongering benefits are crap, their population will be unhappy, and that's just another place to defend. Go for other warmongers and take any future potential tech leaders out IMMEDIATELY. Note: Take control of world congress, and make wonders produce +3 culture as well. Talk about long term investments! Remember Tradition and Rationalism lead to buying engineers and scientists, so you can get a catapult start to wonder building and then just rack them up passively, literally instantly, whenever you see a wonder as too good to wait for your conquering.
Enhancer Belief: Just War. As a domination civ, this effectively turns your prophets into front line generals. Abuse this. At this point of the game, your religious opponents had just about spammed everything and their faith costs to reverse your war mongering is huge. Plus, if you stole statue of Zues, have a general, AND convert an enemy capital, that's 15%+15%+20% attack modifier against them. They can out tech you, and still get creamed.
Reformation Belief: If you actually make it to this, you either played too passively, or on a very large map. This strategy can win before Spain techs past conquistadors. So let's assume you're on a very large map.
To the Glory of God is amazing if you suddenly decided you want to win with culture, after spending all your faith on engineers and scientists anyway, so let's ignore that. Due to the fact that most of your main cities are either puppets or fully developed at this point in the game, Jesuit Education is almost laughable. But if that is in fact what you need, might as well go for it. Otherwise, Religious Fervor will close this game out after you already spent faith on your missionaries, generals, engineers, and scientists. At this point, you should expect, as a warmongerer, 60-100 faith off just wonders, enjoying the benefits of being both the largest military and largest religion. At this point it's just convert conquer over and over again until there's no one left.

El Fin.