Best Practices When Founding a Religion?

[TomOfAction]

To all of those that this may concern,

Hi! So, basically, as the title says above; I am seeking out/searching for advice in regards to picking the "ultimate religion" in Civilization V: Gods & Kings. I am currently playing a modded, singleplayer Earth map with exactly twenty civilizations in it, on the 'Emperor' difficulty. It's turn number thirty-nine, and I had accumulated enough faith to which I just received my first great prophet of the game. And here's where my dilemma has started: I am now choosing my initial founder, follower and bonus belief(s). And I am contemplating on what will be the most effective choices for my game. I'd more than greatly appreciate any form of (constructive and relevant) feedback that the community can give me. I will include below several notes for reference, just in case you guys are curious to what my specific strategy and means of achieving victory are. Thanks in advance for your time & consideration!

Several Things to Note:


-Yes, this is a MODDED 'Civilization V: Gods & Kings' game, and I am utilizing a modification that was developed so that you can choose a bonus belief, like Theodora of Byzantium's unique ability. I am also using a modification that disables the AIs from building world wonders, since I am playing on a higher difficulty, this was done to level the playing field and make the game more fair, in a sense. Also, in case you wanted to add production into the equation for religious beliefs, I thought that this would be good to know.

-I've already chosen the equivalent pantheon of "Fertility Rites", which in this case is 'Religious Fertility'. That being said, I already have 10% faster growth rate for citizens in all of my cities. Just wanted to mention that, in case you guys were wondering.

-I am playing as the Japanese Civilization in the current game that I'm playing, and am heading for a domination victory ONLY. Every other victory type is disabled due to personal preference.

-In this game specifically, I am planning on maintaining a small, centralized empire (focusing on four main, self-settled cities, and the rest will be capitals from other civilizations, city-states that I diplomatically assimilate (I am using a modification that allows everyone to have Maria Theresa of Austria's unique ability) and cities placed by civilizations that are actually in a strategically efficient location, every other city I capture will be burnt down).

-I will be doing my best to make a couple of strong, and able-bodied allies (not including city states), and other than that, I will completely exterminate any other civilization that crosses my path, once I feel the time is perfectly right. As such, I plan on rapidly spreading my religion all across the seven Earth-like continents and reaping as many benefits both from natural resources and means that are self-implemented. I will obviously attempt to make my religion the dominant faith in the game (to clarify).

-Lastly, I thought it would be good that you guys know what I usually choose for my beliefs in my religion, so that you can offer feedback and I can make revisions/improvements where it is needed. I usually pick the following religious beliefs:

Founder - Tithe / Apostles of Opulence (modification alias)
Follower - Religious Community / Religious Labor (modification alias)
Follower - Cathedrals / Construction: Cathedrals (modification alias)
Enhancer - Religious Texts / Holy Texts (modification alias)
Bonus - Itinerant Preachers / Holy Preacher (modification alias)

--

So, when it comes down to it; is my religious beliefs efficient/fine as they are, or could they use improvement? I'm definitely curious to what my fellow peers think on the subject. Please let me know what all of you guys think!

Thanks,

Thomas James Ciotola
"TomOfAction"

 

[SirPepsi]

Unfortunately, the mods you have installed may have altered gameplay so much so that what I say doesn't apply.

That said, I'd recommend (considering you're going for a domination victory):

Founder: Church Property to gain gold off of the AIs ICS
Follower: Divine Inspiration (considering you will be the one to construct all wonders)
Follower: Pagodas (Instead of Cathedrals for the +1 extra happiness)
Enhancer: Religious Texts (for faster spread)
Bonus: This is a MUST, if you're going to play the game as you say (in my opinion) - Just War for the 20% combat bonus

Good Luck!

 

[Resipsa]

Yeah if you're going to Dominate a large map Just War is better than IP. You'll be manually spreading religion, also I'd probably go with Ceremonial Burial as opposed to Tithe (or maybe not I haven't played emperor in a while do you suffer an assload of unhappiness on the difficulty?)

 

[Vintage Port]

Sounds like you should have an easy game.

In your mod'd Civ you picked both RT and IP? Just a little overpowered. You should have no problems spreading your religion.

All VCs disabled except domination.

AI can't build wonders. (can you build wonders? or are all wonders disabled for all Civs including you?)

Looks like this will be very easy for you. I'd say you already won.

 

[slowcar]

All VCs disabled except domination.

Time to maul Deity

 

[TomOfAction]

Hello,

Since I'm a bit new and unfamiliar to using and replying to forum posts, I'll address all feedback up until this point in time, in sequenced-based format (sorry, ha ha):

SirPepsi -- The mods that I am using don't really remove/alter the current religious choices/pantheons, instead, they basically add more variety to keep everything balanced and such. Apologies for not mentioning that in my initial post to this thread. Regarding your religious belief suggestions, I am still pondering whether the equivalence of 'Tithe' versus the equivalence of 'Church Property' would be more effective, in my case (for the time being, I picked 'Tithe', but if anyone can further elaborate in the matter, and explain why 'Church Property' could be better in terms of follower quantity (since I'm aiming for potentially hundreds of citizens from various cities following my religion), I'd gladly change my follower to make my religion more efficient). For my first follower, I actually debated between Pagodas and Cathedrals, and ended up picking Cathedrals, due to the fact that I don't have much of a problem with maintaining happiness throughout my empire (plus the specialist artist slot is always nice). For my second follower, I choose one of the modification's unique follower beliefs, which I believe is the production equivalent to 'Divine Inspiration', which provides me +1 production/hammer for each world wonder built in that said, particular city (I've learned that religious production can be rather dangerous, and actually can help enemies who follow my religion, which I am avoiding at all cost in doing so). For my enhancer, I choose 'Religious Texts' for the 34%/68% faster spreading of my religion (for obvious reasons). And lastly, for my bonus belief, I choose another enhancer which was your recommendation of 'Just War' / 'Faith Crusader', giving me a 20% attack bonus near enemy cities following my religion. Overall, I think that these choices are pretty solid for the game I am playing. Please let me know if I should make any improvements for similar future games.

Resipsa -- Yeah, I actually agree with you, and SirPepsi. Don't get me wrong, 'Itinerant Preachers', when utilized properly, is a pretty solid religious enhancer, but in my case scenario, 'Religious Texts' and 'Just War' will provide more proficient results. Also, regarding the 'Emperor' difficulty; in my personal experiences, I have found that maintaining an empire with at least 20 - 50 excess happiness points throughout the game, a heck of a lot easier when only having 4 - 6 main cities (usually only 4), and the rest are captured cities from other civilizations (since you a lot of excess unhappiness comes from citizen population and the number of cities you have). I feel that focusing your time on a few, centralized and fully developed cities, is a lot more effective in numerous ways, versus settling cities throughout the game left and right, which only have few citizens, buildings and etc... I will admit, that playing a difficulty level such as 'Prince' or below, it tends to be a lot easier to create a slew of cities, without suffering from heavy unhappiness penalties (my favored strategy of four main cities on for example, on a 'Settler' level difficulty, would result in probably 100+ excess happiness points later in the course of the game).

Vintage Port -- The game is going smoothly, as of so far. I am playing on standard speed, and am in the Medieval era. I've been playing on-and-off due to wrapping up loose-ends and exams in school. And the religious choices/beliefs that I listed in my original post, were just the choices I tended to pick in previous games. I actually learned a couple of things on the forums, and through this thread I created, that helped me pick the most effective religious strategy for this particular game. Regarding your previously made statements -- yes, all victories were disabled besides domination (just for personal preference, I know that Civilization is not all about fighting, I just do enjoy focusing on it specifically from time-to-time), and yes, the AIs cannot build wonders, but I can. The modification I am using only allows the human players to build wonders. This was done due to the difficulty level of the game being 'Emperor', since it is practically (or at least for me) impossible to build world wonders, due to the fact that the AIs get an unfathomable amount of science and production boosts/bonuses. I feel as if allowing only the humans to build wonders, sort of evens things out on the playing field and makes the game more sensible and fun to play, even on a difficulty level such as 'Emperor' or even higher. Lastly, I'm currently experimenting with mods and difficulty levels, in an attempt to adjust the game to the point where I can fully maximize the strategic thrill/experience of playing it (if that makes sense, ha ha).

Thanks to everyone who responded and gave me feedback as of so far,

Thomas James Ciotola
"TomOfAction"

 

[SirPepsi]

I consider the choices you made to be more than adequate - they should help you quite a bit Glad I could be of service. Might I recommend, however, that you eventually try a game in which the AI can build wonders - it really alters gameplay and makes it quite a bit more fun to know that you have to compete for WW and bonuses. If you'd prefer not to, then it's fine - just a suggestion that should help you advance past Emperor difficulty and even do far better in terms of knowledge of game mechanics overall.

I'm glad everything's running smoothly, so congrats!

Again, Good Luck, and keep with the updates - I'd like to know how the game progresses.

Regards,
SirPepsi

 

[Buccaneer]

Yeah, any game that has been modded to make even one gameplay change kind of throws everything else out. One cannot truly know the cascading effect it would have, nor how it alters the AI in the name of "balance" or variety. That's why almost all discussions here in S&T are about unmodded gameplay games. There are a number of Challenges and GotM here where you can try out Beliefs strategies without the need to resort to changing anything.

 

[joncnunn]

Very little will apply with extra beliefs randomly attached to the normal ones.

But playing Byzantine in standard game which is closest analog, I would normally choose:

Pantheon: Something terrign dependent that I have in starting area; faith based ones take priority.

Founder: Tithe

First follower: One of Feed the World, +2 happiness from Temples, and 15% increased production

Bonus: IP (spread faith further)

Enhancer: RT (and more faith)

Second Follower: See first follower above.