Best Religion for Songhai Warmonger

[MIS]

I've looked through the forums, there appears to be contradictory advice. Assume Deity, Pangaea.

Pantheon:
1) God of Commerce (because of early river city connections) EDIT: Less good after March 1 Beta Release.
2) God of War
3) Goddess of Protection

Founder Belief:
Many have suggested Hero Worship. But @Minh Le took it, then wrote:

"Hero Worship is... strange. While the Golden Age is nice to have, it doesn't help warmongering too much (unless you're Persia). The faith is unnecessary too. I wouldn't pick that again, there are many Founder Beliefs which suit a warmonger better than this."

Follower Belief:
Mandir

Enhancer Belief:
Mendicancy

All feedback welcome

 

[zeofig]

Any pantheon that works with your terrain can be good, although some (like springtime) are too slow because you want to rush military theory and construction already. God of All Creation can be good if you feel like usurping a religion. You can build a shrine second and then just forget about producing faith while still getting a huge bonus.

I think goddess of protection can be a bit slow if you want to go authority and make lots of cavalry for tribute/war, since you're gonna want to build shrine/monument/walls/barracks/stoneworks in every city. Might be nice with progress.

 

[andersw]

I've looked through the forums, there appears to be contradictory advice. Assume Deity, Pangaea.

Pantheon:
1) God of Commerce (because of early river city connections)
2) God of War
3) Goddess of Protection

Founder Belief:
Many have suggested Hero Worship. But @Minh Le took it, then wrote:

"Hero Worship is... strange. While the Golden Age is nice to have, it doesn't help warmongering too much (unless you're Persia). The faith is unnecessary too. I wouldn't pick that again, there are many Founder Beliefs which suit a warmonger better than this."

Follower Belief:
Mandir

Enhancer Belief:
Mendicancy

All feedback welcome

I prefer war on Pangea because it founds faster.
With the new (march 1) god of commerce I'm not sure how attractive it is for Songhai.

Hero worship works very well in tandem with Zelotry, you can plopp some early GP tiles for prod/culture.
You will also always have faith for missionaries/inquisitors, I find it hard to beat as wide warmonger.
COE is an alternative but more suited for warmongering with faith monsters (spain, celts and such) in my opinion.

Follower:
I like order, if I'm going to war, I'm going to war.
It also reduce distress which tends to be a huge issue for wide.

Enhancer:
Mendiancy is ok but I prefer zelotry so I can faith buy with full exp while using production hammers for building infra.

For the last belief I prefer thrift or cathedrals for much needed gold.

Reform -> crusader spirit.

However I'm on emperor diff so maybe you want something different on Diety.

 

[CrazyG]

Open sky can work out pretty well since you are rushing to connect horses anyways.

 

[Patine]

I've often wondered - why doesn't Civ5, as an iteration of the series, seem to have actual real world style religions, or even remotely close, if it's civilization, advances, improvements, wonders, units, etc., are loosely based on the real world? I find this inexplicable, bizarre, and a bit off-putting.

 

[zeofig]

I've often wondered - why doesn't Civ5, as an iteration of the series, seem to have actual real world style religions, or even remotely close, if it's civilization, advances, improvements, wonders, units, etc., are loosely based on the real world? I find this inexplicable, bizarre, and a bit off-putting.

How do you mean? They are named after real world religions, after all... I don't think Civ 5's choice of religions is out of line with its depiction of the world in general (which is very limited on many levels, including religion).

 

[andersw]

Open sky can work out pretty well since you are rushing to connect horses anyways.

Yes somehow forgot this.
Its probably my new favourite if I dont have an all hilly/forest/jungle start, its possibly too good.
Size 6 capital have +3f+3c with more yields on improved pastures and its rarely hard to find tiles for it in new cities.

 

[azum4roll]

You have to work even numbers of plains/grassland to get 3f3c though. And no specialists.

 

[CrazyG]

I just finished a game as Songhai, and I'll put a few more thoughts.

First, the Tabya gives you a lot of production. Seriously, this building is just awesome. So, a religion that gives production is likely less important than for most other warmongers. Zealotry basically gives indirect production, I think its a low priority for Songhai. Even without zealotry I never had any issues maintaining a large army.

My priority would be science. It just matches your high production really well. Gold is another good option, just for helping unit upgrades. Cathedrals is generally just an amazing belief and it works well with the Tabya's 1 hammer on river tiles. I would avoid production or food beliefs, I just had plenty of those yields, and happiness was sometimes a concern.

Early game is stupidly easy because Mandekalu are just a crazy good unit. The biggest potential problem is probably a runaway who begins far away from you, I think science or combat bonuses would be most helpful to address that situation. Culture to get imperialism and autocracy earlier could help too.