Buddhism, hinduism, judaism or nothing?

[romelus]

none of the later religions ever become widespread in the games i've played. the civ discovering them might convert, but by then everyone else had already converted to the early 3. it's getting a little boring

it's politically cautious to make all religions the same, but i think the later religions need some serious boost to make them anything more than a 1 civ religion. the AI probably spends the 1 free missionary it gets from the later religions on one of its own cities...

 

[Dairuka]

Religions will only spread naturally through trade routes. Therefore if you want your religion to spread to an AI, or an AI's religion to spread to you, you need to open the borders, and have a trade route or two with them.

Religions will not spread naturally if you have two or more religions already in that city.

Later Religions are better for players who don't opt for the early three. The AI is not quite as intelligent and rarely spreads the later religions. Although you could always adopt them and spread them yourself.

I almost always get the later 4 religions, because I HATE... and I mean, HATE to try for the early three on Monarch or Emperor difficulties. Mostly because getting them means losing out on something else later on...

As for Balance? Simple, the religions aren't meant to be balanced, they're merely there as a bonus to the gameplay. So don't worry about it. =)

 

[The Last Conformist]

In my first game, Confucianism became the 2nd greatest religion (after Buddhism and just before Hinduism) by virtue of being the first religion founded on the smaller of the two continents. Also, Christianity eventually passed Judaism in the number of adherents.

I ended up controling the holy cities of Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity, despite being a rather puny civ from the gunpowder age on, and not making any particular attempt to found them. (Noble difficulty level.)

 

[MrCynical]

Christianity and confucianism can also become the most widespread religion (though usually only when I found it). Taoism and Islam appear rather late, but can still play an important role.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I usually switch to religious freedom first chance I get to mitigate the religion issue. I like going for an early religion and then sending a few missioinaries around to establish a presence in neighboring civs. If they don't have a religion, they will often convert and that really helps.

 

[The Last Conformist]

Unless I've misunderstood, Free Religion protects you from the "You have adopted a heathen religion" penalty, which is kinda nice.

 

[Reveilled]

In one of my games, Every religion but Taoism was founded halfway round the world, so when I discovered Philosophy first, all of my Pagan neighbours converted to my Religion within a few turns.

So I think it really depend on how spread out the founders of the religions are. If the holy cities for Hinduism, Buddhism and Judaism are all next door to one another and are all fairly distant from other civs, the later religions can quickly take hold if there are significant numbers of pagans close to the founder and distant from the big three.

 

[Pyrion]

I spread Christianity like the plague. It helps to have universal suffrage though.

Rush the Pyramids if you can. Do whatever you can to get the Pyramids. Once you can rush-build a few missionaries and have open borders, you can get it going in no time.

 

[SuperBeaverInc.]

In one game I just kept building missionaries in one of my cities and sending them out. By the end of the game, almost every city had Christianity in it, except for Egypt...who I later conquered.

 

[panzooka]

i always get confucianism and theology very early, but i dont play spiritual leader
this is what i do.
first build stonehenge.
build oracle, and get code of law as free tech, found confucianism.
few turns later, great prophet come out, research theology.
its not too hard

 

[Door]

In the first game I played the Spanish founded Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism. They didn't expand very much though and I wiped them out pretty quickly. By the end of the game the whole world was either Christian or Taoist.

 

[karadoc]

it's politically cautious to make all religions the same, but i think the later religions need some serious boost to make them anything more than a 1 civ religion. the AI probably spends the 1 free missionary it gets from the later religions on one of its own cities...

I am absolutely opposed to the idea of boosting some religions over the others. I'm so opposed to it that it may even be a deal-breaker for me. (ie. enough to stop me from supporting the game at all). It's not just politically cautious, religion runs much deeper than that. Besides, I disagree that any religion needs a boost; the late religious don't seem to have trouble spreding in the games I play.

 

[romelus]

I am absolutely opposed to the idea of boosting some religions over the others. I'm so opposed to it that it may even be a deal-breaker for me. (ie. enough to stop me from supporting the game at all). It's not just politically cautious, religion runs much deeper than that. Besides, I disagree that any religion needs a boost; the late religious don't seem to have trouble spreding in the games I play.

so if they gave the 3 later religions 3 free missionaries instead of 1, you'd give up playing civ 4? now that is crazy

 

[karadoc]

so if they gave the 3 later religions 3 free missionaries instead of 1, you'd give up playing civ 4? now that is crazy

Well.. you've taken an extreme case. That wouldn't be so bad. I still don't think they should do that, but in that particular case I wouldn't mind so much.
What I was really thinking of is if they decided to give Christianity a commerce boost, or Taoism a happiness boost. That (or something like that), I think, would be a disaster.

 

[Pounder]

Hinduism has about 44% of the world in my current game, 4 out of 7 Civs adopted as state religion.

 

[Melendwyr]

Later religions definitely need a slight advantage. I support giving them more than one extra missionary. (Islam in particular is very difficult to spread.)

 

[dh_epic]

I'd have to say that every religion except Islam has become the #1 religion in the games I play. And even the later religions -- Christianity, Taoism, Confucianism -- often become a major player, if not a solid #2.

I still feel like they could maybe do a subtle tweak or two here to give the later religions a better shot. But on the whole, they managed to make the first 6 pretty balanced.

 

[Silver Marmot]

I wish that they could give more choice in religion. Sure, the religions don't give any different benefits, but for the sake of variety I'd like games where Islam and Christianity dominate instead of Buddhism and Hinduism.

 

[Psyringe]

In the xml files, every religion has a specified "spread factor", which is currently set to the same value for all religions. It can easily be modified for the later religions to allow them to spread faster.

 

[romelus]

i've noticed that the divine right tech for islam doesn't even need to be researched, as it's not required for any of the later advances, unlike the 5 other religious techs. once i went all the way to the space race without knowing divine right.