Changing number of allowed religions

[RealAntithesis]

How do we go about changing the number of allowed religions? I'm getting a little annoyed with all the religions disappearing despite me doing pretty much nothing except trying to get one (build holy site early as possible, build shrine etc), but I'm getting beaten to all of them on Emperor. This is despite me looking in the Great Person screen every now and then to gauge my progress compared to the others. It seems as if I have a good chance - I start the earliest, and I'm definitely in front of all the others when there is 15 or so turns to go. But then... I check later on and they've suddenly all been taken with none left for me. This is usually a rage quit moment for me, so to get around my view that this is all very unfair, I would like to make sure that the number of religions equals the number of players - if that's possible.

 

[Leyrann]

You can change the number per map size in whereeveryouinstalledsteam/Steam/steamapps/common/Sid Meier's Civilization VI/Base/Assets/Gameplay/Data/Maps.xml

Scroll to the bottom, the last number is the maximum number of religions per map size. As the file also warns you, there can never be more religions than there are different beliefs (I think there's 9 possible beliefs of each kind). PLEASE NOTE: If you change this, you're changing the game files themselves, so you should probably make a backup of the .xml file, even though everything should be allright (better than having to re-download the game).

That said, I think you could get a religion with the current maximum if you gear towards it more. You have to rush Astrology (obviously) without waiting out hoping to get the boost (don't rely on luck unless you want to ragequit 90% of your games), and then immediately start building a holy site in your capital. Once you're done with the holy site, build a shrine, after that, go for the holy site prayers project. By that point, you'll probably have a religion. I do have to say I can't give exact help, as I use several mods, among them one that changes the tech tree (pushing Astrology one tech further and moving shrines to the civic tree) and one that changes AI behaviour (which also seems to lessen their district rushing early on a bit). If you just full out focus on great prophet points to the point of using projects, you should be fine though.

 

[Victoria]

On emporer getting divine spark, putting out a second city, getting a holy site in both then running projects seems to work most of the time. Or if really keen, being arab helps.

The AI will often happily buy the GP, it is upsetting but frigging with the game files seems a bit OTt

 

[Leyrann]

On emporer getting divine spark, putting out a second city, getting a holy site in both then running projects seems to work most of the time. Or if really keen, being arab helps.

The AI will often happily buy the GP, it is upsetting but frigging with the game files seems a bit OTt

It's the most basic way of modding the game, really.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

You have more chance if you play as Russia, Japan or Aztecs too. Egypt get a lesser bonus to Holy Site production, but it's worth a try.

You can also try wiping out all neighboring religious civs. For example, if you spawn next to Spain and India in a Small map, taking them both out before they get a Great Prophet will greatly increase your chances.

 

[RealAntithesis]

Thanks all. I suppose I was more annoyed by the game presenting me with a progress bar of how well I was doing, and then throwing that completely out the window a few turns or so later by telling me that it was completely irrelevant and all the AIs just bought their Great Prophets a couple of turns from each other without me knowing.

 

[isau]

A low key way to change this is to just remove tech requirements from one of the other districts. My "combined tweaks" mod does this with the Encampment. The AI will tend to build whatever district it has access to early and that is why it so often grabs Holy Sites. In my Combined Tweaks mod on Standard speed the last religion tends to get grabbed around turn 100. That's actually partly because I also increase the number of GPT the Holy Site provides so I wouldnt have games where you get near the end and still there are religion slots left.

 

[planetfall]

Thank you for this idea

 

[cain3456]

The Religion Expanded mod lets you set the number of religions in a game up to 16.