Controlling holy city locations

[Woodreaux]

I want to try an experimental "Faith-Based Economy" . I'm planning to use a Spiritual leader who starts w/Mysticism (to win either Hindu or Buddhism race) and leverage the cheap temples, focusing the religious building Wonders, and running a slew of priests. Along the way, I plan to nab at least one other religion. Not too hard to pull off, but here's the trick: I want the both (or better yet, all 3) to be founded in my capitol.

The first is a no brainer, it'll happen there by default. The ones that come later are trickier, because I'll have other cities and I've noticed new religions tend to spread themselves out whenever there exist other (non-holy) cities available. Is there are a way to suppress this, and increase the chance of new religions also appearing in my capital (without doing a 1 city challenge)?

 

[DaveMcW]

Go into worldbuilder and edit the holy city.

I wouldn't call this cheating, because multiple shrines in the capital is not cost-effective anyway.

 

[Joshua368]

Without that, a one city challenge is the only way to go.

Go for polytheism, then pick up monotheism, then build the oracle and snag code of laws. You should be able to get all three early enough for one city to still be sufficient. Not optimal, but good enough for the lower levels.

 

[Yesod]

Like Joshua said, polytheism and monotheism in a row will get your first two, while Oracle will get you your third. Send a different missionary to your 3 closest rivals. This can work on Monarch without losing you the game.

Even on Emperor though, you can get Buddhism and Confucianism before settling your second city (you can have the settlers waiting if you like).

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

The first is a no brainer, it'll happen there by default. The ones that come later are trickier, because I'll have other cities and I've noticed new religions tend to spread themselves out whenever there exist other (non-holy) cities available. Is there are a way to suppress this, and increase the chance of new religions also appearing in my capital (without doing a 1 city challenge)?

You probably aren't going to like the answer.

 

[Woodreaux]

Thanks for the answers. A good capital city setup with a Mysticism having civ usually allows me to get one of the first couple of early religions, but somebody else always snags the other one. I'm not trying to get more than 2, I just want to get a double holy-city and settle the rest of the great prophets there in order to make great profits!

I wasn't aware of the new religion spawning algorithm, but now I know I have some measure of influence over it. Thanks for the link.

 

[Celebithil]

Given the holy city spread algorithm the best way to get multiple religions in your capital without going OCC seems to be to 1) be sure to spread your religion to all other cities you have and 2) build a palace in your second largest city. When you've got your multiple holy city you can always rebuild the palace there (I know, kind of silly, but apart from going OCC that is the best I can come up with). Finally be sure to whip away the population in all other cities right before you found the next religion.

 

[Xellos-_^]

Go into worldbuilder and edit the holy city.

I wouldn't call this cheating, because multiple shrines in the capital is not cost-effective anyway.

try matching the Holy City Shrinies with Wall St, it is a good mine. I always make my most holy city also my Wall St. city.

 

[Bigv32]

Careful I tried this before and it was interesting. I got the first three religions, and then I got lucky and I got one more. These were all in my capital. The problem was that I did not expand.

Combine that with some poor diplomacy and war options and I lost before modern age. My panzers were the only reason I lasted that long. I was behind in tech, but after I spammed all my religions, gold was not longer a problem.

 

[oyzar]

I've managed 7 religions in cap before, on monarch i belive, though i did set none of my opponents to start with myst...

 

[Kornaki]

I just happened to stumble upon this a little bit ago

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=133492

Only prince (of course, that's still beyond me, but for everyone else ) but maybe it gives some insight into the "right way" to try for a religion economy

 

[JammerUno]

If the capital gets such a massive malus against getting to be the holy city, it's possible to spam a settler while founding buddhism, then settling in a crap location, found hinduism there while keeping the city at 1 pop, found confu with the oracle, which will also end up in the second city, still at size 1. Then wait till the barbs raze that baby. Result; there's only one early religion, and it's in your capital.

 

[Kornaki]

Jammer, I think the goal is to have one city with a bunch of shrines so when you put in wall street and things like that you get loads of gold. Having your 'holiest' city get razed is kind of counterproductive

 

[JammerUno]

Jammer, I think the goal is to have one city with a bunch of shrines so when you put in wall street and things like that you get loads of gold. Having your 'holiest' city get razed is kind of counterproductive

There's a couple of reasons only one religion is nice;

• It's far easier spreading the religion if there's only one; the odds of automatical spreading decrease when there's religions present in a city. AIs won't have unshrined religions to spread either.
• You only need on shrine, so only one GP, the shrine will autospread easier too.
• Your religion will become the dominant one, making for easy diplo in the early game, and a good chance of peaceful teching (good if it's a multi-continent map)

In any case, I usually find actively spreading a waste of good hammers, so when I found more, I'll just focus on only anyway. That's why this appeals to me.

 

[bhavv]

I used to try and found as many religions as possible too, but I found that is is far more effective to have only one and spread it everywhere. Spreading more then one religion takes too long and wastes your .

 

[noto2]

yeah, it's quite possible to get a triple shrine city, I have done it before (with Boudica, of all leaders) but I can't say it really helped me