Curious about the role of religion in multiplayer.

[mothergoose]

I just got Gods and Kings. I played vanilla a lot, although only against the AI. Gods and Kings didn't change a whole lot from vanilla, other than the religion things.

I played a few games on a low difficult, just to get a hang of how the system works. I prefer to play india, because I think the happiness buff for population is OP as hell. I liked to rush to stone henge in vanilla anyway, and now with the faith bonus it is even more powerful than before. The food and growth rate bonus religious perks combo very well with tradition so I think that is obviously a good thing.

After about 150 or so turns though, it seems like religion stops being very important... like at all. I grabbed the gold bonus for number of followers, and tried to aggressively spread my religion to nearby civs. I managed to keep my religion very dominant in all of my cities, and spread it to about 20 or 30 citizens in enemy cities. I am playing on a low difficult against computers, who are stupid, and it seems like I didn't really get much at of it. Religion tends to naturally spread to your own cities just fine, but it doesn't seem really possible to spread your religion to enemy cities in any significant way. I know if I were playing a game against a person and I saw a profit waltzing up to my capital, i would just declare war and kill it immediately. It didn't seem very hard at all to get the occasional inquistor and missionary to keep religion in your own cities pretty homogeneous, and obviously you want that because you chose the religion that best serves you. It doesn't seem very worth while to spread religion to others however, and it seems like if you miss out on all the good religious perks you can still be totally fine if you make it to the late game.

So, how important is religion in a strategy? What are some of the more effective ways of using religion to your advantage?

 

[RStark]

Some very powerful strategy called Infinite City Sprawl is based totally on religion, that is on happiness believes, the religion includes.

Basically you can play without your religion at all, if you see that other options are considered to be more strategically valuable. However, the religion helps to tailor and enchance your civilization in certain ways. For example as India you are advised to take food multiplication beliefs for your religion.
Faith generation can be used to buy other great people in post industrial era.
Please read some strategy guides related with religion:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=482613
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=481906
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=482005

 

[Catan_Settler]

I think the typical multiplayer strat for a religion is just to get a useful pantheon to buff the terrain you've spawned in. However, if the starting terrain allows you to generate a decent amount of faith (ie: you're in desert or tundra, or have lots of stone/marble or gold/silver around so you can take a pantheon that gives more faith) then you find yourself having a few more options. If you're gonna be able to pump out some decent faith with a pantheon like Desert Folklore or Stone Circles, then you will find yourself able to amp your game pretty nicely.

For the most part, I am all about the happiness beliefs as happiness is one of those things that is rather limited in supply, so go for Ceremonial Burial and Asceticism (+1 happy from shrine) when I have the faith to found a religion early. From there, if I'm in good shape and get a 2nd prophet then I'd go for Holy Warriors (buy military units with faith) or maybe Guruship (+2 production if city has a specialist). Now bear in mind, this is only happening if I have a strong base of faith per turn, which only happens with the right start conditions (desert/tundra/stone/gold/silver) or the right civ (Maya, Ethiopia or the Celts).

Really the main benefit of the religion is the happiness, which you won't be able to get really any other way. In MP, you're just not going to have the gold to be buying up city states for happiness, so it pretty much comes down to Luxury resources and buildings, meanwhile it can be tricky to fit a lot of things like Circus' and Colliseums into your build order in MP as you tend to need a lot of units and a lot of settlers to be built pretty much continuously. As an added perk, you can eventually add the Holy Warriors belief when you enhance the religion. In these cases where you have a faith pantheon and start pushing past 20 faith per turn, you'll be getting a free unit every 7-8 turns which is usually pretty close to how long your capital takes to build them, which is nothing to sneeze at. This lets you just go full out building settlers in the capital (if your neighbours are leaving you alone) and using faith to buy units to defend them as they go off and found cities. Or, it's allowing you to crank out double the units you could otherwise.

Anyways, that's my main strategy for religion in multiplayer. My favorite civ for MP is the Maya, and the strategy works really nicely with them. Another early game trick I like to use with them is to beeline Theology as soon as all the worker techs I need are researched. This will pop you a free Great Person around the same time as you are geting to the last couple policies from the Liberty social policy tree. If you pick an engineer, you can use him to rush build the Oracle. This gives you a free policy, which puts you one policy from the end of liberty. Let that one complete, which gives you another free person, take another engineer an use him to rush build Hagia Sophia which grants you a free great prophet. So here you are, in the classical period with a couple free wonders and a freshly enhanced religion.

 

[pilot00]

In multiplayer the only way to make religion work is if you are a warmonger. Lets face it: Nobody will allow to spread something to their cities that makes you powerful. At least thats my reaction when I see a religious unit: DOW.

In MP everyone goes for the win, denying even the smallest advantage is critical (and this is something that the AI will never be able to do, despite that failing 'it guns for victory' line) to that extend it actually manages to simulate reality quite well: Crusades for everyone!

Now in single player where the AI is more 'accommodating' and it wont DOW you when your preachers start their thing, religion can range from minor buffs to becoming an integral part of your victory.

 

[Catan_Settler]

Yeah in MP you're not gonna be directly spreading your religion to other civs. They will definitely DOW you and kill your missionaries and prophets. However, spreading to your own cities is fine and spreading it to city states is also advisable and puts you in a situation where you can deny religious perks to other civs. With a civ like Maya, you are nearly always the first to found and the first to enhance, so it's downright foolish to ignore religion altogether. Take itinerant preachers, because it will passively infiltrate the other civs and mess up their own religions after you've spread your religion to a couple city states.

That is definitely part of the effectiveness of a Maya religion in MP, is that yours will be quite strong and the first out of the gate which will lead to strong pressure outwards, which then gimps the other players' attempts at using their own beliefs. But, pilot is right-- if you think you're going to be sending missionaries to other players lands, 9 times out of 10 they are gonna get killed off. By spreading to your own cities first, then to city states though, the passive pressure will lead to an easy +20 or +30 happiness that makes it a lot easier to either build more cities, or conquer more cities. And it also makes it a real pain in the butt for other civs to get their own choice of beliefs up and running in all their cities, cause their cities will just keep flipping to your religion.