With difficulty... I've found I need at least one religion to be competitive. Usually it's Hinduism, but I was beaten to it in my current game (just), and I actually made a beeline for Judaism ignoring all other techs (for the time being) just to get it - bronze working, alphabet etc. Because I knew getting it would be the best way I'd be able to remain competive. And I was right.
Does anyone ever skip religion completely?
- Thread starter Toshiro126
- Start date
acidsatyr
be water my friend...
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2006
- Messages
- 1,166
Shillen said:
Then again, without religion you can't get happiness from it, boost research with monasteries, build things like Sangkore (sp?) and Spiral M. which can be life savers, switch to powerful civics like Theocracy and Pacifism. In other words youre missing an important part of the game.
I play on immortal and 99% of the time it is better to have a religion than not, and if I start with mysticism I will always try to research polytheism first. Also, since I almost always play pure SE now it's almost essential to have these things.
Yes, you will make enemies with your religion, but you will make good friends. If nothing else, definitely more fun to play this way. Also not wanting to switch to certain civics because of wasted turns is not a good strategy imo.
I almost always neglect it completely (Monarch). Of course, I run into happiness problems a lot too. Even so, I don't think playing the early religion game is worth it.
1. There is always something more useful to research than Meditation or Polytheism. (If I don't start with Mysticism I'm almost certainly not going to try for an early religion.)
2. The computer might beat you to it anyway, meaning you wasted ~10 turns of research.
3. I don't like losing a turn to anarchy in the early game.
4. Expansion and military are essential to keeping up with the AI on Monarch and above. There just isn't time to waste on monasteries or temples. (Granted, your faith will often spread on its own in the early game.)
5. One of your neighbors will have their own religion in most cases. I find that letting this religion spread into my empire is usually the better choice.
When your neighbor founds a religion you can convert and play peaceful builder, or take them over and reap all the benefits of having founded it yourself without having to do so. This way you can research better techs and build up your military instead of spending time on religion.
You want religion, but founding it is kind of a burden. Since you know some of the AI's will do it, let them shoulder that burden and then take advantage.
1. There is always something more useful to research than Meditation or Polytheism. (If I don't start with Mysticism I'm almost certainly not going to try for an early religion.)
2. The computer might beat you to it anyway, meaning you wasted ~10 turns of research.
3. I don't like losing a turn to anarchy in the early game.
4. Expansion and military are essential to keeping up with the AI on Monarch and above. There just isn't time to waste on monasteries or temples. (Granted, your faith will often spread on its own in the early game.)
5. One of your neighbors will have their own religion in most cases. I find that letting this religion spread into my empire is usually the better choice.
When your neighbor founds a religion you can convert and play peaceful builder, or take them over and reap all the benefits of having founded it yourself without having to do so. This way you can research better techs and build up your military instead of spending time on religion.
You want religion, but founding it is kind of a burden. Since you know some of the AI's will do it, let them shoulder that burden and then take advantage.
Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. If theres a dominant religion and the holy city is fairly close, then i'll take it and convert, mainly to cancel out the masses of "you declared war on our friend". I quite like theocracy, but most of the time it's just not worth it, and it becomes useless to me in the modern era when my production cities are mostly building planes.
If there's another continent with civs on that needs caravels to get to, I'll make sure I don't have a state religion when we meet. That way they get angry with all my neighbours, but are willing to trade with me.
If there's another continent with civs on that needs caravels to get to, I'll make sure I don't have a state religion when we meet. That way they get angry with all my neighbours, but are willing to trade with me.
slowcar
King
If you somehow get your major cities to share the same religion and the diplomatic situation allows it switching to state religion and a religious civic may well be worth it.
Most of the time you have to spread it actively, wasting production on missionaries and, if you didn't found it yourself, even giving the AI an extra gold with every one of them as well as the chance to spy on you.
On the pro:
-You can have a civic that gives +25% building prod, +2 XP or +100% GP (in all cities with it)
-You can make better friends with your religious buddies
-You get a further +1 of happiness (in all cities with it)
-You can use Sangkore University and/or Spiral Minaret
On the con:
- Without being spiritual you need at least 2 turns of anarchy
- You may need quite some ressources to build monasteries and missionaries. (with org. rel. you don't need monasteries) if your religion did not spread to all your cities all by itself.
-You pay high maintenance costs for your religious civic
-You get negative modifiers with a lot of other civs eventually
-All non-statereligion cities lose their cultural bonus for having a religion, 1 for normal, 5 for founding cities.
I often switch to org. rel. or theo IF i have my cities with the same religion or can spare a city to spam missionaries. I almost never switch to a state religion early in the game.
And with free religion available i often take it as it is cheaper and opens up a lot of diplomatic options.
I would say it heavily depends on the situation you are in, i think in about 40-50% of my games i don't adopt a state religion.
Most of the time you have to spread it actively, wasting production on missionaries and, if you didn't found it yourself, even giving the AI an extra gold with every one of them as well as the chance to spy on you.
You don't get the +1 for state religion (in cities where you have it) but you can still get a plus with temples. monasteries work independent from your state religion so it's neither a pro nor a con.
What exactly is the influence of a state religion on a SE?
On the pro:
-You can have a civic that gives +25% building prod, +2 XP or +100% GP (in all cities with it)
-You can make better friends with your religious buddies
-You get a further +1 of happiness (in all cities with it)
-You can use Sangkore University and/or Spiral Minaret
On the con:
- Without being spiritual you need at least 2 turns of anarchy
- You may need quite some ressources to build monasteries and missionaries. (with org. rel. you don't need monasteries) if your religion did not spread to all your cities all by itself.
-You pay high maintenance costs for your religious civic
-You get negative modifiers with a lot of other civs eventually
-All non-statereligion cities lose their cultural bonus for having a religion, 1 for normal, 5 for founding cities.
I often switch to org. rel. or theo IF i have my cities with the same religion or can spare a city to spam missionaries. I almost never switch to a state religion early in the game.
And with free religion available i often take it as it is cheaper and opens up a lot of diplomatic options.
I would say it heavily depends on the situation you are in, i think in about 40-50% of my games i don't adopt a state religion.
your opinion obviously. But in other words: You are missing an important part of the game, mainly to be able to influence other civs diplomatically without being bound to a certain block of religion.
Phyr_Negator
Anti-tolerast
skip it always, but if I manage to found one then i'm still using it's benefits without conversion... That's only due to my dislike of religion.
Overall, you are most of the time forced to have any religion, otherwise your civ will be left behind by religious ones. Monasteries and temples cost almost nothing compared to bonuses they provide, and religion civics provide converted with immense bonuses you can only dream of, cuz only civic you can have without converting to rel is so far on tech tree that gap between you and opponents will grow to abyss. Org rel they can get in the beginning of the game and thus gain advantage in wonderbuilding etc. And early game build 75% of future sucsess.
P.S. i'm talking mostly about Multiplayer and I'm used to compensate religious civs' advantage with own agression - they loose a some time researching religion so I got chances to get Copper'horses fast and raid their cities, otherwise...war again but in the medieval or after amassing throng of catapults to prevent overadvqance of religion-owners.
That looks pretty much like barbarian tactics but it's effective and fits my paganism civic)))
Overall, you are most of the time forced to have any religion, otherwise your civ will be left behind by religious ones. Monasteries and temples cost almost nothing compared to bonuses they provide, and religion civics provide converted with immense bonuses you can only dream of, cuz only civic you can have without converting to rel is so far on tech tree that gap between you and opponents will grow to abyss. Org rel they can get in the beginning of the game and thus gain advantage in wonderbuilding etc. And early game build 75% of future sucsess.
P.S. i'm talking mostly about Multiplayer and I'm used to compensate religious civs' advantage with own agression - they loose a some time researching religion so I got chances to get Copper'horses fast and raid their cities, otherwise...war again but in the medieval or after amassing throng of catapults to prevent overadvqance of religion-owners.
That looks pretty much like barbarian tactics but it's effective and fits my paganism civic)))
Swedishguy
Deity
Combining early religion with Free Religion is agood idea I think.
I don´t yet play on high difficulty setting do I might be missing the point, but...
Nobody seems to be mentioning the value of founding an early religion and converting your neighbours (or at least the ones you fancy as allies) to your religion like some sort of a religious mentalist. All it takes is open borders and one missionary (though a few more will deter them from changing away again) and they will probably change over immediately.
Then you have a friend for life and increased revenue when you built the shrine.
Is there a reason this might not work on higher diffiiculty settings? It seems win-win from here...
EDIT: I just realised this is a bit off the topic of this thread but to me this is a very compelling reason to found one. I guess it is also a good reason for adopting one, spreading your adopted religion to your heathen neighbours will be just as good for your diplomacy but unfortunately good for the treasury of the founding Civ...
Nobody seems to be mentioning the value of founding an early religion and converting your neighbours (or at least the ones you fancy as allies) to your religion like some sort of a religious mentalist. All it takes is open borders and one missionary (though a few more will deter them from changing away again) and they will probably change over immediately.
Then you have a friend for life and increased revenue when you built the shrine.
Is there a reason this might not work on higher diffiiculty settings? It seems win-win from here...
EDIT: I just realised this is a bit off the topic of this thread but to me this is a very compelling reason to found one. I guess it is also a good reason for adopting one, spreading your adopted religion to your heathen neighbours will be just as good for your diplomacy but unfortunately good for the treasury of the founding Civ...
Swedishguy
Deity
I agree. This is a very good system.vonBosch said:
but the gold is nice 
The problem is, most of the time, you don't want to be friends with your nearest neighbors. It is much easier to wage war against the guy next to you than the guy on the other side of the world. As such, I want the guy on the other side of the world to be my friend, while I pummel the guy next door. I welcome religion into my territory, but I typically refuse to adopt a state religion for precisely this reason. Now, if I somehow get a religion to spread from a different continent (or the other side of my continent), I'll seriously consider the pros and cons of adopting a state religion. More often than not, though, by this point I'm running free religion.vonBosch said:
Swedishguy
Deity
Oh, If you're a peacemonger when?
I found religon was the missing piece of the puzzle to improve my play. Prior to using relgion and the associated civics, I found the AI would pull away in terms of tech in the mid/ late game, this has changed since I focused on relgion to a greater degree.
I don't usually found a religion but always convert for the organised religon benefits - that 25% extra bonus kicks ass, I usually don't bother switching to Theocracy due to the time taken for anarchy, and the your citys generally tend to be bigger and stronger, and better prepared to produce troops from the extra buildings within them fom org rel anyway so I haven't found it necessary.
I think I avoided religon when I first started playing Civ4 because it was the most novel aspect of the game, and my personal biases against relgion. Now, it's probably my fave aspect. I am consistently having big wins on Monarch and am going to make the jump to Emperor
I don't usually found a religion but always convert for the organised religon benefits - that 25% extra bonus kicks ass, I usually don't bother switching to Theocracy due to the time taken for anarchy, and the your citys generally tend to be bigger and stronger, and better prepared to produce troops from the extra buildings within them fom org rel anyway so I haven't found it necessary.
I think I avoided religon when I first started playing Civ4 because it was the most novel aspect of the game, and my personal biases against relgion. Now, it's probably my fave aspect. I am consistently having big wins on Monarch and am going to make the jump to Emperor
Swedishguy
Deity
There should be an option to not have any religion in the game.
Swedishguy
Deity
??????????????????
Swedishguy
Deity
Haven't heard of it, is it some Warlords thing? I don't own it.
Swedishguy
Deity
But they are not funny for a peacemonger like me...
Similar threads
