Does anyone ever skip religion completely?

[cabert]

you sound like someone who needs a little more pratice of the game.
If you don't play war, and don't play diplomacy = religions, you miss a big deal of the game!

 

[Swedishguy]

I play diplomacy, it's just that I start to get tired of the nasal voices of the jewish... Funny that Israel isn't in this game!

 

[Newbert]

In my current game (monarch difficulty, playing as Isabella) I decided to make a grab for the early religions, something I usually don't try. Well, let me tell you, it's one hell of a money maker! I managed to found all three early religions and got Islam later on. With all four shrines and missionaries spreading (mostly my state) religion to the heathens I have money rolling in (~100 gpt, with 70% sci & 30% culture) and lots of friends with whom to wage war on the infidels.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

In my current game (monarch difficulty, playing as Isabella) I decided to make a grab for the early religions, something I usually don't try. Well, let me tell you, it's one hell of a money maker! I managed to found all three early religions and got Islam later on. With all four shrines and missionaries spreading (mostly my state) religion to the heathens I have money rolling in (~100 gpt, with 70% sci & 30% culture) and lots of friends with whom to wage war on the infidels.

I agree completely. I've found that even when I'm someone like Alexander (who usually has no business grabbing early religions), I'm still rushing through Mysticism to Polytheism to grab Hinduism and at the same time, building Stonehendge. I find the income that shrines provide are completely unstoppable especially when I have a huge army to fund in the early game before cottages or specialists can provide a decent economy.

 

[InFlux5]

The financial boost that early religions give is not to be discounted. But at the same time you have to make sacrifices to get that boost. You delay military/infrastructure techs for religious techs, and tie up cities with monasteries and missionaries. I'm not saying that it isn't worth it, just that you pay a "price" to have all that money rolling in.

When I try to play a "religion game" I find myself frantically trying to build missionaries and get them to every city in the world. It's actually kind of stressful, and I'd usually rather build something else in those cities. The boost is most noticeable in the early game; I think other financial builds pay off more in the long run. If you consider how many hammers a missionary takes in order to get 1 gpt, it seems like a short-term fix. In the long run you need other investments to build a strong economy. Obviously, ideally you would have all that infrastructure plus income from shrines. I'm just saying that can be difficult to do. All in all I think this is great, an example of the endless variety in this game.

 

[Swedishguy]

In my current game (monarch difficulty, playing as Isabella) I decided to make a grab for the early religions, something I usually don't try. Well, let me tell you, it's one hell of a money maker! I managed to found all three early religions and got Islam later on. With all four shrines and missionaries spreading (mostly my state) religion to the heathens I have money rolling in (~100 gpt, with 70% sci & 30% culture) and lots of friends with whom to wage war on the infidels.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

The financial boost that early religions give is not to be discounted. But at the same time you have to make sacrifices to get that boost. You delay military/infrastructure techs for religious techs, and tie up cities with monasteries and missionaries. I'm not saying that it isn't worth it, just that you pay a "price" to have all that money rolling in.

When I try to play a "religion game" I find myself frantically trying to build missionaries and get them to every city in the world. It's actually kind of stressful, and I'd usually rather build something else in those cities. The boost is most noticeable in the early game; I think other financial builds pay off more in the long run. If you consider how many hammers a missionary takes in order to get 1 gpt, it seems like a short-term fix. In the long run you need other investments to build a strong economy. Obviously, ideally you would have all that infrastructure plus income from shrines. I'm just saying that can be difficult to do. All in all I think this is great, an example of the endless variety in this game.

I must disagree here. I usually have 2 cities (maybe 3) pumping out missionaries in 2-3 turns. I'll spread my religions fairly quickly and they tend to spread through trade routes as well when you do this. I'm still running a 90-100% science slider in the late 1900's. B/c having 90 wealth coming in from combined religions plus bank/grocer/market = 180 wealth from one city per turn. It remains strong throughout the game.

 

[Skallagrimson]

I found at least 2 religions. That helps me alot with building of shrines to have my research rate at 70-100%. Without religion how do you solve money problem?

1) Being very picky about where to build cities.
2) Queue-swapping unit stacks rather than fully building them (saves on unit maintenance costs, and if you discover a tech, queued up units automatically "upgrade" in the queue).
3) Supplementing the research path with tech-trading so that 70% research isn't necessary to at least "keep up" with the techs of the other civs.

 

[Skallagrimson]

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.

An important point. A powerful rival next-door is an axeman challenge. A powerful rival on the other side of the world, is a damn near impossible challenge. Oversea conquests in the early era typically amount to hair-pulling frustration as every one of your troop-transporting galleys get sunk by an AI's impossibly-spammed and never-ending fleet.

 

[Wlauzon]

In my current game (monarch difficulty, playing as Isabella) I decided to make a grab for the early religions, something I usually don't try. Well, let me tell you, it's one hell of a money maker! I managed to found all three early religions and got Islam later on. With all four shrines and missionaries spreading (mostly my state) religion to the heathens I have money rolling in (~100 gpt, with 70% sci & 30% culture) and lots of friends with whom to wage war on the infidels.

A while back, due mainly to a lot of luck on resources, a great map, and some very smart scouts that found a LOT of goody huts with tech, I managed to get 6 religions.

I also had Spiral Minaret and Wall Street (due to some luck getting Great Engineers), so I built missionaries like crazy. By 2000 or so I had more money coming in than I could spend.

Never been able to get more than 5 religions since (on Prince).

But it is not all sweetness - if you beeline for the religions, you can miss getting a lot of the other techs for a long time, which is where my skilled scouts made a big difference.

 

[Wlauzon]

A powerful rival on the other side of the world, is a damn near impossible challenge. Oversea conquests in the early era typically amount to hair-pulling frustration as every one of your troop-transporting galleys get sunk by an AI's impossibly-spammed and never-ending fleet.

The AI is really stupid that way at times. I have had Monty attack me on Huge continents when it took like 20 turns just for his boats to get to me. And axemen just don't cut it against cavalry, yet he kept sending more to just die on my shores before they could do much but maybe pillage a square or two.

IMO, it is nearly pointless to try and take a civ on another continent until you get flight, then you can start airlifting units in like crazy.

 

[Minmaster]

on higher levels, (emp+) i will only choose religion if everyone else i know has it and there is only like 1 civ with a diff. religion.

 

[Swedishguy]

I must disagree here. I usually have 2 cities (maybe 3) pumping out missionaries in 2-3 turns. I'll spread my religions fairly quickly and they tend to spread through trade routes as well when you do this. I'm still running a 90-100% science slider in the late 1900's. B/c having 90 wealth coming in from combined religions plus bank/grocer/market = 180 wealth from one city per turn. It remains strong throughout the game.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^^ don't quite get it, but
anyway,

IMO, it is nearly pointless to try and take a civ on another continent until you get flight, then you can start airlifting units in like crazy.

This can be true, unless you enjoy building a lot of marines and loading a butload of them and artillery into transports with a couple transports with tanks, send them across the ocean with pleanty of BS or destroyers. Now:

1. Bombard a nice coastal city to nothing in 1 turn.
2. Send a few suicide artillery into the city to reduce all the defenders including the best one
3. Send in your nicely promoted marines (you should have westpoint at this point in the game) in to take over the city.
4. Unload your tanks into the city for your land invasion with a few marines to defend your new coastal city.
5. Move onto the next coast city with your remaining artillery/marines.
6. Use tanks to destroy improvements and kill the defenders the AI will send out into the land
7. Use tanks to take/raze inland cities as you please.

Of course, this is all dependent on your opponent not having a large force of tanks of his own!

 

[Shillen]

Shrines are completely overrated unless you capture one from an AI. Building one yourself and spreading a religion around yourself is very costly (in hammers and the great prophet) and barely pays for itself in the long run. Capturing a shrine on the other hand is just a huge bonus because the AI did all the dirty work for you.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^I agree with your opinion of capturing, but not of building. If you are the founder of a religion, and successfully spread it around and also get the shrine, you will have many allies and a lot of income. You don't think capturing a Holy City with a shrine will cost military units (=>hammers), GPT (from supply/military costs), and prestige in the world (diplomacy)? I think discovering religion, building shrine, and spreading religion is a much better way of handling things. I am a fan of having MANY allies in the early game... now the later game, that's a different story altogether!

 

[DaviddesJ]

I've never found it hard to wage war overseas. The AI doesn't understand how to use ship chaining, so, I have much more mobility in delivering my forces quickly where I want them. I'd say it's actually easier than waging war overland.

And I agree with Shillen, building shrines is too expensive for what you get for them, in the early game. That's a great person that you're not using for something else. Sure, they could generate a lot of income in 1900 AD, but my games never last that long, anyway.

 

[Shillen]

^^I agree with your opinion of capturing, but not of building. If you are the founder of a religion, and successfully spread it around and also get the shrine, you will have many allies and a lot of income. You don't think capturing a Holy City with a shrine will cost military units (=>hammers), GPT (from supply/military costs), and prestige in the world (diplomacy)? I think discovering religion, building shrine, and spreading religion is a much better way of handling things. I am a fan of having MANY allies in the early game... now the later game, that's a different story altogether!

It just doesn't work in my experience. On the higher difficulties you might be able to found one or two religions, but good luck getting more than that without majorly neglecting other aspects of the game. That leaves 4 religions leftover that most likely 4 different AI's are going to found. These AI's will use their founded religion no matter how much you spread religion to their cities (unless you use trade deals asking them to convert to yours, but they will convert right back after 10 turns).

I just don't see the value in it. More likely you will take a diplo hit from using your own religion than getting a diplo boost. I find it much better to either not use a religion or convert to a neighbor's religion for a guaranteed diplo bonus (and I can capture the shrine later if I want to).

edit: Btw, I'm not saying that if I found a religion I won't build the shrine. I'm just saying people value self-built shrines way too highly. It really isn't a huge advantage.

 

[blitzkrieg1980]

^^^Well, I see your point, but those other religions come into play late enough that I've already gotten the diplomacy i was looking for at the time. Plus I always play with at least 10 civs, so 4 civs having a different religion isn't that bad. If I've successfully arrested 3 religions and spread my state religion far and wide, the other AI who didn't found religions will remain your friends. I play on Noble, too, so that may have to do with it. You don't need to grab most religions. Just 2 of the first 3 will do . maybe grab christianity after that. Now you can focus on other things.

I don't know, I guess i've just had a lot of success with this strategy. I also use a very unorthodox hybrid economy.

 

[DaviddesJ]

I don't know, I guess i've just had a lot of success with this strategy. I also use a very unorthodox hybrid economy.

You might find, at Noble, that you'll have a lot of success with any strategy.