Does religion make wars too easy?

[springroll95]

I think a lot of people disregard religion as useless, and it certainly can be, but I've started taking the Crusade belief (+10 combat strength near cities following your religion) and it is extremely powerful. While Teddy only gets +5 combat strength on his own continent, if you have a strong faith game, you can send apostles with any army you have to convert a city before waging war... This bonus is huge. Add in the Wars of Religion civic belief which gives +4 combat strength against units following a different religion and you have a massive +14 combat strength bonus against anyone you fight. From there on its simply too easy. Anyone else been dominating using this strategy?

 

[Lily_Lancer]

For +10 you need to be the same religion, for +4 you need to be a different one. For +14 you need to be both the same and the different

Crusade sounds good, but you have to spread your religion to those cities before attack, that's terrible.

 

[slowcar]

The question is if you can manage to convert the enemy city beforehand (especially in multiplayer). There are several apostle promotions that would help like Proselytizer, Translator, Orator. It would be extra strong against someone with defender of the faith.
Wars of Religion could still count if the enemy civilization has a different majority religion, but that's probably better tested in game.

 

[VeronicaCardican]

The question is: If you have the means to convert enemy cities like that, why not omit the bloodshed and just win a religious victory?

 

[Lily_Lancer]

The question is if you can manage to convert the enemy city beforehand (especially in multiplayer). .

I don't think you have chance to convert enemy cities in MP games. Your enemy can easily eliminate your apostles by military forces.

 

[EpicWestern]

On deity I'm against it. Getting a religion is just too hard. Holy site, shrine, and using prayers 3-4 times is pretty normal, which could have been spent pumping out 5-6 archers. That's just to get a religion. Then you still need to wait for temple and apostle to spread, and there's even a chance the bonus won't be available. The early game window to conquer a city with archer rush (and gain yourself some space in the process) is just too important and too reliable to pass up.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Normally we use 2 Holy Sites+2 Shrines instead of prayers.

 

[EpicWestern]

Normally we use 2 Holy Sites+2 Shrines instead of prayers.

Not really viable on deity unless you want to just accept a fail rate and lose to rushes a certain amount of the time.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Not really viable on deity unless you want to just accept a fail rate and lose to rushes a certain amount of the time.

This, together with Divine Spark, allows you to get 60 GPP before T45, I think. Anyway, don't try compete against Japan or Russia.

 

[slowcar]

On deity i usually try to conquer a religious city state, otherwise the investment into a holy site etc seems too expensive and just try not to loose to a religious victory.

The question is: If you have the means to convert enemy cities like that, why not omit the bloodshed and just win a religious victory?

I've never tried it, just thinking if it would be theoretically viable to convert a city in a war. +10 would be worth it, but it could also be quite costly in terms of faith, not much experience in this area.

 

[JustifierNA]

I think a lot of people disregard religion as useless, and it certainly can be, but I've started taking the Crusade belief (+10 combat strength near cities following your religion) and it is extremely powerful. While Teddy only gets +5 combat strength on his own continent, if you have a strong faith game, you can send apostles with any army you have to convert a city before waging war... This bonus is huge. Add in the Wars of Religion civic belief which gives +4 combat strength against units following a different religion and you have a massive +14 combat strength bonus against anyone you fight. From there on its simply too easy. Anyone else been dominating using this strategy?

Use Defender of the faith if you wish to pair it with wars of religion, also an interesting note is that while Defender of the faith WILL work for a foreign power it will not work against the founder of the religion who holds defender of the faith.


And better after you've captured a city from another player you can then use the +10 bonus from defender of the faith to keep and control that city.