Establishing your own religion too hard again

[jaolhe]

This seems to be a problem reported many versions ago, resurfacing its ugly head.

I've now started two games with Japan (not a very religion-focused civ) with a sole focus of getting your own religion. I've started by choosing the shrine as the first building in every city, building walls and barracks (that give faith to Japan) as soon as possible. I've also picked up the most faith-focused pantheon available both times.

I'm playing only the king difficulty, large map, epic speed. Both times I've failed miserably: at the time when the last religion slot was filled, I was still 30-40 turns away from getting a great prophet.
Is the current status WAD?

 

[crdvis16]

For what it's worth, I'm playing a game as Iroquois (0 faith bonuses) on Emperor and managed to grab the 2nd religion in my game (standard/standard). I used the God of Commerce pantheon with its synergy of faith from connected cities and using jungle/forest tiles as roads for Hiawatha, shrine first in every city, and went heavy on the early mass settlers to get about 6 or 7 cities ASAP. Didn't get lucky with any faith ruins or friend/ally any religious city state.

Is it possible that your game had more religious AI civs than usual? Maybe you're in a game with civs like Ethiopia/Celts/India who tend to get early religions?

Also, what policy tree did you take early? If Tradition, did you get the +2 faith/turn policy first? If Progress, did you settle a bunch of cities quickly to get those shrines going? How many cities? Possibly rush-buy shrines if you happen to have a good amount of gold, or production focus to get the shrines ASAP?

 

[PapaRockett]

Pantheon choice plays a huge factor. With God of War you'll easily get it if you have Authority. Otherwise AI got lucky with ancient ruins

What pantheon did you choose?

 

[Blue Ghost]

On what turns did the religions get founded? On Emperor, I’ve found that around turn 100 is the cutoff, which is very achievable.

 

[infidel88]

On King I managed to found with Ottomans having god of wisdom or Poland with commerce. Everything is doable on King. If you go with low faith output pantheon, just spam cities + shrines. And hope for +1 from shrinesevent. This may be decisive factor really

 

[Funak]

On what turns did the religions get founded? On Emperor, I’ve found that around turn 100 is the cutoff, which is very achievable.

For me it's usually between 80 and 120 depending on the opposition, but yes around 100 or slightly below that seems to be the usual.

 

[Mad Madigan]

The only immediately noticeable difference I'm detecting with the AI in the latest (12-6-1) patch is that they tend to waste no time in producing Settlers and planting cities. Since getting a religion usually requires building cities so you can up your Faith output, this trend would definitely help the AI to found, but I'm still not seeing unusually early founding. The AI seems to found around turn 150-200 on Epic which matches with the Standard equivalent of turn 80-100. Some of the Pantheon's just are not going to produce enough Faith to found, but provide other good bonuses that you can enjoy until you get converted to a major religion or conquer another Civ's Holy City. Really, if you're playing as a non-religious Civ you don't have to focus on trying to control your own religion unless you're also trying for a Diplomatic victory (those extra votes from World Religion and Reformation REALLY help). At least on the difficulties below Immortal and Diety. On Diety it's probably always a good idea to found or conquer a religion as you need every bonus you can get.

 

[Hreat]

If it only happened twice I'd say it's probably just bad luck. There is deffinitely some portion of games where establishing a religion is impossible due to a combination of AIs that get early faith bonuses or find faith goody huts. This is more true on higher difficulty and slower speeds where the AI's advantage in early exploration is increased.

If you want to cut down on this happening you can disable goody huts or manually set some (or all) of the AIs to non-religion civs.

 

[Legen]

Japan isn't a fast founder, but it's usually able to found with Goddess of Protection; you get a lot of important yields with only two buidings in the city that are important for your military. I don't remember having trouble founding with Japan by going Authority, settling aggressively and prioritizing Barracks , Walls and Shrines in every city. The military focus of the build order and the pantheon also makes the cities rather defensible, so you don't have to be afraid of angering a neighbor.

On what turns did the religions get founded? On Emperor, I’ve found that around turn 100 is the cutoff, which is very achievable.

To me, early religious civs (and whoever builds Stonehenge) seems to achieve it at turn 80-85; most non-religious civs seem to found around turn 95-110. Standard speed.

 

[ElliotS]

I've easily founded with Japan on Deity using goddess of protection.

 

[Owlbebach]

For those who were saying about founding Religion is to hard:

Turn88 3rd Prophet, Deity, Standard speed, Standard size, 10 players (+2 AI), Pacal in game. Pantheon - Springtime (+3 faith on Markets)
EDIT: No faith ruins, no religious city-states

 

[notque]

I've been playing on King because of the difficulty debacle, and every game I've had a religion.

 

[notque]

Japan isn't a fast founder, but it's usually able to found with Goddess of Protection

My experience has not been usually. It's been a hard rode with Japan and Goddess of Protection most times without a religious natural wonder.

I play Japan the most out of any civ.

 

[Voker57]

You probably didn't build enough cities. In early game, that's what matters most for religion grab. I played Emperor multiplayer today and both me and friend (Genghis Khan & Rome) had a religion early.

 

[CrazyG]

I got first religion in my most recent game. Your goal should be to have a panthoen that earns at least 2 faith per city, and build the cities very quickly.

I always go monument first in my second city (in my experience this makes a substantial difference) but shrine first in the later cities. Consider settling on top of a forest and use all your gold to invest in newer cities

 

[theMisterRud]

Japan with Goddess of Protection is a 4/5 founding chance for me, the game I didn't get it I had India/Celts/Spain againts me

 

[Jarula]

Actually for me religions been easy on immortal. 6 cities and you should have it. City spam use the civics by enginseer with ancestor worship.

 

[jaolhe]

Thank you guys for all the excellent replies! I guess a part of the problem might be the epic speed setting (most of you seem to be using standard), large map religion cap, and the fact that I play with event system disabled. However, I think that on king difficulty I might have succeeded by aggressively founding more cities earlier.

There is still the question whether it is fun or realistic that in order to get your own religion with Japan you basically have to focus all your early efforts in getting one. This might be related to the fact that Civ 5 and Vox Populi mechanics are much more board game like than simulation like. This is fine but in IMHO the middle difficulty levels could be designed to offer more simulation-like experience without being cake-walk in level of challenge provided. Well, perhaps after the last VP patches it’s time for me to try one level lower...

 

[Owlbebach]

Thank you guys for all the excellent replies! I guess a part of the problem might be the epic speed setting (most of you seem to be using standard), large map religion cap, and the fact that I play with event system disabled. However, I think that on king difficulty I might have succeeded by aggressively founding more cities earlier.

There is still the question whether it is fun or realistic that in order to get your own religion with Japan you basically have to focus all your early efforts in getting one. This might be related to the fact that Civ 5 and Vox Populi mechanics are much more board game like than simulation like. This is fine but in IMHO the middle difficulty levels could be designed to offer more simulation-like experience without being cake-walk in level of challenge provided. Well, perhaps after the last VP patches it’s time for me to try one level lower...

Founding on Epic is way easier that on Standard. Events system helps, you are pretty much guaranteed to get some event that boosts you fath output, but not as much as Epic speed. VP is sort of balanced around civilizations: civs that have bonuses to religion are weak in other aspects, and civs that are stong in other aspects have problems with foundin. This is because religion is powerfull. In other words non-religious civ with religiopn is way stronger than religious civ with the same religion.

And yea, on King/Emperor you really should not have problems with founding, just build Shrines first and take good pantheon

 

[Infixo]

Some more data. Japan, Emperor, Communitas map, standard speed & size. Stonehenge was built on turn 19 by Harald Bluetooth. How the heck did he do that? None of his uniques would help him with that, and he chose Authority.
First religion was founded on turn 57, the last on 92. I was still about 10 turns away from my prophet and I had 4 cities with Shrines, Walls and Wells (Goddess of Fertility), plus 2 more building Shrines.