First Look: India (Gandhi)

[stealth_nsk]

I don't really see an attractive reason to not spread your own religion. Your own Follower belief is cherry picked to suit your needs. Any others you get are what other people picked. They might be okay, but not as good as the advantages of your own religion which is hand tailored.

In the end I think we'll see minimal spreading of rival religions in India. It's useful if a rival grabs a follower belief you really needed. But the cost of spreading it is (seemingly) pretty high for the bonuses it gives, and doing it makes it easier for those rivals to chase religious victory. Unless there are additional advantages to having multiple faiths I don't forsee a lot of it happening. Maybe the most prevalent case would be aggressive India seizing foreign lands and layering their own religion on top of the pre-existing one.

If you play as India it may be a good idea to choose Founder bonus which doesn't drop if you get not that many followers or some of you cities convert to other religions. Like Papal Primacy, Holy Order, etc.

If you plan to have only minimal representation of other religions, they'll be constantly washed away by your own religion pressure due to amount of followers and nearby Holy City. To keep maximum religion diversity (and thus maximum bonuses) you need to invite strong religious pressure and maybe even have a reserve of different religion missionaries to fix any imbalances.

 

[isau]

I don't think maximum religious diversity will be all that important. The bonuses aren't big enough, at least not to me. Much better to have the religion you founded with a smattering of other religions. If you could get more than just the follower bonus I could see the point, but not the way it is. Way too much work for a not-that-great bonus. If you happen to get the bonus anyway for various reasons it's of course a net positive, but I just can't see working hard to make sure you get it, not when there are so many other good ways to spend resources for better gains that don't feed resources back to the enemy.

I'm also not sure the religious system will work the same in Civ VI as it did in V. It looks like you only need 1 Follower to get the bonus from what I understand and the calculation may be more forgiving this time around.

 

[apocalypse105]

Would be cool if you could found more religions like in civ 4

 

[stealth_nsk]

I don't think maximum religious diversity will be all that important. The bonuses aren't big enough, at least not to me.

Actually this depends a lot on the religions other civs founded. Some follower beliefs are huge, but for specific cities only, like bonuses for Shrines and Temples (only for cities with Holy Site) or bonus for Wonders. But if I have Holy Site in the city, I'd really like both Feed the World and Religious Community there and Reliquaries would be awesome too.

It's actually quite interesting thing - you'll need to adapt your strategy to beliefs chosen by other civilizations.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

If you play as India it may be a good idea to choose Founder bonus which doesn't drop if you get not that many followers or some of you cities convert to other religions. Like Papal Primacy, Holy Order, etc.

If you plan to have only minimal representation of other religions, they'll be constantly washed away by your own religion pressure due to amount of followers and nearby Holy City. To keep maximum religion diversity (and thus maximum bonuses) you need to invite strong religious pressure and maybe even have a reserve of different religion missionaries to fix any imbalances.

Not true.
As long as there is some contact with cities of different religions, then my cities can stay dominant my religion, while maintaining a stable population of other religions.

 

[Plus Ultra]

It's actually quite interesting thing - you'll need to adapt your strategy to beliefs chosen by other civilizations.

While that is true, every single follower belief is interesting as long as you are playing a faith-heavy tall game, which is what India seems to be built for.
In other words, in principle, every religion should be ideally present in all of your cities if you are interested in getting the most of India's abilities.

Now... how complex will that be? How much can we control such process without going completely mad?

I'm hoping that by carefully selecting trade routes for each city and using inquisitors/apostles/missionares we can potentially achive such goal. It might not be possible in certain map types, for example.
If would be fantastic, through diplomacy, if we could ask another Civ to send us their Missionaries or apostles. Being able to create missionaries for every religion (once such religion is somewhat present in at least one city) would help a lot, of course.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Not true.
As long as there is some contact with cities of different religions, then my cities can stay dominant my religion, while maintaining a stable population of other religions.

If there's higher pressure from one religion, another one is reduced. Since you can't have 0.5 or 0.25 followers, at some point you'll have 1 and after some time you'll have 0. Although we don't know how effective the religious pressure is and how many turns will be needed for this.

While that is true, every single follower belief is interesting as long as you are playing a faith-heavy tall game, which is what India seems to be built for.

Not necessary. Divine Inspiration (+4 Faith from Wonders) is only needed in cities with Wonders. And if you don't focus on them (which is ok on high difficulty levels), you may ignore this belief completely. Work Ethics is a complex beast as it provides more production the more followers you have - if you're not converting your cities to this religion, it could be ignored too.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

If there's higher pressure from one religion, another one is reduced. Since you can't have 0.5 or 0.25 followers, at some point you'll have 1 and after some time you'll have 0. Although we don't know how effective the religious pressure is and how many turns will be needed for this.

No pressure does not reduce.

A city with 10 pop,
3 pressure for religion A
1 pressure for religion B
1 pressure for religion C
(Those pressures Only depend on the dominant religion of Other cities, NOT the number of followers in This city)

Will eventually have 6 A, 2B, 2C...and it will have that FOREVER (unless the Other cities change their dominant religion/city pop grows)

So it is perfectly possible to have a city that always moves towards being multi religious in a stable way.
(And trade routes are an important part of setting that up)

 

[stealth_nsk]

No pressure does not reduce.

A city with 10 pop,
3 pressure for religion A
1 pressure for religion B
1 pressure for religion C
(Those pressures Only depend on the dominant religion of Other cities)

Will eventually have 6 A, 2B, 2C...and it will have that FOREVER (unless the Other cities change their dominant religion/city pop grows)

Ok, I understand how you're calculating this. That's not how I understand the system, but that's possible too. Let's wait and see. Anyway, India will not be my first civ to play. Probably around 18th, so I'll have time to study the mechanics

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Ok, I understand how you're calculating this. That's not how I understand the system, but that's possible too. Let's wait and see. Anyway, India will not be my first civ to play. Probably around 18th, so I'll have time to study the mechanics

Well those were exactly the mechanics for civ V.
Admittedly we don't know the civ 6 mechanics, but it seems that only "Theological combat" is a change (for Apostles and probably Inquisitors)

 

[Plus Ultra]

Not necessary. Divine Inspiration (+4 Faith from Wonders) is only needed in cities with Wonders. And if you don't focus on them (which is ok on high difficulty levels), you may ignore this belief completely. Work Ethics is a complex beast as it provides more production the more followers you have - if you're not converting your cities to this religion, it could be ignored too.

In other words, all follower beliefs are potentially interesting to a faith-focused Tall India, since non of them have negative effects. Of course, under certain circumstances you might not benefit at all, or too much from some of them.

Since we already know each other stealth_nsk, I'm guessing you are thinking ahead and taking opportunity cost into account. In other words, I wager you are thinking that handling religious pressure might be hard, for whatever the reason (missionary cost, trade route limits, too much micromanagement of pressure per city) and therefore you might need to "choose" which religions are more interesting to each of your cities, since having all of them everywhere will be harder than having just a few under control. To that I can only say... let's wait and see.

 

[stealth_nsk]

Since we already know each other stealth_nsk, I'm guessing you are thinking ahead and taking opportunity cost into account. In other words, I wager you are thinking that handling religious pressure might be hard, for whatever the reason (missionary cost, trade route limits, too much micromanagement of pressure per city) and therefore you might need to "choose" which religions are more interesting to each of your cities, since having all of them everywhere will be harder than having just a few under control. To that I can only say... let's wait and see.

Yes. Thinking how I could play some civs I'm basing on my previous experience, obviously. But I hadn't any experience like this before (never had enough fun from Indonesia in Civ5 and it's bonuses from foreign religions were minimal), so it's kind of walking blind to me. May be it will be actually not that difficult.

 

[Plus Ultra]

So it is perfectly possible to have a city that always moves towards being multi religious in a stable way.
(And trade routes are an important part of setting that up)

I am ashamed to admit I never fully understood how religious pressure worked in Civ V. Strategic Great Prophet bombing and early missionaries for Civs and City states without a religion was everything you needed to do in order to completly dominate in Civ V.

So, KrikkitTwo, if the system works like Civ V, will it be possible to have every religion present in each of your cities while keeping your own religion as the main one without going mad in the process? Will experienced players be able to take full advantage of India's UA without turn by turn micromanagement?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I am ashamed to admit I never fully understood how religious pressure worked in Civ V. Strategic Great Prophet bombing and early missionaries for Civs and City states without a religion was everything you needed to do in order to completly dominate in Civ V.

So, KrikkitTwo, if the system works like Civ V, will it be possible to have every religion present in each of your cities while keeping your own religion as the main one without going mad in the process? Will experienced players be able to take full advantage of India's UA without turn by turn micromanagement?

Yes...but it will depend on other players and geography.
Since it looks like every city with a Gold or Harbor district gets a trade route, those would be your primary methods of maintaining it.

Of course overzelous evangelizers could ruin your day/make it far more difficult.

 

[Plus Ultra]

Yes...but it will depend on other players and geography.
Since it looks like every city with a Gold or Harbor district gets a trade route, those would be your primary methods of maintaining it.

Of course overzelous evangelizers could ruin your day/make it far more difficult.

As long as its something I can control (trade route allocation, religious warfare with inquisitors, etc) complexity is fine.

What worries me is that there are things out of our control, like relative pressure between distant holy cities, or a nightmare to manage, like religious pressure between 5 religions within my own borders.

Anyway, let's wait and see. This thread is about India after all, not about how Religion works in Civ VI.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

As long as its something I can control (trade route allocation, religious warfare with inquisitors, etc) complexity is fine.

What worries me is that there are things out of our control, like relative pressure between distant holy cities, or a nightmare to manage, like religious pressure between 5 religions within my own borders.

Anyway, let's wait and see. This thread is about India after all, not about how Religion works in Civ VI.

It's not that hard, if, it's anything like Civ 5, then all you have to do is to be ensure that your cities are in range of all the religions to get at least 1 follower, and that's enough to gain the benefis of the UA. You don't need to actively manage it.

 

[ehecatzin]

It's not that hard, if, it's anything like Civ 5, then all you have to do is to be ensure that your cities are in range of all the religions to get at least 1 follower, and that's enough to gain the benefis of the UA. You don't need to actively manage it.

Yeah unless you have another religious rival bent on converting you fully, having multi religious city shouldn't be dificult to get for India, trading should be a priority to get at least 1 follower going (and having large cities, gettin 1 pop converted should be easy)

Then again, if you encounter Spain and Phillip decided all of your cities should be of his religion, you'll have to use your elephant army to get rid of him.

I like this, because even if you want to go paceful with India, you should do what you must to get rid of aggresive religious rivals. Then you can focus on being paceful again, while you run away with the religious or cultural victory.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Yeah unless you have another religious rival bent on converting you fully, having multi religious city shouldn't be dificult to get for India, trading should be a priority to get at least 1 follower going (and having large cities, gettin 1 pop converted should be easy)

Then again, if you encounter Spain and Phillip decided all of your cities should be of his religion, you'll have to use your elephant army to get rid of him.

I like this, because even if you want to go paceful with India, you should do what you must to get rid of aggresive religious rivals. Then you can focus on being paceful again, while you run away with the religious or cultural victory.

But that's not how India's ability work.

He gets benefit from all religions present in the city. So unless they allowed Inquisitors or Apostles to inquisit another civ's cities, then that's a problem, otherwise, they can spread all they want.

You need, afaik, at least one follower in a city, even if that city has a pop of 20, it takes just a single follower for you to gain the benefits of that religion's Follower belief.

 

[Miravlix]

I just hope India is a strong AI civilization, Gandhi civ legacy really got hurt by the weakness of India in CIV V.

 

[Lordkhan II.]

very passive civ. it is the ideal choice for player, who aren't interested in the map. Just build up tech/culture.
The stepp well (pretty beautiful!!!) giving a boost could also mean big and hard to conqer cities. Which would make India to a fortress.
The UA is really one which don't work for me. I am a fast explorer. This feels like getting punished if you discover your neighbors before all religions are founded.
Not sure here. But if civ 6 have a passiv way ( culture/religion?) to convert cities to your empire. india could be really fast a soft power.