I've never been one to pursue the religious victory path so I've never really invested in a religion but I'd like to try doing so to supplement a cultural victory. I have been reluctant to push too deeply into it for fear of pouring too many early resources in that area instead of growth and expansion but I find I never invest enough into faith early on to found a religion AT ALL.
Thoughts? What should be the minimum investment to make sure you found a religion?
I've found that the best way to leverage a religion to work with a Cultural Victory is to get the Reliquaries belief and Mont St. Michel. You could also use the Cathedral to house religious works, but I think it's better to get a +Faith worship building in order to get Apostles out faster. The downside is that you need to have another civ in the game who is willing to engage in Theological Combat with you.
Khmer is probably best for this kind of gameplay, since you can Martyr your missionaries, which are cheaper and weaker than Apostles.
Kongo is good as well, since their Relics are more powerful. But they don't get to found a religion, so it doesn't really meet your requirements.
Poland also has more powerful Relics and can found a religion, so there's a good synergy too.
If you can give us an idea of what civ you are looking to play maybe we can give more specific advice. There are many synergies between the culture victory and faith generation, but most of those do not require you to found the religion yourself. However, there are a few benefits to founding a religion that really help you with a cultural victory.
(1) Holy cities themselves generate tourism. While not a huge amount in a longer game this amount can be substantial if you are playing a civ like Greece, Russia, Khmer or Poland that can snag early culture victories.
(2) Founder Beliefs: It gets a little awkward since most of these require you to spread your religion to get a decent benefit out of these and if you are playing for cultural victory you don't really want to use your faith to spread your religion. Still Stewardship, tithe and Lay Ministry all can generate decent yields if you have many cities.
(3) Ability to choose follower and worship beliefs: Jesuit Education and Reliquaries are both amazing for cultural victories and Choral Music can be really good too if you are playing as Poland, Russia, Japan or Khmer. I also love picking up Wats (if you can snag before the AI) when playing a religious cultural game since it helps make up for all those delayed campus districts (since you probably built holy sites and theater squares early).
Also, if you do have a neighbor nearby who doesn't found their own religion that you can easily spread yours to, that'll give you a tourism bonus to that civ. It's not huge, but it's something. And if they happen to like your religion and spread it on their own, well...
I also generally don't pursue religion unless I'm seeking a religious victory, which I rarely do. I have tinkered with religious tourism supplement to cultural victories and concluded that it wasn't worth the investment. That's just me, though; your mileage may vary. That's also not to say that the previous points don't have merit, they certainly do. Relics are available pretty early and can provide a substantial amount of tourism, especially when tripled through reliquaries (an almost indispensable component of religious-supplemented tourism victories.) The 8 tourism from your holy city also serves as a nice baseline.
However, isn't there still a steep negative percentage-based tourism modifier against civs of other religions? There still is in my games, and this can offset a great deal of the extra tourism that your religion is granting you. By not founding a religion but having multiple religions around me (which is usually the case) I usually don't have a majority in my cities which means I'm not getting the bonus or the penalty, which is usually favorable over having the bonus to a select few and the penalty against most. But if I'm getting that bonus against most civs, then I may as well be going for a religious victory.
If you are going to go this route though, I recommend testing with Russia. That way, as you're actively developing your religion, you're also passively developing your artist-class GPP pools which are generating from a district that's half the price of your theater squares. I played through as Russia only building theaters to house the great works that the holy sites produced, and it was pretty effective. In that game, though, the majority of my tourism was from sources other than religion, which is why I don't use religion for tourism victories anymore.
There is one a while back I tried that was OK ish and different.
You push holy sites and choral music, Project in the religion ASAP then push theatres.
You can end up with some pretty high culture yields and good faith generation.
With the dark age possibility of 100% science it may be an option to go holy site, campus.
Main issue is those other religions come pounding into your territory amd make you use up faith but it is the culture you are after.
... I have been reluctant to push too deeply into it for fear of pouring too many early resources in that area instead of growth and expansion but I find I never invest enough into faith early on to found a religion AT ALL.
Thoughts? What should be the minimum investment to make sure you found a religion?
Harvest pantheon + magnus + production cards is probably also possible (just buy the prophet with faith straight up). Otherwise some alternative source of early faith (Russia with earth god pantheon, or dance of tundra... Brazil with sacred path) it can help you get it before AI.
I find that a strong faith economy along with Jesuit Education is a huge addition to a culture victory. Spend the first half of your game building your faith, and the second half BUYING up your theater squares. As a bonus, you can keep up in science along the way...
I find that a strong faith economy along with Jesuit Education is a huge addition to a culture victory. Spend the first half of your game building your faith, and the second half BUYING up your theater squares. As a bonus, you can keep up in science along the way...
The buildings are quite expensive with faith, significantly cheaper to buy a builder with faith and replace Jesuit?...of course harvest goddess makes things more complex.
I always found when I started using faith for science buildings that I lost my religion due to lack of defence
This is true in the early game. But if you can build a 3-4 city religious core, you can withstand the early invasions by building a few Apostles that spread religion AND defend. Just don't burn their final charges.
I would just play as Russia. Build the Oracle. Spam Lavras and Theatres. Use your faith to buy GPs. Have some cities running projects. Should literally be able to get every single cultural great person, possibly even before the end of the third age.
Don't bother with using a pantheon for culture. I would grab dance of the aurora, then take + food for my first religious choice, then either + food, + science, or, if you are feeling mean, extra great work slots, then defenders of the faith.
*Dance often goes fast, so if its not available (shame on you for losing out on it), take + production or + amenity.
You should have more faith, culture, and great works then you have ever experienced in the game. It will be obscene. To the point you feel bad and cheesy.
edit: as an aside... a nice strategy, I have discovered, is to buy up all of the ancient writers. Don't even let Russia get them. Regardless of what vc you are going for. These are incredibly cheap, and have a great return on the investment. +8 culture per? Cheeeeeese. Once you have these, then you can start buying up all of the engineers and merchants you want.
There are a lot of good strategies as outlined here already. My favorite is to use Choral Music and Church Property (also works well with Pilgrimage as long as you can convert faith into something else) and expand, expand, expand my empire and convert, convert, convert other empires. A +Faith pantheon or Natural Wonder definitely helps get this moving. Churches and Theaters in every city. Church Property makes up for money saved via Jesuit Education and cash provides flexibility. I primarily push religion via missionaries so I target atheist cities only where I can maintain pressure. When I can finally chop St Mont Michel I go nuts recruiting apostles and get those relics.
Sometimes the circumstances are so good that a religious victory is a much easier path. Other times it's necessary to be tactical with your apostles to maintain or push pressure and double down on switching to culture and filling in gaps with science and industry.
End game you can use all that faith to buy GPs or get the govt building to buy military units with faith.. or ally with a CS that allows you to burn faith for other things.. there are so many great ways to spend faith.
When going wide, I tend to concentrate on amenity-beliefs so that a Holy Site works like a 2nd Entertainment District and allows bigger cities and more districts.
I've never been one to pursue the religious victory path so I've never really invested in a religion but I'd like to try doing so to supplement a cultural victory. I have been reluctant to push too deeply into it for fear of pouring too many early resources in that area instead of growth and expansion but I find I never invest enough into faith early on to found a religion AT ALL.
Thoughts? What should be the minimum investment to make sure you found a religion?
Russia is great for everything. Russia is OP. And I'm happy it finally happened.
edit: every time I shy away from Russia for a bit, to get some freshness, when I get back to Russia, I always have the impression - Russia can do what that civ does, only better. And the expac just blew them out of the park.
Russia is great for everything. Russia is OP. And I'm happy it finally happened.
edit: every time I shy away from Russia for a bit, to get some freshness, when I get back to Russia, I always have the impression - Russia can do what that civ does, only better. And the expac just blew them out of the park.
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