Founding a Religion - when is it worthwhile?

[noto2]

Okay, so we all have that inner noob that secretly wants to found every religion and build every shrine. As for me, I smacked that noob a long time ago and have played countless games where I never intentionally founded a religion. Now, I like to think of myself as a fairly experienced player, and I have experimented with founding religions with some of the leaders that start with mysticism - such as Wang Kon, Boudica, Justinian, etc.
Unfortunately I find that founding a religion just usually doesn't benefit me much. The biggest benefit is getting a religion sooner, in my eyes. Rather than waiting for an AI to spread it to me, I get to build temples sooner for the additional happiness, and I get the religious benefits, like ORG REL +25% building hammers sooner. Of course there's the shrine money, but it seems somewhat minor.
So I guess I'm wondering, what are some ways to exploit a founded religion? And who do you found them with? Justinian is a good example of a leader who confuses me. With him I don't know whether to found a religion or not - since founding one will slow down my initial expansion.
I'd like some thoughts on this, please.

 

[futurehermit]

I would only go after an early religion with a financial leader that starts with mysticism that has a 3 commerce tile available or else issy with a lake or else another leader that starts with mysticism and an oasis (maybe).

The biggest downside imo is that medit/polyth are not exactly worker techs and worker techs are so important early on.

However, if you do manage an early religion and say you chop out stonehenge then you are guaranteed to have a shrine to help cut down on the costs of early horizontal expansion. Also, getting the early OR is a very nice bonus. However, again, monoth is not exactly a worker tech, so that has to be taken into consideration as well.

Basically, going up the early religion route coincides nicely with a cultural vic where horizontal expansion is not as pressing of a concern. Getting the early religions to get those temples going early under OR is nice (especially if spiritual).

However, another major downside is diplo. If you found buddhism and you have monty nearby with hindu and he spreads it to his buddy Genghis then your buddhism isn't going to help you all that much. In contrast, if you share hindu with Monty and Genghis founds buddhism (and you work the diplo right) then you can tip the diplo in your favour.

In many situations I would say that early religion is not the right move. However, sometimes if you play your cards right, it can be beneficial. I think maybe the best for early religion is HC (is there anything he can't do?). Starting with ag as a worker tech is nice and he is financial to increase your chances of landing the religion. Then he is industrious so you can nab stonehenge/oracle and use the GP on your shrine. Use your quechuas to silence any early religious opposition and away you go

 

[Ai Shizuka]

Hindu/Buddhism are never worth the effort, imo. You delay your early expansion and take the risk of a religious trade-whoring lovefest on another continent.
In isolation, Judaism and/or Confucianism are good options.

And Justi is terrible for an early religion. He starts with wheel/mysticism, so you can't do anything at all for a lot of time if you research medi/poly.

 

[futurehermit]

He is imperialistic though, so you could go for an early settler opening, which could be ok if you say have an oasis in the capital bfc and plan on going the cultural route (e.g., you are isolated). Very rare situation though.

 

[royal62184]

I don't play saladin much but I would think it would pretty good with him. Starts with myst, UB (Madrassa? I forget) gives 2 priest slots + 2 scientist slots. Get early religion research writing and get an early shrine pretty easily. Of course then you have to spread it yourself. I still just like conquering one to be honest.

 

[feralminded]

With Ghandi, and only Ghandi I advocate a shot at Hindu and only on pangea. This is on Emperor. Yeah it does slow you down but it pays off very well in time. Saladin is *ok* as well but I've found PHI a critical component of a strong RE. Assuming you build SH (and you are crazy not to in an RE) you get your shrine down around 1000BC and your economy really takes off by 0AD. You just have to survive until then. Your shrine will spread your religion fine until OR which you should be getting soon anyhow. From there you will be spitting out Great Priests plenty fast to tech through DR. You will have paper very early as well. AP up Christianity or Confucianism or something no one else has and then go from there. Your economy will be thriving and the only trick is defending yourself and you can lib if you like or race for culture or whatever but your foundation economy will be pretty fantastic. Every city will have a bonus base 4// which is pretty fantastic all things considered and you should have a huge block of religious friends.

You can bulb your way to DR and have a lock on the AP and both the UoS and SM down by about 0-200AD which is fairly nasty.

 

[noto2]

Yeah the worst thing about going for Hindu or Bud is the lack of a worker tech, for sure.

 

[feralminded]

I think the perception of it is worse than it really is. Building a warrior then worker isn't horrid. That said without a commerce resource to work you are at risk of not getting it.

 

[UWHabs]

I never go for the early 2, since I don't want to grab one, then find Izzy next door who founded the other. I know I can't keep up with missionary spam.

For me, the best time to find a religion is once I've mapped my island, if nobody's founded a religion on the island, then it's worth it. Since most people will want to spread it to their own cities, if I can found the dominant religion on the island, score. That'll be a nice shrine.

Mostly, one of my goals in life is to create religious strife. There is nothing worse for me than playing on a continents map, and having the other continent be all in one religion. I want the other continent fighting each other and at each other's heels, so they can't get ahead in tech. If I know one religion was founded on the other continent, and one was on our continent, then I'll even sometimes delay CoL or Philosophy, just so someone over there can maybe get it so that everyone on the other continent won't be in a religious lovefest.

Although, the flipside, is if the other continent doesn't found a religion, I'll go out of my way to found a religion so that my continent can control them all. One of my fastest wins was an AP win where my continent founded all the religions. I got to friendly with Zara and Brennus in Buddhism, and between them, Ragnar (who thankfully was on the other side of the continent from me), and myself, we held the entire other continent religion-less. Then I could easily spam one missionary per civ over there, and pull out the cheese AP win. Even if I didn't go AP, then I'd want to found it, spread my religion(s) over there, so I could rake in the shrine profits.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Confuc and tao are common pickups for me, and I'm frequently not actually trying to found them. Although early religion + settler seems ok I've rarely gotten the returns from it that makes it justified compared to just worker/improve food.

 

[fugazi]

I usually grab confucianism or simply nab one from the AI's. Temples are handy when you're spiritual and monasteries are always welcome as cheap culture and science boosting buildings. Lately I've been loving the combination of the Apostalic Palace, temples and monasteries and Organised Religion. I get my infrastructure up so much faster this way without having to kill my population through slavery.

 

[Skallagrimson]

It's a black hole of cost.

Diplomatic cost.

GPP cost.

Hammers cost (religion buildings, missionaries, craptastic wonders like chicken pizza JUST for the GPPs).

All for gold yields that are more than eclipsed by other, easier means, such as cottages, merchants, and corporations.

 

[feralminded]

It's a black hole of cost.

Diplomatic cost.

GPP cost.

Hammers cost (religion buildings, missionaries, craptastic wonders like chicken pizza JUST for the GPPs).

All for gold yields that are more than eclipsed by other, easier means, such as cottages, merchants, and corporations.

It is my hope in one of my upcoming tutorials to prove you wrong .

I recently played through just a proof of concept game where I had AP/UoS/SM down by 200AD and my economy was out of control. I could have had a 600-800AD lib ... very competitive with strong SE's/CE's. This was on emperor. I don't think it's viable much beyond that but at least on emperor it was plenty strong. I won't say the strongest but still a fun alternative. Also diplomatically I had half the world on my side and we were abusing the other half. The real key here is you won't see your economy really take off until the late BCs which is longer than either SE or CE takes ... so there's a fairly large patience factor involved.

Again its not the strongest economy but its entirely viable and once it takes off ... well its over. The bonus // that early in the game is enormous. Of course Sci-method is excruciating because it all gets halved but the distance between when you finish SM and when you HAVE to tech Sci-method can be pretty huge if played right. The ROI at that point is enormous.

 

[Skallagrimson]

It is my hope in one of my upcoming tutorials to prove you wrong .

IIRC you're the one who did the "shiny wonders" walk throughs as Ramesses, too, right? That completely confused me and now I'm back at Prince, LOL.

I recently played through just a proof of concept game where I had AP/UoS/SM down by 200AD and my economy was out of control. I could have had a 600-800AD lib ... very competitive with strong SE's/CE's. This was on emperor. I don't think it's viable much beyond that but at least on emperor it was plenty strong.

I can't even build enough axemen on Emperor, LOL.

Of course Sci-method is excruciating because it all gets halved but the distance between when you finish SM and when you HAVE to tech Sci-method can be pretty huge if played right. The ROI at that point is enormous.

And I suppose by then with that sort of a lead you can bring up corporations, etc.

I just can't get there from here, sucky of a player as I am on Emp and even often on Monarch.

 

[civvver]

You want the same religion as your neighbors. So I always let them found hindu and budda. Then if I discover I'm on a religionless continent I'll found Judaism if I can or shoot to Confucianism. Thing is, even if you're ghandi and do get polytheism first, what's to say that izzy isn't next door founding Buddhism and going to divide the whole continent in a holy war?

Plus I've noticed that most of the time Confucianism and taoism spread really fast compared to the early 3. Sometimes it'll spread to all my neighbors in a few turns. The worst is when you found an early religion, then don't get missonaries out in time and someone else adopts Confucianism. In general just stay away from the early 3 and you'll do a lot better.

 

[MadmanAtW]

An important thing is that you don't need to convert to your religion to have founded it, to have the Holy Site, and to make a ton of money off of it. In my current game I founded Taoism as part of my Liberalism rush. I have no intention of converting to it- not when Hinduism is giving me a +7 diplo with Mali. However, if I happen to get a Prophet I'll drop the holy site and spam some missionaries. I've made the founding city my main commerce city just in case.
So yeah, founding Hinduism is a danger that your neighbor will found Buddhism... but if so, either get him to convert or go Buddhist yourself. Let Buddhism spread first if you want (so it's your own missionaries who get the greater chance of failing to spread). If it turns out Buddhism is somewhere else entirely, you've got your continent's first religion, and if not, it's not the end of the world to not run a religion you founded.

But then, I'm only playing on the Prince/Monarch cusp, so take all that with a grain of salt, of course. But I just wanted to respond to all the people talking about diplo penalties for founding a religion you don't share with a neighbor.

I guess long story short is "play the map", especially regarding the later religions.

 

[noto2]

You don't always want the same religion as your neighbours - that's only good if you're going to build and don't want to be attacked. If you're going to be a warmonger, it's better to share a religion with far away civs since you'll be beating on your neighbours

 

[murph1822001]

With izzy I like to build work boat, work boat, oracle slingshot code of laws, found confucianism and have oracle making great prophet points for quick shrine. Works awesome on crowded maps and if bhuddism/hindu is founded far away. I feel its worth it to have a shrine economy to support massive army I pump out once I build a citadal for super promoted trebuchuts/mace man.

 

[murph1822001]

With izzy I like to build work boat, work boat, oracle slingshot code of laws, found confucianism and have oracle making great prophet points for quick shrine. Works awesome on crowded maps and if bhuddism/hindu is founded far away. I feel its worth it to have a shrine economy to support massive army I pump out once I build a citadal for super promoted trebuchuts/mace man.

 

[tycoonist]

its never worthwhile.