Generate faith

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

Am I the only one who thinks that it is incredibly hard to generate a lot of faith? Especially for civs with religion victory bonuses but no faith bonuses like Poland? I feel like building a lot of holy sites doesnt seem to help a lot, unlike building a lot of campuses or theatre squares, you can really see your science and culture shoot up.

Any advice?

 

[RealHuhn]

There are a couple of things. Faith generating pantheons (for example godess of the harvest or adjacency buffs), 3 early envoys in religious city states for buffed shrines, running the +100% adjacency card, getting to Theocracy asap. If you have a desert hill nearby, the Jebal Bekal wonder can be awesome (+4 faith for each city center within 6 tiles). Temples obviously but they are quite expensive.

By the way, holy sites generate as much faith as campuses generate science.
The difference is that each population point in your cities generates science and culture but not faith. That's why you see those yields grow faster.

 

[Victoria]

City states help a lot when left alive
Once you have got your prophet, unless you get him early I would not use him straight away. Let other civs burn their faith up, you just get shrines everywhere you can amd when you have a decent size, a fair amount of faith stored and a plan, activate.

 

[DogeEnricoDandolo]

City states help a lot when left alive
Once you have got your prophet, unless you get him early I would not use him straight away. Let other civs burn their faith up, you just get shrines everywhere you can amd when you have a decent size, a fair amount of faith stored and a plan, activate.

But I can still store faith when I activated my prophet? I'm sorry I don't really follow, what's really the benefit of not activating your prophet straight away?

 

[Lord Yanaek]

When you found a religion it automatically spreads to every one of your cities with a holy site saving you the cost of a couple missionaries. I wouldn't recommend this if you see a good belief is still available but if you don't care much which beliefs are left this a a good way to save some faith.

If you can get into a classical Golden Age (with R&F expansion) and choose the exodus dedication the +2 spread/apostle also allows you to use the same apostles to spread to 2 cities and enhance your religion since apostles only need 3 spread to enhance/start an inquisition and not all of them (the +2 promotion also helps).

What i usually do is choose the 30% reduction belief first when i found. AIs usually take the building or the founder belief first so the best ones tend to go fast but holy order is almost always still available when i found. Not really a way to generate faith but a good way to do more with what you generate.

Other than that, faith generation depends a lot on your pantheon belief and map so there's no sure way to generate a lot of it apart from building temples and your special religious building everywhere.

By the way, holy sites generate as much faith as campuses generate science.
The difference is that each population point in your cities generates science and culture but not faith. That's why you see those yields grow faster.

While HS generate as much faith as campuses generate science, their buildings generate less (but they come earlier).

 

[Victoria]

But I can still store faith when I activated my prophet? I'm sorry I don't really follow, what's really the benefit of not activating your prophet straight away?

When you found a religion it automatically spreads to every one of your cities with a holy site saving you the cost of a couple missionaries.

More than a couple. Also on high levels you can be flooded with the opposition befoer you are ready and end up wasting a lot of faith defending. Instead let them convert your cities, use up their faith and then activate your prophet and all your cities change back... at the right time when you are ready.

 

[RealHuhn]

While HS generate as much faith as campuses generate science, their buildings generate less (but they come earlier).

Nope, they don't ^^

Shrine/Library +2
Temple/Uni +4

Also, when going for religion I prefer to get the medieval golden age. Faith buying builders with +5 charges is just so good. Chaining classical and medieval GAs is kinda hard. Maybe faith generating civs with an early war can do it. Classical is dependent on luck more than skill anyway.

Recently I really like the follower belief that adds culture to your shrines and temples. This pretty much allows you to skip theatre squares entirely and makes temples a lot better.

 

[GeorgeF]

God of War and Grandmaster's Chapel to just fuel the conquest. Use the temples built by your enemies to catapult your faith. Bonus if your closest neighbor founds the first religion, they always grab warrior monks. My last conquest game I had 4-promoted warrior monk armies, unstoppable! (helps that I had Kabul all game).