Getting religion

[Sincro]

Hopefully I'm not thread spamming and annoying people...

Question: If you don't bother founding any religions, is there any trick to getting them spread into your cities? I grant open borders, and generally try to keep my neighbors buttered up until I'm ready to take them on myself, but I'm finding it to be the norm that religions will not autospread into my cities. In fact, if I don't bother to found one, and don't bother to DOW a neighbor to get a city that already has a religion, it is absolutely standard for most of my games to have no religion in any of my cities until AD 500 or later.

Is that normal? Is there some trick I am missing?

Thanks.
-Sinc

 

[Dragonxander PR]

There is a building called a monastery, a unit called a missionary & a civic called Organized Religion. The monastery of a religion will allow the player to create missionaries of that religion (up to 3 at a time, otherwise they're unlimited). The Organized Religion civic allows the player to build missionaries of any religion present in his/her cities without the need of a monastery (the corresponding missionary has to be built at a city with the desired religion).

Missionaries serve to spread a specific religion (can also be used to explore friendly land).

The missionaries require Meditation (for the monastery) & Monotheism (for organized religion).

 

[shulec]

In my experience (on BTS games), I usually get religions spread to my cities fairly early (I am guessing by 1000 BC). I usually don't found religions unless I pick up Confuciousism or Taoism. Usually before this point, I will have gotten a religion.

I think your map type, opponents, the level you are playing on, and the time year you and your neighbors get writing effects the spread of religion. Some civs spam religion, such as Mansa Musa. If you are isolated or on a continent where a religion has not been founded, you have to wait until religion is spread after Optics or if a nearby, but out of range of galleys civ, has built the religious wonder (e.g. Temple of Solomon, the Mohabodhi). If you are playing a low level < monarch, teching is slow.

Random chance plays a big role, so I bet if you play many more games, you will see that you experiences were more the exception.

 

[Sincro]

There is a building called a monastery, a unit called a missionary & a civic called Organized Religion. The monastery of a religion will allow the player to create missionaries of that religion (up to 3 at a time, otherwise they're unlimited). The Organized Religion civic allows the player to build missionaries of any religion present in his/her cities without the need of a monastery (the corresponding missionary has to be built at a city with the desired religion).

Missionaries serve to spread a specific religion (can also be used to explore friendly land).

The missionaries require Meditation (for the monastery) & Monotheism (for organized religion).

Yes, yes, I know all that. I know how to spread the religion once I have it in at least one of my cities. My problem is: None of my cities, if I don't found or conquer someone else, have religion. You cannot build a monastery in a city with no religion, ergo, if none of your cities have a religion, you can build no monasteries nor use organized religion to create missionaries.

-Sinc

 

[JujuLautre]

You need to have a connection to the holy city. Not having open borders does not prevent auto-spreading (though I think - not sure - that it helps), but having roads and/or sailing and/or later astronomy will help.

 

[Jedi_Otis]

Religions autospread along trade routes. For another civs religion to spread to yours, you need open borders AND a viable means for trade/religion to spread. Usually this means your roads have to be connected to theirs. If you have sailing, it can spread along a coast or river if both civs have cities adjacent to the coast or river.

 

[Jedi_Otis]

JujuLautre is correct. I did a little research and apperantly you don't need OB for the religion to auto spread. Cities would still need to be connected by roads, rivers etc.

You would of course need OB for other civs to spread with missionaries

 

[binhthuy71]

Yes, yes, I know all that. I know how to spread the religion once I have it in at least one of my cities. My problem is: None of my cities, if I don't found or conquer someone else, have religion. You cannot build a monastery in a city with no religion, ergo, if none of your cities have a religion, you can build no monasteries nor use organized religion to create missionaries.

-Sinc

If my Random civ doesn't start with Mysticism then I don't bother researching a religion. You'll get one soon enough, even on water maps, from another civ. By that point the religious techs will be very cheap to research (If you haven't traded for them already) and you'll get a hefty diplo bonus from the civ whose religion you adopt. The real benefit of having a religion, other than the modest affect on your happy cap, is building monasteries. The 10% increase in research (Until you research Scientific method) is a real winner, particularly because monasteries are so cheap to build.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

JujuLautre is correct. I did a little research and apperantly you don't need OB for the religion to auto spread. Cities would still need to be connected by roads, rivers etc.

You would of course need OB for other civs to spread with missionaries

It's been a while since I read the mechanics, but IIRC open borders only matters for those AIs that bother to send you missionaries ---> doesn't affect autospread at all.

Autospread requires a trade NETWORK...bit different from trade routes and the reason you don't need OB to get it. The closer the city is to the holy city, the more likely it'll spread. The shrine speeds things up too.

If you want early religion but the AI near you isn't the type to go missionary spamming, just get open borders and finish the road from your border city in to theirs, or make sure there's a sailing trade network available (aka you both have coastal cities and they're hooked up to the rest). Either works, and will allow the religion to spread. There is of course some luck in terms of how quickly you'll get it but it won't be TOO long if it's the only religion around.

 

[Sincro]

You need to have a connection to the holy city. Not having open borders does not prevent auto-spreading (though I think - not sure - that it helps), but having roads and/or sailing and/or later astronomy will help.

Yep, I already connect my civs to my neighbors in this manner. It's not helping.

-Sinc

 

[Sincro]

If you want early religion but the AI near you isn't the type to go missionary spamming, just get open borders and finish the road from your border city in to theirs, or make sure there's a sailing trade network available (aka you both have coastal cities and they're hooked up to the rest). Either works, and will allow the religion to spread. There is of course some luck in terms of how quickly you'll get it but it won't be TOO long if it's the only religion around.

What's your definition of not too long? Not getting one until the 1000 AD seems awfully late to me, and that's about my average, unless of course I get lucky enough to be able to pull off an early war against a foe who already has one. And of course the later you get a religion, the further behind you are for all the cultural benefits one provides. In effect, not getting at least one, and preferably 2 or 3 *early* essentially cuts you off from one of the victory conditions.

/shrug Just a little frustrated. I like civ, I've been a fan of it for a long time. But this version seems to do far too much railroading for my taste. Your choices, as I see it:
1) Break your tech tree and hope you found one of the early 3 - Essentially not possible past Noble level, which I no longer try to do at the advice of many people on this forum.
2) Axe rush a neighbor who founded one. You do wind up with a religion, but you also either crush the life out of your economy by having too large of a civ prior to currency/code of laws or, worse, you don't finish off your opponent and have an enemy for life.
3) Play an extremely boring game of doing nothing exciting until the age of cannons and riflemen, hoping that the RNG spreads one in.

Religion is too important in this game. Period.

-Sinc

 

[the reverend]

I've never had a problem getting religion to spread by at least 1000 B.C. playing on Monarch. However, if you need a religion early a really easy way is to research to Priesthood, start building the Oracle, research writing while building it, and then choose Code of Laws as your free tech. This is so powerful I use it in almost every game. Code of Laws is such a powerful tech because you found Confucianism, can build courthouses, and enables Caste System. Also, the Oracle provides Great Prophet points, so you can build your shrine quickly. The only downside to this is that unless you aggressively spread your religion, you could be the only person with Confucianism, trying to take on powerful Buddhist, Hindu, or Jewish blocs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

This all sounds pretty dubious to me...

1) Break your tech tree and hope you found one of the early 3 - Essentially not possible past Noble level, which I no longer try to do at the advice of many people on this forum.

The early 3 do break your tech a bit, but how many concessions must be made to get them varies by difficulty.

2) Axe rush a neighbor who founded one. You do wind up with a religion, but you also either crush the life out of your economy by having too large of a civ prior to currency/code of laws or, worse, you don't finish off your opponent and have an enemy for life.

It's often possible to have 8-12 cities (trait and terrain dependent) by 1 AD without currency or code of laws, and still not be losing money. On immortal. More cities is generally a good thing. Also, you might be able to pull a shrine or something and recover even more rapidly than normal.

3) Play an extremely boring game of doing nothing exciting until the age of cannons and riflemen, hoping that the RNG spreads one in.

You don't have to wait until rifles to go to war w/o religion, and you can war later than that, too. Again, depends on the map.

I can't agree with the assertion that religion is too important. Important for what? It's nice with OR and pacifism, but not NECESSARY to succeed. I play the LHC series a lot (isolation), and in many of them on immortal I can't get religion...so no city I own has one until after 1000 AD ----> that's not ideal but hardly gamebreaking.

Also, if you want religion and it doesn't look like it's coming your way, you can always research or oracle code of laws, OR get CoL, math, and alphabet (you can usually trade for math and/or alphabet), research meditation, then use a scientist to bulb philosophy.

Theology is also an option.

If you want religion and it doesn't look like one will spread to you, it's reasonably easy to get any religion except islam in the BC's, so I don't understand this waiting to 1000 AD thing.

 

[Stoney the I]

Also, if you want religion and it doesn't look like it's coming your way, you can always research or oracle code of laws, OR get CoL, math, and alphabet (you can usually trade for math and/or alphabet), research meditation, then use a scientist to bulb philosophy.

Theology is also an option.

yup, If i do found a religion, these are the ways i usually do it.

Oracle --> CoL
early great prophet (from stonehenge for example) --> bulb theo.
Great scientist --> bulb philo.

otherwise founding a religion is just not worth it imho.

 

[nbcman]

@ Sincro

VoiceOfUnreason has a thread in the War Academy that discusses religion, including the mechanics of spontaneous religion spread, here.

If the target city that does not have any religions present theoretically could have a trade route with the holy city, there is chance for a religion to spread. If the holy city has a shrine, the chance for spontaneous religion spread is doubled. Note that Open Borders is not required between the civ of the target city, the civ of the holy city, and any civs between the target city and the holy city.

 

[Deuterium]

make sure you dont have the civic that prevents religious spread if its different from your own. i believe its theocracy?

 

[Rupal]

I also have the feeling that religion is too important. You are faced with either being disadvantaged because you don't have one, or risking major religious groupings attacking you if you do. I tend not to found them as to do so almost guarantees that you will be a target.

 

[Sincro]

make sure you dont have the civic that prevents religious spread if its different from your own. i believe its theocracy?

Yah, it's theocracy. But there's no reason to switch to organized religion, theocracy nor pacifism if you have no religion in any of your cities. Since none of your cities have religion, none would build buildings 25% faster for org religion, you can't make missionaries w/o a religion in a city, either. And with no religion, none of your cities would garner the 2 XP per unit built bonus. Pacifism may be the worst possible choice if you have no religion, since you won't be getting +100% great people production anywhere *and* you get the added bonus of having all your military units cost an extra gold.

Free Religion provides bonuses to cities with no religion, although you do lose some of the benefits. Specifically, you get no additional happies for Free Religion since none of your cities have any religion at all.

I do want to thank whomever it was that suggested beelineing code of laws. I was unaware of how quickly you can get CoL if you dedicate yourself to it. I had been focusing my early game teching on getting the worker techs, then beelining alphabet for tech trading and was missing out on early CoL due to that.

-Sinc

I did leave out one option earlier for how to get a religion, although it's more of a corrolary to an axe rush: Play Rome and overwhelm Cathy and Monty with praetorians.

 

[nbcman]

Free Religion provides bonuses to cities with no religion, although you do lose some of the benefits. Specifically, you get no additional happies for Free Religion since none of your cities have any religion at all.

Actually, FR gives +1 per religion present in the city but you do not have a state religion. The other religious civics only give +1 if your state religion is present in the city. So FR can allow for more happiness in the city than having a state religion if you have multiple religions in your cities.

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I also have the feeling that religion is too important. You are faced with either being disadvantaged because you don't have one, or risking major religious groupings attacking you if you do. I tend not to found them as to do so almost guarantees that you will be a target.

I agree with some of this, but religion itself is just another game mechanic. I don't really think it's necessary to adopt or found a religion to have success in your game (at least with me as high as Prince.) I will often purposely not adopt a religion until I either need the happy benefit or else Theocracy, and I rarely bother to found one. If I want a holy city, that's what my army is for.

Religion seems to be fairly well balanced, IMHO. There are benefits and drawbacks to it, just like anyother part of the game, and it makes the game more true to life. Izzy and the rest of the AI hate you because you don't share a religion and you're surprised? Hmmm. The Crusades anyone? Real life is just as wacky as anything the AI does. The big difference is that we can usually predict the AI.

But it does make the game a lot more fun.