Gods and Kings

kkapalk

Warlord
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I am playing my first game on Gods and Kings and would appreciate a little enlightenment with the religion concept. Isn't it a little odd that it spreads to other civilizations both naturally and by my prophet spreading it, and then the religion bonusus help other civs out? And when one gets to enhance it, once again you choose an enhancement that will help out other civs that follow your religion? This seems very odd to me and counterproductive. Am I seeing the situation correctly?
Thanks,
Kev.
 
It's true that they are getting the benefit from the follower beliefs, but you're the only one getting the founder bonus :)
 
It's true that they are getting the benefit from the follower beliefs, but you're the only one getting the founder bonus :)

This is a huge incentive to stamp out the religion of rival AI's and spread your religion everywhere. Take "Tithe" as an example. It can provide upwards of 100+GPT on a "small" map size if spread properly.
 
Founder & Enhancer both go to the founder.
Both the Pantheon & follower beliefs go to the city where its a majority.

(A lot of the Pantheons are terrain specific; many of these will have little or no benefit to cities outside your starting region.)

Note that there is a diplomatic penalty to actively converting civs that have founded their own religion. But you can carefully use your missionaries/prophets to bring cities under large passive influence almost but not quite to majority for your passive one to convert. (By contrast there is a diplomatic bonus to civs that didn't found a religion if you spawned next to one of the losers to the religion race.)
 
I am playing my first game on Gods and Kings and would appreciate a little enlightenment with the religion concept. Isn't it a little odd that it spreads to other civilizations both naturally and by my prophet spreading it, and then the religion bonusus help other civs out? And when one gets to enhance it, once again you choose an enhancement that will help out other civs that follow your religion? This seems very odd to me and counterproductive. Am I seeing the situation correctly?
Thanks,
Kev.

Think about it. Religion is something that other populations must want to embrace. If it is all downside with no benefits to them, why would they want to embrace it? Sure, you can force it on captured populations, but before that, it has to have a draw- something to make it enticing to them. Otherwise, it would be just a virus to be killed and avoided at all costs.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. It just seemed odd giving bonuses away, but I get the point that it needs to be attractive to others in order for them to embrace it. Joncnunn, as far as I remember when I obtained the enhancement one of the bonuses was for followers (including civs who had accepted my religion). I may be wrong of course.
 
Joncnunn, as far as I remember when I obtained the enhancement one of the bonuses was for followers (including civs who had accepted my religion). I may be wrong of course.

You only get that one if the civ has NOT founded its own religion. To get it, a majority of his cities must have your religion as a majority religion.

Note that if your early to a religion and then spread it to him and then he founds one; then the positive modifier goes away. (In addition, if his capital was one of the cities you spread it to, then all your work in his capital goes away.)

On Standard map; 5 religions can be founded; so after all five have been founded, there are only 3 civs in which you can can this benefit. On some maps there may be one near you; but on others there won't be.

Also, a very common city state request is to spread your religion to them. Its worth a lot of free influence. And your not required to keep it as a majority, in fact if after completing it, some AI spreads his religion there, then the city state may repeat this same request.

Religious achievements:
You don't have to work to get "indoctrinated", that one happens if you forget to build an Inquisitor.

"Holier than thou" is easy; but always carries a diplomatic penalty.

"We are family" is bugged and won't unlock in single player; but will in hot seat.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. It just seemed odd giving bonuses away, but I get the point that it needs to be attractive to others in order for them to embrace it. Joncnunn, as far as I remember when I obtained the enhancement one of the bonuses was for followers (including civs who had accepted my religion). I may be wrong of course.

I was referring the one called "enhancer"; (RT / IP) and not "second follower".
 
Thanks for the useful post. i am slowly getting the hang of religion now. And a city state has just become my friend, so I suppose this is the requesting my religion aspect of the game coming into play (because I haven't gifted them gold or anything). I have tended to ignore city states in the past, but I know they are much more usuful in Gods and Kings so I think it is time to interact with them. Would you say city state interaction greatly influences the outcome of games in general, or do they only add a very slight difference?
Thanks again,
Kev.
PS Sorry moderators if mentioning two aspects of the game is against forum rules.
 
CSs can be very helpful, but they are an investment (time, gold, army attention and, if you pursue a Patronage policy, social policies).
 
Papal Primacy+Aesthetics under Patronage makes all city-states carrying your religion your friend without needing to pledge to protect them, which is extremely useful if you're going for a religious diplomatic victory. The upside is that if you're going religious anyway, you're going to be creating missionaries and GPs for border conversions anyway. The downside is passing up some other valuable founder beliefs, like Tithe.
 
In vanilla, city states were a major gold investment.
In G&K; just pledge to protect everyone, do some of the quests (skip the bully ones) and as a filler policy take ascetics (free friendship with every city state on the map). Just be sure to always tell the AI "you will pay for this" when the annoying we've bullied your city state popup appears. (This does show up as red; however it doesn't decrease trade values at all.)

Edit: This was crossposted with above post.
That religious option also works, but I find pledging to protect much easier and addition lets me pick other religious beliefs. (In fact I regard the ascetics & pledging to protect combo as over powered.)
 
Another benefit of spreading your religion to a city state, is that it reduces the rate of decay of your influence with them, I think by either 25% or 33%. This helps save a lot of gold over the course of a game, particularly if you have more than a couple CS's in your payola stable. Combined with some strategic points in the top/left part of the Patronage tree, it'll turn you into a CS pied-piper. And if you are Siam or the Greeks... heh. Whether it's happiness, culture, food or military units you desire, or all of the above, pampered CS's can greatly ease your path to victory in any game. CS Pro Tip: focus your payola first on the city states that are either friendly, neutral or irrational- 'hostile' city states have a much faster rate of decay on your influence.
 
Founder & Enhancer both go to the founder.
Both the Pantheon & follower beliefs go to the city where its a majority.

Off-topic, but does this mean that if I choose Protection as my Pantheon and Just War as my enhancer that it would be overall counterproductive in conquest? Or does Goddess of Protection have a "Friendly Cities" clause somewhere in there?
 
It's true that they are getting the benefit from the follower beliefs, but you're the only one getting the founder bonus :)

Don't know if it applies to Initiation Rites too, but I noticed I was getting science bonuses when I started using missionairies to spread a religion founded by another civ with Interfaith Dialogue.
 
Off-topic, but does this mean that if I choose Protection as my Pantheon and Just War as my enhancer that it would be overall counterproductive in conquest? Or does Goddess of Protection have a "Friendly Cities" clause somewhere in there?

Spreading a religion with Goddess of Protection to a major AI would indeed be counterproductive to a domination victory.
 
Papal Primacy+Aesthetics under Patronage makes all city-states carrying your religion your friend without needing to pledge to protect them, which is extremely useful if you're going for a religious diplomatic victory. The upside is that if you're going religious anyway, you're going to be creating missionaries and GPs for border conversions anyway. The downside is passing up some other valuable founder beliefs, like Tithe.

Or better yet:

Play as Greece, get Patronage opener, spread your religion to your CS of choice, now your influence on that CS won't decay at all (until spies). No need for Papal Primacy at all (which IMO is not that great).
 
Off-topic, but does this mean that if I choose Protection as my Pantheon and Just War as my enhancer that it would be overall counterproductive in conquest? Or does Goddess of Protection have a "Friendly Cities" clause somewhere in there?

Or better yet:

Play as Greece, get Patronage opener, spread your religion to your CS of choice, now your influence on that CS won't decay at all (until spies). No need for Papal Primacy at all (which IMO is not that great).

Papal Primacy+Patronage works for any civilization. It probably wouldn't be useful for Greece.
 
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