Help a newb with religion

[Slice]

Hi all,

I've only owned the game for a week. Just started my first game on Warlord level.

I'm a few turns in playing the Germans - Frederick. I was the first to discover Meditation and therefore have a religion.

Is there any reason I should make discovering other religions a priority? Playing on the Chieftain levels, it seems I would get at least 3.

What is the exact purpose of missionaries? I know they help spread religion, but am unsure what good that does. Is it worth using them to spread religions to my own cities?

Thanks in advance.

Slice

*edit* I don't have any expansions if that makes a difference.

 

[Refar]

Having founded more than one religion often costas you more than it helps, so unless you have some plans with it, having founded one is enought.

Spreading religions gives cities some benefits - you can build temples for Happiness foe example. Also if you choose a staate religion only cities where the religion is present will get any bonus.

 

[TM Moot]

Not sure what negative effect more then one religion has, but try to spread at least one around all your cities and make that your state religion (therefore any religious bonuses are more widespread). Also try to get other Civs to take up your religion (send missionaries to their cities), as it can help with diplomacy.

 

[madscientist]

Welcome Slice.

A few things about Vanilla Civ religions.

1) You do not have to found a religion but they help. Frederick of the Germans is generally a leader who rarely founds an early religion. By early we generally refer to Buddhism (meditation) or Hinduism (Polytheism).

2) Once you found a religion (+1 culture for each city with it) , you can build a temple for +1 happy face and +1 culture once you discover priesthood. You build a monestary (+2 culture, +10% beakers) which allows you to build missionaries.

3) A missionary allows you to spread your religion to another city, your own or another leader's (if you have open borders).

4) If you are first to discover a tech that opens up a religion, you found that religion and thus have the holy city. In your case, Berlin id the Buddhist holy city.

5) Once you produce a Great Prophet (that requires another posting I think) you can build the Buddhist holy shrine in teh holy city. This gets Berlin 1 gold for every city that has that religion.

6) You state religion is determined by yourself. It get's you +1 happy in each city that has it plus allows you to utilize the religious civics in that city. You do not have to have the state religion the same as your founded religion.

7) Other leaders will love you if your the same religion or hate you if different. Some leaders out there take these to extremes and some don't care much. I'll let you have the fun of finding out who is who.

8) Multiple religions: The more you found, the more shrines you can get and more gold. While this sounds good, it's often overkill as it weakens other areas of your game especially higher levels which I am sure you would like to eventually move up to.

Enjoy!!! And get the Beyond the Sword expansion pack eventually, it's worth it.

7)

 

[Slice]

That clears up a lot.

Thanks!


Slice

 

[lordrune]

I'm a big fan of spreading early religions. If you start with Mysticism, and manage to found Hinduism or Buddhism (I'll usually try for the former), and spread it to an AI or two, along with your own cities, then when you get a Great Prophet, the free money will really help you offset the maintenance costs of a developing empire, especially when you beef it up with a marketplace. The benefits aren't so significant later on in the game, but in the early part it really does ease the economy along.
(In general, whenever the civ I play isn't Creative, I'll found Stonehenge, and that will almost always give you a great prophet after a number of turns).