How to handle founding multiple religions?

[Padmewan]

I have been playing the opening moves of a few games to get a feel for Civ IV (I'm a Civ III addict) and, at Noble level, find myself founding at least 2 religions. I've always adopted the first religion as our civ's state religion, but is this wise? If my civ is officially Buddhist but there is a city that is the holy Hindu city, does the Hindu city become unhappy?

Also, because later religions are founded outside my capital, they usually end up near another civ's border, and if that civ doesn't found a religion itself, it can pick up my civ's "minority" religion. If they adopt it, that can produce tension. (And if they do found another religion, that'll obviously produce tension too).

So, while founding multiple religions is a blessing (literally, I guess), what's the best way to maximize its benefits? I can't switch to free religion until late game, but maybe I shouldn't adopt a state religion? Or avoid the civics that force me to choose a state religion?

Also, when looking at cities can you tell whether one religion predominates number-wise, or is it irrelevant? In other words, can a city be 60% Buddhist and 40% Hindu, or does the game consider religions a set of non-mutual "on-off" options? If the former, how can you tell, and do the residents get upset if you declare a different state religion than the majority of the city? (I guess I am assuming that the game is modeling real life, but I'm also influenced by Medieval: Total War, which had an interesting and similar religious system where you did have to worry about what % of your population was Catholic, Muslim, heathen, etc. and you'd have to work to convert them to the state religion, which was fixed by faction).

 

[TyranusBonehead]

I have been playing the opening moves of a few games to get a feel for Civ IV (I'm a Civ III addict) and, at Noble level, find myself founding at least 2 religions. I've always adopted the first religion as our civ's state religion, but is this wise? If my civ is officially Buddhist but there is a city that is the holy Hindu city, does the Hindu city become unhappy?

The word I've heard is that it's a good idea to have multiple religions in your civ. If you want a certain religion to be dominant, send out missionaries and convert cities. While they don't actually revert to that new religion completely, that new religion is added to the city. I generally prefer Christianity, and even though I may have other religions in my civ, I will spread Christianity through my civ and then head out to other civ's cities that border me.

 

[walkerjks]

Personally, I adopt the first religion I found. But don't be afraid to switch for diplomatic reasons. You can manually spread any of your religions to all of your cities through missionaries. So if you are developing Hinduism, but your neighbor picks up your Judaism through natural spread, feel free to switch religions, switch directions and promote Judaism internally.

To answer your question about the cities with your non-state religion being unhappy. The answer is "no". There are no downsides to having the "wrong" religion in a city, and in fact you still get the benefits of any temples and monastaries you have built for those religions. Just get your state religion into the city at some point (so you can get the organized religion or theocracy benefits now and free religion benefits later), And if you need the happiness or culture, start doubling up on temples and monostaries.

Whether I founded the religion or not, I generally find that more religions is better, at least for my core cities.

 

[TyranusBonehead]

A thought that just occurred to me is the espionage value in religion (kind of wierd to think that religion could have an espionage value).

IIRC, if you have say Christianity, and spread that religion to other civ's cities, then anyplace where you've spread that religion, you get Line of Sight, as well as espionage capabilities. Something to think about I guess.

 

[FuzzyWeasel]

I have been playing the opening moves of a few games to get a feel for Civ IV (I'm a Civ III addict) and, at Noble level, find myself founding at least 2 religions. I've always adopted the first religion as our civ's state religion, but is this wise? If my civ is officially Buddhist but there is a city that is the holy Hindu city, does the Hindu city become unhappy?

If you are founding multiple religions like I always do try to make sure that your "state" religion is spread to your neighbors. It doesn't hurt a city at all to have founded Judaism, Confucianism, and Islam if your state religion is Buddism as long as that city *HAS* buddism in it. Think of the religions as on/off togglges. The only one that really matters is if you the state religion in every city. Other than that you are just worried about spread of non-state religion to other nations that dont share yours.

I like to found the first few early religions before spreading to another city... Hinduism, Buddism, and Judaism. Then my main city pops out prophets like mad. Get all three of those religions to have their prophet building built... and make sure they are all spread to each of my cities. The gold income is very nice, and then I can switch between these three (and any other future ones I get) with ease in order to get the best diplomatic bang for my religious buck.

And a temple is a temple. Having multiple religions lets you build multiple religious buildings. Dont go buck wild on this because you will definitely need military and research, but the prospects for future cultural growth is solid.

Ghandi ownz you.

-Weasel

 

[Padmewan]

Think of the religions as on/off toggles. The only one that really matters is if you the state religion in every city. Other than that you are just worried about spread of non-state religion to other nations that dont share yours.

Right. That sounds right in game mechanic terms but also entirely counter-intuitive (or at least, sadly, not true to real-earth experience). I suppose religion was a touchy element for Firaxis to add, so I'm not surprised they treated it in such a relatively PC way (e.g. while there are inter-civ conflicts over religion, there's no incentive for the player to conduct "religious cleansing" within their own civ, based on what we're discussing in this thread).

 

[gabbar]

IIRC, if you have say Christianity, and spread that religion to other civ's cities, then anyplace where you've spread that religion, you get Line of Sight, as well as espionage capabilities. Something to think about I guess.

I thought it was only Line of Sight... can you actually look into the cities too? I'll have to try that out tonight!! That said, LoS is a big help too!

 

[gabbar]

The word I've heard is that it's a good idea to have multiple religions in your civ.

But doesn't that mean you lose some of the cultural benefits of having your city practice the state religion?

 

[walkerjks]

But doesn't that mean you lose some of the cultural benefits of having your city practice the state religion?

None at all. The benefits of a state religion apply to any city that contains that religion. Whether other religions exist in those same cities doesn't matter at all (and in fact can be a benefit since you can put in multiple temples, etc).

The only thing to be aware of is that religions tend not to spread to cities on there own when a different religion already exists in that city. So if you have multiple religions, you will probably need to manually spread your state religion (using missionaries) to any city with a non-state religion.

 

[JavalTigar]

My current game, I am Hindu but have Taoist, Confuc & Buddist Holy cities as well thru conquest. I have spread all of them to almost every city in my empire. I have shrines in 3 of them and working on the Prophet for the 4th. I have 21 cities and thru trade routes, I'm getting 26 coins from Hindu, 19 from budda and 17 from Tao. With an expected 20 coins from Conf since Russia has converted to it.

My advice to you get those missions going!!!

 

[gakkun]

I think there is a slight downside to multiple religions - when you go to war with a civ which has say, Judaism as the state religion then cities with Judaism in your own civ may experience unhappiness (if Judaism isn't your state religion.)

 

[YellowSnow]

If you found 2 religions, is there any point in spreading your non state religon? and whats best use of the free missionry of your secound religion.

 

[walkerjks]

If you found 2 religions, is there any point in spreading your non state religon? and whats best use of the free missionry of your secound religion.

Money, once you get the shrine. If you have Hinduism and Judaism, for example, you can spread both to another civ's city and get +2 commerce.

I generally avoid doing this, however, since I don't really want one neighbor to adopt Hinduism and another to adopt Judaism. What I generally do (at least early), is spread both my religions internally and only one (whatever I want my state religion to be) externally. This way I can get the monetary benefits of the second religion but maintain the diplomatic benefits of a single religion.