How to play religious?

[chazzycat]

Normally I ignore religion, to focus on expansion & military until I have secured a good sized piece of land. This works great of course. I win emperor and immortal easily with this strategy. But sometimes I feel like I'm missing out on one of the core game systems, so I'll switch it up, change my playstyle and go for a religious game instead. So far, I am still really struggling to make it work. I am not proud to admit but actually I still have zero religious victories in civ6!

I can get a religion (emperor level) and am able to generate a large amount of faith per turn. But the cost of these two things seem really steep. Basically I have to sacrifice my military and/or settlers (expansion) in order to get the religion going (both to generate the great prophet, and then to get faith coming in). This puts me far behind in everything except religious victory. So, OK, I can live with that, so I try to focus on religious victory and just keep my units as up to date as possible for defense. But, the AI seems to have infinite religious units, and so even with a HUGE faith output I struggle to make much progress in converting the map. It seems like with all that effort and huge sacrifice for religion, I'm still only breaking even with the AIs efforts.

So I'll ask. Does anyone have any tips for playing with religion more effectively? Namely, how do you go about securing a religion, without sacrificing so much resources in the early game? Other than playing Arabia...

 

[teks]

How to get into the religion game while avoiding the trendous opportunity cost besides playing as Arabia?
Play as the Kongo.

They got it real good honestly. The only catch is you can't win with religion. With some fandangaling of the build orders you can even pick the religion somewhat. What Kongo has is the ability to take full advantage of someone else's religion, and pump out tons of aplostles for free. You get to play with religion at no cost.

Otherwise, I just don't think it's worth it, though it seems to mesh well with conquest. For example, Crusades gives your units +10 attack if that city has your religion. +10 attack is about what a full tech advance is worth.

 

[Captain Potato]

That's probably a fair assessment; the religious bonuses are good, but a bit overpriced without a little extra boost. There's a few civs whose abilities lower that cost to make it more worthwhile. You mentioned Arabia but there's also Russia who get a faith bonus that helps with an early Pantheon then lower cost Holy districts. The usual advice with Russia is to go Divine Spark; they get extra border expansion from expending great people so there's a little bit of extra synergy in that. Greece and also now Poland can use their wildcard slot to take the +Great Prophet Points card for an extra boost in the race. There's also potentially a chance for China by rushing Stonehenge, but I've never tried it and it sounds a bit questionable to me.

The real tragedy is Spain, who get great bonuses for having a religion, but no help in founding one.

 

[Peserwin]

So this is my maiden post at this forum

A strategy which works best for me is to rush a prophet (divine spark as pantheon helps) and get a religion asap. With some luck you can still pick the triple relic bonus which will boost you faith income insanely, and will give you a cultural victory backup plan.

Then buy (or demand as part of a peacedeal) relics from other civs. Maybe you ll find Kandy nearby for relics from natural wonders.

Build missionary's to convert easy targets, like your own cities for pressure and cities that aren't converted yet. Save your appostles for religious battles, don't use them for spreading too much. More important is to save the crucial promotions later in the game as there is a limited number of promotions you can get. Specifically save that 'erases other religions' promotion till you really need it late game.

Building Mont st Michel is a must. After that spam apostles for suicide missions and gain more relics (faith). Adding the believe 'losing theological battles don't convert cities' or something, helps a lot.

After that: spam more apostles and missionaries, convert, win.

 

[chazzycat]

You mentioned Arabia but there's also Russia who get a faith bonus that helps with an early Pantheon then lower cost Holy districts.

My current attempt is with Russia. That's part of the reason I'm dismayed...I had thought Lavras would make it easy.

So this is my maiden post at this forum

A strategy which works best for me is to rush a prophet (divine spark as pantheon helps) and get a religion asap. With some luck you can still pick the triple relic bonus which will boost you faith income insanely, and will give you a cultural victory backup plan.

Then buy (or demand as part of a peacedeal) relics from other civs. Maybe you ll find Kandy nearby for relics from natural wonders.

Thanks, this is good stuff! Nice first post

I hadn't really considered making relics the centerpiece of the strategy. Don't you only have room for 1 relic per holy site, or am I missing something?

Build missionary's to convert easy targets, like your own cities for pressure and cities that aren't converted yet. Save your appostles for religious battles, don't use them for spreading too much. More important is to save the crucial promotions later in the game as there is a limited number of promotions you can get. Specifically save that 'erases other religions' promotion till you really need it late game.

Building Mont st Michel is a must. After that spam apostles for suicide missions and gain more relics (faith). Adding the believe 'losing theological battles don't convert cities' or something, helps a lot.

This is good stuff. I hadn't really considered the effect of limited promotions for apostles. Now that you mention it they seem to have less options available later in the game.

 

[Peserwin]

I hadn't really considered making relics the centerpiece of the strategy. Don't you only have room for 1 relic per holy site, or am I missing something?

This is good stuff. I hadn't really considered the effect of limited promotions for apostles. Now that you mention it they seem to have less options available later in the game.

You can stash 2 relics at temples, so city spamming is awarding!

 

[paulthebug]

I like Japan for its half-priced Holy Site.
Then rush for City Prayer Project.

 

[teks]

Try the relic combo with congo. They get that same faith bonus as food production and culture. If I remember right each holy artifact is +4 production, +4 food, and +8 culture. In my last game with Kongo I received a few apostles with martyr just for building houses.

As for the difficulty of getting a religion. Harder difficulties don't make the AI better. It just makes them cheat more. Eventually a good player can catch up with a superior strategy the AI of this game is incapable of, but in strategies like this the AI is very hard to beat. They are getting their districts for free. They get free gold to buy great people. They get free everything.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Victory in Civ 6 is all about early expansion. With religion, it's not different.

How do you keep the AI from getting Great Prophets? Just curbstomp them. Ruthless, simple and efficient. The only caveat is that your first district won't be Commercial Hubs, but Holy Sites. Thus, you can open like an usual game, but tech early to Astrology (maybe after Archery).

If on Standard or larger maps, though, you might want to place your Holy Sites after your first conquest. Many times the AI will have a Holy Site ready for me, and then I build others in my cities.

If you have the DLC, try a game with Poland.

• Their Holy Sites have really strong adjacency bonuses
• They get bonuses from Relics (almost on par with Kongo)
• Can convert cities using Encampments, while your faith hasn't taken off yet
• The wildcard slot means you can run the Great Prophet card earlier than most
• If the game drags on, Sukiennice will help with gold and production, and Winged Hussars (the strongest medieval unit until now) will take care of the few heretics and infidels. Theocracy makes them cost measly 490 faith, though WH are on the other side of the civics tree.

Russia's Lavras are good, and being half-cost means earlier GP, so they are still a solid choice. But you need Dance of the Aurora (or something similar if you start farther from tundra).

As for Apostles promotions, go for Debater, Translator, or Proselytizer. Anything else is kinda meh for a Religious Victory. Also, scout far and wide to find Yerevan, and send all envoys there. Choosing Apostle promotions is game-changing.

 

[greygamer]

Get 2 cities, purchase a shrine, pray a lot ...and keep your fingers crossed. Use scouts to surround your capital so it cannot be converted by early religions. Don't forget you can use faith or gold to shave a few turns off getting a prophet.

 

[Bro]

I tried Russia and Japan for religious game before I settled for China. Yup, China. Being able to rush Stonehenge with your builders saves me loads of precious time to build my army and expansions. This only works if you have stone and atleast a couple of +2 production tiles to work on. Rush Astrology and Stonehenge and you are set for a religion. If you don't have stone then you'll need to go for Divine Spark and rush Oracle with your builders. Then the second building I like to go for is Mahabodhi Temple and rush that with my builders, this way I can Evangelize without losing faith to buy Apostoles. The Crusade +10 attack bonus is awesome when you have only Archers, you can really storm those cities that much faster.

This will get you to the religious game easily. Next you just have to spam Holy Sites and having a City State like La Venta helps a lot. Or Yerevan.

 

[MaximusPlatypus]

Build inquisitors and station them in your own territory (preferably on Holy Sites, they will heal every turn). They are much cheaper and almost as good as enemy apostles in your own territory.

 

[chazzycat]

thanks for all the responses, there's a lot of good info here. Appreciated

 

[darkace77450]

Rather than creating a new topic, I'll just piggyback off this one. I've been fine-tuning my early and mid-game whilst playing for Science Victories. Now that I'm transitioning to Religious Victories I want to see which habits I've developed need to be discarded. So I'm going to toss you guys a few questions to see what you think.

1. Rather than my usual early-game build order (a Scout, some Slingers, some Builders, some Settlers, etc), should I forgo most of these things in favor of Holy Site Prayers until I get a Great Prophet? Such a tactic increases the likelihood of me getting the Beliefs I want, but it comes at the expense of expansion cities going up 10 or so turns latter than usual.

2. Should I even bother building Campuses and Theater Squares to increase my science and culture output? Or does the relative ease of reaching Reformed Church and the speed one can achieve a Religious Victory render all the other mid- and late-game techs and civics moot?

3. Is the Revelation policy card as useless as it looks? By the time you've researched both Theology (for the policy card) and Political Philosophy (for the wild card policy slot) any Civ that wants a religion (myself included) will in all likelihood already have grabbed a Great Prophet. I suppose it's useful for hastening a Great Prophet if I haven't already got one by that stage in the game, but I can't see delaying getting a GP if my entire victory path requires me to have one.

4. I suspect Arabia is a much better Civ for Religious Victories than Egypt, but after spending a fair bit of time toiling in the tundra as Russia I'm actually wanting to play some desert-starts. Egypt's flood plain start bias gives me my best shot at such games, so I'm rolling with them. That said, I'm curious how much I'm handicapping myself by choosing Cleopatra over Saladin.

 

[Arms Longfellow]

I wish I could offer extensive advice on winning religious victory, but religion is horribly buggy right now so I'm not going to play again until a new patch comes out. For example, is the "save the best promotions for later" strategy that Peserwin alluded to a feature or a bug? Who knows. Apostles will also sometimes not be able to choose a promotion for mysterious reasons.

Anyway, from what I've observed so far, this is what you want to do:

First wave of apostles - for converting cities close to you to your religion. Important for getting your faith income going. Choose promotions that give you additional spreads (eg Pilgrim), but DON'T choose ones like Debater (more powerful at theological combat). Save them for later. If you manage to build Mont St. Michel, choose the crappiest promotions possible and have these apostles suicide in theological combat to generate relics until your slots are full.

Second wave of apostles - This is where you want to start saving them for theological combat. At high difficulties the AI apostle/missionary spam is truly ridiculous, but don't think of this as a bad thing my friend, it's actually a good thing! Because it's much easier to convert cities by winning theological combat battles than it is via spreading religion. Never use your last apostle spread, always keep him around for theological combat! Find an area that the AI is sending a lot of apostles/missionaries to and go there with your apostle army. Make sure that you have a lot, and make sure that they support each other in battle. Strategically convert a city so that you can heal in or around its holy site (once again, bugs currently plague this. Sometimes holy sites belonging to a foreign city will not heal your apostles, even if it follows your religion. You may need to go all the way home to heal). If you move, fight, and heal strategically enough you should easily be able to mow down tons of enemy apostles while rarely losing your own and convert a whole country to your religion without even using spreads.

 

[teks]

Why would you convert your cities with apostles instead of missionaries?

 

[Arms Longfellow]

Yes I should have clarified that missionaries are more cost effective early on. The "first wave of apostles" is more what you're doing when you've already converted your own cities/easy to convert foreign cities close to you, and you're now ready to make some additional gains that are not so up-for-grabs. Once the cost of apostles starts escalating and AI spam is in full swing, the second wave of apostles with the goal of winning theological combat begins.

 

[teks]

Ok, cool. Thanks for the clarification. I don't really get the spread mechanics so much yet.
I replaced my first wave with Mamluks. They made winning theological combat vs. the AI real easy . Hilariously, killing apostles in this fashion reduced their influence just the same.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Ok, cool. Thanks for the clarification. I don't really get the spread mechanics so much yet.
I replaced my first wave with Mamluks. They made winning theological combat vs. the AI real easy . Hilariously, killing apostles in this fashion reduced their influence just the same.

Killing a religious unit with a military one only decreases the enemy religion by 125. On the other hand, killing it in theological combat decreases the enemy religion by 250, and increases yours by 250. You need to weigh feasibility and vialibity of a war vs. killing them in theological combat at peace.

Rather than creating a new topic, I'll just piggyback off this one. I've been fine-tuning my early and mid-game whilst playing for Science Victories. Now that I'm transitioning to Religious Victories I want to see which habits I've developed need to be discarded. So I'm going to toss you guys a few questions to see what you think.

1. Rather than my usual early-game build order (a Scout, some Slingers, some Builders, some Settlers, etc), should I forgo most of these things in favor of Holy Site Prayers until I get a Great Prophet? Such a tactic increases the likelihood of me getting the Beliefs I want, but it comes at the expense of expansion cities going up 10 or so turns latter than usual.

2. Should I even bother building Campuses and Theater Squares to increase my science and culture output? Or does the relative ease of reaching Reformed Church and the speed one can achieve a Religious Victory render all the other mid- and late-game techs and civics moot?

3. Is the Revelation policy card as useless as it looks? By the time you've researched both Theology (for the policy card) and Political Philosophy (for the wild card policy slot) any Civ that wants a religion (myself included) will in all likelihood already have grabbed a Great Prophet. I suppose it's useful for hastening a Great Prophet if I haven't already got one by that stage in the game, but I can't see delaying getting a GP if my entire victory path requires me to have one.

4. I suspect Arabia is a much better Civ for Religious Victories than Egypt, but after spending a fair bit of time toiling in the tundra as Russia I'm actually wanting to play some desert-starts. Egypt's flood plain start bias gives me my best shot at such games, so I'm rolling with them. That said, I'm curious how much I'm handicapping myself by choosing Cleopatra over Saladin.

1. I think opening as usual for early rush (early Archers and Warriors) is fine. Directly teching Astrology might leave you defenseless against the AI and barbs. Besides, one less Civ is one less competitor for your GP. Later on, just lock the Holy Site and expand a bit. The more Holy Sites, the more faith and places to buy your Apostles.
2. I don't think they're that necessary. Maybe Theatre Districts for a backup option, and Campi so you don't become vulnerable to later-era units. Thing is, you don't need much after Theocracy and keeping up with Science.
3. Depends on the Civ. Poland and Greece can use it to great efficiency, because they have a wildcard slot from the start. Rome usually eats up early civics, unlocking governments earlier. Other might depend on an early Monument (either built or from a captured city), or luxury yields. I postpone my Holy SIte until I conquer my first neighbor anyway, so I usually run it for some turns.
4. Egypt has a bonus for building districts and wonders on flooplains, so they're not that bad in that regard. But I don't like Arabia's ability for a religious game because the last pick of beliefs usually isn't that good (and worsens with more players in the map), and you need a Holy Site anyway. I'd go Poland (great faith bonuses, and a backup plan with Winged Hussars), Russia (Lavras are good, combined with Dance of the Aurora and tundra bonuses) or Japan (half-cost Holy Sites with boosted adjacency bonus).

 

[DiffSarit]

I have won religious victories a few times, before Winter patch though. Russia is the best for Religious Victory, imo. Though they are a bit worse after Winter patch.

For Russia strategy, get Dance of Aurora pantheon. Then get 2 Holy Sites (also scout to see if you can get 1 from capturing a city from your neighbor) which should be enough to get you as the 2nd-4th religion.

With Dance of Aurora and Russia unique ability and probably double HS's adjacency bonus policy card, you should have your first missionary ready soon. This should be enough to convert most of your core cities. Build a few more Lavras if possible and wait for your first few apostles. Use them to evangelize 2 more believes: "Mosque" and "Scripture or Holy Order" and if there is a competing religion around also start an Inquisition.

If you are lucky and there is no competing religion on your continent, it should be easy win. If not then start accumulating your Inquisitors until you have at least 3 of them, before you build more missionaries and apostles to spread your religion. These inquisitors will be your main defensive forces, keep them together in and around Holy Site and when enemy apostles and/or missionaries are passing by, you massacre them. You don't have to rush your Inquisitors to kill the enemies right away when they come in to convert your cities, if all of your cities have already converted to your religion. Let them use their valuable charges to convert a few of your cities first. Already converted cities are quite more difficult to convert to another religion, especially for city size 7 or bigger (size 13 city is almost impossible to convert, except for an apostle with Proselytizer or Translator ability), so the enemies should spend quite some charges and probably 1 or 2 apostles to convert a few of your cities and you can convert each city back easily with just 1 charge from your Inquisitor.

For spreading your religion, first you should consider whether that civ has found their own religion or not and you plan to invade that civ or not. If you plan to invade them, don't waste time to actively convert them. Just use Inquisitor to convert them after you have conquer their cities. If that civ has found a religion and have strong faith generation, you should seriously consider whether you can invade them and capture a few cities with Holy Site (or at least pillage some Holy Sites to slow them down) and also kill some of their religious units with your military units in the process.

For civs that you cannot or don't want to invade, if they did not found a religion, then send a missionary to scout first to see if there are some cities that don't convert to any religion left. If there are, then send more missionaries to convert them (the scout missionary should move just 1 tile each time when in enemy land, so if they see apostles they can hopefully withdraw back). If there is no unconverted city or you see some apostles, then withdraw back and build apostles until you have at least a few apostles with one of them has Proselytizer/Translator ability (keep building them until you get at least one with this ability). Move this offensive forces together (preferably with a missionary) and target a big city with Holy Site first if you have Proselytizer ability since it can convert almost any city with just 1 charge. If you only have Translator then target a medium city with Holy Site. Keep sending reinforcements (both apostles and missionaries) and withdraw them to heal in your territory if need arise. You should switch to buy apostle when missionary cost is more than half of apostle cost. You should use apostle charges just to change a city from another religion to neutral (the symbol of another religion disappear from that city and a pantheon symbol appear instead), then use missionary charge to convert it to your religion (because it is easier to convert nuetral city).

For civ that has found its own religion, you should wait for their apostles/missionaries horde to invade you first, then kill them with your Inquisitors to soften their force before you send yours to convert their cities. While you are waiting, you should build up more apostles to invade than in case of non-religion founders above. Preferably with apostle with Debate ability. Try to convert most (if not all) of their cities with Holy Sites in one fell swoop. Repeat the process civ by civ.

In case that there is another strong religious civ in another continent that you have a problem converting, consider invading it with your military to try to kill some of their apostles/Inquisitors with your troops. You should also bring some of your religious units to draw out their apostles/Inquisitors to the battlefield. You should at least be able to keep the invasion for sometimes and can kill some of its religious units, in case that you can't capture its cities. Because usually the strongest religious civ won't be that ahead in science and won't have that strong military either. So even though you lack behind a bit in some areas due to your focus on religion, you should be able to push this through.