How to play religious?

[Gehennas]

Don't know if I was just lucky (yes, there was some luck involved - I had a natural wonder nearby) but religious victory with Poland on Emperor (large map) was the easiest one for me. Also, the most boring one.

Pick a civ with religious synergy (not Spain!). Pick pilgrimage and mosques as beliefs. Build holy site in every city. Move your apostles in groups to quickly deal with enemy apostles. Never spend the last charge of Debater apostles. Always keep the Prozelytizers for the large enemy cities. I think that's all. You can also build some religious wonders but that's not neccessary. Most likely you will be behind in culture/science, but you should win before this lag becomes problematic.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

The only hard part of a Religious Victory is founding your religion. Later, it becomes almost trivial if you have enough faith or Yerevan in your side.

 

[Gengsikan]

The only hard part of a Religious Victory is founding your religion. Later, it becomes almost trivial if you have enough faith or Yerevan in your side.

Yep, happened to me. No match. Aztecs have 4/7 civs when I started popping apostles. I found Yerevan after Japan. I never see 1 single apostle from Aztecs to combat me. I pacefuly evangelized Aztecs and game done... The fun part when I found Kongo they denounce me after 1 turn with my apostle for not spreading my religion... What? After 2 turns they praise me for spread regilion...

 

[upi00r]

What is the best Follower Belief? Reliquaries?
And does diplomacy negative bonus for converting a city depends on era or something?
Cos I got it only with the first civ I converted and then there wasn't it any more with others (I started converting others significant time later than the first one). I ended up the game with Norway hating me (red face icon) and others were like: 3 neutral, 2 friendly and one allied... I played on King since several previously games on Inmmortal ended up for me like this: being attacked by helis and tanks when I had Hussars and Field Cannons. But with the map I got this time I could win on Immortal - kinda sad it did not come earlier - a lot of space for cities, only one other civ for a lot of time and Yerevan around the corner. There were some barb camps but I managed to deal with them with Yerevan help. I went for Cathedral and Mont Saint-Michel but it was a waste since even one single Apostle did not die for a whole game Also got Stone Circles and had 10 Quarries. And I think Spain had a hard time with barbarians.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

I like Reliquaries and Work Ethic, but for Religious Victory Reliquaries surely are better. You may get some mileage from Religious Community or Zen Meditation too, but I honestly find it hard to compete with the other two.

Maybe the others couldn't found a religion, or had their religion killed by another one. Also, the penalties disappears after some time if you don't repeat it. They might have been offsetted by other bonuses as well.

 

[oedali]

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).

Is this true? Does conversion power increase when a city is in neutral status?

I need to get my hands on the religious conversion strength formula, if one exists yet..

 

[Victoria]

@oedali search for a thread called finding my religion ... I posted it. It has conversion charts in for some tests done and also describes the arrows.

Atheists are easier to convert with missionaries, other religions with apostles. This makes perfect sense if you think about what the two types do in real life.

Pressure has been watered down to encourage combat more I suspect