How to play religious?

[Bro]

On emperor the AI goes for religion really fast so you are in a race and one mistake could blew it. Gather those gpps really fast, harvest and religious prayers will help but often it is just easier to stack those gp bonuses like Shrines, the +2 gp card, Divine Spark and Oracle. You don't need to be the first one to get a religion though and without Stonehenge that is even impossible. Just be atleast third or fourth and you'll still get a good religion.

 

[Victoria]

@greygamer was most succinct in my view. I guess thats the best general answer and works well even with England.

From there it really depends on situation.
You can take the war route which is fairly easy
You can look for Yerevan which makes life easy
Or you can play a longer more challenging "peaceful" game which relies on early mssionaries, using specialist groups of apostles and holy sites. I found it great to have a small base city setup then spam out settler holy sites in the right place. Different beliefs have benefit. I like cheaper missionaries and apostles as I can use them more effectively than they can.... If it can be got, but I do not play loads of religious games... But I do win with England.

 

[kamex]

Worth mentioning Scythia is good as your Apostles heal when winning combat, Early UI spam for a bit of bonus faith.

The hard bit is securing the Prophet, as any civ really...

 

[darkace77450]

One tip I've got is hitting a foreign city with an Apostle with the Proselytizer followed by one with Translator is a particularly effective way to convert foreign cities with large populations to your religion with minimal Spread Religious charges. It takes some luck to set up, but it's a very efficient combo.

 

[McGreggD]

I won a religious victory with Arabia on king / huge fractal map. The map was a pangaea but it was split up into continents and seas with small land bridges connecting them together. I was going to try and play peaceful but i was sandwiched between China and America on our continent.

I didn't have to rush for the prophet with Arabias bonus so I researched the usual needed worker / government techs first and tried to found as many cities asap before them. I got 3 cities down and was building a settler for the 4th that would use up all the space available then both of them declared war on me at the same time.

I had no military except 2 scouts and a warrior so I had to switch to full military production to fight them off. America was aggressive, China not so much. After fighting them off with slingers then archers the game turned into total war, so much for being peaceful. But I managed to squeeze in some holy sites and got a prophet from Arabias bonus.

I conquered America first, then China and by this time I had met Brazil and Russia who both denounced me for being a warmonger so I went and conquered them aswell. After the war was over I had a decent empire with about 15 cities and many holy sites so I started to explore the map and meet everyone else.

I found Yerevan and became suzerain, their bonus to choose the promotion for apostoles helped me cruise to a victory by removing other religions from cities when converting. All i had to do was spam apostoles and convert everyone.

If Yerevan wasn't on the map I think it would have been much harder.

 

[gatorsurgeon]

Russia with Dance of the Aurora can be very powerful for this strategy if you get the right starting spot, because you can plop down a bunch of Lavras that are +6 or +7 faith. Then you're off the the races. When I did this tho, I found once I got theocracy that I was making so much faith per turn that it was quicker to win by spamming Cossacks than by spamming Apostles .

 

[VeronicaCardican]

When fighting another Civ with strong religion it's also important to recognize which of their cities have holy sites built.

If you manage to convert just their cities with holy sites, you got yourself some breathing room because they won't be able to produce new units for religious warfare.

Also in terms of religion, faith equals production. So choosing civics like double faith from religious buildings and spamming UI like sphinxes will get your religious game running much more smoothly.

When considering whom to convert first, think about what civ is most likelyto help your religion spread. Kongo is a first class choice there as is any aggressive civ.

Also note that to convert a civ, you need to get a majority of cities and not population. A humble missionary could easily convert three 3-pop cities by himself which is a bigger leap towards victory than converting one big city with the same number of charges.

 

[chazzycat]

Finally got my first religious victory. Used Poland and went for extra faith from relics, cheaper apostles/missionaries, mosques, and got Mont St. Michel. I hadn't realized how much faith you can get from relics. My faith output was almost 500 per turn towards the end game. It was pretty satisfying.

 

[Dunkah]

I haven't really found any reason to build Inquisitors. Their fighting ability versus Apostles seems very inferior.
The fact they can only remove other religions from you're own cities makes them seem fairly unusefull.

As fas as the start game: If I have a nice mountain range nearby it's possible to get some great Holy Sites up and running. I will start earlier than normal.
Combine that with the ability to buy religious and, Campus and Theater Square buildings with faith and you can have a Religion Science Culture empire going before you even meet half the Civs.

 

[Browd]

Your inquisitors should not be fighting outside your borders -- they will die easily. But they get a significant theological combat bonus when fighting in your territory, putting them on par with any Apostles that do not have the Debater promotion (+20 CS, which is frankly overpowered) or Civ-specific bonuses. Park your inquisitors next to (or on) your Holy Sites (where they automatically heal every turn) and the enemy apostles will be drawn to them, like bees to honey, only to die many deaths.

 

[Jarms48]

I play religion as an all or nothing, if you're not a religious civ you're better off putting that production and districts elsewhere.

For example, my last game as Russia I went for a faith purchasing strategy, I took Dance of the Aurora and managed to plant 3 Holy Sites capable of getting a +7 faith adjacency bonus (with the civic card those became +14). The rest of my city plants I tried to get at least 1 tile of Tundra in the 2nd or 3rd border ring, with most adjacencies around +3 to +5 faith. I rushed Theology and then spammed military units, using a mixture of gold purchasing as well.

When it came to additional religious beliefs I choose ones that increased my yields, as I wasn't going for an actual religious victory:
- Work Ethic: I could have went Jesuit Education for synergy, but I wanted to save my faith for just units, so instead I went for increasing my production until Theology was available
- Cathedral: but in hindsight I should have just gotten the Synagogue or Meeting House, as the thought I had whilst playing was if I couldn't get a domination victory I could use my faith to defend myself while pushing for a culture victory (and because I had an over abundance of great writers/artists/musicians)
- Papal Primacy: Probably my favourite religious belief, I found a faith city-state and so I placed all my envoys into it. I was getting an extra +9 faith in my capital, and +6 faith in my other cities

I can't remember which Enhancer was, I think it was Holy Order, just because I wanted to spend as little faith as possible.

 

[darkace77450]

- Cathedral: but in hindsight I should have just gotten the Synagogue or Meeting House, as the thought I had whilst playing was if I couldn't get a domination victory I could use my faith to defend myself while pushing for a culture victory (and because I had an over abundance of great writers/artists/musicians)

It's my experience that whichever AI builds Stonehenge always takes Synagogue and Divine Inspiration, which can be a bit frustrating if you're looking to generate lots of faith for faith-purchased units or use Divine Inspiration in conjunction with the plethora of religion oriented wonders to spam Missionaries and Apostles.

 

[greygamer]

I haven't really found any reason to build Inquisitors. Their fighting ability versus Apostles seems very inferior.
The fact they can only remove other religions from you're own cities makes them seem fairly unusefull.

As fas as the start game: If I have a nice mountain range nearby it's possible to get some great Holy Sites up and running. I will start earlier than normal.
Combine that with the ability to buy religious and, Campus and Theater Square buildings with faith and you can have a Religion Science Culture empire going before you even meet half the Civs.

Inquisitors are a lot cheaper than apostles so it is easy to spam a few to take out the first few apostles and convert any cities back. The downside is you have to expend an apostle to enable them which makes the first inquisitor very expensive and if you get a good promotion available for that apostle or want early extra beliefs you could be waiting awhile.

However if all you want is to preserve your own religion they are excellent value.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

Generally I play the United States and avoid war going to a Space Race victory. Sometimes I manage.

I have up to now ignored the religious game. How the heck do I buy religious units? I know "with faith and gold." But what the heck control panel has the "Buy Religious Unit" button?

 

[Bro]

I've lately started playing deity and boy does it really change the religious game. It's a lot harder to simultaneously get a religion and fend off the warmongering AIs. The last game I managed to get Stonehenge and steal a settler from Russia, he peace treated me a little bit later while I was plundering his districts and improvements. I build a good army of 5 Archers and 1 Warrior and was about to attack Japan because he frontsettled right next to my capital from like 20 hexes away. Once I started bombarding the city I got dowed by both Gandhi and Russia and was also getting horsemen from barbarians. In a couple of turns Gandhi turned up with 3 Varus and Russia had an army of 5-8 Chariots on my capitals borders. I was expecting to be able to defend my capital at the same time while taking the Japanese city but noo, the three way war was just way too much to handle and I stopped playing after Gandhi got my capital by a couple of attacks from the Varus.. jeez.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Generally I play the United States and avoid war going to a Space Race victory. Sometimes I manage.

I have up to now ignored the religious game. How the heck do I buy religious units? I know "with faith and gold." But what the heck control panel has the "Buy Religious Unit" button?

You can only buy them with faith. There's an option beside the buy with gold button. You need a Shrine to buy MIssionaries, and a Temple to buy Apostles. To buy Inquisitors, you need to Launch Inquisition using an Apostle.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

Thank you, I see it now.

 

[Bro]

Alright I've been testing this now on deity for a couple of days and it's extremely bad of a tactic to go religious on deity. Best case scenario is that you'll get Stonehenge as China and lag behind some 20 turns of your expansion phase. I got it right maybe like 3 games out of 20. Most of the times I was forced to go for an early settler and get 2 holy sites with shrines on them and I also needed to have the Divine Spark pantheon. This will eat up about 30 to 40 turns of your precious expansion time and the AI will most likely move on you and you'll be fighting a losing defensive game cause you lack the army to beat theirs. It seems to me that your possibility to get a religious victory is set on the first couple of turns depending on your starting position.

It might be even wiser to just build an army and move toward the closest AI which has holy sites already build and take them from him. However I think that once you'll be able to do this it is already too late for you to get a religion.

Anyone had any success with this?

 

[greygamer]

Alright I've been testing this now on deity for a couple of days and it's extremely bad of a tactic to go religious on deity. Best case scenario is that you'll get Stonehenge as China and lag behind some 20 turns of your expansion phase. I got it right maybe like 3 games out of 20. Most of the times I was forced to go for an early settler and get 2 holy sites with shrines on them and I also needed to have the Divine Spark pantheon. This will eat up about 30 to 40 turns of your precious expansion time and the AI will most likely move on you and you'll be fighting a losing defensive game cause you lack the army to beat theirs. It seems to me that your possibility to get a religious victory is set on the first couple of turns depending on your starting position.

It might be even wiser to just build an army and move toward the closest AI which has holy sites already build and take them from him. However I think that once you'll be able to do this it is already too late for you to get a religion.

Anyone had any success with this?

A nearby religious CS will probably give you a free holy site, but it's down to luck. Getting an early second city with decent production should get you another holy site, but even then I only get a religion around 75% - 80% of the time and if you fail you have spent all that production for little effect.

 

[blueveil]

Got a lot of helpful tips on this thread.