I literally have no idea how to found a religion

Oddible

signal / noise > 1
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It seems to me that the only way to found a religion is to build Stonehenge. Otherwise every other civ makes a bee line to faith building faith districts in all their cities and by turn 100 all the Great Prophets are gone. The good thing about this is that they wasted so much production on faith that I can steamroll them even on higher levels. However I'm always left without a religion. Do I really have to turtle up for the first 100 turns and build faith districts everywhere to pull off getting a religion?
 
I've found a single religious district in my capital city, one temple and one round of Holy Site Prayers always does the trick. What level are you playing on?
 
Immortal, at what turn do you do this? I always get the AI gang pile on me despite a very healthy sized army (I always push them back and take their cities). However if I do that I dont have the production to get all that Holy production going.

I think that is one of the things that is rubbing me about Civ VI. You have to decide what some basic victory directions by literally turn 10 or you miss the boat.
 
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If you want to play the difficult levels, then yes, you have to decide early what direction you want to try to go. On Deity, religions are gone by turn 60, so you really have to push to get one. If you don't get one, then you'll play a bit behind for a while and just try to survive. I don't view the early decision as a problem: you take a look at your civ traits, your leader, your geography, and perhaps a bit at your neighbors and decide whether religion should be important to you.
 
If you don't get one, then you'll play a bit behind for a while and just try to survive

I'm not understanding this. Frankly the production focus on Holy & Faith required to get a religion puts me WAY behind. In the meantime I'm building units and conquering other civs. How am I more behind for not building holy districts?
 
The other way to found a religion on high difficulty levels is to play as Arabia; where you'll get the Last Prophet for free the moment the AI gets the second to last one.
But if you don't get a Temple up and some faith stockpiled to buy Apostles / Inquisitors it would get crushed.
 
The other way to found a religion on high difficulty levels is to play as Arabia; where you'll get the Last Prophet for free the moment the AI gets the second to last one.

Yeah, this is likely the only way you're going to found a religion on high difficulty levels. Actually building the Holy Sites, Shrines, and optionally Prayers to get a Great Prophet (and you will need more than one Holy Site in most games) is going to put you really far behind with how much they ramped up the early game advantages for AI in this.
 
I'm not understanding this. Frankly the production focus on Holy & Faith required to get a religion puts me WAY behind. In the meantime I'm building units and conquering other civs. How am I more behind for not building holy districts?
You made the early decision to conquer; that's fine if that's what you want to do. But I don't understand why you feel you should be able to do both. Civ 6 seems to be about making choices and you can't do everything. That makes it a much more enjoyable game, IMO.

If you try to get a religion and fail, not only have you missed the pre-wall warfare era, but you're not going to have many of the mid to late game advantages of religion and are going to have to make up for it in other ways (possibly concentrating on using your faith to get great people).
 
Never said I was trying to do both. Said that it is very challenging to stave off the early warfare if I'm spending production on Holy districts.I understand what you were saying now, if I try to get a religion and miss the mark, gotcha.
 
Never said I was trying to do both. Said that it is very challenging to stave off the early warfare if I'm spending production on Holy districts.I understand what you were saying now, if I try to get a religion and miss the mark, gotcha.
You made the choice to have a "very healthy-sized army" and take the AI cities on your counterattack. You can't both do that and go after a religion on deity (except if you're lucky or Arabia).
 
Try to get Holy Site+Shrine up on your capital ASAP. If you have a second city early, having a Holy Site there helps, but you probably won't have time to get a Shrine.
SPAM PRAYER PROJECT. This is the most important part. The city projects give a lot of Great People points, so the Prayer Project will likely send you ahead of the competition to get a prophet. Remember to keep track of Prophet progress on the Great People screen and how many religions have been founded on the Religion screen (from the Victory Progress button on the top right) to see if it's worthwhile to keep investing in religion or if you should just cut your losses and give up.

You really have to think if it this is all worth it from the start, however. On higher difficulties, your neighbours will likely DoW very soon (before turn 20), so you have to juggle rushing the Holy Site+Shrine, a possible settler from a second city, your builders AND also a somewhat sizeable army so you don't get eliminated early on. So in some games you'll probably have no shot at a religion because you're too busy surviving an early onslaught. :( It's pretty bad design, but also somewhat along the lines of Civ5 where it was also pretty hard to reliably get a religion unless you had some good Faith pantheon.

And remember, if you're not Arabia, you're aiming for the second to last religion, as otherwise Arabia might be in the game and steal the last religion from you. ;)
 
Well there are a couple relevant points

1) Obviously what civ you're playing is a huge factor as some has direct bonuses for this (like Russia with the Lavra, Greece with being able to pick up the +2 Great Prophet point card faster than anyone else, Arabia getting the last prophet for free etcetera)
2) Assuming you don't have any of that, I'd first of all recommend getting your Holy Site up as fast as possible. Like perhaps not immediately beeline it but something like Scout => Slinger => Builder => Holy Site => Shrine => Settler is pretty reasonable. Finding a Natural Wonder definitely helps for the boost but that's a bit luck-based
3) Try your hardest to hit all the Civics boosts as you rush for Political Philosophy and then pick up Mysticism for the +2 Great Prophet points card (again, unless you're Greece in which case you can do that anyway)
4) Save up some gold or faith in order to be able to patronage the Prophet slightly ahead of time, otherwise an AI will probably do it first. As for which resource is better to do it with depends on luck with what city states you end up getting free envoys from, what tile yields your capital has, what pantheon you took etcetera
5) Do one round of Holy Site Prayers sometime after the settler, it's a pretty huge boost and pretty much mandatory to get a religion on higher difficulties if you're a non-religious civ
6) When you get close enough to patronage the guy, it's a bit of a gamble knowing how long you can wait before you have to do it, but don't get too greedy; it's better paying a hundred extra faith than someone else beating you to it after all. Keep a close eye on the other civ's prophet points to decide when to jump the gun

Oh and also I would pretty much never recommend going for Stonehenge, it's super hard to build given how much the AI likes it and if you fail to get it it's a huge waste of early production. Also you still need a Holy Site to get missionaries and apostles afterwards anyway so you might as well just get your religion normally instead
 
Good points; you can speed things up even more by ignoring the Shrine on the capital city, and go straight to Prayer project - if it fits, you can chop forests to further speed up the project. You can get the Shrine in a later pre-religion stage if you see that you have time. I've never tried to found a second city pre-religion if I'm going after religion; it wouldn't work in the deity games I've played (thought the current one looks like religions will be available much longer.)
 
pick Arabia. 100% guarenteed religion. Expand and build up your economy/army. Your prophet comes quick enough (emperor, standard map when i tested it)
With Russia i had no problem getting the 2nd religion as well (1rst was founded by Stonehenge)
 
Start teching Astrology right away. Hope your scout and warrior find a natural wonder for the boost. From there take godking if you don't find faith in a goodie hut, resource, or city-state.You'll want to civic mysticism for the great prophet card ( can be used right away with Greece) and then go for political philosophy.

At the same time get up a holy site after astrology (Japan and Russia are really nice here) get a shine (chop these things out if you're really falling beind) and dedicate a few turns to holy site prayers. It's a huge investment and I wouldn't bother with religion unless you're Civ really needs it to play optimally.

Alternatively you can play Arabia and not worry about missing out on a religion but you still need some religious infrastructure to kick off your religion on a strong foot.
 
Try to get Holy Site+Shrine up on your capital ASAP.

I try to get a religion every game, and early enough that I can get some good picks.

I actually failed at getting Dance of the Aurora in a game playing as Russia, with a nice Tundra start, with Dyes in that wooded tundra (read: +1 faith if worked, +2 faith if worked as Russia, from turn 1). Turns out that Sumeria was sandwiched between two holy CSs, so they were getting +4 faith per turn from just about turn 1.

The first point, one I didn't see mentioned, is to not forget that Faith and Great Person Points are two totally different things now. Its easy to slip back into the Civ V thinking. For me, anyways. So, for example, if you used the +1 faith/gold card to found a pantheon, make sure to switch it out for +1 production to build that shrine and holy site.

People often chop wood for Stonehenge... well, you can chop for the shrine/temple, too. And then chop for a setter to get a military city up and running before going back to Holy Site Project. If you have to chop to clear a site, I would switch to settler, chop, then switch back to holy site.

Usually won't have to run the Holy Site Project more than once, if at all. I find that civs will build the holy site, but not the shrine. Keep an eye on the Great Person wall of shame, and scroll over the points/turn the other civs are getting. Do so frequently.

Remember the cost keeps jumping up as new era's are reached. If I recall, it goes 180 to 360, right? Doubles? So you might think you are behind and will miss it, then hitting the new era buys you breathing room.
 
What I do is beeline and build the Holy Site as soon as possible. Then for Civics, beeline the one that gives you a Wildcard policy and put the +2 for GP in there. Then buy with faith as soon as I can. I only play on Prince, but this seems to work.
 
Another great civ for early religion is Greece. Build one holy site early, and then with your free wildcard spot, use that for the +2GP. You might not get a religion if others are going hard for it, but getting a free +2GP per turn is big.
 
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