Ironic: No Religion

[binhthuy71]

Still experimentinng so in my last game I avoided founding a religion. Took the Pantheon and then used Great prophets to build Holy Sites. I built Faith buildings only when there was nothing more pressing to build.

The irony: I took every last CS Faith quest without a religion. One finally spread to my capitol during the Industrial era.

Not sure exactly how this should affect my play going forward so I'm putting it out for comment from better minds than my own.

 

[Harthhal]

Well technically you don't have to have a religion that produces faith. I like my religion to produce science as a pantheon, and gold as a religion to keep it relevant all game to how I play.

 

[PhilBowles]

The AI doesn't seem to know what to do with religion - playing on Emperor I've had no trouble gaining any of Stonehenge, Hagia Sophia or the Great Mosque, and I have yet to see an AI missionary. AI faith production seems generally low as a result.

 

[Loucypher]

The AI doesn't seem to know what to do with religion - playing on Emperor I've had no trouble gaining any of Stonehenge, Hagia Sophia or the Great Mosque, and I have yet to see an AI missionary. AI faith production seems generally low as a result.

Really? I was paired with Boudicca next to me, and first she threatens to kill me if I send more Missionairies to Cardiff, and then she sends a Great Prophet to convert my entire religion in one fell swoop. Friggin...

 

[bhavv]

How do I manually spend faith? I cant figure out how to spend it in any way other than auto saving it for a great prophet.

 

[compwiz1202]

How do I manually spend faith? I cant figure out how to spend it in any way other than auto saving it for a great prophet.

Either pick something from the list in the religion section, and it will autobuy that when you have enough faith, or click the purchase button like you would to buy something with gold, and things you can buy with faith will be listed. Make sure you change the dropdown in the religion section to Remind Me if you want to do it all manually.

 

[binhthuy71]

Well technically you don't have to have a religion that produces faith. I like my religion to produce science as a pantheon, and gold as a religion to keep it relevant all game to how I play.

Absolutely correct. I was just struck by the fact that I was producing so much faith without a religion. I took the Fertility Rites Pantheon Belief (+10 growth) and that was all. By the Industrail era I was able to buy GAs with faith which led to some hugely fun culture bombing.

 

[smallfish]

The AI doesn't seem to know what to do with religion - playing on Emperor I've had no trouble gaining any of Stonehenge, Hagia Sophia or the Great Mosque, and I have yet to see an AI missionary. AI faith production seems generally low as a result.

China, who was the big (and only) Religion bloc on our continent, sent missionaries in the late Renaissance-Industrial period. It was pretty cool, and Amsterdam adopted Taoism for the rest of the game (in addition to improving relations with Wu).

 

[binhthuy71]

China, who was the big (and only) Religion bloc on our continent, sent missionaries in the late Renaissance-Industrial period. It was pretty cool, and Amsterdam adopted Taoism for the rest of the game (in addition to improving relations with Wu).

If I'm reading the xml correctly, it looks like you get a positive 5 diplo modifier if you adopt an AI civ's religion and a positive 3 if one adopts yours. Not huge, but certainly helpful.

 

[flairin]

yeah the Pantheon tactic sounds fun... I have more affinity to tribal worldviews than "world religions" anyway. Wish there were religions such as "animism", "totemism", "shamanism", etc. Maybe someone could do a mod or something...

 

[Camikaze]

Beware that if you attract another religion, you'll lose your own pantheon belief. Given faith isn't actually a product of religion (rather it's the other way around), it isn't all that surprising that you can being essentially winning the religious game without a religion. Though you are forgoing the founder belief, which drastically cuts down on the benefit you get from spreading a religion, so it's not exactly going to be entirely advantageous.

 

[binhthuy71]

Beware that if you attract another religion, you'll lose your own pantheon belief. Given faith isn't actually a product of religion (rather it's the other way around), it isn't all that surprising that you can being essentially winning the religious game without a religion. Though you are forgoing the founder belief, which drastically cuts down on the benefit you get from spreading a religion, so it's not exactly going to be entirely advantageous.

Valuable information! I've received substantial advantages game long from the Fertility Rites pantheon belief. Guess I'll have to sacrifice one of my great prophets to found a religion.

 

[smallfish]

If I'm reading the xml correctly, it looks like you get a positive 5 diplo modifier if you adopt an AI civ's religion and a positive 3 if one adopts yours. Not huge, but certainly helpful.

Indeed it was, though it faded away quickly once I blasted off from Industrial. Still, it did allow me to maintain friendly relations with Wu for quite a while.

Until I saw her completing SS Cockpit and Sweden denounced her.

 

[Lyoncet]

The AI doesn't seem to know what to do with religion - playing on Emperor I've had no trouble gaining any of Stonehenge, Hagia Sophia or the Great Mosque, and I have yet to see an AI missionary. AI faith production seems generally low as a result.

My experience has been that AI faith production is binary. Either they put very low emphasis on faith, or they go way, way overboard. Seems there's little middle ground, at least in the few games I've played. I've usually been able to found my own religion, grab Great Mosque, grab Hagia Sophia, often get an early Stonehenge if I want to (this is all on Immortal mind you, where it's hard to get more than a couple carefully selected early wonders), and spread my religion unimpeded. Except one game, where Pacal got Stonehenge, then Mosque, then Hagia Sophia, and spread his religion freakin' everywhere, and never founded a second city or raised a decent army.

 

[binhthuy71]

I put together a table showing the weight that each civ places on religion. The table runs from value-the-least to value-the-most. The sorting data is based on the FLAVOR_RELIGION value (shown in third column) for each civ.

Please feel free to correct me if you find any errors in my data or my sorting of it.

Spoiler :

CIV Leader Flavor_Religion
Germany Bismarck 3
France Napoleon 3
Rome Augustus Caesar 4
Sweden Gustavus Adolphus 4
Japan Oda Nobunaga 4
America Washington 4
Greece Alexander 5
The Huns Attila 5
Carthage Dido 5
England Elizabeth 5
Mongolia Genghis Khan 5
Denmark Harald Bluetooth 5
Polynesia Kamehameha 5
Babylon Nebuchadnezzar II 5
Korea Sejong 5
The Ottomans Suleiman 5
The Netherlands William 5
China Wu Zetian 5
Russia Catherine 6
Persia Darius I 6
Austria Maria Theresa 6
The Inca Pachuti 6
Siam Ramkhamhaeng 6
Songhai Askia 7
Ethiopia Haile Selassie 7
The Iroquois Hiawatha 7
The Aztecs Montezuma 7
Egypt Ramesses II 7
Byzantium Theadora 7
The Celts Boudicca 8
India Gandhi 8
Arabia Harun al-Rashid 8
Spain Isabella 8
The Maya Pacal 8

EDIT: Attached pdf file of table.

 

[AriochIV]

How do I manually spend faith? I cant figure out how to spend it in any way other than auto saving it for a great prophet.

You have to have a city with religion to manually spend Faith; it's accessed from the "Purchase" menu in the city screen. Otherwise, you can only get the automatically-purchased Great Prophets.

 

[binhthuy71]

You have to have a city with religion to manually spend Faith; it's accessed from the "Purchase" menu in the city screen. Otherwise, you can only get the automatically-purchased Great Prophets.

You can also purchase Missionaries for a bit more than half the cost of a Great Prophet. I believe that Missionaries can also be purchased from the Purchase menu within the City Screen.

Missionaries are much less powerful than Great Prophets for spreading your religion.