Is it correct to consider Holy Sites a very long-term district(even in case of founding a religion?)

[Bliss]

Surely it also depends on the beliefs you select for you religion, but in general, are there scenarions which you build a holy ste ASAP to have a instant or short-term benefit?

I'm asking mainly because sometimes, even though I'm surrounded by military civs, I'm tempted to found my own religion and delay my development. However, it never seems to pay off. Basically, do you ever build holy sites when in danger? Or do you treat holy sites just like theather districts and only build them when safe enough?

 

[Beaver79]

I would never build an early holy site unless I'm planning on getting a religion. To get a religion though you really need to start building them in the ancient era (depending on difficulty and number of civs). Holy sites don't help you at all during the ancient era, so they don't really have instant or short-term benefits. However, if you get a religion and get golden ages through the Renaissance era, you can purchase settlers/builders with faith. After the renaissance you use your faith to buy units and rock bands/naturalists. This is assuming you aren't going for religious victory in which case you pretty much just spam apostles.

My strategy on immortal and a large map is to build 2 warriors and a settler then make 2 holy sites with shrines. That will get you a religion. I always took church property and choral music. 2 gold per city following your religion helps at the beginning and choral music gives a bunch of culture. Do everything in your power to get golden ages after that so you can take monumentality. It's powerful from classic era on, but it is a significant investment where you could be making settlers and or an army early on in the ancient era. You will also likely get attacked early on because you won't have as many units. It's more fun for me, but it definitely pays off later.

 

[Fluphen Azine]

I've seen a small percentage of players make Religion and Holy Sites work for very fast victories.
However, usually this doesn't seem to be the case.
Situational at best I suppose.

I am wondering if your threads/questions are better to ask what districts should you focus on in the early game?
I wonder this myself all the time but starting to realize it is different for each start.
It seems the map dictates what is the best course of action.

If I have a lot of space and can get all Golden Ages rolling I can make Religion/Faith really pay off.
Depends on the CS's as well.

However if you are surrounded by Civs (Deity) I don't think you want to put hammers into Holy Sites do you???
Last I checked, Holy Sites don't kill armies at your doorstep
I suppose Defender of the Faith helps but you know.

 

[Bliss]

I've seen a small percentage of players make Religion and Holy Sites work for very fast victories.
However, usually this doesn't seem to be the case.
Situational at best I suppose.

I am wondering if your threads/questions are better to ask what districts should you focus on in the early game?
I wonder this myself all the time but starting to realize it is different for each start.
It seems the map dictates what is best course of action.

If I have a lot of space and can get all Golden Ages rolling I can make Religion/Faith really pay off.
Depends on the CS's as well.

However if you are surrounded by Civs (Deity) I don't think you want to put hammers into Holy Sites do you???
Last I checked, Holy Sites don't kill armies at your doorstep
I suppose Defender of the Faith helps but you know.

I just want to theorycraft how doable it is to focus on both, military AND religion in the beginning of a game . To this day, my attempts have failed miserably. Guess I'm gonna keep giving holy site the theater distrcit treatment.

 

[Bangau]

Early holy sites are awesome, IF you can also build just enough troops to defend yourself AND you can get golden ages in the eras to come for monumentality (at least one, two or three are great). As always, it depends on map and other factors like nr of AI. I think I go early holy sites 2/3 of the time. I can get decent deity finishes with it (any victory condition can be achieved), sub 250 easily, sub 220 if it's a good game. I think better players than me could go below 200. There was a guy on YT who copied a strategy for a religious science victory of one of the best chinese players and claimed it would be under 180 turns. He never finished it though...

 

[Bliss]

Early holy sites are awesome, IF you can also build just enough troops to defend yourself AND you can get golden ages in the eras to come for monumentality (at least one, two or three are great). As always, it depends on map and other factors like nr of AI. I think I go early holy sites 2/3 of the time. I can get decent deity finishes with it (any victory condition can be achieved), sub 250 easily, sub 220 if it's a good game. I think better players than me could go below 200. There was a guy on YT who copied a strategy for a religious science victory of one of the best chinese players and claimed it would be under 180 turns. He never finished it though...

Wow, that is incredible. Could you give some examples of how does religious site improve the speed of victory? Also, what about that 1/3 games that you DON'T build holy sites? Why it happens? And when you do build them, do you spam projects to get that prophet asap?

 

[Bangau]

There's a lot to it, but I'll give it a try

CIV is an 'exponential' game: the faster you can get the right improvements, buildings, etc. up and running the faster you can use their benefits to get the next thing that helps you get to victory. (note: I'm talking playing fast here, there are many more ways to play, all can be just as fun!) To illustrate this just watch the graphs after you get the victory screen: the more efficient you play, the faster they rise and 'overrun' your opponents. For all victory types in CIV VI counts: the more and the faster you get cities and tile improvements, the faster you will win. The combo of high early faith and monumentality golden age in the 2nd, 3rd and/or 4th era (the earlier the better!) gives you a kickstart in the exponential growth. For a religious victory more cities and tile improvements are actually the least important, and to get that victory fast you rather spend your faith on apostles and missionaries. A high faith income is still required logically... If you get a high faith income early, for all other victory types it's useful:
For science victory: the more cities the more campuses and production. Many proper cities because you buy enough builders to chop in districts and buildings and improve tiles to work. In the actual endgame you want high science and high production in a number of cities: lots of builders help, and any remaining ones can be 'fed' into city projects with the 3rd tier gov plaza building.
For culture victory: more cities and better improved cities means more culture, getting cities up and running fast means you get tourism sooner, meaning the AI have relatively less 'defense' against your tourism. A good faith income can be used later on to get naturalists and rock bands.
For diplo victory: more and better cities is more money, science and culture. Diplo victory isn't my go to, but unless going 'conquer all to diplo win' it's very helpful to go wide and tall with your cities to get all the little points you need.
Domination victory: I think going hard for units gets you a faster victory than getting faith first. But you can still get a sub 250 dom win going faith first: many good cities that later on go full on war, plus faith buying units in recently conquered cities works very well and can be much fun.

I don't go faith: when I don't feel to... or when I get more than one warring AI as a neighbor, or I know (because of the map settings I chose) there will be very little room to expand.

Hope it helps.

 

[Ziad]

Faith is basically gold, so the return of investment depends on how you invest it.

My favorite use of faith is GP purchases.

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Golden age dedication allows you to purchase builders and settlers with faith at discount. This means you're actually producing production from Holy Sites.

If you're not exploiting 10,000 pantheons this is one of the main strength of faith.

Another strong point is that Holy Sites are not only faith, they also give you +10 strength from Crusade.( really strong to turn down some strong city defenses.) and +6 culture from Choral Music. 6 culture is not a small number. A Theatre square+ Amphitheatre usually do not yield that much if you fail to get those classical writers.



But, yes, if you can still manage to form a religion, the later you build those Holy Sites the better. If you finish Holy Sites not just before or in a golden age (or have other things to buy), you're losing the interest of those faith before you really enter the golden age. That's why "the Last Prophet" is a valuable UA. (And also the Indonesia UA that allows you to spend spare faith on galleys before the golden age comes)

 

[leif erikson]

If you're not exploiting 10,000 pantheons this is one of the main strength of faith.

Moderator Action: Please do not spoil the game for others by teaching them exploits that will likely be removed in a future patch.

 

[kb27787]

Meh Imo they are wastes of district slots.
There are plenty of alternative ways to generate faith... La venta in particular blows away holy site faith generation by double the amount easily. Sphinxes and kurgans also.

 

[Civ Chemist]

Early war and holy sites is not a very good combination, since it slows you down too much. I would only go for holy sites in domination games if you are planning for a mid game push with grandmaster's chapel and crusade/defender (spain is good civ for this strategy).
In peaceful games, especially culture but also science I almost always start with holy sites in at least my first few cities. For reliqaries games your second belief should probably be missionary zeal or holy order. Otherwise go for choral music, which basically replace theater squares (so no wasted district slot). I like religious colonization as my second belief for science victories. This allows you to send all your faith on monumentality and still keep your religion in your cities.

 

[Bliss]

Early war and holy sites is not a very good combination, since it slows you down too much. I would only go for holy sites in domination games if you are planning for a mid game push with grandmaster's chapel and crusade/defender (spain is good civ for this strategy).
In peaceful games, especially culture but also science I almost always start with holy sites in at least my first few cities. For reliqaries games your second belief should probably be missionary zeal or holy order. Otherwise go for choral music, which basically replace theater squares (so no wasted district slot). I like religious colonization as my second belief for science victories. This allows you to send all your faith on monumentality and still keep your religion in your cities.

Mind sharing your thoughts on missionary zeal x holy order?

 

[Civ Chemist]

For reliquaries games you want to get as many relics as soon as possible, since they lose half their power once other civs reach enlightenment. Holy order (cheaper apostles=more apostles) and missionary zeal (faster movement=you reach your enemy faster and can more easily hunt down enemy missionaries/apostles) both accomplish this goal. I personally prefer missionary zeal, not only because it is super fun having 4 movement (6 with exodus golden age) apsotles crossing rivers and rough terrain loke it's nothing) but also because after your first few relics faith is usually not a problem anymore. I found missionary zeal often leading to faster vistories.
Same applies to religious victories, where missionary zeal is so much more fun. But, if you have not a very high faith economy holy order might be the safer choice.

 

[sdtum21]

I used to always build a Holy Site and found a religion in every game. These days though I'm more 50/50 about it. Unless I'm playing a civ that specifically wants a Holy Site/religion or I have some particular strategy in mind that requires one, I generally just see if a reasonable opportunity opens up to squeeze one out. Getting a religion early can be great because Tithe is fantastic and the tier 3 buildings can be pretty swish too if you feel you can get Holy Sites out in most/all of your cities, plus if you're playing a more pacifistic game then Defender of the Faith can be super strong.

The biggest issue though is one that you have to wrestle with throughout Civ VI, and that's opportunity cost. Not only is it a case of production that you could be putting into something else, but you're also using up one of your city's district slots which is a big deal in the early-game when you have so few of them and so many other districts that you should generally be building instead. Also ideal Holy Site spots are also ideal Campus spots, and I know which of the two I'd rather build in that tasty five-mountain cluster,

 

[AntSou]

I like to accumulate faith so that I can get a bunch of settlers out in the appropriate golden age without having to wait a bunch of turns to produce them.

I'll usually go for it if there's a place with decent adjacency and I've got enough production to finish it fast. Only time I don't is if I notice there are too many religion focused Civs already way ahead of me and I won't finish it in time for the Great Prophet.

Plus there's boosts and city states will ask you to build HS related stuff, or ask to be converted, etc, which means free envoys. I play with 16 CS so that's useful.

 

[Jkchart]

It absolutely can be - I particularly like to get Grandmaster's Chapel and faith buy an army when I need it most, and since you can use it for even modern units, a religious player that no longer is gunning for RV can use that faith for things other than rockbands and national parks.

 

[CoconutTank]

I find that having Faith is useful throughout a session, but Holy Sites themselves are not quite that useful (unless I'm specifically going for a religious victory). In particular, HSes are competing against Campuses for tiles near mountains, and I'm chopping wood early on, so HSes don't usually have much adjacency to work with.

I can't imagine which district one would build when in danger or for a very immediate benefit though. Even a walled Encampment would require some time to be set up properly. Could you elaborate by explaining what district you would build when in danger or for a very immediate benefit?

 

[UWHabs]

I find that having Faith is useful throughout a session, but Holy Sites themselves are not quite that useful (unless I'm specifically going for a religious victory). In particular, HSes are competing against Campuses for tiles near mountains, and I'm chopping wood early on, so HSes don't usually have much adjacency to work with.

I can't imagine which district one would build when in danger or for a very immediate benefit though. Even a walled Encampment would require some time to be set up properly. Could you elaborate by explaining what district you would build when in danger or for a very immediate benefit?

I've actually found since they changed the campus adjacency rules, it's not always in a mountain spot anymore. Reefs and Geothermals giving the +2 means I only need to be able to make that campus into a triangle for it to get to +3, so barring that beautiful mountain peninsula that will often be better than a mountain spot. Which is at least a little buff to holy sites in that they can now slot in to those nice adjacency slots instead, although obviously still often will want to park the campus there.

 

[CoconutTank]

I've actually found since they changed the campus adjacency rules, it's not always in a mountain spot anymore. Reefs and Geothermals giving the +2 means I only need to be able to make that campus into a triangle for it to get to +3, so barring that beautiful mountain peninsula that will often be better than a mountain spot. Which is at least a little buff to holy sites in that they can now slot in to those nice adjacency slots instead, although obviously still often will want to park the campus there.

Oh for sure, geos and reefs are super duper prime spots for Campuses the problem is that geos and reefs are much rarer than mountains in my experience, but you're right that Holy Sites aren't completely crowded out now.