Jake’s Guide to Religion

[JakeIL7]

Since I have not seen a guide for the religion mechanic either here in the strategy forum or in the War Academy, I thought I would put together something as a starting point for everyone to look at. After all, with all the lurking I do here, I should contribute something. Please keep in mind that what is contained within may be inaccurate in some cases. Please respond if you happen to know the correct answer.

You gotta have faith…
All religion requires the faith c5faith resource to provide advantages from religion. With one notable exception (the Celts), all civilizations start without any faith generating capabilities. The first building to generate faith is the shrine; it is found under the Pottery tech and provides +1 . There are certain civilizations that have UBs that generate faith as well:

• The Ethiopians UB, Steele, replaces the monument and generates +2 and +2
• The Mayans UB, Pyramid, replaces the shrine and generates +2 and +2

As mentioned before, the Celts automatically generate 1 faith per city if they are near an unimproved forest. This doubles if there are 3 or more unimproved forests in the area. Note that some consider this a fairly weak bonus; even putting a lumber mill in a forest will remove this bonus. But, remember that it is a race to pantheon and religious beliefs and the Celtic ability assures you of the first pantheon and, possibly the first religion. Because of that, there are others who will be just as quick to tell you how awesome the Celts are at the opening game. However, for me, I would rather have the Ethiopian or Mayan UBs as they provide faith throughout the game instead of just in the beginning.

While most terrain does not provide faith by default, some natural wonders will.

Religion Buildings and Wonders
There are only two buildings that generate faith. As mentioned previously, Pottery unlocks the Shrine (+1). A Temple may be added for 2 more after researching philosophy and building a shrine. There are also several Wonders of the World that generate faith:

• Stonehenge - +5 , unlocked by Calendar
• Great Mosque of Djenne - +3 , missionaries can do an extra conversion, unlocked by Theology
• The Hagia Sophia - +3 , free great prophet, unlocked by Theology
• Machu Picchu - +2 , unlocked by Guilds
• Notre Dame - +4 , unlocked by Physics

City States
Gods & Kings has introduced two new types of city states: mercantile and religious. Religious city states not only provide faith when you are friendly or allied with them, they also provide both gold and a little amount of faith when you first meet. As with cultural city states, the bonus faith from religious city states increases as you progress through the eras.

In the beginning…
Hovering over the faith icon will tell you what the target amount of faith is to reach the first milestone in religion, establishing a Pantheon or a sort of pre-religion. This target amount is low but it will increase as other civilizations establish their own religions. If another civilization enhances their religion (the third step in religion development), no one else may establish a new pantheon.

When you establish a pantheon, it automatically spreads to any existing cities you have. You can see where your pantheon has spread, cities following it will have a lightning bolt next to their names. Cities established after the pantheon will need to have the pantheon spread to them. As long as they are not far from your capital, this should happen naturally.

When you establish your pantheon, you will have the chance to select a pantheon belief; this belief is unique to your civilization and so, when you get to the point of selecting a belief, it may not be available if it has already been selected. I have separated these into Exceptional, Situational, and Other as a relative representation of the beliefs. However, especially with pantheon beliefs, these could all be considered situational. For example, even though Desert Folklore is a great belief, you need to have a sizable desert area settled early for it to work. Without the desert, it is a waste. So, take these ranking with a grain of salt and see the discussions in the thread about which beliefs other folks like. Also, keep your strategy and civ in mind. Most civs will want a faith generating belief if they have the resources for it and are looking to found a religion. However, that may not be the case for a civ with a faith generating UA or UB. Wide empires will want happiness while tall empires may want to focus more on culture.

Exceptional Beliefs
Desert Folklore - +1 from desert tiles. This includes flood plains and so is exceptional when your capital or first city is in the right place. It also has a synergistic effect with Petra.

Fertility Rites - +10% growth. Who doesn’t want an extra 10% growth?

Goddess of Protection - +30% to city defense. Synergistic with the Oligarchy social policy from Tradition.

Goddess of the Hunt - +1 from camps. Good choice if you have camp resources scattered throughout you territory. Remember, food is growth and growth is winning.

Messenger of the Gods - +2 from cities connected to the trade network. This is great for wide and ICS strategies.

Monument to the Gods - +15% production of ancient and classical wonders. Good for those who plan to build early wonders and synergistic with both Egypt’s UA and available marble. Some say that this is more in the situational category as early wonders can be hard to build on higher difficulty levels.

One with Nature - +4 faith for all natural wonders. If there is a nearby natural wonder, this can really boost your faith output in the early game.

Sacred Waters - +1 from cities on rivers. We all love to settle on rivers. This makes it even better.

Stone Circles - +2 from quarries. In a culture with a large amount of stone and marble, this is an amazing belief.

Situational Beliefs
Dance of the Aurora - +1 from tundra without forest. Not great unless you are trapped in the great white north (or south) but it does generate faith.

Faith Healers - +30 HP to any unit adjacent to a city with the pantheon. This could be good in a defensive pinch, but generally is not a popular choice.

God of Craftsman - +1 to cities with 3 or more population. Not bad early on, but its power fades quickly.

God of the Sea - +1 for fishing boats. You are going to work those fish, wales, crab, and pearls anyway. Why not get a little more production? Only viable if you have quite a few sea-based resources in your civ.

God of War - +4 if you win a battle near a friendly city. Like God of Craftsman, good early at high levels (the AI will attack you) but not so great later on.

Goddess of Festivals - +1 and +1 from each wine and incense resource. If you have enough, it might justify this.

Goddess of Love - +1 from cities with 6+ population. Happiness is always good early in the game, but the population requirement moves this to the situational category.

Oral Tradition - +1 from plantations. Unlike God of the Open Sky, this might actually be a good idea in a civ where there are numerous plantation resources. But that number has to be big and you need to want culture to use this.

Religious Idols - +1 and +1 from gold and silver resources. Since neither resource generally generates food, this is not something great for the early game. Unlike some other pantheon beliefs, this actually gets better as turns progress.

Other Beliefs
These beliefs may play a part of a specific strategy, but I do not recommend them as there are better ones to have.

Ancestor Worship - +1 from temples. This is too little, too late from a pantheon belief.

God of the Open Sky - +1 from pastures. It would be rare to have enough horse, cow, and sheep to make this better than other beliefs. May be considered for a culture victory?

Religious Settlements - +15% faster border growth. I’d rather have gold to buy border growth.

Sacred Path - +1 from jungle tiles. This takes far too long to be effective for a pantheon belief.

 

[JakeIL7]

Getting Religion
You next step is the generation of a great prophet. Great prophets can found new religion, enhance an existing religion, spread your religion, or establish holy sites (the faith equivalent of monuments and academies). On standard speed, your pantheon should come with about 20 . It takes 300-350 to get your first great prophet. Your great prophet will appear after the first few turns after crossing the faith threshold (as mentioned in the faith tooltip) and will reset your faith to 0. Another thing to note in the tooltip is that there are not enough religions to go around. You need to found yours before there are none left.

When you found your religion, you will be able to pick its name and icon. You will also be able to select two beliefs. These will be added to your pantheon belief as part of your religion. One of these is a Founder Belief. It applies to only the person who both created the religion and holds the holy city for the religion (the location where the great prophet was expended). The second is a Follower Belief and it applies to any city (including an enemy one) in which a majority of the people follow the religion. As with pantheon beliefs, each belief may only be part of one religion.

Founder Beliefs
Exceptional Beliefs
Ceremonial Burial - +1 for each city following this religion. Yes, this counts for cities not in your civilization as well.

Church Property - +2 for each city following religion. Happiness is only good if you have spots to grow. Gold is always good.

Tithe - +1 for every 4 followers of this religion. Again, gold is always good. Also, in many cases, Tithe is better than Church Property if your cities will be larger than 8-10 pop on average.

Situational Beliefs
Papal Primacy - +15 influence resting point with city states that have this religion. If a CS has your religion and if you also have the Aesthetics SP under Patronage, this will lead to infinite friendship…until another civ comes in and starts converting.

Peace Loving - +1 for every five followers in non-enemy forigen cities. Can be good for tall turtle strategies where your opponents are also going tall.

World Church - +1 for every five followers in other civilizations. If you spread your religion and you are going after a cultural victory, this may be useful.

Other Beliefs
Initiation Rites - +100 gold when a city is converted. While it’s a good bit up front, it does not compare to Church Property.

Interfaith Dialog – Gain when a missionary spreads religion. Since there is so much to spend faith on, this isn’t a great belief.

Pilgrimage - +1 for each foreign city following this religion. At this point, you should concentrate on abilities that help your empire. This really does not.

Follower Beliefs
Keep two things in mind with these beliefs. First, a majority of a City’s population must follow your religion to use these beliefs. Second, if your religion spreads to a city outside your civilization (through natural growth or missionaries) that city will also be able to use these abilities.

Building Beliefs
This category of beliefs is unique to follower beliefs. These allow you to build the corresponding building in a city with faith. In most strategies, you will want at least one of these faith-based buildings. I do not rank them here as they are situational like any other building but, for general play, the Pagoda is considered the best. Note that once they are built, they continue to work even if the religion in a city changes.

Cathedral - +1 , +3 , +1 , artist slot.

Monastery - +3 :c5culture, +2 , +1 and +1 for each incense or wine plantation.

Mosque - +1 , +2 , +3

Pagoda - +2 , +2 , +2

Exceptional Beliefs
Feed the World - +1 food from shrines and temples. It is like a free granary if you have a shrine and temple build. And remember food is growth, and growth is winning.

Holy Warriors – Purchase pre-industrial units with . If you are pumping out faith, this can help you defend and conquer while allowing you to save gold for RAs or CS bribing.

Peace Gardens - +2 from gardens. Happiness is always good.

Religious Center - +2 from temples in cities with at least 5 followers. Happiness is always good.

Religious Community - +1% increase in production for each follower up to 15% maximum. I like this as it is like having a free extra windmill in large cities. Others will disagree with me on this.

Swords into Plowshares - +15% growth if you are not at war. Growth is good (see previous comments), but you need to be at peace.

Situational Beliefs
Divine Inspiration – Each world wonder provides +2 . A building is better, but if you are pursuing a strategy that creates a lot of wonders, this may be something to consider.

Liturgical Drama – Amphitheaters provide +1 with 3+ followers. Could be useful if no buildings are available and you are pursuing a cultural victory or culture heavy strategy.

Religious Art – Hermitage provides +8 culture. If you build the hermitage, this may be helpful. Cathedrals will match it at least.

Other Beliefs
Asceticism - +1 from shrines in cities with +3 followers. Remember that the city must also follow your religion for this to work. Not as good as the +happy beliefs as it affects only the city and that happiness can be rescinded by a change in religion. Buildings are much better in this case as they still work after a conversion.

Choral Music - +2 from temples with 5 or more follower. Any faith building can do this better even if they do cost faith.

Guruship - +2 if the city has a specialist. When you actually get to use this, the effect is minor.

 

[JakeIL7]

Spreading the Word
NOTE: This section is the one I am least certain about. Corrections will be made if there are errors here.

Selecting the Starting Point
You religion can spread one of two ways. Missionaries and great prophets spread it actively by walking up to a city and using their spread religion ability. Missionaries can only use this function twice before they are destroyed while great prophets can use their ability four times. Missionaries also suffer from a reduction in resiliency (250/turn in most cases) when they are within territory that they should not be in (civilizations where no open borders treaty exists). If a missionary’s resilience drops to 0 they are destroyed; they start with a resilience of 1000.

Natural religious spread come from pressure:

• The Holy city (where the great prophet is expended) generates a fixed amount of pressure, 30 in a standard game.
• Each in-range city (10 without and additional beliefs) converted to the religion generates a fixed amount of pressure.

Because of this, expending your prophet in your capital may not be a good idea if your empire tends to be in one general direction (i.e., starting at the end of a peninsula). You want your holy city to be in range of as many cities as possible to speed up the speed of the natural spread. Just make sure the holy city is well defended; if your enemy takes the city you will loose your founder beliefs. If your holy city is not your (original) capital, they could raze the city and then you would never get your founder belief back.

Unlike the pantheon, when you found your religion, only the holy city follows the religion. You will need to wait for natural spreading or actively spread your religion to turn other cities to your new religion.

Followers
Each city’s population is shown in its information bar on the right. Each population point in the city can follow up to one religion (it is possible for a citizen to not follow a religion). These are the followers in the city that the abilities listed in this article refer to. Hover the mouse over any city status bar (yours, an opponent, or a city state) to find out the distribution of followers for that specific city. You may also see pressure listed in the tooltip; the higher the pressure, the more likely you are to convert other population to your religion. If no pressure is listed, to only way to improve the number of followers is through missionaries or great prophets.

To convert to your religion, at least half of the city’s population must follow a specific religion. When this happens, the symbol associated with your religion will be shown on the status bar. Also, when it happens to your own cities, you will get a status message at the start of a turn. Remember, for a city to get the advantage of a follower belief or contribute to natural spread, the city must belong to that religion.

Faith Units & Buildings
All faith units and buildings must be purchased with faith; they cannot be built with production. There are three different units that all religious cities have access to:

• Missionaries – Missionaries actively spread your religion to other cities. They will spread the religion of the city they are purchased in. Their cost starts at 200 and increases as you move into new eras.
• Inquisitors – Inquisitors defend against an opponent spreading their religion into your civilization in two ways. By placing an inquisitor in a city, missionaries cannot spread their heathen ways. When an inquisitor is used, all foreign religions are removed from the city. An inquisitor is destroyed when it is used to remove other religions.
• Great prophets – Prior to the industrial era, GPs are provided at random once the GP threshold is passed. Usually this only takes a couple of turns. After the industrial era, GPs can be purchased like missionaries for a fixed amount of .

You may buy any of these units (with the exception of the pre-industrial GP) through the Purchase menu in the appropriate city’s screen. You may also purchase buildings in the same way if you have the appropriate follower belief and units if you have the Holy Warriors follower belief. Like missionaries, building costs increase depending on the technological era you are currently in.

Once you are in the industrial era, you will also have the option to purchase great people with faith. You may always purchase great prophets, but can also purchase these other great people if you have opened the first item in the appropriate social policy tree. Keep in mind, while some of these trees can be opened prior to industrial era, you must be in the industrial era or better to purchase these.

• Great Merchant – Commerce
• Great Scientist – Rationalism
• Great Artist – Freedom
• Great General – Autocracy
• Great Admiral – Autocracy
• Great Engineer – Order

The first great person will cost 1000 ; subsequent ones of the same type will have an increase in price.

Enhancing your Religion
A second great prophet may be expended in your holy city to enhance your religion. This provides two more beliefs for your religion. First, you get a second follower belief; it comes from the same list as the follower beliefs listed above and it follows the same rule as the original beliefs: only one religion may possess the belief regardless of its slot (first or second follower belief). You also get an enhancer belief to add to your religion.

Enhancer Beliefs
Exceptional Beliefs
Defender of the Faith - +20% combat score when fighting near friendly cities following your religion. This is a major bonus for religious wars and is wonderfully synergistic with all sorts of defensive wonders and social policies.

Itinerant Preachers – Religion spreads to cities 30% further away. Anything that enhances the ability to naturally spread your religion is a major positive. But get Religious Texts unless you are not having a problem with the encroachment of other player’s religions.

Religious Texts – Religion spreads 34% faster (68% with printing press). This is the best option for the natural spread (and natural defense) of religion.

Situational Beliefs
Just War - +20% combat score when fighting enemy cities with the same faith. If you have a well spread religion and you need to fight, this may be of use.

Religious Unity – Religion spreads to city states at double rate. Useful if you have several city states near your holy city.

Other Beliefs
Holy Order – Missionaries cost 30% less faith. If you need missionaries more quickly, focus on getting more faith instead. When you are done making missionaries, use that faith for buildings or great people.

Messiah – Prophets are 25% stronger and cost 25% less faith. If you need great prophets more quickly, focus on getting more faith instead. When you are done making missionaries, use that faith for buildings or other great people.

Missionary Zeal - +25% missionary conversion strength. It would be better to focus on the natural spread of your religion instead.

Reliquary – Gain 50 each time a great person is expended. In the late game, a decent size empire can easily get 50 faith a turn by itself.

She Doesn’t Look Like a Nun… (Byzantine Empire Ability)
At this point we should mention the Byzantine Empire’s UA. When Theodora establishes her religion, she receives a bonus belief. This belief can come from any list including the pantheon beliefs (which, at this point are, essentially, follower beliefs). However, the rule regarding beliefs still holds here: only beliefs that are not already part of other religions can be selected here. This may change some of the comments on the various beliefs as enhancer beliefs can be selected early or pantheon beliefs can be selected late.

Religious Strategy
Basic Strategy
The idea behind religion is to supplement what you already have. After all, taking Desert Folklore probably does not make much sense if you are in the middle of a swamp. But a good basic religious strategy looks something like this:

1. Build shrines/pyramids in every city you can until you establish your religion (Ethiopians and Celts can ignore this due to the Steele and UA, respectively). It is a race to capture the good beliefs.
2. Unless you are the Ethiopians, Maya, or Celts, strongly consider a faith generating pantheon belief. Of course, if you happen to find a faith-generating natural wonder, you can ignore this advice.
3. Wait for the first great prophet, then found a religion in the center of your empire. Your capital is best (assuming it is central and well-defended), but a more central location might be better.
4. When you get your religion, try to get a building for a follower belief. In wide empires this helps with happiness (so Pagodas are best) while in tall empires they can be used to generate culture and faith.
5. Buy a missionary and spread your religion to two cities. This essentially "primes the pump" for natural religious spread as early missionaries tend to immediately convert a city to your religion.
6. When you get your second great prophet, enhance your religion.
7. Once enhanced, change your preference to building your religious building. If you have already built all the possible buildings, save for a great prophet.
8. Use any additional great prophets to scout enemy lands. Remember that you don’t need open borders to do this! When that is done, spread religion with them as far and wide as you can. Start from your empire and work outward.
9. When you get to the industrial era, select the great person that works best for you.

“We don’t need no stinkin’ religion” Strategy
If you have acceptable religious beliefs nearby, let other civs do all the work! Once a good religion spreads to your cities, start to build missionaries with any faith you may have and actively spread the religion to your other cities. Sure, you will not get the founder belief but at least you saved the .

I could use more here. Please provide in the comments.

 

[JakeIL7]

Reserved

 

[notadummy]

so far, reading over your "categories" of pantheons, I know it's more opinion based, but I think some things should be switched.

I would put Sacred Paths in the situational beliefs because if you start in an area with lots of jungle, it looks like that one is a really good pantheon.
Goddess of the Hunt, Desert Folklore and Stone Circles should probably be in situational beliefs.
Sacred Waters IMO isn't too good, there are much better ways to get happiness, and much better options for a pantheon
To me, there does not seem to be clear cut distinction between situational and exceptional pantheons.

also, all civs start at 0 faith, celts included, might wanna reword that sentence there in the beginning
additionally, maybe talk about some of the faith wonders (like stonehenge, etc.)

 

[CaptainKapow]

You gain the founder belief of a religion by capturing it's holy city? I had no idea.
Does that work if you have your own religion already or does it just apply to the first holy city you a get when you are religionless?

 

[JakeIL7]

You gain the founder belief of a religion by capturing it's holy city? I had no idea.
Does that work if you have your own religion already or does it just apply to the first holy city you a get when you are religionless?

I know you can only have one religion, but I seem to recall reading that here. Again, since nothing definitive exists, I thought I would start with this framework.

 

[animalguy]

Personally I see all of the pantheons as situational. You don't want to take the pantheon if you know you won't be expanding much, stone quarries will generate no if you don't have any quarries. Shall I go on. Also once a holy city is captured no one gets the founder belief, unless it is recaptured by the founder.

 

[JakeIL7]

Thanks for commenting. I have made a couple of changes and here is my thought process behind the rest.

so far, reading over your "categories" of pantheons, I know it's more opinion based, but I think some things should be switched.

I would put Sacred Paths in the situational beliefs because if you start in an area with lots of jungle, it looks like that one is a really good pantheon.

The reason I put Scared Paths in "other" is because you would not work the jungle in the early years (just one in addition to the faith bonus). This certainly changes later and is one of the reasons I mentioned that the categorization changes for Theodora who might want to pick this up when she founds her religion.

Goddess of the Hunt, Desert Folklore and Stone Circles should probably be in situational beliefs.

I thought about that. The reason I put these in the exceptional category is that I might found a city to take early advantage of them. With the situationial beliefs, I would already have to see a city founded that could take advantage. It is really tricky though as a good pantheon belief can really help you early on. I do see your point.

Sacred Waters IMO isn't too good, there are much better ways to get happiness, and much better options for a pantheon

We are still constrained by happiness in the start of the game. Later on this is not all that good, but for beginning civs it does very well.

also, all civs start at 0 faith, celts included, might wanna reword that sentence there in the beginning
additionally, maybe talk about some of the faith wonders (like stonehenge, etc.)

Done.

 

[Syntax Error]

One thing I noticed is that for cities to exert pressure, it needs to be within 10 tiles of each other (13 with Itinerant Preachers). This means that, even if you Prophetbomb a foreign civ in another continent that has no religion, that city will not exert pressure unless there is another city within 10 tiles that has your religion. This means that if there's a massive runaway on another continent that you want to convert, you have to set up a chain of cities following your religion and start from there.

 

[Halcyan2]

You gain the founder belief of a religion by capturing it's holy city? I had no idea.
Does that work if you have your own religion already or does it just apply to the first holy city you a get when you are religionless?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you don't get the Founder Belief by capturing a holy city.

The one exception is the Into the Renaissance scenario where you gain the Founder belief if you control the Holy City for your particular religion.

 

[Tachii]

I'd also like to add Djenne's ability applies to Great Prophets as well, meaning they will effectively have 5 spread use instead of 4. This can be pretty huge since GPs act as a missionary/inquisitor.

Also if anybody know just how much beakers you'd gain with that founder belief would be nice. I often neglect that one since I've no idea how much it is.

 

[Syntax Error]

I think it's 10*number of followers of that religion. Now, if that's the number of followers for that city or of the religion as a whole, I don't know.

 

[superfeds]

Good post and Im glad someone is looking at the religious elements, its my favorite part of GnK

Maybe this is just me, but I wouldnt call the Celts UA weak at all.

Getting faith without having to build a shrine is a huge advantage, and makes them almost a lock to get the first religion. This also lets them spam out a few early ciites, get high faith per turn, all without having to guild a shrine. This lets you kick out extra units/buildings and still get your religion. Improving a forest tile can reduce or eliminate the bonus, buts its easy enough to work around those few tiles until after your religion is up and youre able to build shrines and temples to make up for the loss of forest tiles. The UA is there to give you a head start.

Id also 2nd the comments about sacred waters. Getting 1 happiness from settling on a river is nice, but over the course of the game its not going to account for much. Especially considering Ceremonial Burial is one of the most targeted beliefs.

Id also add that Monument of the Gods becomes less and less useful the higher you increase the difficulty. It does help with National Wonders, but you just cant spam those early wonders like you can on prince to get enough use out of it to call it exceptional.

 

[Syntax Error]

Good post and Im glad someone is looking at the religious elements, its my favorite part of GnK

Maybe this is just me, but I wouldnt call the Celts UA weak at all.

Getting faith without having to build a shrine is a huge advantage, and makes them almost a lock to get the first religion. This also lets them spam out a few early ciites, get high faith per turn, all without having to guild a shrine. This lets you kick out extra units/buildings and still get your religion. Improving a forest tile can reduce or eliminate the bonus, buts its easy enough to work around those few tiles until after your religion is up and youre able to build shrines and temples to make up for the loss of forest tiles. The UA is there to give you a head start.

Id also 2nd the comments about sacred waters. Getting 1 happiness from settling on a river is nice, but over the course of the game its not going to account for much. Especially considering Ceremonial Burial is one of the most targeted beliefs.

Id also add that Monument of the Gods becomes less and less useful the higher you increase the difficulty. It does help with National Wonders, but you just cant spam those early wonders like you can on prince to get enough use out of it to call it exceptional.

That's what I like about them. The saved hammers on Shrines and faith Generation on turn 1 can end up beastly. Sure, as the game goes on, it loses its effectiveness since you will want to lumber mill/camp them anyway, but ignoring shrines and Pottery so early in the game allows you to get more things built.

 

[black213]

I'd also like to add Djenne's ability applies to Great Prophets as well, meaning they will effectively have 5 spread use instead of 4. This can be pretty huge since GPs act as a missionary/inquisitor.

Also if anybody know just how much beakers you'd gain with that founder belief would be nice. I often neglect that one since I've no idea how much it is.

This is not true. I just finished my game as Sweden with a strategy of spreading my religion with GPs and then gifting them to CSs before using their last spread ability. I built the mosque of djenne as I thought it would compliment my strategy well but it apparently did not increase the number of spreads for GPs.

 

[Mystz0r]

Great guide, good work. I'd been looking for something like this, and it's a great inspiration when youre only just learning the benefits of religion.

I was intrigued but your idea of utilization of your 2nd prophet. Can anyone confirm that you actually can Spread Religion 3 times and then go back and enhance your religion?

 

[JakeIL7]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you don't get the Founder Belief by capturing a holy city.

The one exception is the Into the Renaissance scenario where you gain the Founder belief if you control the Holy City for your particular religion.

Thanks to all those who made this comment (or a similar one). I have made the correction as requested.

 

[JakeIL7]

Good post and Im glad someone is looking at the religious elements, its my favorite part of GnK

Maybe this is just me, but I wouldnt call the Celts UA weak at all.

Getting faith without having to build a shrine is a huge advantage, and makes them almost a lock to get the first religion. This also lets them spam out a few early ciites, get high faith per turn, all without having to guild a shrine. This lets you kick out extra units/buildings and still get your religion. Improving a forest tile can reduce or eliminate the bonus, buts its easy enough to work around those few tiles until after your religion is up and youre able to build shrines and temples to make up for the loss of forest tiles. The UA is there to give you a head start.

Id also 2nd the comments about sacred waters. Getting 1 happiness from settling on a river is nice, but over the course of the game its not going to account for much. Especially considering Ceremonial Burial is one of the most targeted beliefs.

Id also add that Monument of the Gods becomes less and less useful the higher you increase the difficulty. It does help with National Wonders, but you just cant spam those early wonders like you can on prince to get enough use out of it to call it exceptional.

Well, I have tried to address your concerns by elaborating on my earlier comments. I know I will not make everyone happy, but we all know better than to try that, right?

 

[animalguy]

You should also talk about the four faith producing natural wonders
Mt Sinai: 8
Sri Pada: 2 4 2
Uluru: 2 6
& Mt Fuji (not sure about gold value) 3 3 2