Kongo seems to be consistently strong

[UWHabs]

Totally agree.
Faith is better in R&F now. If I’m playing Japan or Norway, though I may not have the chance to found a religion. I will still try to build some holy site. Buying worker/settler/trader/archaeologist is just amazing!
But if I'm playing a normal nation without any religous bonus like China or Rome, I will never bother to build a HS to try to found a religion.

It can be useful to run a "faith" economy at times. I started a game recently as Pericles, and had I continued the game, would have been an ideal candidate to run a faith-based game. I started right near Roraima and lucked into an early relic too, which let me grab Earth Goddess. At that point, Roraima gave me enough early science for my needs, and I knew Acropolis' were coming up soon which would give me the culture I needed, so having my first couple districts as holy sites actually made some sense. There also wasn't a ton of fighting for religion.

But that being said, the reason that I stopped that game was because I stupidly tried to found a religion instead of just using faith. I lucked into an early golden age, and chose the religious boost instead of just sticking with monumentality and using the faith to actually expand my empire. The +4 prophet points were nice, but I barely got a temple up in time to make use of super-charged apostles, and instead I had virtually no cash around so I wasn't expanding or able to get any builders out. Would have been much user to cheaply buy builders/settlers, and if I still actually wanted a religion, I could have just bought the prophet.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Unfortunately a lot of AI Civ's go for Holy Sites. I'd prefer if they went for Campuses more early on.

They often would. I don't think that's that big of a deal since pop 4 holds 2 districts.

Can is a very operative word. The entire religious building set is useless unless you build a holy site. Many follower beliefs are also irrelevant outside holy sites - Choral Music, feed the world, religious community; reliquaries and warrior monks also being edge cases. Zen meditation can be a nice to have (free liberalism card!,) Jesuit education is good if you happen to have a faith economy (doable but if you're doing a traditional campus/TS spam strat not a lot of room for holy sites. So... Earth Goddess.) Work ethic is also a pretty good one for your core cities since it scales infinitely. Divine Inspo is also a bit hit or miss on higher difficulties where building world wonders is less common for the player.

Other than burial grounds and Crusader/DotFaith, the enhancer beliefs are also all geared towards religion victory. If you don't pick the beliefs yourself, you're liable to get a grab bag of mixed use. Or flaming garbage.

I agree that most beliefs are crap, but crusade/defender of the faith doesn't just work for religion victory. The later is quite good for defending yourself against a sudden attack. If you pair it with the Wars of Religion card, it can be useful for conquest as well.

But I guess Zen meditation really only makes up for the Holy Site.

I'm not disagreeing that religion isn't that great because it takes too much set up, but it works better if you take the infrastructure that other people did so you didn't have to build them. Sure, they could have built something better, but it's there anyways, so why not make use of it?

I would also say it's a bit understated, but having your own religion can also help prevent others from winning a religious victory too.

 

[myclan]

It can be useful to run a "faith" economy at times. I started a game recently as Pericles, and had I continued the game, would have been an ideal candidate to run a faith-based game. I started right near Roraima and lucked into an early relic too, which let me grab Earth Goddess. At that point, Roraima gave me enough early science for my needs, and I knew Acropolis' were coming up soon which would give me the culture I needed, so having my first couple districts as holy sites actually made some sense. There also wasn't a ton of fighting for religion.

But that being said, the reason that I stopped that game was because I stupidly tried to found a religion instead of just using faith. I lucked into an early golden age, and chose the religious boost instead of just sticking with monumentality and using the faith to actually expand my empire. The +4 prophet points were nice, but I barely got a temple up in time to make use of super-charged apostles, and instead I had virtually no cash around so I wasn't expanding or able to get any builders out. Would have been much user to cheaply buy builders/settlers, and if I still actually wanted a religion, I could have just bought the prophet.

Yes, faith economy is quite good. If I can still buy cheaper worker until industrial era, certainly I will build more HS for faith, but not for the religion.