Longtime Civ4 player, wanting to buy this game, but

Zaarin said:
Unfortunately, the AI does not change its behavior based on what victories are enabled or disabled, which means even if you turn the victory off the AI will still behave as if it could win a religious victory. One more reason I want religious victory gone, not just togglable.
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it isn't like that's too different from civ 5... is it?
 
Kupe Navigator said:
it isn't like that's too different from civ 5... is it?
Click to expand...
Civ5 didn't have the Missionary spam (or the Apostle spam, thanks to the lack of Apostles); Civ5 had effective passive spread; and Civ5 had an AI that would spread a religion it didn't found. Much like Culture Victory, Civ5's religion mechanics look similar on paper but played out very differently.
 
Religion spread has other implications like no penalties on religious tourism, gold income, or just plain spying so why wouldn’t they do it even without religious victory turned off
 
The passive spread is very slow. "RELIGION_SPREAD_ADJACENT_PER_TURN_PRESSURE" is the culprit, I believe it is set to 1 in the base game, and I double it to 2. I've been doing this since 2016 it looks like.

Scaramanga said:
Religion spread has other implications like no penalties on religious tourism, gold income, or just plain spying so why wouldn’t they do it even without religious victory turned off
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Exactly, religion is about so much more than religious victory. In fact, I've yet to see one. But, when you count the bonuses possible in other areas (including science!) it's a very important part of the game.
 
I think there are three main issues with religion in Civ 6:
  1. Passive spread is too weak
  2. Follower beliefs are unbalanced
  3. There are minimal benefits to spreading religion if not going for a religious victory
The first is straightforward - the passive spread of religious influence is weak, which leads to the missionary/apostle spam. There's no real ability to just let your religion spread organically.

For the second, the follower beliefs can be very strong. But the AI always takes two of the strongest first - Choral Music and Feed the World - which means if you want one of those as your follower belief on higher levels, you have to really tank the early game to get there (or maybe play as Russia). Looking at the remaining beliefs, Work Ethic obviously can be strong if you have a couple of good locations (lots of mountains/natural wonders) or a terrain pantheon. If not going for Work Ethic though, the remaining ones mostly just have niche value - relic-heavy cultural victory with Reliquaries, Divine Inspiration with Qin. Jesuit Education is not bad but not as good as others. So what this means is outside of those niche cases or a Work Ethic game, you're likely in a better position if you get one or more cities converted to Choral Music/Feed the World and then spread that religion yourself to your own cities, which is counterintuitive. The reason that's the better play is related to the third issue...

There are benefits to spreading other than religious victory, but they are comparatively light and pale in comparison to having a strong follower belief. For founder beliefs, something like Cross-Cultural Dialogue or World Church can provide a passable amount of science or culture, but you're honestly probably better off using the faith to buy a settler, found a new city, and build a campus/theatre square. None of the worship buildings are terribly useful unless you're Arabia (can build for free) or are going for a religious victory. A little extra science, extra amenity, or extra diplo favor isn't bad, but is more readily found from other sources. Finally, the only enhancer beliefs that have much benefit beyond aiding in spreading your religion are Crusade/Defender of the Faith.

The takeaway is that in the vast majority of my games - i.e. not playing as Russia, going for a religious victory, or with a specific niche strategy - the options are (1) use work ethic, (2) ignore religious play entirely, (3) try to suck in someone else's religion to get a good belief. I'll still end up building holy sites to generate faith, since faith is so useful in other contexts, but I think the game would be better with stronger benefits from founding and spreading a religion, short of full religious victory.
 
Vargas1 said:
but I think the game would be better with stronger benefits from founding and spreading a religion, short of full religious victory.
Click to expand...

I do play with "Religions Expanded" mod and "Tomatekh's Historical Religions" on, so this may impact my answer. One of the beliefs is 1 science per 4 citizens following the religion. That can be useful for a science victory. So, again, maybe my experience is better because of mods (I've played with those on for a long time now).

On a huge map with 18 civs and 16 religions, it is a lot of fun, and you can imagine that the odds of religious victory are almost nil. You also don't have to race to a religion on Immortal or Deity -- you *can* race so you have the best choices, but it's not necessary if you are okay with what is left.

I also increase the spread from religious victory from 6 tile to 10, and the spread for an apostle stomp from 6 to 8. So, religious victories become more important. But, again, the win condition isn't the reason for this.
 
I’m OK with passive religious spread as is since there a couple enhancer beliefs that boost that also trade routes and the fact that every city you have with a holy site gets the religion on founding.
I don’t understand the preoccupation with “organic” spread as that would limit conversion to mostly border cities. The religious unit system makes it more engaging and strategic.
Spreading religion with no intention of winning the victory is great for era score especially if you are at war with the target.
 
Vargas1 said:
I think there are three main issues with religion in Civ 6:
  1. Passive spread is too weak
  2. Follower beliefs are unbalanced
  3. There are minimal benefits to spreading religion if not going for a religious victory
The first is straightforward - the passive spread of religious influence is weak, which leads to the missionary/apostle spam. There's no real ability to just let your religion spread organically.

For the second, the follower beliefs can be very strong. But the AI always takes two of the strongest first - Choral Music and Feed the World - which means if you want one of those as your follower belief on higher levels, you have to really tank the early game to get there (or maybe play as Russia). Looking at the remaining beliefs, Work Ethic obviously can be strong if you have a couple of good locations (lots of mountains/natural wonders) or a terrain pantheon. If not going for Work Ethic though, the remaining ones mostly just have niche value - relic-heavy cultural victory with Reliquaries, Divine Inspiration with Qin. Jesuit Education is not bad but not as good as others. So what this means is outside of those niche cases or a Work Ethic game, you're likely in a better position if you get one or more cities converted to Choral Music/Feed the World and then spread that religion yourself to your own cities, which is counterintuitive. The reason that's the better play is related to the third issue...

There are benefits to spreading other than religious victory, but they are comparatively light and pale in comparison to having a strong follower belief. For founder beliefs, something like Cross-Cultural Dialogue or World Church can provide a passable amount of science or culture, but you're honestly probably better off using the faith to buy a settler, found a new city, and build a campus/theatre square. None of the worship buildings are terribly useful unless you're Arabia (can build for free) or are going for a religious victory. A little extra science, extra amenity, or extra diplo favor isn't bad, but is more readily found from other sources. Finally, the only enhancer beliefs that have much benefit beyond aiding in spreading your religion are Crusade/Defender of the Faith.

The takeaway is that in the vast majority of my games - i.e. not playing as Russia, going for a religious victory, or with a specific niche strategy - the options are (1) use work ethic, (2) ignore religious play entirely, (3) try to suck in someone else's religion to get a good belief. I'll still end up building holy sites to generate faith, since faith is so useful in other contexts, but I think the game would be better with stronger benefits from founding and spreading a religion, short of full religious victory.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I would definitely agree with all of this. My other problem is that I think they are simply too limited in what and how many beliefs you take. Like, if I get the belief that apostles are 30% cheaper, that's great, but it means I basically have to "give up" being able to choose a way to actually get a benefit from the religion. Too many times I start to pick beliefs, and then get to finishing off my religion, and then simply discover that there truly is no point to spreading my religion. I may as well not worry about a religion, and simply hope that someone else spams a useful religion to me, because a little gold or faith doesn't really help me much. Like, if I spend 500 faith to buy an apostle, and he converts even 3 cities to my religion, I now gain, what, 6 faith per turn with one of the beliefs? So it's going to take me 100 turns to pay itself back on that piece. Honestly, arguably the biggest use of religion is in generating era score by converting civs that you're at war with.

Now, there's a few times where you can certainly benefit from getting all your own cities converted. Obviously if you have a lot of high adjacency holy sites having them all on Work Ethic can be massive, or Choral Music can power your culture. But especially since faith is used in many places, most notably if you can find any early to mid game golden age for Monumentality or just buying your entire army in the mid-game, it's not worth the time and effort to play the religion game.
 
DizzKneeLand33 said:
One of the beliefs is 1 science per 4 citizens following the religion. That can be useful for a science victory.
Click to expand...

This is a founder belief in the non-modded game too (Cross-Cultural Dialogue), and it has some use, but if you do the math out it doesn't ultimately provide that much of a benefit. If you have 10 cities averaging 10 followers each (which means they are pretty big cities, since it's rare to have everyone following your religion), that nets you 25 science. If you have a +2 adjacency campus with a library, university, and two science city-states, that's 12 science right there. And that's not taking into account additional citystates, bonuses from Hypatia/Newton, a research lab, etc. etc. So you're better off using monumentality to buy two settlers and a couple of builders to found more cities with campuses (plus the 0.5 science per population you get from growth) than spending the same or more faith to spread your religion around.

I actually find that belief most useful when going for an actual religious victory, since a lot of the time I'll neglect building many campuses to get good, high-adjacency holy sites in all cities. So that can help to at least keep pace in science while pushing forward with religion, but it doesn't do much to actually drive the game ahead in science.

Scaramanga said:
I don’t understand the preoccupation with “organic” spread as that would limit conversion to mostly border cities. The religious unit system makes it more engaging and strategic.
Click to expand...

The expectation would be that it wouldn't be limited to border cities - once those cities converted they would create pressure on the next ring of cities, and so on. I wouldn't want to do away with religious units, who would have a part to play in spreading religion more quickly/powerfully and countering other religions. But it seems absurd if I'm the only religion on my continent, and I still have to buy units and send them to my own and neighboring cities constantly in order to convert them.
 
Vargas1 said:
This is a founder belief in the non-modded game too (Cross-Cultural Dialogue), and it has some use, but if you do the math out it doesn't ultimately provide that much of a benefit. If you have 10 cities averaging 10 followers each (which means they are pretty big cities, since it's rare to have everyone following your religion), that nets you 25 science. If you have a +2 adjacency campus with a library, university, and two science city-states, that's 12 science right there. And that's not taking into account additional citystates, bonuses from Hypatia/Newton, a research lab, etc. etc. So you're better off using monumentality to buy two settlers and a couple of builders to found more cities with campuses (plus the 0.5 science per population you get from growth) than spending the same or more faith to spread your religion around.
Click to expand...
I had the same feeling but thanks for the map. It is too nerfed in my opinion, but it should not be too powerful early game either. One solution might be to make beliefs scale with the eras, like the building that gives benefits per era since not pillaged (as Yoda speaking I am?).


The expectation would be that it wouldn't be limited to border cities - once those cities converted they would create pressure on the next ring of cities, and so on. I wouldn't want to do away with religious units, who would have a part to play in spreading religion more quickly/powerfully and countering other religions. But it seems absurd if I'm the only religion on my continent, and I still have to buy units and send them to my own and neighboring cities constantly in order to convert them.
Click to expand...
Agree both previous games did this, it's a shame. If at least missionnaries could be automated as they were in Civ IV...
 
Leucarum said:
So for sure the AI should spread religion, I'd say the bigger problem is that spreading religion in civ6 is micromanagement hell crossed with a game of missionary whack-a-mole.
Click to expand...

It frankly sucks

Vargas1 said:
I think there are three main issues with religion in Civ 6:
  1. Passive spread is too weak
  2. Follower beliefs are unbalanced
  3. There are minimal benefits to spreading religion if not going for a religious victory
The first is straightforward - the passive spread of religious influence is weak, which leads to the missionary/apostle spam. There's no real ability to just let your religion spread organically.

For the second, the follower beliefs can be very strong. But the AI always takes two of the strongest first - Choral Music and Feed the World - which means if you want one of those as your follower belief on higher levels, you have to really tank the early game to get there (or maybe play as Russia). Looking at the remaining beliefs, Work Ethic obviously can be strong if you have a couple of good locations (lots of mountains/natural wonders) or a terrain pantheon. If not going for Work Ethic though, the remaining ones mostly just have niche value - relic-heavy cultural victory with Reliquaries, Divine Inspiration with Qin. Jesuit Education is not bad but not as good as others. So what this means is outside of those niche cases or a Work Ethic game, you're likely in a better position if you get one or more cities converted to Choral Music/Feed the World and then spread that religion yourself to your own cities, which is counterintuitive. The reason that's the better play is related to the third issue...

There are benefits to spreading other than religious victory, but they are comparatively light and pale in comparison to having a strong follower belief. For founder beliefs, something like Cross-Cultural Dialogue or World Church can provide a passable amount of science or culture, but you're honestly probably better off using the faith to buy a settler, found a new city, and build a campus/theatre square. None of the worship buildings are terribly useful unless you're Arabia (can build for free) or are going for a religious victory. A little extra science, extra amenity, or extra diplo favor isn't bad, but is more readily found from other sources. Finally, the only enhancer beliefs that have much benefit beyond aiding in spreading your religion are Crusade/Defender of the Faith.

The takeaway is that in the vast majority of my games - i.e. not playing as Russia, going for a religious victory, or with a specific niche strategy - the options are (1) use work ethic, (2) ignore religious play entirely, (3) try to suck in someone else's religion to get a good belief. I'll still end up building holy sites to generate faith, since faith is so useful in other contexts, but I think the game would be better with stronger benefits from founding and spreading a religion, short of full religious victory.
Click to expand...

The problems here are the problems with just about every system in this game

It’s like the various systems were designed by seperate people in seperate rooms and then clumsily stapled together by yet another group

Honestly I have found I enjoy the game more with literally all the extras turned off. The AI is a lot more effective at building and expanding.

Now we just need an AI that can wage war effectively

I have a feeling that the mod edits from the AI Crazy About Science thread, the increased stacking and movement from the ARS - Improved Movement mod and just the base game with barbs disabled would be the best experience
 
PiR said:
I had the same feeling but thanks for the map. It is too nerfed in my opinion, but it should not be too powerful early game either. One solution might be to make beliefs scale with the eras, like the building that gives benefits per era since not pillaged (as Yoda speaking I am?).
Click to expand...

That could work, but it also would be useful to have it scale exponentially to a degree - so have it 1 science per 4 followers up to 50 followers, then 1 per 3 for followers 51-100, and 1 per 2 for followers 100+ (or some variation thereof). That would create a real incentive to spread your religion a lot to get the increased benefits.
 
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I played Civilization a lot the last 25 years and here's my scorelist (ratings 1-10):
Civ 1: 4
Civ 2: 7
Civ 3: 6
Civ 4: 8
Civ 5: 7
Civ 6: 6.

My ratings are mostly dominated by the (lack of) intelligence of the AI, followed bij the possibilities the game offers.
Note: I mostly go for domination or time-victories, but only on diety-level.
 
I've only played Civ 5, 6, and BE (but we don't talk about BE...) to any appreciable extent, and overall I think 5 and 6 both have things they do better than each other. I bounce between the two a lot.

I think 6 has more potential, and overall I enjoy it more (mostly because of the loyalty mechanic... the civ 5 AI loves to spam forward settled cities and you can't do anything about it except warmonger which I find quite boring, which kills a lot of the fun for me). But 6 also has a lot more big problems, like the AI seemingly only knowing what half the game mechanics are. I would say 5 is more consistent, 6 has higher highs but lower lows, but overall I'd give the edge to 6 a bit.

Also the modding scene for 5 is way better and 6 tends to use all my CPU and then crash sometimes. 5 only gets unstable if I reroll new maps a bunch of times in a row.

EDIT: Since the thread seems to have shifted to talk about religious victory, I'm going to strongly agree with "So for sure the AI should spread religion, I'd say the bigger problem is that spreading religion in civ6 is micromanagement hell crossed with a game of missionary whack-a-mole" (Leucarum) but I also feel the same way about domination victory. Domination victory is probably more balanced but even less fun (becuase you have to do it way longer). With religious victory, it's basically impossible to win against a human, becuase they will just use their military to murder your religious units... if you have enough military to stop them, you may as well do domination victory. And simultaneously it's basically impossible to lose against an AI unless you have really weak faith generation, becuase you can do teh same to THEIR religious units when they inevitably send 20 at once, declare peace, and then send 20 of your own to convert them while they are re-building their faith bank, and they don't realize they should just murder your guys.
 
catweazle said:
I played Civilization a lot the last 25 years and here's my scorelist (ratings 1-10):
Civ 1: 4
Civ 2: 7
Civ 3: 6
Civ 4: 8
Civ 5: 7
Civ 6: 6.

My ratings are mostly dominated by the (lack of) intelligence of the AI, followed bij the possibilities the game offers.
Note: I mostly go for domination or time-victories, but only on diety-level.
Click to expand...
My mind is baffled at how civ 1 of all things is the highest. You can't even play it anymore.
 
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