No religion...need some advice

[Atlantean]

Started a new game. The year is 1460, even though I have the largest most cultured and most populated Empire I'm still a pagan. I'm playing on a 6 continent, huge map, with 10 civs. I've got an entire continent to myself.

I've encountered 2 of the other civs, one is slightly more advanced and the other is hopelessly behind. I'm just about to start building ocean capable ships. However for some reason I never got to found a religion, not even Islam.

Is it worth opening my borders to allow other civ's missionaries (once I start contacting them) into my land to spread some kind of religion?

or

Should I just remain isolationist and a pagan? (No religion is weird but it seems to be working since statistically I'm ahead in almost every category)

I imagine some kind of religion will eventually spread to my empire but it could take awhile, and so far the game won't let me convert to a religion.

 

[Teutonic_Knight]

I am midway into a game and finally settled on Christianity. I do like the bonuses you get from faith, and it can help you in alliance.

However, sounds to me you are doing fine without it. "If it's not broke, don't fix it."

 

[Billy Rubin]

Is theocracy maybe one of your civics? It would prevent spreading aof any religion that is not your state reigion, which seems to be paganism in your case.

No religion around in the 17th century seems quite weird to me - they keep spreading around the globe without having missionaries involved in my games...

 

[Crimso]

Religion is spread through trade routes.

 

[Big Ev]

PAGAN, NON-BELIEVER

Religion helps you build additional buildings, leading to happiness and culture gains. You can play without religion, but I imagine it just makes the game harder.

 

[Sovietof17]

i'd open borders with the advanced civ, unless its a human. then conquer the backwards civ, an adopt their religion as their own, since you'll have control of their holy city.

 

[warpstorm]

Unless I have a real good reason to close my borders I have them open. The trade bonus alone makes it worth it, not to mention the good will.

 

[President_Stone]

i recently finished a game as france where I never chose a state religion. It worked out rather well diplomatically because religion was never a factor in deciding war, trade or peace.

If I were you I would allow all open borders and trade resources with less powerful civs to allow all religions in... eventually you're gonna want to at least do the "free religion" civic.

Also, you could establish a city on a foreign continent, buy some cultural buildings so it remains, and start pumping out missionaries to send back to your home turf.
-or-
You could go to war to take some holy cities - that method's my favorite. The civs that tend to be heavily "religionized" also tend to have a weak military. I usually build up the military tech and take over these idealistic weaklings.

 

[Atlantean]

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I have established one city on a foreign continent and it has picked up some religion (I guess through trade routes). I suppose I'll start opening my borders.

I never was a fan of the open borders in Civ III and I have avoided them for the most part in Civ IV (only played a couple of games so far) but I can see now that this game was designed to pretty much make them essential for success.

 

[Hellas Man]

I play in the hardest level with 10 civs in earth map.Its imposible to win the game without religion with that parameters.

 

[Arvedui]

After you have at least one city with a religion, you don't need OB (Open Borders) anymore, at least not to spread a religion; start building missionaries in the city that picked up the religion (you may need to build a monastery first, if you don't have the civic organized religion); after you spread it to other cities, those other cities can also build missionaries (but you should know that there is a cap of 3 missionaries at the most that can exist simultaneously).

 

[Garand]

Religion is fickle. In my current game, I am the Arabs and the Aztecs are to my north. They discovered monotheism first and founded Judaism. Since I wanted to be the first to Islam, and to be a totally Islamic nation, I kept closed borders with Montezuma to try to keep the spread of religion at bay. It didn't work, as one city near his border went to Judaism, and before I knew it, every town in my empire was Jewish.

It worked out fairly well though because the Spanish (east and north of the Aztecs on my continent) also were Jewish, and so we all had good relations. However, when I founded Islam and converted my cities and declared it my state religion, everyone was theocratic and therefore I couldn't spread Islam. Now Isabella has adopted organized religion, so I am spreading Islam there as fast as I can. Strangely, though, I do not have open borders with the English, however Islam somehow spread to a colony of theirs on a small island halfway around the world from me... and from there it spread to the Incan colony right next door. I would like to know the inner calculations the game makes to determine where and when a religion is spread, because it doesn't seem to follow rhyme or reason.

 

[CokeHead]

I play in the hardest level with 10 civs in earth map.Its imposible to win the game without religion with that parameters.

personally i am not religious and i feel that religion has been sooooo overpowered in this game. it is very imporbable that you will do well without a bunch of religions in every one of your cities especially for a culture win.

essentially you need to build religious temples in every city and then cathedrals in the three culturally significant ciites and border towns you want to use to take over close by rival cities. i played on monarch and ended up with massive terrirotory just by cultural expansion only because of relgion. I did not fight one war to get a city. just defensive wars...

Hellas i totally agree with your view. Get religion...set your views aside on having free religion and exploit the game system to get the best score.

P.s: who thinks the way score is kept is totally ridiculous.

edit: make sure you have organized relegion to bomb all ciites with various sort of missionaries.

 

[Atlantean]

Since everyone, for the most part, thinks that religion is very important; I wonder why the AI civs, that I have encountered, haven't been trying to convert my empire. Either by negotiation or aggression.

I also wonder how my empire has become the most culturally advanced without religion? (The only reason I know it is the most advanced is from one of those "so an so wrote his epic" event popups).

 

[lysander]

Religion is important, but you don't have to found one. There are advantages to not having a state religion and having a lot of religions spread to each of your cities. These advantages include: diplomatic (no "heathen religion" anger), cultural (if there is no state religion you get culture from each religion in your cities, and you can build temples and catherdrals for each religion), and even scientific (getting four or five monastaries in a science city can reallllly boost your scientific efforts).

 

[dh_epic]

I've lasted lots of games without religion. Sometimes I switch to a religion in the middle ages just for the diplomatic bonuses. But I inevitably switch to free religion in these cases.

You can use religion as a pillar of strength to raise your civilization to victory.
Or you can avoid religion like the plague, and find other pillars.

 

[CokeHead]

depends on what level youre playing. if you play at a high enough level you need religion. i dont think converting another empire is too terribly important. Organzied religion is by far the best civic for early on beacuse of the great build times. free speech gives you gold. OR give your production. there is usually enough happiness in cities if you have enough religion so dont even worry about happiness inducing civics.

most importantly happiness doesnt exactly affect your score (though i might be wrong here).

 

[Royal]

Religion is fickle. In my current game, I am the Arabs and the Aztecs are to my north. They discovered monotheism first and founded Judaism. Since I wanted to be the first to Islam, and to be a totally Islamic nation, I kept closed borders with Montezuma to try to keep the spread of religion at bay. It didn't work, as one city near his border went to Judaism, and before I knew it, every town in my empire was Jewish.

It worked out fairly well though because the Spanish (east and north of the Aztecs on my continent) also were Jewish, and so we all had good relations. However, when I founded Islam and converted my cities and declared it my state religion, everyone was theocratic and therefore I couldn't spread Islam. Now Isabella has adopted organized religion, so I am spreading Islam there as fast as I can. Strangely, though, I do not have open borders with the English, however Islam somehow spread to a colony of theirs on a small island halfway around the world from me... and from there it spread to the Incan colony right next door. I would like to know the inner calculations the game makes to determine where and when a religion is spread, because it doesn't seem to follow rhyme or reason.

I thought open borders makes religion spread faster than without OB. I also thought that religion can spread through closed borders, but very slowly.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well "Without religion" can mean a few things

1. No founded religion...disadvantage=no Shrine/Holy City possibilities (no advantage except for the fact that you don't have to try and get a religion)

2. No State religion..disadvantage=no diplo bonus with other civs of that state religion, no official religion bonuses + happy and more with religious Civics; advantage=no diplo penalty with other civs of different state religions, cultural bonus, happiness bonus with Free Religion Civic

3. No religion in you cities...disadvantage=no religious buildings +Happy+culture+research, advantage=??less war weariness with civs of a particular religion?? I think this may be in.


If you have 3, you MUST have 2, which normally you can choose.

So Unless you have spiritual, which allows easy switching of civics Or are really hurting for happiness, or really want to join a religious 'team' among your new contacts=make friends AND enemies,

Stay Pagan for now,
Let religion in, and even spread it around some (let it spread by itself to a city with no religion and then use missionaries to spread new religions to cities that already have a religion) for the culture bonus
Then change from Paganism to Free Religion to get the Science+Happiness bonus

This allow you to stay neutral the whole game (If you want to, If you don't, then find the civ team you want, open your borders to them to get trade routes and missionaries, then convert to their religion (and get one of the religious civics...and spread that religion around your civ to get full benefit with missionaries)

 

[Aussie_Lurker]

One thing which has been mentioned-that I heartily agree with-is the disappointing lack of missionaries being used by the AI to spread their own religions. Is this merely a flaw in the AI, or am I just playing at too low a level?
Otherwise, I LOVE the fact that religion is not so overpowered that you can never win without it-it is simply evidence of yet more strategic choice-particularly in the early game!

Yours,
Aussie_Lurker.