Picking Founder Beliefs

[amateurgamer88]

I've always found myself struggling to decide which one to pick. I also wonder if some of these are balanced or not (as in if they are much stronger than others or just underwhelming). I hope to get some feedback on Founder beliefs and will be listing my thoughts about them. Hopefully people can correct me if I make the wrong assumption so I can make more informed decisions when I find my religions in the future. Do note that I'm just looking at the immediate bonus.

Apostolic Tradition:

GAP and Food based on followers converted seems quite strong early on. If you can convert neighbors and CS, you can quite a bit of yields early on. The GAP can get you a Golden Age must faster while the Food helps your capital grow. Of course, the enormous growth might make your capital quite unhappy since, around the time you get your religion, your infrastructure can't handle such a large population yet. I feel the extra Food can let Tradition civs work all the specialists much earlier while giving Progress and Authority civs a stronger capital than otherwise. Overall, this Founder helps you early game by giving you a boost with Golden Ages and a better capital. Happiness can be a problem but I've found it manageable.

Ceremonial Burial:

At first glance, this Founder seems to be devoted to a Tradition civ geared for Great People generation. While I've found the yields to be underwhelming, I do recall that this belief was at one point stupidly powerful. There is a cap to how many yields you can get and both Faith and Culture aren't bad. The Faith can help you get more Great People starting in the Industrial Era while nobody complains about more Culture. If you get buildings and Wonders that speed up Great People Generation, I can see good yields over time. This Founder seems to help you mid to late game. I guess it depends on when your Great People generation peaks.

Council of Elders:

This Founder is quite dependent on your situation. Large maps with lots of cities and limited competition can see this Founder really shine. The Science and Production can work really well together where, as long as you get the policies, you can grab quite a few Wonders with the Production boost and accessing the techs needed sooner. On higher difficulty, this seems to be a belief to catch up but, even then, it feels underwhelming unless you have the right conditions. Overall, this Founder is geared for early game and too unreliable due to the number of factors you need for it to shine.

Divine Inheritance:

Extra yields from Golden Age seems quite good. However, I wonder if the boost needs a change now that Golden Ages are harder to get. A 20% boost to yields of your holy city (usually or should always be your capital) has limited impact early game but much more powerful late game. If you focus on Great Artist and such, you will be able to get permanent Golden Age late game to maximize the impact of this Founder. Overall, this Founder depends on what you are aiming for and I'm not sure if you can get permanent Golden Age in all your games or only those with Tradition and/or Artistry where Great People have a greater impact. If you are focusing on lots of Great People, I do feel this Founder is better than Ceremonial Burial.

Hero Worship:

This Founder has been changed recently and I have yet to find a chance to try it out. Put it simply, this Founder encourages you to be aggressive and rewards you for capturing cities with Faith and GAP. If you go for Authority and Imperialism to help your conquest, this Founder just adds even more yields. Overall, I find this Founder to be quite nice if you are already planning for war. Chances are you went Authority already and have already snowballed a bit. Therefore, it makes sense to keep snowballing further with those extra yields for what you're already doing.

Holy Law:

This Founder guarantees Faith, Science and Gold every time you unlock a new policy. Since you know roughly when you'll get policies, you can plan ahead to a certain degree and that's something humans surpasses the current AI. The goal of this belief is getting 200 followers which means that you need to convert rather aggressively to get the most yields out of it. On Standard, the max potential is 1000 Faith, Science and Gold which isn't something to scoff at. Overall, this Founder requires some work and, if you convert many cities, it will give you decent return. Since it's tied to policies, I don't know how its yields compare to some of the other beliefs.

Theocratic Rule:

This Founder focuses around WLTKD by giving boost to a city's Faith, Culture and Gold. This can work well with a Founder belief or Wonders that help give more boost from WLTKD. I know two ways of getting WLTKD as either trading for a resource your city wants or building the Circus. There might be others but I can't think of them at the moment. This Founder seems to give the player the most control over when to get the bonus as the only uncertain scenario is allying a CS by completing a quest you weren't aware of and getting the resource needed. Overall, this Founder requires a bit more work to maximize what you get from WLTKD or play as China but it can pay off if you put the effort and time those WLTKD well like during Golden Ages.

Way of the Pilgrim:

This Wonder works a bit different in that your yields scale with followers of other religions. Personally, I find this to be a tad bit too powerful. Early game, the Culture yields can be quite significant to help you get ahead in policies. Mid to late game, the Tourism is not something to be underestimated. If you don't want to anger your neighbors, I believe even sending Missionaries to CS that follow other religions can help you get lots of Tourism. I also notice that the AI always gets this belief first so they must weigh it more heavily despite not capable of using it to its full potential. Overall, I find this Founder as the only one that's too strong compared to others but that's just my opinion.

Way of Transcendence:

This Founder is capped by cities but scales with era when it comes to giving your Holy City yields every time you enter a new era. I generally find a religion in Classical era so that's one less boost. I don't take this very often so I don't know how the yields compare with other beliefs. However, I do know that, unless you have very little competition, getting 20 cities following your belief can be very challenging. Like Holy Law, you need to work for it to maximize the potential of this Founder. Overall, I can see this being powerful mid to late game if you are allowed to dominate in your religion.

 

[vyyt]

I am in the same camp (welcome!), picking the right belief is the weak point of my gameplay.

That being said, I think it is good to have (some) beliefs very situational, but I also think it is ok to have some beliefs overall better/worse than others - there should be a reward for founding early and pick the best ones.

EDIT: Corrected the darn autocorrect! I barely understood what I (it) had written.

 

[Minh Le]

Picking a founder belief depends on your strategy. I can name a few here:
- Apostolic Tradition: this belief is well suit for a Tradition civ who want to grow its capital/holy city ASAP to be able to work all the specialists and GPTI/unique improvements. For example: Tradition Morocco. You wont have enough citizen to work all specialist, all academies/manufactories and all kasbahs until very late into the game. The food in this case is very useful. Golden age is useful as Tradition too.
- Ceremonial Burial: this belief is for a Great Person strategy, i.e: Byzantium. She can buy a lot of cheap Great people and pop them for very good yield. This belief combo very well with TTGOG.
- Council of Elders: this belief IMO is best suit for warmongering, or for a very rare situation where youre the only founder on a continent so you can spread freely to your neighbour. It give very good yield very early to snipe a wonder, rush some units or rush to a tech. I like picking it for warmongering because it is a very snowball belief and it is very easy to reach the 20 cities cap with conquest.
- Divine Inheritance: the star of OCC . 20% yield increase during GA is very strong, especially in the late game when you can achieve permanent golden age. It works with a small and tall empire which heavily depends on yield of the capital.
- Hero Worship: the unporpular belief which no one ever pick . It got a buff recently but I dont think it worth, unless you are playing Persia. This belief specifically target warmonger, while the GA is nice, a warmonger doesnt need it (unless youre Persia), nor the faith. I think this belief need a total rework, or it will be Persia exclusive .
- Holy Law: this belief is for civs who are very strong on culture but not very good with science (Poland). You dont neccessarily need to convert aggressively for it to reach the cap, maybe one neighbour is enough. You can reach the cap with 10 cities follow your religion. Personally I dont like this belief, because a culture powerhouse is rarely weak on science, and faith and gold are not very valuable.
- Theocratic Rule: this is actually a very cool belief which shine from mid to late game. You can get WLTKD from trading lux, building circus and pop Great Merchan in city states. WLTKD is much easier tp get compare to Golden age and you can get permanent WLTKD sooner. Culture is strong and more culture is even stronger. It works wonderfully with China, France, Morocco...
- Way of the Pilgrim: this is a very powerful belief which gears directly for Culture Victory. It requires some aggressive spreading and you will piss off your neighbours if you dont do it carefully. But it will be very powerful if you do it right. It works with civs who produce a lot of faith for missionaries.
- Way of Transcendence: simple, but powerful. This is like a stronger version of Coucil of Elder which not only gives you science/production but also gold, food, culture, faith, golden age point... The only problem is to get 20 cities follow your religion. Good for warmonger.
Except Hero Worship, I think the Founder Beliefs are balanced. All of them can be strong in the right condition. Sometimes, you will have to change your plan based on which Founder Belief is available.