lastchance said:
Oh yes, religious rushing can be very effective. In fact, I have had to resport to it in my latest games because about renn era, I would find myself with a well developed military and tech/culture/economy, and ahead in the game...until 4 of the neighboring civs all declare war.
So, I began making powerful allies (found this out by reloading the 4000BC year of the same exact map I got swarmed on). I pumped a warrior, settler and worker while waiting for my religious civs (plus masonry as a prereq) to be learned.
Then I converted to organized religion and spammed 4 straight missionaries (while bee-lining for alphabet for open borders), sending them out to anyone who was my neighbor and had invited me to open borders. Then I started spamming the religious techs (I was napoleon, so had industrious). I got many of those, pretty quickly, then finally spammed an army.
I was shocked at how well this worked. I converted 4 local civs to my religion, two of which later converted to another religion, but 2 became strong and fast allies. I have defensive pacts with both of them, and can always count on them to help me in time of war. This was the first time I have really put together a complete religious plan and had it work. Usually I get a religion early, but by not spreding it, I become the bottom of a dog pile as various pairs of religious civs decide they hate my guts. I couldn't trade without angering half of them, I couldn't make war without having their allies come to aid...
In short, I love religion in this game. It is a brand new way (and historically accurate one, actually) to go about vying for world domination!
