Playing religion differently

[local_hero]

I got this idea of playing a religion heavy game, and a bit differently from what I've tried before. I've picked the jesuit education, glory to god and sacred sites beliefs but now I thought I'd try out the evangelist-belief with the great mosque of djenne. What enhancer do you think would help me the most, holy order or that one that increases missionary strenght?

What founder belief could be fun when attemting to convert the entire world to ones religion? Perhaps the culture one? Byzantium and picking both Church Property and Tithe?

I know this strategy isn't optimal for winning a game. It's just for a new experience. Your suggestions are well appreciated. You are also welcome to provide suggestions for follower beliefs if you want to. My idea is to play either Ethiopia or Byzantium.

 

[Asklepios]

For a goal of world conversion, the first thing to do is to play at a low enough difficulty level, as the AI has too many advantages at the highest levels to be able to get there.

What you'll need is high faith income to generate lots of missionaries and GPs, and I'd suggest that Itinerant Preachers is the key belief for maximising spread. This is partially because it lets religions go further away, but also because it increases the number of overlapping areas of pressure.

As to which civ and setting, the biggest barrier to religious spread tends to be the ocean, so play an all-land or Pangaea map. Then pick the faith civ of your choice.

 

[civ54lyfe]

i found out this weekend that World Church can be a huge loser vs. Tithe, if you find yourself on a continent with Ethiopa and do not have the will to exterminate him early enough. when i converted a couple very large AI cities, my Culture ticked up only very slightly, this is while playing as Byzantium+Desert Folklore+Petra+Itinerant Preachers+Cathedrals. somehow Ethiopia was capable of producing a Missionary every other turn

when i finally did exterminate his capitol + removed heresy in it at the end of Renaissance era, the damage had been done b/c only half my continent was my religion and i'd not noticed any real Culture benefit. if i'd picked Tithe it would have helped me more. i still need to go back to that game and look at Ethiopa's religion beliefs and keep them in mind, and yes i do realize how awesome the Stele and stuff is anyway.

if only Germany, who doesn't care about religion normally, was my immediate neighbor in this game specifically instead of stupid Halle. but overall i found the Culture uptick for World Church to be lacking, in terms of Culture per major AI city.

 

[danaphanous]

Did you see my gameplay post? This sounds exactly like my religious challenge.

I've nearly converted the world on immortal on my current huge game. It was one of my most-fun games. 3 other AI went full-blown piety too, so never say never Asklepios! I have 71/97 cities so far and counting! All that is left is 2-3 small islands on the far side of the world. They key is a high faith income. I'd suggest picking up Mosques if you can.

I'd suggest as minimum:
-fully-filling out piety
-evangelism (this is the biggest factor)
-Mosque of Jenne
-go wide as well as faith income scales linearly with your city numbers (exception of pilgrimage)

just the above allowed me to missionary-spam 4 nearby religions to nothing fairly early. The evangelism missionaries are like mini-prophets rapidly converting strong religious cities. They stall at holy cities, being less effective. I'd suggest saving a prophet for each capital.

For an enhancer, it's a toss-up between getting something that buffs spread/rate distance and missionary cheapness/strength. With a widespread religion I think you'll come out better having either religious texts or itinerant preachers. It will do a lot of maintenance work for you empire-wide whereas your missionaries will only be in a few places at once. Plus Evangelism/Jenne missionaries are already OP. I could flip a 25-pop city with just one and 2 uses. The third put me as the solid majority.

If you are dead-set on an additional missionary buff, 30% cheaper is mathematically better than 25% stronger. With piety, all missionaries and inquisitors will be 1/2 off. Have fun!

I think the best combo is:
Civ: Byzantium
Founder: pilgrimage (to take advantage of all those cities)
Follower: Mosques
Follower 2: Pagodas
Enhancer: Religious texts
Extra: Holy Order
Reformation: evangelism

But I've never gotten the above yet and I actually prefer tithes. I might be tempted to take it as my extra just because that is so much gold you're passing up otherwise! Faith-wise it doesn't help, but it will allow you to buy religious buildings or just boost you in general. You don't want to try this and be weak because you'll be making everyone mad. Plus, going that wide religiously? You want two founder beliefs...trust me.

 

[Silverman6083]

I'll tell you right now, Holy Order & Missionaries are traps. The only way to world convert is to use the enhancer belief Religious Texts. It is beyond powerful because unlike missionaries, pressure is free & is super powerful. The AI loves spamming cities, so their practically doing the work for ya! You can have so much pressure that Holy Cities of other religions will have more pressure for yours. So yeah, Religious Texts is a must.

 

[Crafty Bison]

Religious texts is not mandatory. As noted, this is a fun strategy and is not about optimisation, so it's pretty easy, just found a religion and pick one of the other beliefs. Plus do people go religious texts over itinerant preachers anyway (a whole other topic, I know)?

The reason the passive spreads are considered powerful is because they give more influence points than missionaries, while neither give foreign religion corrosion like a GP does. However, with evangelism, this is a big bonus for missionaries, as they can be relevant even in the mid to late game.

 

[qemist]

I've had some success on immortal with a new way of playing religion. Not having one. The only advantage to founding a religion is the founder belief, and the best ones have been nerfed. OTOH there are distinct disadvantages: you get Great Prophet spam which burns up your faith. You spend the game constantly trying to defend or spread your religion and getting into fights over it. You are lucky to get one of the faith buildings, and that is what you are limited to.

Playing the no religion way you no longer panic at the sight of a missionary or GP. Haile would like to spread Orthodoxy to my capital? Fine! I'll have a Pagoda. Next turn it's Harun, come on in bro! the Mosque and Monastery will look great next to the Pagoda. You can get a great selection of faith bought buildings and have a massive faith stockpile when you hit Industrial.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

Haile would like to spread Orthodoxy to my capital? Fine! I'll have a Pagoda. Next turn it's Harun, come on in bro! the Mosque and Monastery will look great next to the Pagoda. You can get a great selection of faith bought buildings and have a massive faith stockpile when you hit Industrial.

Your way of playing is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchretism

 

[Crafty Bison]

Yup, most deity players will agree that having no religion is the way forward for the majority of civs and situations. Though that's mainly cos it's not worth it to get one on deity; the fact that it's not worth it to maintain one doesn't even factor in cos its already too late. Most of the time it is a good idea to go after a short term pantheon though.
Imo the flavours of AI civs should reduce across the board for religion; it's just not as fun as it should be.

 

[GoStu]

Imo the flavours of AI civs should reduce across the board for religion; it's just not as fun as it should be.

Agreed, the AIs are ridiculously into their religions. Every time I see a Babylon or a Korea with their first six Social Policies in Piety I have to shake my head a bit. Also, having 2-3 big religion spreaders in a 12-player game is okay and they all gain something from it, but having 7-8 of the 12 all trying to convert all the others just makes the collective AI trip over its own shoelaces. They all get mad at each other for trying to convert each other, and waste tons of resources into Faith and the resulting wars.

As to the OP, I've found that World Church is surprisingly weak. I've had a devil of a time getting any huge effect out of it, but that may be as I'm always storing faith for my Enhancing prophet rather than throwing a missionary out the door straight away.

The difference between the very powerful (Church Property, Tithe, Initiation Rites) and the garbage (World Church, Pilgrimage) is the fact that the garbage gives you no benefit from your own cities. Maintaining any number of believers in AI civs can be difficult at best - it's easiest to stack up tons of believers in your own cities first and then augment it with anyone else you can convert.

 

[danaphanous]

The difference between the very powerful (Church Property, Tithe, Initiation Rites) and the garbage (World Church, Pilgrimage) is the fact that the garbage gives you no benefit from your own cities. Maintaining any number of believers in AI civs can be difficult at best - it's easiest to stack up tons of believers in your own cities first and then augment it with anyone else you can convert.

Precisely. However, for his stated gameplay idea, he can't win until he converts the whole world. I think in this case he needs loads of faith and something like pilgrimage could be powerful...provided he can actually get his religion out there and maintain it. There is no faith founder belief for your own cities unfortunately, but plenty of enhancements to existing buildings that synergize. Mosques is killer for faith output.

 

[qemist]

Yup, most deity players will agree that having no religion is the way forward for the majority of civs and situations. Though that's mainly cos it's not worth it to get one on deity; the fact that it's not worth it to maintain one doesn't even factor in cos its already too late. Most of the time it is a good idea to go after a short term pantheon though.

If your starting location makes a certain Pantheon obvious, then I'd certainly go for it. Otherwise you might be better off spending your hammers on something other than a shrine in the Ancient era.

 

[4N4C0ND4]

If your starting location makes a certain Pantheon obvious, then I'd certainly go for it. Otherwise you might be better off spending your hammers on something other than a shrine in the Ancient era.

I beg you pardon? (read it in Eliz' voice )

Even to get God King, it's usually worth it to get a pantheon at least, even on deity. Even if it's for a short time. You can get quite a culture/food/production even boost for what, a 10 turn shrine?

 

[Doktor Vic Tim]

Piilgrimage is a good choice if you're going to churn out a lot of Missionaries and faith buildings. If you have a lot of city states around you, that's almost a free +2 faith from them if you're fast enough to convert them.

And as you convert more cities, you get more faith buying power to spam more missionaries. And with all that faith, think of all the great persons you could buy!

Maybe this is how AI Ethiopia rolls?

 

[beetle]

Plus do people go religious texts over itinerant preachers anyway (a whole other topic, I know)?

I am sure there is a thread for this somewhere, but I will bite. Itinerant Preachers gets you about 70% more area effect while Religious Texts is 67% stronger.

Religious pressure is an odd mechanic because it is full strength out to 10 hexes, then nothing. Do most cities have only 3 or 4 hexes between each other? Then RT will have a very nice snowball effect. Your own core cities might well be more spread than that, so having 13 hex pressure range from IT would be twice as powerful as RT in that situation.

 

[joncnunn]

I am sure there is a thread for this somewhere, but I will bite. Itinerant Preachers gets you about 70% more area effect while Religious Texts is 67% stronger.

Religious pressure is an odd mechanic because it is full strength out to 10 hexes, then nothing. Do most cities have only 3 or 4 hexes between each other? Then RT will have a very nice snowball effect. Your own core cities might well be more spread than that, so having 13 hex pressure range from IT would be twice as powerful as RT in that situation.

That's the G&K mechanic; however in BNW you also get passive religious spread from trade routes; so with RT, you get increased spread from that as well.

And it's the AI that founds cities that tight together, but their closest cities to the human may be within range so with RT if you get a majority in one of the AI cities it quickly goes thru their entire empire.

 

[tide15]

I pick sacred waters for pantheon because usually my first city is next to a water source. Then I build a shrine choose the religion I want with the one hundred gold for membership and ploughshares into swords enhancements. Get Borobudur to so I can turn my first three cities early.
Get Hagia Sophia for a free Great Prophet and for the next religion enhancement I take temples for two happiness and prophets and missionaries with twenty five percent more turning power.
By this time or so I have four great prophets in the bullpen and am ready to unleash them on the world. That's sixteen cities I can turn and actually make a decent bit of gold early game

 

[qemist]

I beg you pardon? (read it in Eliz' voice )

Even to get God King, it's usually worth it to get a pantheon at least, even on deity. Even if it's for a short time. You can get quite a culture/food/production even boost for what, a 10 turn shrine?

You may be right. The shrine is not free, though. I would build one sooner or later because I aim to accumulate faith. My thought is that if I am not eager for a specific Pantheon, then later might be better.