[NFP] Post-Update Founder Beliefs

[steveg700]

Good point, I never actually considered that. RV is probably the victory the AI is strongest at, too, though it never works out if there is another powerful religious AI.

Well, it's a pretty broken victory condition since there's really not a lot of basis for one civ to be better at dominating others religiously. Little unit diversity, no XP to promote them, inquisitors provide a strong countermeasure, AI pretty much always goes for Theocracy as its tier-2 government, and you can always just build holy sites next to cities and then hide & heal apostles or inquisitors in the city. It's only the AI's willingness to send units to their death that makes it winnable at all.

 

[Ivan Hunger]

I'm going to go for religion even less if choral music isn't an option most of the time. It nerfs Arabia in the player's hands since you get the last prophet (unless you negate the ability by beelining of course). I'm glad at least one of the AIs is going to benefit from religion, but I just wish the beliefs were better balanced overall.

I didn't even know Choral Music was a popular choice for Arabia before this thread. I always went with either Divine Inspiration or Reliquaries for more faith to help with my missionary spam. Arabia is all about spamming your religion as much possible, and you don't really need culture for that.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

I didn't even know Choral Music was a popular choice for Arabia before this thread. I always went with either Divine Inspiration or Reliquaries for more faith to help with my missionary spam. Arabia is all about spamming your religion as much possible, and you don't really need culture for that.

Culture gives you faster theocracy, which arguably lets you spam more, so you can have both!

 

[Mr Jon of Cheam]

My first game of this patch:
1. Feed the World
2. Choral Music
3. Religious Community
4. Warrior Monks
5. Divine Inspiration

 

[Archon_Wing]

Spending 190 production for 6 culture/6 faith is incredible. There is nothing at that point in the game that can match that. Heck, even a filled amphitheater (150 production) only gives 6 culture lol.

Reliquaries is good, but it takes a while to get relics so I rarely go for that unless I pop one for that.

I like Jesuit Education and Divine Inspiration, but only if someone gives it to me, because it means I don't have to build Holy Sites. That's not worth founding a religion for. I can see it for a strategy if the final religion isn't taken so you just take it without wanting to mass holy sites.

Food/housing ones? Well all I can say is that Firaxis thought these yields would be more useful than it turns out to be

 

[lohaller]

yeah they first picked the culture one in the first game I played, not sure about the second. Great change but it will be sad never getting to fix ur culture game without having to do anything but found a religion

 

[bengalryan9]

Spending 190 production for 6 culture/6 faith is incredible. There is nothing at that point in the game that can match that. Heck, even a filled amphitheater (150 production) only gives 6 culture lol.

Reliquaries is good, but it takes a while to get relics so I rarely go for that unless I pop one for that.

I like Jesuit Education and Divine Inspiration, but only if someone gives it to me, because it means I don't have to build Holy Sites. That's not worth founding a religion for. I can see it for a strategy if the final religion isn't taken so you just take it without wanting to mass holy sites.

Food/housing ones? Well all I can say is that Firaxis thought these yields would be more useful than it turns out to be

I still think Feed the World has its uses if you roll a food-poor start or are playing a civ with a tundra or desert bias. If I were Peter I'd probably shoot for Choral Music but I don't think I'd be disappointed if I was stuck with that one.

I agree with you in that I rarely find rushing to a religion to be worth it, but sometimes weird things happen and one falls into your lap anyways.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

even without a food-poor start feed the world is pretty good. 4 food temples really help cities with lots of plains hills, which incidentally are incredible tiles when mined

it also gives you growth pretty early when you need it most (assuming holy site first in those cities that do get one)

 

[Archon_Wing]

Yea, but I wouldn't go out of my way just to found a religion for that especially if I can gather grain. If your start is food poor, it means that your district development is already slow and you're clogging it up with a Holy Site. I honestly think one would be better off just expanding more to offset the difference or even just building earlier granaries/water mills/or even farms. Choral Music actually allows you to delay building theater squares or not even build them at all. You can do a number of no/low TS culture victories with it.

Granted, I have an extreme bias against religious victories since like domination victories you must lug a bunch of units all over the world and that is all very boring. Furthermore, those games where every religion is taken by t50 is not worth the stress. Now if you give me that belief for free, that's another story! Incidentally nobody ever gives me feed the world.


I would say the correct answer is just to move away from that start location! Even as Canada I will actually move away from the tundra at the start because it has no real use until later in the game. Tundra farms are a meme.

River Goddess + Feed the World + Audience Chamber as Khmer or Rome is what I would do, though.

 

[The Highwayman]

I didn't even know Choral Music was a popular choice for Arabia before this thread. I always went with either Divine Inspiration or Reliquaries for more faith to help with my missionary spam. Arabia is all about spamming your religion as much possible, and you don't really need culture for that.

The way I see it, choral music negated the lack of early theater squares, which isn't specific to Arabia but i was using them as an example as I will get the final religion with them. With Arabia, I'm building a holy site and campus in every city and choral music is a nice +6 culture to go along with it (+10% once the worship building is rushed).

 

[Isengardtom]

In my current game
Maya - continents - small - Deity - apocalypse mode

civs other than me as Maya
- Sumeria
- China
- Germany
- Poland
- Ottomans

1st religion - Feed the world - China - Taoism : other beliefs are meeting house / lay ministry / defender of the faith
2nd religion - Choral music - Poland - Catholicism : other beliefs are synagogue / missionary Zeal / Church property
3rd religion - Warrior Monks - Ottomans - Islam : other beliefs are Wat / Papal Primacy / Holy order
4th religion - religions community - Sumeria - Hinduism : other beliefs are Gurdwara

 

[kb27787]

Choral music allows deity AI to get ridiculous amounts of culture now with only a few theatre squares. I'm talking about 90+ in classical era and 300-400+ in industrial.
Post-patch culture wins are TOUGH! If going for culture, destroying this religion from the face of the planet early (while it is only just founded and spread with a few missionaries) becomes a priority... (I find it easiest to do with Kongo since they get free apostles earlier than anyone else... just a handful of them can wipe that religion out before the AI manages temples).

Unfortunately (or fortunately in some cases) choral music is almost always the first one chosen (played 5 or so games post-patch now... seems to be the case) and so most likely it will be the Stonehenge civ... The first religion can be either very strongly rooted (as in very dedicated AI who spams holy sites everywhere), or very weakly (as in they just want to build a wonder and Stonehenge happens to be convenient and don't really want holy sites), in my experience...

 

[The Highwayman]

Just finished my first game with Gran Columbia (wow, but that's another topic). The AI chose the following beliefs in this order:

Choral Music
Feed the World
Warrior Monks
Divine Inspiration
I got the last religion from taking holy sites and chose Work Ethic

 

[Drivingrevilo]

Just got the following information from a friend who is mid-way through a new patch game:

1.) Russia: Choral Music
2.) Sumeria: Warrior Monks
3.) (Friend’s Mali religion: Work Ethic)
4.) Mapuche: Divine Inspiration
5.) Pericles: Religious Community

So in short, it looks like the AI now values Choral Music *a lot*. But apart from that, it’s the ‘usual suspect’ bonuses, just in a different order this time.

 

[bengalryan9]

Just got the following information from a friend who is mid-way through a new patch game:

1.) Russia: Choral Music
2.) Sumeria: Warrior Monks
3.) (Friend’s Mali religion: Work Ethic)
4.) Mapuche: Divine Inspiration
5.) Pericles: Religious Community

So in short, it looks like the AI now values Choral Music *a lot*. But apart from that, it’s the ‘usual suspect’ bonuses, just in a different order this time.

Agreed, but it doesn't seem to always go number 1 either. I'm curious if the AI that are taking Feed the World first are doing it due to their starting locations or if it's just random chance. Maybe certain civs weigh different options in different ways (maybe civs that can get culture from unique improvements value choral music less, for example). Still to early to tell!

It is interesting that we've all seemed to still see Warrior Monks/Divine Inspiration go back-to-back, it just happens later on.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

My current Maya game (did not found religion)

1. Choral Music
2. Feed the World
3. Religious Community
4. Warrior Monks
5. Divine Inspiration

The straight rush to Choral Music is a little worrisome, since that's my favorite founder belief. There's a lot of strategies you can use just ignoring theatre squares and just building supercharged holy sites instead that are now out the window. It's not completely horrible since you can get it spread to you. I also liked using it for religious victories since it was a great way to rush Theocracy, but at the same time, when I spread my religion to others, I'd be inadvertently boosting their culture. So time will tell, after several games, to show me if this is a problematic change.

I'm just glad they don't rush warrior monks anymore. That opens up strategies using them. Although they seem so obsolete after Lahore's unique unit now. That's a religious combat unit done right.

 

[Isengardtom]

Maybe it depends on the civs in the game

It seems similar to wonders : I found for example that a civ like Nubia tries to go for pyramids fairly early
Others completely ignore it

 

[bengalryan9]

My current Maya game (did not found religion)

1. Choral Music
2. Feed the World
3. Religious Community
4. Warrior Monks
5. Divine Inspiration

The straight rush to Choral Music is a little worrisome, since that's my favorite founder belief. There's a lot of strategies you can use just ignoring theatre squares and just building supercharged holy sites instead that are now out the window. It's not completely horrible since you can get it spread to you. I also liked using it for religious victories since it was a great way to rush Theocracy, but at the same time, when I spread my religion to others, I'd be inadvertently boosting their culture. So time will tell, after several games, to show me if this is a problematic change.

I'm just glad they don't rush warrior monks anymore. That opens up strategies using them. Although they seem so obsolete after Lahore's unique unit now. That's a religious combat unit done right.

I agree with pretty much everything you say. In my opinion an AI who takes choral music is in so much better shape to actually pose a challenge that I can't help but view it as a positive change even if it's the belief I'd take 9 times out of 10.

Maybe it depends on the civs in the game

It seems similar to wonders : I found for example that a civ like Nubia tries to go for pyramids fairly early
Others completely ignore it

I think Pyramids are limited more by the flat desert tile requirement than civ choice... the AI seems to steer away from settling tiles they could actually build it on.

 

[acluewithout]

Read this thread quickly. Seems like a really good change. Love the knock on effect for Culture Victories. Go Team AI!

Always felt silly to me that I could just sit on a Great Prophet, and then pop the, late and still get Choral Music.

I don’t get why people say it’s not worth founding a Religion? You can just build a few Holy Sites for faith etc. They’re handy. You can often then nab a late Religion with a few projects and or something else (Classical Republic, Oracle, whatever). Depends on map size of course, but doesn’t need to be a big investment and if it doesn’t happen then no big deal. Religion can then be handy for generating a bit of extra era score or extra loyalty.

Honestly, I think Religion is in a pretty good place. Yes, it’s very unit focused, but almost everything in Civ VI is, eg settler / Builders, Traders, Rockband / Naturalist / Soothsayers. Really, all Religion needs is a revamp of Beliefs (like we got with Pantheons), some more unit diversity, and maybe a couple more things you can do with it (eg via policies).

Agree Religious Victory is boring as boring can be. But then, so is Dom Victory, so there you go.

 

[bengalryan9]

Random observation, but I think this is kind of a stealth buff for India's Holy Siters. It's a lot easier for them to get holy sites that benefit from extra culture, food, and housing all at once with Dharma now. Pre-update you'd mostly get stuck with a couple of crappy beliefs and maybe one or two decent ones.

Once I'm done with the two new civs, I may take Ghandhi for a spin.