Prayers before battle

[Rancid Sushi]

I've been reading that the best way to a conquest/domination victory is to not build wonders or found any religions and just focus on military and science techs. However, it seems that founding a religion would be beneficial to the war machine. Being a warmonger myself, I was thinking it would serve well to bee-line theology to found Christianity and get first access to theocracy (possibly via Oracle-sling). Then send my promoted Jesus-freaks to crush all those nasty heathens out there. But I'm just a noob, so what do you guys think? Use religion to buff up troops and finance wars or no? I'm planning on buying Warlords soon so I'd appreciate some insight on how war is done differently in the expansion as well.

 

[HorsemasterK]

well, theo can rock it up, as it'll get you that 2nd promotion without having to use vassalage, as for beeline-ing to it, i'd rather try to bubble it with a GP.

 

[Crighton]

Noob or not, the Theocracy + Vassalage + Barracks/Stable/Drydock combo is a tried and true method, plus when you get Warlords you can acrue points to producing a Great General which will add even more experience to the xp count.

To be honest though I'm rarely 1st to theology, usually some nutcase like Izzy or Saladin get it first.

Anyway, as for founding a religion it's a prefference thing, I sometimes prefer to wait until my neighbors religion washes up into the empire, then spread it around while taking advantage of the relgious benefits (particularly the breathing room the "We Care for our Brothers & sisters In Fiath" diplomacy benefit), then when ready I go and unite the faith.

Sometimes I fluke a religion, spread it, and basically do the above. Latley though I haven't popped a great profit until the late 1400's so the shrine $$$ hasn't been as much, but still way profitable.

 

[Crighton]

by the way, welcome to the forums guys

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

Ive found a fairly consistent way to grab Theology at the first to it. I'll build stonehenge right away, Oracle if I have Marble. Youll have nothing but gp points. Then I'll bee-line for alphabet, trade for all the religious techs (monotheism, meditation, priesthood, polytheism). Of course if you have built the oracle you'll already have priesthood plus either meditation or poly. If you cant trade one (sometimes the AI will hang onto monotheism) it wont take you long to research the techs you are missing...by this time you should have some cottages up or a library to run gs. Anyways, the gp you get will then be able to lightbulb theology. Now you have a religion, an expensive tech to trade, and my favorite religious civic of its time if you're warring. Plus Im not the biggest fan of Vassalage because Bureaucracy is close by.

 

[futurehermit]

Theocracy is nice, but not necessary. It also requires you to spread your religion to all of your cities, spending hammers on missionaries, etc. that could be put into military-related stuff.

Best way to war-monger imo is just to focus on securing a metal and going to war, suing for peace when you can't sustain the war effort (either because your power falters or because your economy cannot sustain the new cities anymore). Then build up your infrastructure, going for theology or whatever if possible. The more you delay your initial war effort, the greater the chance of them getting feudalism and longbows...

 

[HorsemasterK]

amen to that, the irony is that if you use theology to found christianity, chances are theocracy won't be all that good right off the bat unless you're running ANOTHER religion, since, as futurehermit said, you'll have to spend the hammers to spread it, and that'll hurt the overall war effort.

I like to use Theocracy for my 2nd-3rd war depending on the map/victory I'm going for, implementing it right before my military buildup following the growth period after the first war. And if I have to adopt just 1 war civic, Theocracy usually wins because of its minimal impact of my other civics (yeah, I can't ditch Bureaucracy either )

 

[johnny_rico]

Theocracy is nice, but not necessary. It also requires you to spread your religion to all of your cities, spending hammers on missionaries, etc. that could be put into military-related stuff.

Best way to war-monger imo is just to focus on securing a metal and going to war, suing for peace when you can't sustain the war effort (either because your power falters or because your economy cannot sustain the new cities anymore). Then build up your infrastructure, going for theology or whatever if possible. The more you delay your initial war effort, the greater the chance of them getting feudalism and longbows...

Think of all the hammers you waste on throwing unpromoted or single promoted units at a city with fortified archers early on. My military experience with the game is that if a unit has less than an 85% chance of winning the fight, I am going to lose 90+% of the time. Color me unlucky.

I usually have a dedicated military production center early in the game so that's the only city I'd be concerned with spreading the religion to regarding theocracy. As long as one city can produce accuraccy cats and CR II axes and swords, I'm happy.

You'll get lucky as well and the religion will spread on it's own to a city or two.

The Izzy Theology slingshot followed by persecution is tons of fun.