bad-aries said:
I am now in the second Civ4 game and I found myself a War Jerk. Anyway, my question is about the religion.
Say I have 3 Cities A,B and C. I have City A found mediation the first, City B found Polythesim the first and City C found Code of Laws the first. So, 3 cities will have 3 diffirent religion?
1. If so, how could I make the whole civilization the same religion? Is there any Bad impact on my civ if different cities are having different religion? Or is there any good for the whole Civ to have the same religion?
2. Say City A now the first found meditation and then Philosophy, will City A get Taoism and Buddhism at the same time? Can I just do something to change City A to either Buddhism/Taoism?
3. My Civ suddenly generate me a free missionist. Say he/she is Judaism and I don't want it, should I just destroy it to save food? Or I should save it for later?
Thanks.
I am new to the message board, but have been playing Civ 4 since christmas. I had some of these misconceptions about Religions at first, but quickly found the following basic Truth about the game:
THERE ARE NO REAL DOWNSIDES TO ANY RELIGION. (there is a minor one. But its small, and I can't think how this would overcome any potential positives. See below for more details)
To answer your questions specifically
1) You want every city in your empire to be of your "state" religion. Choose a state religion and spread it via missionaries (build monastaries or go with "organized religion" to build missionaries). If you founded the religion and build a shrine, it makes you extra money for every city IN THE WORLD that has the religion (even if it is in an enemy's territory). Plus if you control the holy city of your state religion, it gives you a free spy in every city in the world that has that religion. The only downside, then, is that any city of yours that meets these criteria is visible to an enemy that owns the holy city. Still, this is a SMALL downside compared to the BIG upside. Having the AI see your cities may let him notice weaknesses he might not otherwise, but you should maintain a decent defensive military to prevent this. There are many other articles on how to maintain military might As to which state religion you choose, that doesn't matter. All religions are functionally equivalent.
Also, note that no city "IS" a religion. A city may "have" a religion, but additional religions in a city do not compete or conflict in any way. A multireligious city in Civ IV is always a Good Thing (tm). Besides the extra buildings (see below) the Free Religion civic gives big bonuses for extra religions in each city.
2) See above. If a city has Taoism and Buddhism present, this is not a problem. It is good since you can now build 2 temples and 2 monestaries and even potentially 2 "cathedral" level buildings. In fact, there is a formula for the ideal number of religions in your civ. In a perfect world, you would have N/3 religions in EVERY city where N = the number of cities. This would allow you to greatly increase the cultural output of every city. A great way to push your borders. This is how that works:
For ever 3 temples your civ has built, you can build a "cathedral" level building (stupa/mosque/whatever). If you have 9 cities and 3 religions, then careful placement could allow one of these in every city, effectively increasing the cultural output by 50% for each city. A quick way to expand borders. OR you could stack the cathedrals in your top 3 cities if you are going for a cultural victory. All %'s in Civ IV are additive, so a 150% boost to cultural output in your 3 top cultural cities is HUGE in the long haul.
In conclusion to this question, you want to have EVERY religion possible in EVERY city. In practical terms, the usual limit (given the time it takes to do this) is 4-5 religions per city. Some strategies even involve founding as many religions as possible. If you own 4-5 holy cities with the appropriate shrines, and spend some time spreading missionaries for all of them, you can generate HUGE amounts of cash. I have founded 5 religions, and spread them all well enough to be able to run 100% science and still turn a 100+ gold cash profit. If you start with mysticism tech, you should be able to found 4 religions easily ALL in the BC (hinduism, buddhism and judaism all come early enough and you should be able to Oracle into either Theology (Christanity) or Code of Laws (Confusionism).
3) If you've read this far, you should realize that free missionaries are a Good Thing (tm). You should use it to get an extra religion (and temple and monestary etc.) in a city where it will come in handy. Large, fast growing cities can use the extra happy face from the temple. Rich cities can gain from the 10% science boost on the monestary, and border cities can use the extra culture output of all 3 religious buildings. My advise is to use the free missionary wherever it will provide the most benefit.
