realistically, what can be done with religion?

[SammyKhalifa]

I'm not sure converting a holy city is a very good idea considering how the VC works.

 

[rocksinmypath]

Exploration age culture legacy path should unapologetically be religious victory. We have great works collection as a legacy path in all three ages. One is enough. Exploration culture path should be about actively spreading your religion throughout the world and maintaining it by flexing your influence, not by micromanaging missionaries.

I think there's a way to borrow some features from both independent powers management and trading and apply them to religion. With independent powers, you spend influence to improve relations over time, and once the gauge completely fills up, you permanently establish yourself as the suzerain. For religion, you can spend influence to start converting a settlement, and once the conversion gauge fills up, it doesn't permanently follow your religion but other players will have to spend more influence to re-convert it. Like for trading, distance should play a factor. Either make it impossible to convert settlements that are too far away from settlements that are already converted to your religion, or make the cost of conversion vary with distance. This will also provide an opportunity to rework the religious town specialization, which, in its current form, I've never even considered using in a game. A religious town can be used to either improve your "conversion distance" (similar to increasing trade route length) or to make re-conversion of nearby settlements more expensive.

 

[ThichN]

Would like passive pressure, also with trade.

There is a belief you can adopt where establishing a trade route converts the city, and this feels fun and the most organic of the current religion mechanics. Otherwise, like religion in both Civ5 and Civ6, I find the entire thing to be onerous. My suggestion would be to just get rid of it completely, but short of that, I like this idea of tying it into influence or making it passive.

Or how about this: What if you still made a religion, but then each religion became a policy slot that you can put into your policies? The longer you keep that "policy" in place, the more your populace shifts in favor of that religion -- though you could also slot in multiple religions to demonstrate multifaith societies. Or, you could even opt to not use your own and use someone else's. Relations between Civs following the same religions could be positive. In this way, religion works for the player and becomes fun. Enough of your populace at the border converts to a neighboring Civ's religion, you get the policy card. But perhaps it negatively effects happiness or something elsewhere.

 

[friendlysavage]

Civ 4 did it best

 

[King Flevance]

I really like the idea of spending influence to spread religion to a city. The cost could be based on population. I would make it so that temples also gain a base yield of +2 influence.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

I really like the idea of spending influence to spread religion to a city. The cost could be based on population. I would make it so that temples also gain a base yield of +2 influence.

I know this is going to be unpopular, but I wouldn't mind a Religious Legacy Path available in Ancient and Exploration, with Ancient being about Relics, where you use Faith as a way to spread Religion, and Exploration about dominance, where you spread it across the Distant Lands, without the need for it to be part of the Expansionist Legacy Path and Cultural Path respectively. Exploration could be about amassing Great Works Again.

 

[Tanel]

I would also like a more passive religion system. Missionaries should at best be a limited resource not something to be spammed. Also I don't like that there isn't any initial benefit for converting your own cities.

 

[Pistol90]

You should tie religion to buildings, wonders, culture, and even wars ... to be more passive ....

And only active thing to be something like Apostole in Civ6, really powerfull units you build if you reeealllly want active religion ... but not so much micromanagement like misionaries.

 

[123joanna321]

I do like this idea, actually, just changing faith into a resource and doing conversions directly that way the way that influence is used right now for city-states and endeavors. If anything, you could even play with policy cards or general mechanics that allow for faith-specific alternatives to influence-spending (e.g. spend a higher raw value of faith, which would be easier to get in a religious empire, on religious ceremonies and holy site visits to boost standing with city states or as a replacement for influence in endeavors PROVIDED THAT the other civ has your faith as a majority in their lands OR has a tenet that allows for interfaith dialogue/religious tolerance).

Instead of making another resource, why not just use influence?

 

[stealth_nsk]

Realistically, after playing several games, I think religion is fine if you remember you're playing Civ7 and not 6, 5 or 4. You could play it on minimum and just assist in cultural and military victories, or you could get it max, focusing on foreign settlement conversion. Actually even without multiple religious unit types and lightning battles, cimpeting for cities is still fun and you could get a lot from it for both exploration age and legacy in modern.

 

[TheMarshmallowBear]

Realistically, after playing several games, I think religion is fine if you remember you're playing Civ7 and not 6, 5 or 4. You could play it on minimum and just assist in cultural and military victories, or you could get it max, focusing on foreign settlement conversion. Actually even without multiple religious unit types and lightning battles, cimpeting for cities is still fun and you could get a lot from it for both exploration age and legacy in modern.

My only problem is the Golden Age should give the Enhancer belief for Modern, instead of the Founder, cuz I honestly don't care for the Founder, not this time when they're all foreign cities and you can't keep spreading religion afterwards.

 

[stealth_nsk]

My only problem is the Golden Age should give the Enhancer belief for Modern, instead of the Founder, cuz I honestly don't care for the Founder, not this time when they're all foreign cities and you can't keep spreading religion afterwards.

Yes, but that's the idea. If you want to play religion to maximum, you fight for those foreign cities and could keep your founder bonus, which is quite nice.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

I would also like a more passive religion system. Missionaries should at best be a limited resource not something to be spammed. Also I don't like that there isn't any initial benefit for converting your own cities.

Part of me agrees with you, but if it's going to be part of a victory condition I can see why they would want you to put some work into it.

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Yes, but that's the idea. If you want to play religion to maximum, you fight for those foreign cities and could keep your founder bonus, which is quite nice.

True, but for me personally, if I put in the work to get that golden age, continuing the same process feels more like a punshment than a reward.

 

[Canadian Bluebeer]

I want to be able to kill/purge/kick the heretics out of my lands if I'm at war.
(ok, even if not at war. Inquisitors would be good too. No combat. use a charge to obliterate the missionary.
Make'em more expensive than a missionary (but not much) and they get 3 charges or so. Defending is cheaper)


(or just get rid of religious units. use influence more. (there is an option for that already btw)

 

[SammyKhalifa]

Concerning religion, I've found that the belief that gets you two relics for converting a city state is a pretty headache-free to get the relics you need (at least the way I play).

 

[sixty4half]

I think you need to get to Reformation beliefs before you really have fun with your religion. It makes other victories a lot easier. For Non Suffict Orbis there is a reformation that converts any settlement you conquer, so there is no need to spam missionaries. I also like the combo of having Trade Routes convert cities and getting 2 Relics when you convert a CS (or another Civs Capital), this makes Cultural Victories a lot easier.

 

[JTMacc99]

I found a really good reason to keep my cities my religion:

At the end of the Exploration Age, I ran into a "the plague" situation. One of the crisis policies was "Divine Intervention", meaning that my settlements that were following my religion were spared from the outbreaks.

The settlements that DIDN'T have my religion were an absolute nightmare. Everything was on fire or dying. LOL.

 

[sixty4half]

In 4 playthroughs, I've never had but 1 problem with the Plague. It popped on a city I conquered that turn, so it killed the wounded Warrior that took the city square.

It has hit maybe 2 other cities in 4 games with 4-8 cities apiece. I always thought it was the weakest of the crisis but maybe I just got lucky

 

[Disgustipated]

I don't mind religion having less focus, I mostly ignored it in Civ 6 because of how hard it is to get a religion in Civ 6. But yeah the beliefs where only foreign cities give you benefits needs to go.