Religion and Warfare

[entrada_sinful]

In our world today as of since the beginning of time war has been fueled by religion. I'm going to say through my experiences in Civ4 this concept is equally true. To ignore religion is to ignore your nation and you can already predict what that will do to you and your long awaited victory.

So I'm going to tell you what I've learned in the few religious campaigns I have conducted as I strive for that ultimate goal, VICTORY.

If you are the first to discover the technology associated with a certain religion it is founded within one of your cities. Don't be shy when choosing a religion to be your own, but be aware of the first religion you find, I will recommend to have foresight in choosing the religious technologies you wish to aquire because once you have your first religion I will advise that you avoid gaining anymore. That means avoiding religious technologies in which you will then be forced to have the associated religion founded in one of your cities.
Note: once a religion associated technology is founded by another nation you cannot found that religion within one of your cities, yet your free to discover that technology without worrying about the religion spread.

Be cautious of your neighbors religions, for I recommend thwarting any of their plans to spread their state religion within your country. The religious civ Theocracy is the easiest way to protect yourself from unwanted religion spreading, because there is no spread of non-state religion. When I say crackdown on your cities religion, i mean it. Having only one religion has the best result for your nations economy and happiness. Protect your Holy Cities (the city in which the religion has been found) as dearly as your capitol, for having a Holy City, especially of your religion gives your Empire a substantial boost, one which is very welcomed.

Spread religion to friendly nations, along with your theocractic ways, for sharing a strong religion with an ally improves foreign relations by a large margin. Try to restrain from attacking a nation that has a large portion of members of the same faith, your citizens won't be too happy about you slaughtering their brethren making your cities weaker and uncooperable.

It may be unethical, but take your time and possible choose an enemy religion before you begin foreign relations. Rather allies of the faith than of another and rather enemies of a seperate faith than the same.
When fighting an enemies with a completely different religion(s), pinpoint the the city that is the heart of the nation, not the capital but the HOLY CITIES. When you come to an enemy city of Holiness, don't have a second thought, destroy it! This will fuel rage on your enemies side but cause a severe hurt upon the enemy nation, MAKE YOUR RELIGION PROSPER!

I have found your cities get significant bonuses from the population, I have received a +8 happiness with the comment "we trust in our religion". This has only happened when i excluded all but one religion within my city. I have enjoyed found significant culture boosts from only having one religion other than the happy bonus i get from my citizens.

Take full advantage of religion, not only do you use missionaries to spread your religion, use them to spy into "future" enemy territories.

Don't be picky about a religion unless you intend to have the certain technologies related with the them, then hold out and get your way.

Get as many "religious" alllies as possible, and stop the dirty hethans of the opposite faith. There is such thing as tolerance, but it isn't neccesary in time of war!

Stand strong with your country and stand strong with religion and you WILL prevail! that's my advice.


I know I have included little intel on this subject and I will update my post as I learn more through experiences.
I encourage you to share your experiences with religious campaigns and/or the significance of religion in you your Civ4 ventures in this thread.....

 

[Sisiutil]

It sounds like an interesting way to play, but I don't know if it's optimal.

For the early part of the game, having a state religion is obviously beneficial. Under Organized Religion, you get building benefits, and under Theocracy, you get free XPs for each unit you build--but only in the cities where you have your state religion. I've used a state religion instead of building Stonehenge and obelisks to make city borders pop, and it lifts the early, very low, happiness cap in your cities.

However.

While I myself have never gone "religion hunting"--that is, trying to found as many religions as possible--there are definite advantages to having multiple religions, either your own or even someone else's.

First off, you can build monasteries for a +10% science boost. Given the low cost of techs in the early game, multiple monasteries in your best science cities can be very beneficial.

Furthermore, with multiple religions you get diplomatic flexibility. Converting to a different religion can ensure you get the allies and enemies that you want.

And why would you want to raze a holy city? You're forgoing a lot of potential shrine income if you do that, and earning some diplomatic emnity as well.

A lot of people worry about a foreign religion spreading to one of your cities, as that provides the AI with intel. Why not take advantage of it? Put more of your most modern units in that city, making the AI think you're stronger than you are. Or leave it weak if you want to lull the AI into attacking you.

Later in the game, there's the Free Religion civic to think about; each additional religion gives a city culture and happiness, and allows you to build more happy/cultural buildings--more temples and cathedrals.

This is not to say you can't play like the Spanish Inquisition (because no one ever expects that, after all ). I'm just saying you're forgoing several advantages and will have to find other ways to compensate for them.

 

[zyphyr]

While much of what you say has value, this :

When I say crackdown on your cities religion, i mean it. Having only one religion has the best result for your nations economy and happiness.

is quite false.

More religions = more happiness. Both through increased number of Temples and Cathedrals and from the potential later effects of Free Religion.
More religions = more science in the early potions of the game thanks to the monastaries. And early tech leads tend to become mid-game tech leads, which in turn tend to become late game tech leads. Assuming of course that you didn't manage to turn the early/mid tech leads into an outright victory.
More religions = more culture. Religious buildings all have culture attached, and more of them are available.

 

[Andorim]

I have been trying in the last few games to not choose a state religion. I seem to managing just fine without it, and there are no negative diplomatic scores. Even if I manage to found a religion, I can still actively spread it throughout my empire, as well as other empires, without making it a state religion.

Disregarding the advantages of Theocracy, I am finding that a state religion often causes more trouble than it helps. Just my $0.02.

 

[Sisiutil]

I have been trying in the last few games to not choose a state religion. I seem to managing just fine without it, and there are no negative diplomatic scores. Even if I manage to found a religion, I can still actively spread it throughout my empire, as well as other empires, without making it a state religion.

Disregarding the advantages of Theocracy, I am finding that a state religion often causes more trouble than it helps. Just my $0.02.

As with every decision in Civ, it's a trade-off. By not having a state religion, you are forgoing the military advantages of Theocracy and the domestic advantages of Organized Religion, which are even more powerful in my opinion--essentially, a free forge in every city with your SR. You also lose out on the +1 happy and +1 culture available from the presence of the religion in a city, and potential diplomatic benefits of sharing the same religion with another civ.

The main disadvantage of having a tate religion is earning the emnity of an AI civ with a different religion. I often avoid adopting a SR until such time as I can take advantage of it (i.e. obtain Monotheism and the Organized Religion civic), and have sufficient military force to resist whatever religious fanatic is on my borders.

 

[gdgrimm]

.... You also lose out on the +1 happy and +1 culture available from the presence of the religion in a city,

With no state religion, you get +1 culture for each religion in the city (+5 culutre if it's the Holy City for that religion). So if you have 2 religions, you'll actually get +2 culture with no state religion.

With a state religion, you get +1 happiness and +1 culture if you have your SR in that city. You get no benefits from any other religion in the city (not even if it's the Holy City).

So you actually get a culture benefit by having no SR with multiple religions.

One situation where using the extra culture you get from no SR has been quite useful for me, is when I found a second religion in a holy city near an enemy's border. I may not want to convert SR to it due to diplomatic hit and lack of the religion's spread, but if I run no SR for a bit, it'll generate +5 culture in that city which can be useful for early border expansions and winning the border war. After getting the Temple and Monastery (and potentially Cathedral) up for that religion, I can convert back to my primary SR, and let the buildings drive the culture.

 

[Paeanblack]

As with every decision in Civ, it's a trade-off. By not having a state religion, you are forgoing the military advantages of Theocracy and the domestic advantages of Organized Religion, which are even more powerful in my opinion--essentially, a free forge in every city with your SR..

I'm not sure what game you are playing, but in my version, Organized Religion is expensive...really freaking expensive. Those virtual forges are most definitely not free and don't even work most of the time.

 

[Sisiutil]

I'm not sure what game you are playing, but in my version, Organized Religion is expensive...really freaking expensive. Those virtual forges are most definitely not free and don't even work most of the time.

Granted, OR is a high upkeep civic. However, early in the game, when your empire is small, a high upkeep civic is usually pretty cheap, relatively speaking--maybe 1-5 GPT rather than the 10-20 after you've conquered another civ's cities. You need to get your infrastructure built (libraries, forges, lighthouses, markets, etc.) and have a much smaller population to do it, so a +25% production boost is a big help.

My "virtual forges" always work, provided my SR is on the city. Remember it only works for buildings, not units, as I recall.

 

[Crighton]

OR tends to pay for itself if you have the shrine.

And never destroy a holy city, by the time you capture it, more often than not it will have the shrine in it, why would you throw away that extra income? e.g. Buddism is founded early and typically spreads far and almost universally world wide, why throw away and extra 20+ is gold, the enemy will already be pissed at you for taking the city why add to that negative diplo modifier more than you need to?

If you don't found a religion adopt the first one that comes to you since invarieably it comes from your closest neighbor, basically lure him in friendship, then take managerial control of the holy city (wage a war of religious unification).

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

****edit: just read the other posts, and yes, I know 25% only works for buildings, not units. But by "military advantage" I meant building courthouses and barracks faster. Common sense prevails, mostly, but not always on the internet****

Depends on whether you are playing single player or multiplayer. Single player, diplomatic ramifications from a Hindu or Buddhist alliance could profoundly influance the later courses of the game, and shrine gold from those two could really add up. Although at high difficulties, you really want to avoid founding religions, as you want religious "diversity" amongst your neighbours to make life more " interesting" for them. Besides, at high difficulty levels, what you want to do is to capture those holy shrines, as you need some form of warfare anyway. As to founding religions, I like founding Confucism, as it is a tech that you would always get sooner or later, and you can send the free missionary early enough to a civ without a religion. Once you convert a city, the trade routes will spread it to other corners of that empire before the three earlier ones reach there via natural means.

Contrary to popular belief, I think religion is also important for multiplayer, mostly because of the +1 hapiness. However, in this case, I'd prefer Judaism, as getting organized religion first translates to a large military advantage.

 

[Crighton]

[hijacking]

On a slightly similar topic to a comment from the above poster: If I do ANY start above Ancient (Modern, Medieval, etc) I ALWAYS ALWAYS get to be the Civ that founds Judaism. No such thing as random from my experience.

[end hijacking]

 

[svv]

On another slight sidetrack, one strange thing I've noticed is that when I'm warring with another civ and really pounding him, they'll suddenly change to my religion without any fanfare or anything. They'll even change to the dominant religion in my civ when I'm in free religion. I guess they're trying to curry favor? But one would think they'd come visit me and offer it up.

 

[Sisiutil]

On another slight sidetrack, one strange thing I've noticed is that when I'm warring with another civ and really pounding him, they'll suddenly change to my religion without any fanfare or anything. They'll even change to the dominant religion in my civ when I'm in free religion. I guess they're trying to curry favor? But one would think they'd come visit me and offer it up.

Perhaps. On the other hand, the AI just tends to switch to whichever religion is in most of its cities in order to gain the maximum benefit from the religious civics.

 

[entrada_sinful]

More religions = more happiness. Both through increased number of Temples and Cathedrals and from the potential later effects of Free Religion. as stated above by zyphyr

Not true, if you truly go out for the one religion of your choice i have found that i receive a larger happiness bonus then if i would have let the bordering nations spread. Like i posted, i have received +8 happy, even a +11 once with "we trust in our religion" which you find in only cities with a singular religion.