I've been reading this section for about an hour now and one thing seems to come to light. That any victory besides score and domination rely heavily on founding a religion. If true i find this sad because I'm not big into the religion aspect of the game. Am i then relegated to domination victories or is it possible for other victories without religion.
Religion Crucial??
- Thread starter awetzel
- Start date
Strigvir
Emperor
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2013
- Messages
- 1,299
I have bad news for you then, since there is a separate unhappiness source related to religions, which can rack up pretty high if you don't manage it.
tu_79
Deity
One thing you must understand is that conquering one civ or two isn't only for Domination victory. You may need the extra cities as a buffer against really naughty people, or just need the extra production so you can defend yourself or punish (raid war) a snowballing civ. While you can win without conquering anyone, this usually helps a lot.
With religion it happens the same. You can win without it, but you'll be safer with founder beliefs. Now there are two ways to get the founder beliefs: be one of the dedicated civs and found yourself, or be one of the oportunistics and usurp a religion. A thing that has worked for me is to forget about religion for the first part, raise a good army and conquer my closest religious neighbour (the one that is trying to convert all my cities). The first faith points you only want them for spreading the religion, so let others do the work while you prepare your swords. After that, you can rest peaceful with your extra cities for the rest of the game or keep the swords sharpened, your choice.
With religion it happens the same. You can win without it, but you'll be safer with founder beliefs. Now there are two ways to get the founder beliefs: be one of the dedicated civs and found yourself, or be one of the oportunistics and usurp a religion. A thing that has worked for me is to forget about religion for the first part, raise a good army and conquer my closest religious neighbour (the one that is trying to convert all my cities). The first faith points you only want them for spreading the religion, so let others do the work while you prepare your swords. After that, you can rest peaceful with your extra cities for the rest of the game or keep the swords sharpened, your choice.
FoxOfWar
Prince
Yeah. It's usually good to have a religion of your own... but founding one is not that necessary, particularly if you're just fine with the occasional early war. You can usually be assured that there's a nearby religious neighbour (seriously: I usually play with huge/22 civs and still manage to have a religion next door most of the time...). I find that founding a religion is actually slightly less relevant than in vanilla because there's less 'thrash beliefs', as it were. Even if you conquer a religion not ideal to your playstyle, it will still usually patch up some weaker points at least.
avl8
Prince
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2010
- Messages
- 364
On immortal getting a religion is worth investing hammers early.
Ive found that in latest patches getting a good pantheon early leads to a great snowball effect pre-medieval.
Then you get a religion and make snowball even stronger.
For example, in my recent Germany immortal game I went scout-shrine start and got early Desert Spirit.
With 3 desert resource tiles in my capital it literally snowballed my game during ancient and classical era: Ive scouted other civs and found no one got Petra start.
Then, with great growth out of Desert Spirit I got Petra that brought more gold and extra trade route, which let me get third city into size 7 in no time.
Then came religion (2nd in the world since another AI got Stonehenge) and even more goodies.
So early pantheon and early religion is worth investing your production during early game.
Ive found that in latest patches getting a good pantheon early leads to a great snowball effect pre-medieval.
Then you get a religion and make snowball even stronger.
For example, in my recent Germany immortal game I went scout-shrine start and got early Desert Spirit.
With 3 desert resource tiles in my capital it literally snowballed my game during ancient and classical era: Ive scouted other civs and found no one got Petra start.
Then, with great growth out of Desert Spirit I got Petra that brought more gold and extra trade route, which let me get third city into size 7 in no time.
Then came religion (2nd in the world since another AI got Stonehenge) and even more goodies.
So early pantheon and early religion is worth investing your production during early game.
Galbias
Prince
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2016
- Messages
- 488
I definitely do religious play more in VP than I do in Vanilla, if only because founding is a lot more feasible. Though I also haven't played the latest versions where Stonehenge is harder to get, so it probably requires more effort now.
Regardless, religion is definitely not crucial. It can help you out with a specific victory condition and give you a lot of bonuses in general but it also requires some important early hammer investment to get started, so it's a tradeoff.
Regardless, religion is definitely not crucial. It can help you out with a specific victory condition and give you a lot of bonuses in general but it also requires some important early hammer investment to get started, so it's a tradeoff.
Horvath Broncos
Warlord
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2016
- Messages
- 176
Winning in immortal without founding religion or conquering one pretty early is nearly impossible atleast for me. Even full out domination is very very hard without religion and even then you usually get religion via conquest pretty early. But peaceful game without religion in higher difficulties is pretty damn hard and without great start and great luck nearly impossible.
