Religion: do you enhance or reform first?

[Delvemor]

At some point I was playing the Mayans a lot and got used to simply focus on reforming first and then just getting a Great Prophet from their UA to enhance in the meantime. Then I started playing other civs and realized that trying to spread your religion to the point that you can reform after you enhance is significantly harder than if you just reform first when most civs and City-States don't have a religion yet. So I came back to reforming first, possibly getting the enhancing from Hagia Sophia when possible, or just waiting to get a second Great Prophet after Reformation. I'm still able to "get away with it" on Immortal difficulty, but it seems to me most people are enhancing before reforming from what I can get read on the forums. And it would make sense since enhancing gives you 2 more beliefs instead of just one for reforming, even though Reformation beliefs are still quite strong on their own.

So what do you think? Am I "crazy" to do this or the right way most of the time is to enhance before you reform? At the same time it seems to me that you should spread you religion to your own cities soon enough that the AIs don't decide to "enlighten" your atheist populace before you do so yourself. So that aspect reinforces my view that trying to spread your religion as much as possible early with just missionaries is still sensible.

 

[Amask]

Generally speaking, I would only enhance first in the following situations:
a) I'm absolutely swimming in faith
b) I'm the sole founder in a very very big area around me
c) the opposite of b - i.e. I have virtually no hope of reforming any time soon because there are a bunch of other founders all around

In all other cases I start spreading first, but not necessarily to the point of being able to reform.
Whether to keep spreading to that point or to pause in order to ehnace is a pretty complicated decision. I don't think I could even talk about it in general terms.

 

[Circe]

Spread and reform first. Converting as many nonfounders as you can gets them spending their faith on your religion and keeps up pressure so you don't have to waste faith on conversion in the late game. That'll net you another WC vote or two as well.
I'll generally have a few missionaries use their first spread on my city or a city-state, then enter rival territory, minimizing attrition and balancing foreign/domestic spreading.
The first two beliefs are much more important to me than the last two, and there's virtually always some good options that the AI ignores, so I don't mind putting it off.

 

[Delvemor]

Whether to keep spreading to that point or to pause in order to ehnace is a pretty complicated decision. I don't think I could even talk about it in general terms.

Yes I can see why you would like to keep your options open depending on which beliefs would fit your strategy more.

 

[Laz0r]

That is situational but pretty easy to explain:

If I want to spread my religion out as far as possible, and I'm playing on a Pangea map/fewer neighboring founders, I go for reformation first. Reforming first implies you already spread a lot so it makes sense you'd spend as much early faith as possible on missionaries. Earlier spreading is also exponentially less expensive than late spreading.

If I don't care about spreading my religion very far, or cannot, I enhance first. There are a lot more spread-independent yield value here so it only makes sense. If you do a lot of conquering, you don't really have a lot to gain from spreading because you can just inquisitor everything you capture, and reform in due time anyways.

It also depends on the religion I make, and usually I gear it towards either early spreading by picking beliefs that benefit me more than the people I spread to, or beliefs that benefit a lot but I don't spread them to my enemies so they get the worse AI religions.

 

[Stalker0]

Spread and reform first. Converting as many nonfounders as you can gets them spending their faith on your religion and keeps up pressure so you don't have to waste faith on conversion in the late game. That'll net you another WC vote or two as well.
I'll generally have a few missionaries use their first spread on my city or a city-state, then enter rival territory, minimizing attrition and balancing foreign/domestic spreading.
The first two beliefs are much more important to me than the last two, and there's virtually always some good options that the AI ignores, so I don't mind putting it off.

I think this is a fine strategy, but generally only works if:

1) Their is an AI that doesn't have its own religion. Never try to swat away an AI that has its own religion early on, you will just get into a faith war that you won't win. Find an AI with no religion that would love to take on yours. If their isn't one, than your reforming not enhancing.

2) You do it early. Speed is the key here, the faster you spread into the enemy, the smoother it will go. I like circe's idea of 1 spread at home 1 spread foreign.

 

[phantomaxl1207]

If I chose a Building for my Follower belief, I would lean towards Enhancing first.