"[Religion] has been founded in city X!" NO! NOT THAT CITY!

[Beamup]

I also thought it went by adding beakers. And to the person who said it doesn't make sense because the lion's share is added in the main city, one has to remember that they go in order until completion. I assume that's true for ALL techs.

I don't have any proof for this, but you can see they go city by city on a new turn for production. And I assume when they add points for Tech, they do the same thing.

An illustrative example:

Suppose I have two cities. One produces 99 beakers per turn, the other produces 1. The only way the second city can complete a tech is if the cost of that tech is divisible by 100. This will happen, on average, 1% of the time. Hence 99% of techs will be completed by the first city. And, in general, a city producing X% of your beakers will complete X% of your techs.

I assume most people do not waste points for science. I mean, why keep it at 100% for research when 10% will do for the next turn? You're losing 90% gold/culture for no reason!

If you try to minimize waste, then that means that the latter cities (CIV tends to sort cities by founding date) will finish off the research for the tech. If your first or second city founds the tech/religion, then that means you're wasting a lot of gold for that turn (which may be well worth it if you want to make sure the religion is founded in a particular city). If this is the case, then it's not random at all and it's COMPLETELY within your control!

The only people who do this are those still trying to play III. Overflow beakers are not wasted in CIV.

 

[Zhahz]

It's just another aspect of a flawed game concept, unfortunately.

I disagree. I'm not sure the way holy cities are randomly seleced is all that great but I definitely do not thing you should be able to choose the location. It seems like (and I think I read somewhere) that your most recently founded city is where you'll found a new religion (but I've had situations where I've founded so many religions that my most recent 2 cities go a few each). It would be seemingly better to have it truly be totally random.

Having some measure of control over where your religions get founded is a side benefit of the civs/leaders who can easily get early religions. So, if you want that type of benefit you should play that type of civ/leader. If you're not playing such a civ/leader you undoubtably get other benefits that those civs/leaders don't get - and you simply cannot have everything.