Religion in BNW

[tokyochojin]

Is religion worth focusing on on higher difficulties in BNW? When I put time into a religion and producing buildings and missionaries, as well as defending that religion I feel that the hammers could be better spent on culture which seems more important in the update. How relevant is religion and is it something you pursue?

 

[JibJabberJab]

IMO religion is only worth it if you can get it trough your initial shrine(s) -> faith generating pantheon, or by settling near a natural wonder. Hagia sophia is gone too soon to safely build it and you need your hammers early on for other things then faith generating buildings.

Religious city-states are another option, but they are very RNG on if they spawn and what quests they give you, plus they give very little faith early on.

If you can get a religion this way, THEN it is worthwhile to invest extra hammers into it (building extra shrines and temples > grand temple eventually) I also like to pick shrine/temple boosting beliefs, like feed the world and the +1 happ from shrines one.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

I always pursue a religion for the pantheon belief. I don't play at the higher levels (I stick to King or lower) so I rarely have a problem getting what I want.

If a situation arises where I don't get dominant terrain, the culture per shrine, NOR the science per city connection, I write it off and wait until the industrial period, but if I can get a good pantheon, I will go for it.

As for getting the first prophet, I've found that if I get my shrine up ASAP, I can get a religion without too much trouble by just grinding out the faith for the prophet. Even when I am pushing a religious game, I often avoid the Hagia Sophia bc you're right about production priorities at that critical point in the game.

Anyway, my two bits

 

[Fire0rb]

It really depends on the situation.

As JibJabberJab said on Immortal and Deity you should only pursue a religion when you got pantheon or a nautral wonder which give you enough fpt to ensure a solid religion.
The AI tends to found turn 40-60 and sometimes enhance 20-30 Turns later which makes it most of the times a pain in the ass to get useful beliefs...

But IF you get a strong religion it can help you a LOT

 

[tokyochojin]

Thanks for the feedback, it seems that religion was not really implemented into that the game that well and personally, I feel that it worked better Civ 4.

 

[Limitless]

Achieving the 5th policy in the piety tree grants some very powerful reformation beliefs. I prefer the reformation belief of "to the glory of god" which allows you to purchase any type of great person starting in the industrial era. If you pool your faith points you can easily end up with a few thousand faith to spend on great people post industrial era starting at a cost of 640 faith I believe and scaling upwards after each respective purchase of that particular great person. I tend to win games with diplomatic victory by focusing on gold generation and popping golden ages with great artists. At the later stages of the game with the freedon ideology "Universal Suffrage", you can extend your great artist golden ages to 9 turns and even longer if you have the Chichen Itza wonder. It is possible to have golden ages last longer than 40-50 turns if you continually purchase great artists and consume them to extend your golden age.

 

[Browd]

Agree with your overall observations but specifics (640 faith cost for GPs and 6 turn Golden Ages) sound like you are playing Quick, so others experiences may vary.

 

[Limitless]

This is true I usually play 6 man free for all online against other players. My strategy may not work the same against an AI on standard speed. That is something I will have to test out sometime.

 

[Deau]

Anytime a religion can be achieve without a significant detour out of your overall strategy, it can provide a strong boost. Thus, faith-generating pantheons are extremely powerfal in fact probably far too powerful.

Even if you ought not to spread your religion, you are more or less guaranteed to have it up at least in your capital for most of the game. Hence, you can get very capital-centric follower beliefs like swords into plowshare if you play peacefully, religious community, divine inspiration (as by far my top 3) and just let your other cities get spread and use your pre-industrial faith to either purchase 2-3 GP that you plant, such that you can purchase more great people later in the game, or purchase the buildings that other religions allow as they spread to your cities. Ultimately, having a religion, even the 5th one that you don't spread will compound into more late game FPT as well as more capital-beneficial follower bonuses selection.

On super strong faith starts like desert folklore, gems/pearls, quary based etc., if you can reasonably spread your religion to nearby CS, using pilgrimage as founder bonus and going aggressively at it in the early game means:

significantly more spread your religion to us CS quests completed
significantly more total faith generated CS quests completed
the combination of the above often means more cultural CS allies/friends sometimes leading to
a couple more total culture generated CS quests completed

All of which together mean more faith in your empire, more culture and SPs in your empire, free gifted units so that you can focus your production on infrastructure, more growth and more free happiness.


Long story short, while it may not look so strong just looking at the tooltips, if you can manage ~20-30 fpt on immortal and below by around T100-120, you will get a lot of side effets from it which you cannot perceive without playing it or well, without adding significantly more variables to the equation than just what faith brings.

 

[tokyochojin]

So, basically it is something that will add a slight benefit to your Civ but not really worth trying to aggressively push to other civilizations? Also, if you dont have a religion is there really any reason to fight off other civs religions?

 

[Browd]

The answer to the second question is easy: take the religion. Any religion is better than no religion. The pantheon and follower benefits may not be overwhelmingly helpful, but at least it opens the potential for you to purchase one or more GPs with faith after you get to Industrial.

The answer to the first question depends on what founder and enhancer beliefs you selected. If your founder belief only provides benefits for foreign cities (Pilgrimage, Papal Primacy) or followers in foreign cities (Peace Loving, World Church), you better spread to foreign cities if you want those benefits. Even founder beliefs that provide benefits for any city or followers in any city provide larger benefits if you spread beyond your borders. Same goes for the Just War enhancer belief, which only applies when you are fighting near enemy cities that follow your religion.

 

[SicklyAlbatross]

I tend to find it really easy to spread my religion during the classical and medieval eras when there's plenty of civs without religion, but later on it's almost impossible to keep up with the civs that went full piety. Is it worth trying to compete with them at that point?

What's the consensus on founder beliefs like interfaith dialogue and church property? Beliefs that will net me benefits when I can have some success using them, then just not worry about losing later on.

Edit: Just for clarification, if you're spreading a religion with ceremonial burial is that a permanent global happiness boost, like finding a natural wonder, or do you lose the happiness as your religion loses ground?

 

[Deau]

I tend to find it really easy to spread my religion during the classical and medieval eras when there's plenty of civs without religion, but later on it's almost impossible to keep up with the civs that went full piety is it worth trying to compete with them at that point?

What's the consensus on founder beliefs like interfaith dialogue and church property? Beliefs that will net me benefits when I can have some success using them, then just not worry about losing later on.

Short answer: No, faith post industrial should, in general, be used to purchase great people.

Long answer: When you go for aggressive outward religion, a well superspread early religion will be self-sufficient with RT or IP depending on the map. The only way AIs can really remove your religion is via prophets and most of them use their prophet linear or targeted (esp for CS quests) where in order for them to truly push into you, they'd need to do outward circular. Sure you'll lose cities here and there but recover others here and there as well. If I have 30 FPT from pilgrimage entering renaissance with RT or IP, I usually end the game with about 24 FPT from pilgrimage. I typically only spread with 200/300 faith missionaries in medieval/renaissance and then if I really need my religion somewhere and an enemy civ cleared it with a great prophet, I eventually consider spending 500 faith for the 3rd prophet aka if you only spread with missionaries when cities have no religion and thus are extremely easy to convert, you can benefit from the fact that GP cost does not increase by era but only by the number of GP you've already purchased.