BvBPL
Pour Decision Maker
Best religion.
Are you building a religion? Are you making it bigger? A limited edition? Below is a my assessment of each religion based upon a variety of factors.
Runes of Kilmorph
General Description: Early religion, neutral-good. Cities receive gold for its presence.
Heroes: Two generally good heroes, if not fantastic. Bambur is probably the more useful of the two because he’s a melee unit. Bambur also has access to enchant weapon and repair spells, which are handy. The Mithral Golem is incredible, but the requirements are pretty high.
Wonders: The Mines. This wonder is an early game powerhouse giving you iron, possibly before many others have bronze weapons. When combined with solider of kilmorph you can actually ignore the metal research line for some time, if you choose. It is probably worth converting to Runes just to get this wonder (although you do need to research the unique tech). The mines (and the shrine) also give engineer slots, which are handy.
Priests: Gives a general buff that will apply to all your living units. Not amazing by any means, but useful all the same. The high priests’ earthquake power is pretty awesome and, with the Empyrean power, is probably the most universally useful high priest power.
Temples: Give some extra gold. Provides a merchant slot.
Unlimited Units: Soldiers of Kilmoprh are melee units with the strength of axmen that can be sacked for hammers. They are dwarves so they get a bonus in hills (including double movement) and from the Brewing House. Pretty darn powerful with iron from the mines.
Paramanders come in at fanaticism and are 7 str disciple units. They start with medic 1 (giving early access to march) and demon slaying. They require some kind of metal to build. Useful if you’ve bee-lined to fanaticism and before other civs get to iron working as well as in niche situations (like against Shock 2, City Raider 3 champions), but generally you’ll find the more extensive promotions of the melee line more useful. Spiritual leaders may find them more useful.
Note that both units are reincarnated as angels when they die, which can be great or awful.
Special Civic: Arete gives bonus hammers from mines, bonus GPPs, and lets you buy things with gold early. Very nice.
Diplomacy: Turns your evil civs neutral. A lot of neutral and good civs will adopt this early in the game and stick with it throughout the game, meaning it can have some long term usefulness in diplomacy.
Other considerations: Bear in mind that the temples give bonus happiness from gems and gems are required for high priests. Generally I’ve found gems to be less common than incense.
Useful for: Any civ can get a lot out of Runes simply by spreading the religion and building temples everywhere. That will keep you in the black for a good long time and can help to avoid the economic crunch that comes in the early to mid game period where your troops may outpace your ability to earn gold. Runes are particularly powerful the Khazad (dwarven vaults) and the Clan (money for massive armies and hammer shift via warrens doubling SofKs). The Calabim and the Luchuirp can both benefit from paramanders as well, provided they have metal of some kind. The vamps will want to bee-line to fanaticism for their hero so they might as well pick up some moderately powerful disciple units and the paramanders can be useful to the golem keepers as living units that level up (I’ll often use them to clean up units damaged initially by golems). Also useful for any civ that wants to support the angels.
Octopus Overlords:
Early neutral-evil civ.
Heroes: With seven str, a bonus against melee units, and the ability to use weapons Saverous is an early terror that can remain powerful throughout the game. He’s also a demon, meaning he can obtain the powerful fear promotion. Henmah is an early archmage so that’s pretty sweet.
Wonders: The Tower of Complacency eliminates unhappiness for one city. Great if you have the food resources to build a super city. Can be particularly useful for the Lanun, Kurioates, and anyone who wants to build the Thousand Slums. Also quite handy if you later switch to Sac the Weak. Not the best religious wonder, but no small potatoes either.
Priests: The tsunami spell is powerful, but limited to being near water. The high priest summon is also powerful, but the kraken can’t leave the water. The kraken can be used to make some impressive flesh golems though.
Temples: Gives culture and a sage slot. Not particularly impressive unless you’re going for a cultural victory. Also allows you to drown warriors, which is good early on.
Special Building: Asylum. Good for research and war weariness, but gives a happiness hit. Not bad, but be careful building it in a military city because it can cause insanity.
Unlimited Units: The drown are an expensive way to upgrade warriors to something slightly more powerful. They are undead, which can be good (fear, cannibalize) or bad (no haste) depending on your needs. Stygian guards, available at fanaticism, are totally awesome units that can easily replace champions. They are demonic, so skip haste and aim for fear as a promotion. No metal is required so you could completely ignore the metal line with this religion. Drown, guards, and cultists all have waterwalking, which is nice at times.
Lunatics are tricky. They are powerful, but unreliable. That said, if you are undercouncil and have a slave ring you can quickly hire slaves and upgrade them to lunatics which is a powerful alternative to the Guild of the Nine.
Diplomacy: As with other early religions, many civs will convert to this early on and stay with it, making it a decent diplomatic choice. Turns good civs neutral.
Useful for: on any map w/ water this will be a super useful religion. Calabim, with their emphasis on fanaticism, will find the stygian guards very useful, but be aware that the guards can’t be turned into vampires directly. If you have a level six warrior, you can give it vampirism, drown it, and then upgrade it to a guard though for a vampire guard.
Fellowship of Leaves
Another early religion with a nature focus.
Heroes: Kithra is a strong horse archer. Not particularly impressive. Yvain, on the other hand, has +2 nature affinity which can make him a serious powerhouse.
Priests: Can cast bloom to create forests and summon tigers. Useful, but not particularly impressive. Tigers are interesting though because they are permanent living summons that can be mutated. Not only can mutation make them more useful, it also allows the player to craft some seriously rocking flesh golems without killing off highly promoted regular units. Tigers can also create tiger cages, which can be nice.
Temples: Extra health. Not bad.
Unlimited Units: Fawns are generally superior to hunters, particularly in the forests. Satyrs, created from level 4 fawns, are serious powerhouses. They are 9 str, have no city attack penalty, and can be boosted with poison blade which makes them the most powerful unlimited unit before mithril. It can pay to carry some fawns around to clean up damaged units in order to later bump them up to satyrs.
In addition, Disciples of Leaves can be upgraded to rangers. For a spiritual civ or one with an altar this can be pretty cool. You can give DofLs city raider and march prior to upgrading to rangers to create some pretty sweet recon units.
Special Civic: Guardian of Nature. For elves, this will eliminate unhappiness and give massive amounts of health. For other civs, this allows some bonus health and the ability to treat every forest as a happiness national park bonus as well as some occasional treant defenders. Not necessarily the greatest, but nothing to sneeze at and generally better than alternative civics anyway.
Diplomacy: Again, a lot of civs will adopt this religion. Does not affect your alignment.
Useful for: Elves, obviously, want to go FofL, at least early on. The common wisdom is that other civs don’t benefit from the religion. That’s not totally true, there’s lots to be said for satyrs, guardian of nature, and disciple of leaves for non-elves. Even if you don’t convert to FofL you’ll probably want FofL in your altar city for disciples to rangers.
Ashen Veil
Later evil religion worshipping demons. Raises the AC.
Heroes: Roiser is a double strength horseman. Certianly no slouch when he becomes available. Mardero is a pretty darn powerful disciple unit available at Malevolent Designs. Messhaber is absurdly powerful, but only available at AC 70+ and from the AV holy city. These latter two are incredibly powerful.
National Units: Also available at Malevolent Designs are Beasts of Agares. You’re limited to four of them, they eat population to make them, and beastmasters (and heralds) will steal them. Still, at 16 str they are immensely powerful.
Wonders: The Infernal Grimoire gives a free tech. However, it is only available after getting Infernal Pact which summons the Infernals and it is the Infernals’ fav wonder, meaning they will probably try and build it right away. Still, if you start to work on the Grimoire right away you’ll probably get it. You might want to schedule a high powered tech for this benefit. You might not yet have Arcane Lore so Pass Through the Ether might not be available yet. Sorcery is a good early pick, particularly if you are arcane. If you already have that, then Arcane Lore itself gives a free sage so that’s a decent pick to double down. Plenty of other options are available as well. Personally I like to pop Malevolent Designs with the Grimoire as it unlocks for you two national units and a hero.
The Shrine gives research for each city with the Veil and gives stigmata to units built there. Better than most shrines.
Priests: Ritualists cast ring of fire which is pretty damn powerful. With Ritualists you can frequently leave the catapults at home for a faster strike force. Profanes can summon balors, which is better than it sounds because unless they start or move into one of your cities the balors wouldn’t get metal weapons. All the same it isn’t a bad power and summoner leaders can really make some good use of it.
Temples: Extra research as if an elder council. Give happiness from reagents, rather than incense.
Unlimited Units: Diseased Corpses are champion power melee units that are diseased and undead. The idea is that the corpses can disease the enemies. I’ve never seen a significant advantage to this strategy so I usually cure disease on my corpses. Undead are generally slower than living units (no haste), so I usually don’t use them, but there’s certainly a number of situations where they are helpful. Civs without champions or weaker than typical champions may find them useful (Sheaim, Lanun, Balseraphs).
Savants also deserve note because they can be upgraded to mages. For the spiritual civs it can be benefical to build savants and then upgrade them to mages. Be aware that this can take a healthy amount of time for passive xp to get to level 4 and that you’ll need to give them disciple promotions, rather than spheres. Still, if you play your spheres right it can be very helpful. Savants can’t pop for culture, so you’ll need another bunch of disciples to quell cities in disorder.
Special Civic: Sac the Weak is incredibly powerful even with the health and GPP penalties. Just incredible. Use it.
Diplomacy: Nearly everyone will hate you for following the AV, including other AV civs. Don’t go AV if you’re looking for a peaceful win. Instead, use the powerful AV units to wage war. Feudalism is a valuable tech for AV civs because it enables capitulations. Having good vassals can be particularly helpful because you can demand their resources that would normally be changed in hell terrain.
Other considerations: Hell terrain is sure to spread into your terroritory. Prepare for this by either chopping all your trees and being read to loss some resources or by prepping Life I adepts to keep your borders clear. Even when following the AV and with a moderate AC you can still protect your borders with a few adepts if you are quick about it.
AV is a powerhouse religion that benefits nearly every civ. The elves may want to be wary of using it as hell terrain will tear up their forests, but every other civ gains a lot of benefits from it. It is particularly powerful for the Calambim (sac the weak = mega cities for vamp xp) and the Sheaim. There’s an interest tactic for the clan where you scorch a wall of desserts and let them turn into burning sands. Fire resistance orcs will be able to pass, but most units won’t.
It is worth noting that the AV is particularly weak against the angels who are resist to fire and unholy damage and do extra damage against demons.
Empyrean:
Neutral-good religion focusing on, I don’t know, liberalism or something?
Heroes: Chalid is frequently cited as the most powerful unit in the game, and rightfully so.
Wonders: The shrine reveals hidden and invisible units in your territory. Which is kind of nice when shadows sneak in, but generally isn’t anything you can’t get out of a few hawks.
Priests: Vicars can dispel illusions and remove hidden nationality. Nice if you’re going against the Svarts, but little use elsewise. Ludrius, on the other hand, get crown of brilliance which is totally sweet.
Temples: +10% to beakers. Pretty sweet. Tied with best temple w/ the Order.
Unlimited Units: Radiant guards are like axmen who can see invisible and have sun II. They can be upgraded to champions or ratha. Ratha are chariots w/ sun II, a unique bonus against recon units, and no penalty for forests and jungles. You might not build your army just on these items, but having a few units with Sun II in a stack is great.
Diplomacy: It is rare for many civs to adopt Empy. However, with Chalid giving an extra vote in the Overcouncil you can manipulate the council to good ends.
Other considerations: common wisdom is that Empy isn’t worthwhile if you don’t have Chalid. And there’s a lot to that. Might be useful for fighting the Svarts. Sun II is absurdly powerful against large AI stacks so can certainly make sense to swap out if you don’t otherwise have access to Sun II, Mind II, or Ice I. Everyone will want to spread around Empy for the temples as well.
The Order.
Pure good, somewhat militaristic religion.
Heroes: Valin is another double strength horseman. Not bad. Sphener is a serious butt kicker available at righteousness.
Priests: Confessors spread around the blessing, which is a pretty sweet boost for nearly every unit. Plus it can be cast on workers and other non-combat units which grants some occasional advantage if a unit goes after your workers. Priors (and Sphener) get unyielding order which removes unhappiness and maintenance from your cities. This will instantly quell disorder from conquering a city, but don’t stop building acolytes.
Temples: +10% to military unit building. Nice.
Special Building: Basilicas cut out lots of maintenance and give happiness with social order. Pretty awesome.
Unlimited Units: Crusaders. Pretty much the same as paramanders, except you need iron or mithril. Not particularly impressive, but once you get fanactism every time you spread the religion to one of your cities (when it is your state religion) you get a free crusader. This is pretty sweet when you shell out 120 hammers for a confessor, pop it for a 120 hammer temple, and get a free 120 crusader.
Special Civic: Social Order. Giving a happiness for every military unit garrisoned basically means unlimited happiness and the basilicas cut way back on the costs of running your empire. Sweetness.
Diplomacy: Not a whole lot of nations are likely to adopt the order, but the bannor and the angels do like it. Given what a pain in the ass it is to deal with those two civilization it isn’t such a bad idea to adopt the religion to avoid conflict with them. Still, it likely means war with AV civs.
Other considerations: You can rapidly raise an army by spreading around the Order after fanaticism. The Clan get a very impressive stack of crusaders very, very quickly this way. Spreading the order can also stamp out the Veil in the target city, which is nice if you want to lower the AC, but it isn’t a sure thing. Much better to use an inquisitor.
Order can enhance any large empire and army, making it way more efficient. Unlike the AV, it doesn’t grant power, it enhances your existing power.
The Council of Esus
A neutral evil non-religion
Heroes: Gibbon is an early archmage. He’s an illusionist which may limit his utility. Impersonate Leader is interesting and fun, but not necessarily a great idea because your empire mmight get run into the ground while you are playing around. Still, it is pretty damn awesome.
National Units: Shadowriders. Pretty damn sweet for raiding your vassals and allies. Reasonably powerful too.
Unlimited units: The Nightwatch can replace your longbows for city defense. They do poison damage, which can be nice at times.
Diplomacy: Turns your good civs neutral. HOWEVER you don’t get a wrong religion penalty from other civs. Which enables you to maintain good relations with other civs. Which is fantastic because you can do all sorts of damage with Shadowriders, shadows, stealing equipment, and the like on your “allies.”
Other considerations: Cof E might be considered the weakest religion, but the fact that you can make war on your friends w/ open borders w/o getting kicked out is a totally amazing superpower that, when used correctly, totally makes up for other downsides. Raiders leaders, in particular, get a lot of out of it.
Are you building a religion? Are you making it bigger? A limited edition? Below is a my assessment of each religion based upon a variety of factors.
Runes of Kilmorph
General Description: Early religion, neutral-good. Cities receive gold for its presence.
Heroes: Two generally good heroes, if not fantastic. Bambur is probably the more useful of the two because he’s a melee unit. Bambur also has access to enchant weapon and repair spells, which are handy. The Mithral Golem is incredible, but the requirements are pretty high.
Wonders: The Mines. This wonder is an early game powerhouse giving you iron, possibly before many others have bronze weapons. When combined with solider of kilmorph you can actually ignore the metal research line for some time, if you choose. It is probably worth converting to Runes just to get this wonder (although you do need to research the unique tech). The mines (and the shrine) also give engineer slots, which are handy.
Priests: Gives a general buff that will apply to all your living units. Not amazing by any means, but useful all the same. The high priests’ earthquake power is pretty awesome and, with the Empyrean power, is probably the most universally useful high priest power.
Temples: Give some extra gold. Provides a merchant slot.
Unlimited Units: Soldiers of Kilmoprh are melee units with the strength of axmen that can be sacked for hammers. They are dwarves so they get a bonus in hills (including double movement) and from the Brewing House. Pretty darn powerful with iron from the mines.
Paramanders come in at fanaticism and are 7 str disciple units. They start with medic 1 (giving early access to march) and demon slaying. They require some kind of metal to build. Useful if you’ve bee-lined to fanaticism and before other civs get to iron working as well as in niche situations (like against Shock 2, City Raider 3 champions), but generally you’ll find the more extensive promotions of the melee line more useful. Spiritual leaders may find them more useful.
Note that both units are reincarnated as angels when they die, which can be great or awful.
Special Civic: Arete gives bonus hammers from mines, bonus GPPs, and lets you buy things with gold early. Very nice.
Diplomacy: Turns your evil civs neutral. A lot of neutral and good civs will adopt this early in the game and stick with it throughout the game, meaning it can have some long term usefulness in diplomacy.
Other considerations: Bear in mind that the temples give bonus happiness from gems and gems are required for high priests. Generally I’ve found gems to be less common than incense.
Useful for: Any civ can get a lot out of Runes simply by spreading the religion and building temples everywhere. That will keep you in the black for a good long time and can help to avoid the economic crunch that comes in the early to mid game period where your troops may outpace your ability to earn gold. Runes are particularly powerful the Khazad (dwarven vaults) and the Clan (money for massive armies and hammer shift via warrens doubling SofKs). The Calabim and the Luchuirp can both benefit from paramanders as well, provided they have metal of some kind. The vamps will want to bee-line to fanaticism for their hero so they might as well pick up some moderately powerful disciple units and the paramanders can be useful to the golem keepers as living units that level up (I’ll often use them to clean up units damaged initially by golems). Also useful for any civ that wants to support the angels.
Octopus Overlords:
Early neutral-evil civ.
Heroes: With seven str, a bonus against melee units, and the ability to use weapons Saverous is an early terror that can remain powerful throughout the game. He’s also a demon, meaning he can obtain the powerful fear promotion. Henmah is an early archmage so that’s pretty sweet.
Wonders: The Tower of Complacency eliminates unhappiness for one city. Great if you have the food resources to build a super city. Can be particularly useful for the Lanun, Kurioates, and anyone who wants to build the Thousand Slums. Also quite handy if you later switch to Sac the Weak. Not the best religious wonder, but no small potatoes either.
Priests: The tsunami spell is powerful, but limited to being near water. The high priest summon is also powerful, but the kraken can’t leave the water. The kraken can be used to make some impressive flesh golems though.
Temples: Gives culture and a sage slot. Not particularly impressive unless you’re going for a cultural victory. Also allows you to drown warriors, which is good early on.
Special Building: Asylum. Good for research and war weariness, but gives a happiness hit. Not bad, but be careful building it in a military city because it can cause insanity.
Unlimited Units: The drown are an expensive way to upgrade warriors to something slightly more powerful. They are undead, which can be good (fear, cannibalize) or bad (no haste) depending on your needs. Stygian guards, available at fanaticism, are totally awesome units that can easily replace champions. They are demonic, so skip haste and aim for fear as a promotion. No metal is required so you could completely ignore the metal line with this religion. Drown, guards, and cultists all have waterwalking, which is nice at times.
Lunatics are tricky. They are powerful, but unreliable. That said, if you are undercouncil and have a slave ring you can quickly hire slaves and upgrade them to lunatics which is a powerful alternative to the Guild of the Nine.
Diplomacy: As with other early religions, many civs will convert to this early on and stay with it, making it a decent diplomatic choice. Turns good civs neutral.
Useful for: on any map w/ water this will be a super useful religion. Calabim, with their emphasis on fanaticism, will find the stygian guards very useful, but be aware that the guards can’t be turned into vampires directly. If you have a level six warrior, you can give it vampirism, drown it, and then upgrade it to a guard though for a vampire guard.
Fellowship of Leaves
Another early religion with a nature focus.
Heroes: Kithra is a strong horse archer. Not particularly impressive. Yvain, on the other hand, has +2 nature affinity which can make him a serious powerhouse.
Priests: Can cast bloom to create forests and summon tigers. Useful, but not particularly impressive. Tigers are interesting though because they are permanent living summons that can be mutated. Not only can mutation make them more useful, it also allows the player to craft some seriously rocking flesh golems without killing off highly promoted regular units. Tigers can also create tiger cages, which can be nice.
Temples: Extra health. Not bad.
Unlimited Units: Fawns are generally superior to hunters, particularly in the forests. Satyrs, created from level 4 fawns, are serious powerhouses. They are 9 str, have no city attack penalty, and can be boosted with poison blade which makes them the most powerful unlimited unit before mithril. It can pay to carry some fawns around to clean up damaged units in order to later bump them up to satyrs.
In addition, Disciples of Leaves can be upgraded to rangers. For a spiritual civ or one with an altar this can be pretty cool. You can give DofLs city raider and march prior to upgrading to rangers to create some pretty sweet recon units.
Special Civic: Guardian of Nature. For elves, this will eliminate unhappiness and give massive amounts of health. For other civs, this allows some bonus health and the ability to treat every forest as a happiness national park bonus as well as some occasional treant defenders. Not necessarily the greatest, but nothing to sneeze at and generally better than alternative civics anyway.
Diplomacy: Again, a lot of civs will adopt this religion. Does not affect your alignment.
Useful for: Elves, obviously, want to go FofL, at least early on. The common wisdom is that other civs don’t benefit from the religion. That’s not totally true, there’s lots to be said for satyrs, guardian of nature, and disciple of leaves for non-elves. Even if you don’t convert to FofL you’ll probably want FofL in your altar city for disciples to rangers.
Ashen Veil
Later evil religion worshipping demons. Raises the AC.
Heroes: Roiser is a double strength horseman. Certianly no slouch when he becomes available. Mardero is a pretty darn powerful disciple unit available at Malevolent Designs. Messhaber is absurdly powerful, but only available at AC 70+ and from the AV holy city. These latter two are incredibly powerful.
National Units: Also available at Malevolent Designs are Beasts of Agares. You’re limited to four of them, they eat population to make them, and beastmasters (and heralds) will steal them. Still, at 16 str they are immensely powerful.
Wonders: The Infernal Grimoire gives a free tech. However, it is only available after getting Infernal Pact which summons the Infernals and it is the Infernals’ fav wonder, meaning they will probably try and build it right away. Still, if you start to work on the Grimoire right away you’ll probably get it. You might want to schedule a high powered tech for this benefit. You might not yet have Arcane Lore so Pass Through the Ether might not be available yet. Sorcery is a good early pick, particularly if you are arcane. If you already have that, then Arcane Lore itself gives a free sage so that’s a decent pick to double down. Plenty of other options are available as well. Personally I like to pop Malevolent Designs with the Grimoire as it unlocks for you two national units and a hero.
The Shrine gives research for each city with the Veil and gives stigmata to units built there. Better than most shrines.
Priests: Ritualists cast ring of fire which is pretty damn powerful. With Ritualists you can frequently leave the catapults at home for a faster strike force. Profanes can summon balors, which is better than it sounds because unless they start or move into one of your cities the balors wouldn’t get metal weapons. All the same it isn’t a bad power and summoner leaders can really make some good use of it.
Temples: Extra research as if an elder council. Give happiness from reagents, rather than incense.
Unlimited Units: Diseased Corpses are champion power melee units that are diseased and undead. The idea is that the corpses can disease the enemies. I’ve never seen a significant advantage to this strategy so I usually cure disease on my corpses. Undead are generally slower than living units (no haste), so I usually don’t use them, but there’s certainly a number of situations where they are helpful. Civs without champions or weaker than typical champions may find them useful (Sheaim, Lanun, Balseraphs).
Savants also deserve note because they can be upgraded to mages. For the spiritual civs it can be benefical to build savants and then upgrade them to mages. Be aware that this can take a healthy amount of time for passive xp to get to level 4 and that you’ll need to give them disciple promotions, rather than spheres. Still, if you play your spheres right it can be very helpful. Savants can’t pop for culture, so you’ll need another bunch of disciples to quell cities in disorder.
Special Civic: Sac the Weak is incredibly powerful even with the health and GPP penalties. Just incredible. Use it.
Diplomacy: Nearly everyone will hate you for following the AV, including other AV civs. Don’t go AV if you’re looking for a peaceful win. Instead, use the powerful AV units to wage war. Feudalism is a valuable tech for AV civs because it enables capitulations. Having good vassals can be particularly helpful because you can demand their resources that would normally be changed in hell terrain.
Other considerations: Hell terrain is sure to spread into your terroritory. Prepare for this by either chopping all your trees and being read to loss some resources or by prepping Life I adepts to keep your borders clear. Even when following the AV and with a moderate AC you can still protect your borders with a few adepts if you are quick about it.
AV is a powerhouse religion that benefits nearly every civ. The elves may want to be wary of using it as hell terrain will tear up their forests, but every other civ gains a lot of benefits from it. It is particularly powerful for the Calambim (sac the weak = mega cities for vamp xp) and the Sheaim. There’s an interest tactic for the clan where you scorch a wall of desserts and let them turn into burning sands. Fire resistance orcs will be able to pass, but most units won’t.
It is worth noting that the AV is particularly weak against the angels who are resist to fire and unholy damage and do extra damage against demons.
Empyrean:
Neutral-good religion focusing on, I don’t know, liberalism or something?
Heroes: Chalid is frequently cited as the most powerful unit in the game, and rightfully so.
Wonders: The shrine reveals hidden and invisible units in your territory. Which is kind of nice when shadows sneak in, but generally isn’t anything you can’t get out of a few hawks.
Priests: Vicars can dispel illusions and remove hidden nationality. Nice if you’re going against the Svarts, but little use elsewise. Ludrius, on the other hand, get crown of brilliance which is totally sweet.
Temples: +10% to beakers. Pretty sweet. Tied with best temple w/ the Order.
Unlimited Units: Radiant guards are like axmen who can see invisible and have sun II. They can be upgraded to champions or ratha. Ratha are chariots w/ sun II, a unique bonus against recon units, and no penalty for forests and jungles. You might not build your army just on these items, but having a few units with Sun II in a stack is great.
Diplomacy: It is rare for many civs to adopt Empy. However, with Chalid giving an extra vote in the Overcouncil you can manipulate the council to good ends.
Other considerations: common wisdom is that Empy isn’t worthwhile if you don’t have Chalid. And there’s a lot to that. Might be useful for fighting the Svarts. Sun II is absurdly powerful against large AI stacks so can certainly make sense to swap out if you don’t otherwise have access to Sun II, Mind II, or Ice I. Everyone will want to spread around Empy for the temples as well.
The Order.
Pure good, somewhat militaristic religion.
Heroes: Valin is another double strength horseman. Not bad. Sphener is a serious butt kicker available at righteousness.
Priests: Confessors spread around the blessing, which is a pretty sweet boost for nearly every unit. Plus it can be cast on workers and other non-combat units which grants some occasional advantage if a unit goes after your workers. Priors (and Sphener) get unyielding order which removes unhappiness and maintenance from your cities. This will instantly quell disorder from conquering a city, but don’t stop building acolytes.
Temples: +10% to military unit building. Nice.
Special Building: Basilicas cut out lots of maintenance and give happiness with social order. Pretty awesome.
Unlimited Units: Crusaders. Pretty much the same as paramanders, except you need iron or mithril. Not particularly impressive, but once you get fanactism every time you spread the religion to one of your cities (when it is your state religion) you get a free crusader. This is pretty sweet when you shell out 120 hammers for a confessor, pop it for a 120 hammer temple, and get a free 120 crusader.
Special Civic: Social Order. Giving a happiness for every military unit garrisoned basically means unlimited happiness and the basilicas cut way back on the costs of running your empire. Sweetness.
Diplomacy: Not a whole lot of nations are likely to adopt the order, but the bannor and the angels do like it. Given what a pain in the ass it is to deal with those two civilization it isn’t such a bad idea to adopt the religion to avoid conflict with them. Still, it likely means war with AV civs.
Other considerations: You can rapidly raise an army by spreading around the Order after fanaticism. The Clan get a very impressive stack of crusaders very, very quickly this way. Spreading the order can also stamp out the Veil in the target city, which is nice if you want to lower the AC, but it isn’t a sure thing. Much better to use an inquisitor.
Order can enhance any large empire and army, making it way more efficient. Unlike the AV, it doesn’t grant power, it enhances your existing power.
The Council of Esus
A neutral evil non-religion
Heroes: Gibbon is an early archmage. He’s an illusionist which may limit his utility. Impersonate Leader is interesting and fun, but not necessarily a great idea because your empire mmight get run into the ground while you are playing around. Still, it is pretty damn awesome.
National Units: Shadowriders. Pretty damn sweet for raiding your vassals and allies. Reasonably powerful too.
Unlimited units: The Nightwatch can replace your longbows for city defense. They do poison damage, which can be nice at times.
Diplomacy: Turns your good civs neutral. HOWEVER you don’t get a wrong religion penalty from other civs. Which enables you to maintain good relations with other civs. Which is fantastic because you can do all sorts of damage with Shadowriders, shadows, stealing equipment, and the like on your “allies.”
Other considerations: Cof E might be considered the weakest religion, but the fact that you can make war on your friends w/ open borders w/o getting kicked out is a totally amazing superpower that, when used correctly, totally makes up for other downsides. Raiders leaders, in particular, get a lot of out of it.
![[to_xp]Gekko](https://civfanatics-data.community.forum/avatars/m/74/74677.jpg?1475248346){kind=avatar}
