Religion = Science Strategy

[Sevster]

This seems to work well on small to medium-sized empires on Noble-Prince levels. Haven't tried it on higher levels or super-large empires yet.

1-2. Build Stonehedge ASAP (Great Prophet)
1-2. Found a religion
3. Build a Shrine with your 1st prophet
4. Have open borders with all your neighbours (spreads your religion)
5. Send many missionairies
6. Adopt Organized religion (production bonus) and State Property (no upkeep)
7. You will have a lot of friends, steady income, and will be able to keep your science close or at 100% to grab technological lead.

Good luck!

 

[Phyr_Negator]

no adopted religion=>stay backward and poor.

 

[Shillen]

no adopted religion=>stay backward and poor.

Not even remotely true. I just finished a monarch game the other day in which I started on my own continent with no contact until astronomy, founded no religion, and still managed to win via space race. I was 5-6 techs ahead of the next best AI at the end of the game. I even fought a rather long and unsuccessful overseas war that slowed my research down a bit.

 

[Phyr_Negator]

I was talking about MP, at single you can win without religion.
Edit: Very few games reach even machine guns, and before that insane early bonuses such as +25% to city building is overkill in early wonder race as well as +2 ep to units, wich will be foundation of mid-game might.