Religion, what is it good for?

[MinnesotaRuss]

I just don't see the value of religion in this game. Other than getting one specific benefit with the initial belief, I don't see it. Can someone tell me? What am I missing?
On the other hand, the other civs are constantly spreading their religion into my civ. If I could knock those messengers out somehow (?) perhaps I could be proactive.
Am I missing something?

 

[darkace77450]

Aside from victory (Religious Victories comprise 1/5th of this game's victory conditions), a strong faith output allows you to better defend against religion, supplement your tourism, boost yield outputs for food, production, gold, etc by a minor amount, and can grant you the ability to purchase units, buildings, and great people.

The time and production required to found a religion and build Holy Sites means a diminishing return on investment as the difficulty setting is dialed up since you'll be focused on units to defend yourself and expand your territory. But on lower and medium difficulty settings religion can be a worthwhile investment to supplement any victory condition.

Edit: you can kill religious units from other Civs with military units if you're at war. If you wish to spread your religion to a Civ with whom you are at war you'll want to escort your religious units with military units.

 

[VeronicaCardican]

You can also fend off religious units while at peace but you need Apostles or Inquisitors to do so.

Most early game culture victories revolve around tourism from religion. This makes religion a means to get some of the fastest wins in Civ VI.

 

[Leyrann]

Aside from victory (Religious Victories comprise 1/5th of this game's victory conditions), a strong faith output allows you to better defend against religion, supplement your tourism, boost yield outputs for food, production, gold, etc by a minor amount, and can grant you the ability to purchase units, buildings, and great people. The time and production required to found a religion and build Holy Sites diminishes as the difficulty setting is dialed up, but on the benefits beyond Religious Victories are certainly viable at lower and mid difficulties.

Edit: you can kill religious units from other Civs with military units if you're at war. If you wish to spread your religion to a Civ with whom you are at war you'll want to escort your religious units with military units.

You mean "increases", not "diminishes", right?

 

[EgonSpengler]

I just don't see the value of religion in this game. Other than getting one specific benefit with the initial belief, I don't see it. Can someone tell me? What am I missing?
On the other hand, the other civs are constantly spreading their religion into my civ. If I could knock those messengers out somehow (?) perhaps I could be proactive.
Am I missing something?

You also get the Follower Belief and the benefits of a Worship Building in any city that has adopted that religion. All of the Worship Buildings and a few of the Follower Beliefs require a Holy Site, but some Follower Beliefs apply benefits even without one. Any religion with Divine Inspiration and Synagogues is annoying, because those make that religion both more likely to spread and less useful to anyone other than the religion's founder (because they both just increase Faith output).

Still, I essentially agree with you. If I'm not going after a Religious Victory, I almost always have something better to build than a Holy Site, and I almost never go after a Religious Victory because you practically have to set your mind on that VC during the game's initial loading screen. I frequently pick up a Holy Site or two from captured cities, but for the most part, religion is barely an afterthought for me.

Oh, and the fact that foreign religious units can enter my borders freely and deny hexes to my units may be the single most aggravating thing in the entire game.

 

[Futumch]

Oh, and the fact that foreign religious units can enter my borders freely and deny hexes to my units may be the single most aggravating thing in the entire game.

This. A thousand times this.
What's even more frustrating about it is - even if you switch off a Religious victory type, those little buggers still swarm into your territory. They're like mosquitoes, they don't really "get" the concept of property ownership.

 

[VeronicaCardican]

I keep a bunch of Inquisitors and Apostles at home. They are learned men and women and teach some pretty impressive lessons about our third commandmend: "Thou shalt not trespass!"

 

[Kyro]

Do not underestimate Religion in the game; it is very powerful if you pick the right beliefs.

The best beliefs are:

Pantheons:
Divine Spark - +1 Great Person Point from Holy Sites/Campuses/Theatre Square(Writer only) Districts.

This is very potent for any Civilization since city spamming is compulsory. It is just broken in the hands of Kongo/Russia.

Lady of the Reeds and Marshes

+1 Production from Floodplains/Marshes/Oases

+1 Production on Food tiles is very potent early on and this makes up from the loss in production from settling near/in deserts.

I would not pick any other pantheons these are efficiently the best.

Founder Beliefs:

These are the only ones I ever pick because they are game changers.

Work Ethic

+1% Production for every follower

Production % boosts are rare in Civ 6 and this belief scales with your population with no cap. +20% production later on is a very significant amount.

Reliquaries

Relics triple in yield of both Faith and Tourism.

This boosts relic output from 8 Faith/Tourism to a whooping 24. That's very strong for a Cultural Victory and generates a LOT of Faith for buying Great People.

Follower Beliefs

Defender of the Faith

+10 Combat Strength in Friendly Cities following this Religion.

+10. This essentially makes you immune to invasion with minimal militaristic units. I've fended off 3 Deity level opponents simultaneously with this alone with less than a 1/3 of their military strength. This is VERY strong. The +10 also works for Inquisitors and the like.

Papal Primacy

+50% bonus gains from City States following this Religion.

This essentially boosts max of +4 to +6 production/science/culture etc for every city.

 

[Tamir Lenk]

I enjoy religion as a supplement to the other VC. A vigorous faith generator like Sacred Path or God of the Harvest (if you can get it) will pump loads of faith into your civ. Even if you don't plan to win with religion, you can then pick a basic belief that works from your surroundings. If you have a good set of nearby CS then Papal Primacy augments that. If not, Tithes supplement your gold income. If you can Suzerain Valletta, your faith supply can ramp up development in new cities for expansion.

With a religion in place you can defend against religious Civs and/or use religion in your diplomatic relations, by trolling other Civs into starting wars, etc.

 

[gettingfat]

Religion based strategies can help domination a lot. For early rush, don't underestimate the pantheon that gives you 25% bonus for ancient/classical unit production (and if you have tons of marsh/floodplain, definitely pick the Lady one instead as the benefits last for the whole game, but keep in mind early game success means most). The eagles of Azetecs and the horsed units of Scythian both are quite expensive and the 25% will mean 5 eagles instead of 4 eagles, which is often the game changer.

For middle-game domination, a faith boosting belief (e.g. Dance of Aurora + Russia tundra start or Reliquaries if you found relic early) + Crusade (+10 combat strength attacking cities of same religion) + Theocracy is a deadly combo. Just collect Apostles with the promotion to eliminate other religions. Religion bomb their capital (and preferably the cities that are closest), DW and take the city with your military units which now have a TEN combat strength bonus. Geez +10 strength means the difference of one generation of tech so it's like the Spanish meeting the natives. Once you take the capital, you can faith-purchase discounted units as reinforcement (if you have the right CS you can even faith purchase walls), finish off any resistance. Then go attack another civ..... I used this strategy and got a few easy domination victories in 10th-13rd century playing Emperor to Immortal. Easy and effective.

 

[darkace77450]

You mean "increases", not "diminishes", right?

Oops. I meant to say "means a diminishing return on investment as difficulty increases". Thanks for catching that.

 

[Victoria]

Religion is great for slowing down most of the civs on higher level so you can catch up.

 

[Rosty K]

This. A thousand times this.
What's even more frustrating about it is - even if you switch off a Religious victory type, those little buggers still swarm into your territory. They're like mosquitoes, they don't really "get" the concept of property ownership.

It could be less annoying simply if there was a warning though. I mean, just bloody tell me that something foreign is about to enter my territory, I don't care that we're not at war!

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

@Kyro I'd like to supplement your choices with a few other ones:

Pantheons: Oral Tradition and God of the Open Sky. Those resources are abundant enough and the early culture means faster Political Philosophy and Feudalism.
Founder: Church Property and Tithe. About 20 GPT before your Commercial Hubs are online, if you conquer enough. That means you can rush-buy Traders, Builders, units or upgrades and get better infrastructure earlier than usual.
Follower: Jesuit Education. If you have enough faith by mid game, buying Universities or Museums will help towards their respective victory conditions. Poland, Japan and Russia benefits the most from these.
Enhancer: Crusade. While building your army, convert foreign cities and then enjoy +10 strength on their lands.

Also, Work Ethic and Reliquaries are follower beliefs, IIRC.

For Worship Buildings, I recommend Meeting Houses (more production makes it the best by a far margin), Pagodas (helps housing in the early game) or Cathedrals (if going for Cultural Victory). Remember you can buy those with faith.

 

[ShakaKhan]

Religion is great for slowing down most of the civs on higher level so you can catch up.

elaborate/clarify?

I think you mean that the AI is investing hammers into a religion while the player uses hammers for more effective purposes, but this could also mean that if the player founds a religion, they could use their religion to slow down the AI somehow?

 

[ShakaKhan]

Also for those posting beliefs that they feel are strong enough to be exceptions, the OP should take note that there is a VERY big difference between the investment necessary to found a pantheon vs. the investment necessary to found a religioon. To found a pantheon, you simply have to run "the other" economic card for a while, unless you're lucky enough to get the free envoy with a religious city state, in which case there's absolutely no investment in it. There's also using a single builder charge when you're Spain, Scythia, or Egypt. So founding a pantheon is always pretty easy. Founding a religion requires building a district, which is a pretty big investment at the start of the game.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Also for those posting beliefs that they feel are strong enough to be exceptions, the OP should take note that there is a VERY big difference between the investment necessary to found a pantheon vs. the investment necessary to found a religioon. To found a pantheon, you simply have to run "the other" economic card for a while, unless you're lucky enough to get the free envoy with a religious city state, in which case there's absolutely no investment in it. There's also using a single builder charge when you're Spain, Scythia, or Egypt. So founding a pantheon is always pretty easy. Founding a religion requires building a district, which is a pretty big investment at the start of the game.

Sometimes the first conquests come with a Holy Site or two, in which case a religion may simply come as easily as a pantheon.

Also, some leaders greatly benefit from a religion. Russia is a prime example; Dance of the Aurora + Jesuit Education, Pagoda + Feed the World + Work Ethic, Divine Spark, all these are powerful when playing as them. Saladin, Hojo and Spain also benefit from religion.

 

[Bechhold]

Tourism, and getting the Work Ethic, and Tithe beliefs.

 

[plus]

This. A thousand times this.
What's even more frustrating about it is - even if you switch off a Religious victory type, those little buggers still swarm into your territory. They're like mosquitoes, they don't really "get" the concept of property ownership.

ther's a mod that blocks it. the ai than must have open borders with u in order to religion to enter.

 

[blackbeardzoro]

Religion is one of the disappointing things about Civ 6 for me personally. The bonuses just don't seem worth it and spreading your religion is less clear in this version than previous versions. For instance I can burn 4 spread charges on a single city and see no change in the number of followers or an effect whatsoever. Other times when I do see change its often not very much, it just feels very unrewarding. A real shame because I used to be a religion hound in previous Civs, now its like great I captured another holy site district- wtb a way to raise districts please.