Religion with 4 buildings discussion + tips + how to

[Tiberiu]

I am a big fan of Religion in Civ 5. As we know there are 4 religious buildings - (Pagoda, Mosque, Cathedral and Monsastery). However we can only get 2 religious buildings at most - (3 with Byzantine but let's skip that as a special case).
In this thread let's discuss ways to obtain all 4 religious buildings in our empire and how to be efficient while doing so.

As a side note - this is very rewarding especially when using the Reformation Belief from Piety known as Sacred Sites - as each religious building will give 2 tourism. But Sacred Sites is optional and the benefits of having all 4 buildings exist anyway in the form of extra which help our empire in many ways.

Shark_Diver has pointed out that the same tricks could be applied to try to make use of "Jesuit Education" in order to quickly buy science buildings with faith in our cities . This is good to keep in mind and maybe use for the cities with low production.

Sometimes, we are able to obtain access to another religion that has the other 2 religious buildings. With a little micromanagement, we can slowly but steadily convert all our cities so that they obtain all 4 buildings.

Let's see an example of convertions for the buildings.

Our religion (Taoism) has Pagodas + Mosques while Confucianism has Cathedral + Monastery.

Here are the steps that I currently use to get the buildings and re-convert my cities to my own religion after that, using these 4 cities as an example. Needless to say, a lot of Faith will have to be available for this to work but this is another discussion. The empire in this example produces 500 faith / turn, missionaries + inquisitors cost 240 and monasteries cost 180.

We start in Murcia who now has the foreign religion and all 4 buildings. I will put the important actions in bold text.

1) Buy Confucinism Inquisitor in Murcia + Buy Taoism Inquisitor in Salamanca. Just to make sure I have back-up in case the inquisitor's ability will not be enough to convert Rio de Janeiro, I also buy a Confucianism Missionary in Santander (who has 195 pressure for Taoism so it will convert back to Taoism pretty quickly without the need to use Taoist Missionary)

2) Confucianist Inquisitor goes to Rio de Janeiro and uses ability. Unless the population is too high the effect will be immediate. If the city is not converted, the Confucianist Missionary will have to complete the job.

3) Buy Cathedral + Monastery in Rio de Janeiro

4) The Taoist Inquisitor from Salamanca goes to Murcia and removes heresy. Murcia now has 4 buildings and our own religion!

5) Buy Confucianism Inquisitor in Rio de Janeiro. + Buy Taoist Inquisitor in Murcia. Move the units to the next city and repeat the process.

NOTE: whether or not you buy inquisitors of your own religion (in this example, Taoism) to re-convert your cities depends a lot on whether if you want to expend faith so that this happens quicker. Normally, in an empire with a lot of cities, cities have 100+ pressure for your religion so if you just wait a few turns, depending on how high populations cities are, they will come back to your religion. If you are not producing that much faith, it might be better to not buy missionaries or inquisitors for your own religion.

Very important! Always make sure to have a foreign religion missionary (in this example Confucianism as backup AT ALL TIMES or else there exists the possibility of losing access to the religion!

Share your tips and experiences and swift convertions!

 

[Shark Diver]

Two questions/comments:

1. Have you done the math on whether inquisitors are more efficient than Prophets? Perhaps using Messiah as an enhancer would help in this area?
2. Don't forget about faith-bought science buildings from Jesuit Education. If you can get a few of these, then convert your cities back to Sacred Sites, it has the same impact, maybe more.

 

[Tiberiu]

Two questions/comments:

1. Have you done the math on whether inquisitors are more efficient than Prophets? Perhaps using Messiah as an enhancer would help in this area?
2. Don't forget about faith-bought science buildings from Jesuit Education. If you can get a few of these, then convert your cities back to Sacred Sites, it has the same impact, maybe more.

1. Yes, Inquisitors are surely more efficient than Prophets - at least while being in the Renaissance and even Industrial. Less faith is needed but also the whole process is faster. Should the player have a prophet I think it would be better used as a Holy Site, especially with full piety.

I have mixed feelings about Messiah. The first prophets surely come out noticibly quicker (375 instead of 500 third prophet for example), but you sacrifice a LOT of pressure and benefits of faster convertions of own towns, CS, enemy cities. Messiah seems better to me in a strategy where you want a lot of Holy Sites with the plan to take Freedom > New Deal and where you don't care about converting the whole world to your religion. Sometimes, on Continents games, I was lucky enough that I was the only one on my Continent with a religion. This might be a case where there is no need of additional pressure so I would take Messiah in such cases.

2. Great observation! I will include it in the opening post to be even more visible! Thank you!

 

[Shark Diver]

where you don't care about converting the whole world to your religion.

And here's a diversion in strategy. I rarely try to spread my own religion elsewhere, except for maybe for CS quests.

There is value in spreading your religion if you have the right tenets, but I'm also opposed to giving the AI the benefits of a good religion. Is not having the Shared Religion bonus worth it? I'm not sure, but I am such a Wonder Monger that I value my Faith for GE purchases and other such things that I don't see the tradeoff for spreading to be worth it in most games.

Would love it if some others weighed in on this whole topic.

 

[Tiberiu]

Very good point, for example in the Spain game I think I actually helped France by giving them my religion because they took Pagodas and Mosques in all their cities, and in turn it made it harder for me to influence them culturally. On the other hand, after they had my religion, they proposed World Religion for me which was a good asset, but this could be considered luck as you can't rely on the AI to always to it.

There is still a little more theoretical considerations to it. Civilizations without their own religion will get a strong diplomatical boost if they follow your religion that could make friendships available or other forms of diplomatical advantages. I think there isn't a definitive answer to this dillema, it depends on the particulars of each game.

 

[Shark Diver]

I think there isn't a definitive answer to this dillema, it depends on the particulars of each game.

That's one of the beauties of this game; almost all of our hard "rules" are situational, and different game scenarios drastically change decision making and offer different strategies.

 

[martindo]

And here's a diversion in strategy. I rarely try to spread my own religion elsewhere, except for maybe for CS quests.

There is value in spreading your religion if you have the right tenets, but I'm also opposed to giving the AI the benefits of a good religion. Is not having the Shared Religion bonus worth it? I'm not sure, but I am such a Wonder Monger that I value my Faith for GE purchases and other such things that I don't see the tradeoff for spreading to be worth it in most games.

Would love it if some others weighed in on this whole topic.

If you have the religious belief that gives cash for every conversion, it's worth spending a few GP to convert city-states and even 1 or 2 AI cities. Aside from the 100 gold bonus, you can also get a bundle of reputation points from the city-state that speeds alliance with it.

If an AI gravitates towards your religion dominating their cities, they will vote with you for World Religion which gives bonus delegates for a Diplo Victory, or at least more power for you to dominate the World Congress. They will also treat you more favorably in regard to Friendship.

I'm a Wonder Monger too, but I generally only get around to using faith for GE purchasing in the last couple eras.

IIRC, Civ 4 actually let you spy on an AI city (look inside it) if it shared your religion as its majority. That was cool.

 

[martindo]

That's one of the beauties of this game; almost all of our hard "rules" are situational, and different game scenarios drastically change decision making and offer different strategies.

Frankly, I never thought of converting an AI city as a drawback. I agree it depends on the Beliefs you have for your religion. Science points for conversion can be useful, but if an AI grabbed it before you did, you can weaken their Science by converting them. I suppose if their happiness is weak, giving them a chance to build a pagoda or mosque would help them -- assuming they have enough spare religion points.

Another consideration is an AI that repeatedly sends GP to convert your cities. If you convert one of theirs, it will slow them down. Generally, I give one warning via Diplomacy dialog, then attack a GP if the AI ignored me (and I'm strong enough at that point to manage a short war). That slows them down, but doesn't stop them entirely.

It's kind of a judgment call when you see a GP in your territory. A lot of times they "mean now harm, just passing through".