Religion

[Skipity]

Taoism is a great religion to found (and then gift that free missionary to another civ).

The rest?

Confucianism alright if you do it off an Oracle Slingshot.

And Islam . . . if you popped a 2nd great artist from national Epic GP pollution and the Scorn of the RNG Gods and could use it as Monopoly tech for trading.

The Most beautiful religious shrines, I've found, are the ones built by the conquered.

 

[Robert FIN]

Agreed to all, except Islam. I'm not sure why would I tech Divine Right.. By the way, its nice that this old thread came back to topics!

 

[Kallikrates]

I think it is almost consensus not to bother with any of the first three religions, at least from monarch level on. But one to three of CoL from Oracle, Theology from Great Prophet and Philosophy from a Scientist are probably doable up to the highest levels. I have been first to CoL and Philosophy on Emperor without really making it the main goal.
The diplo problems that might arise from adopting your own state religion are another point of course...

 

[Skipity]

If you have a Great artist who's cued up to bulb 65% of Divine right and if you're first to the tech you can trade it around without any remorse that you might be helping the AI.

 

[lymond]

If you have a Great artist who's cued up to bulb 65% of Divine right and if you're first to the tech you can trade it around without any remorse that you might be helping the AI.

I've done that on rare occasion. It can pay off in the right situation, if an AI hasn't discovered it first. Otherwise, I pretty much ignore DR. Also, it would depend on if I value saving the Great Artist for a Golden Age more. DR can allow you to backfill techs like Guilds, Engineering, Banking, etc..

 

[lindsay40k]

Islam can have a critical role in fairly isolated Culture games. I've got a Saladin game on hold in which I'm rushing Mosques for my final phase.

Bulbing Philosophy is most important for running Pacifism during Golden Ages and derailing apparent Liberalism/Taj Mahal beelines caused by the AI placing a high value on founding religions; they are led by the nose to that region of the tech tree. Outside of Culture games, founding Taoism is secondary to making it a LOT easier to grab a tech and GA.

I agree that if Culture isn't an issue, sending a late faith Missionary (or three) to a rival to break up lovefests is a good idea.

Once had Gandhi pop a GS on the turn he researched CoL. Pow, Taoism founded hundreds of years BC.