Religionless Faith strategy?

[Mister_General]

hi, about all this religion talk, besides the world religion choice and religous building that provide happier and the founder belive + purchasing with faith

what does spreading religion do? i've been spreading my religion and get majority of cities to it, but honestly IDK what is the "Major" effect of spreading religion, i mean what will happen if i have my capital only religious or 10 cities religous? what will change etc.

 

[FstrthnU]

Spreading religion increases religious "pressure" that spreads religion without using missionaries. So if you have 4 cities, spreading your religion to all 4 will increase your pressure by 3x base pressure (which is usually 6), in each city, assuming all of them are close to each other. This helps to prevent other religions from spreading to your cities and lets you convert other cities without missionaries, at least until the mid and late game where the AI goes crazy with missionaries and prophets.

Of course, your cities can only use the pantheon/religious beliefs if you've spreaded the religion to those cities. Since your pantheon will usually spread before your religion, you typically need missionaries to start spreading your religion from the capital.

 

[Mister_General]

ah yea, but what will it bring to my civ when i spread the religion ? also why is the guy who can remove other religions are disappeared from purchase list (inquesters) or whatever

 

[Polisurgist]

You can't buy Inquisitors until you've enhanced your religion; that might be it, if you aren't seeing them on the list at all. If you're seeing them but they're dimmed out and you can't buy them, it's probably because you have another civilian unit in the city.

As for the other benefits of a religion, you also get a tourism boost with civs you share a religion with, so that helps with cultural victories. I don't think there's a diplomatic advantage.

 

[MarshalN]

The best time I had was Boudicca spreading her religion to me, then invade, except she had holy warriors and I bought units and killed her using her own belief.

Other times its useful when they have religious buildings. I always buy them before converting back.

In general though, it's very hit or miss. I don't think it's worth the faith investment

 

[FstrthnU]

You can't buy Inquisitors until you've enhanced your religion; that might be it, if you aren't seeing them on the list at all. If you're seeing them but they're dimmed out and you can't buy them, it's probably because you have another civilian unit in the city.

As for the other benefits of a religion, you also get a tourism boost with civs you share a religion with, so that helps with cultural victories. I don't think there's a diplomatic advantage.

There is a moderate diplomatic boost for shared religion

 

[WearyHeart]

Hi, I also suffer from the same problem. Whenever I get a religion I always get spammed by piety AIs. If I try to defend my religion with inquisitors and missionaries, I usually end up with little faith left for Pagodas and Great People. I noticed that I usually just adopt another religion entirely because with that I only forgo Tithes. I get the AI Bonuses like pagodas or feed the world. They also usually have better reformatin beliefs.

Also If a Shrines and Temples effectively convert Gold into Faith at a 1:1 Ratio, if i understand it well. I snt that the "True" power of religion? To effectively buy Great Person for 1000/1500 gold? Or hapiness building for effectively 200/300/400 gold?

 

[KrikkitTwo]

I loooooooove Interfaith Dialogue. Every missionary can knock 2-3 turns off whatever you're researching at the time. Only problem is either that the AI hates you for spreading your religion (even if you don't convert their cities), or they don't have a religion of their own and you eventually run out of easy targets.

Actually Interfaith dialogue means you CAN get the founder bonus (at least it works with captured missionaries, I did that once and got some nice science bonuses)

 

[danaphanous]

This strategy makes sense if you have the feeling looking at the beliefs that are going to the early religions that yours will not be that great. I would never choose to do this ahead of time though because I find founding even a late religion often has better benefits then waiting for the AI to war over my cities later. Also, you never know who will be in your game thus I find the best strategy is always to pump out a shrine as early as possible (unless you are the Celts or Ethiopia). Some games you get a bunch of AI who don't care so much about religion and if you are the 2nd or 3rd pantheon you have a good opportunity to pick a faith pantheon and go for the religion.

The long term benefits of getting that religion are usually better, I find, then anything the AI can give me reason being they take a bit of time to spread to you and it's hard to keep the beliefs you like without a lot of effort as all the AI try to convert you. If you want to do nothing more then buy a bunch of religious buildings though this can work well but you give up the early adoption effects and founder benefits

If you see like 5 pantheons before yours then you might consider giving that up and going for a pantheon with more immediate growth or production benefits as you've clearly lost, especially if many of the pantheon picks are faith picks. But if they aren't or you get the opportunity to pick a good faith pantheon I often go for it anyway. Even founding the 4th or 5th religion usually the AI have left some nice beliefs because most haven't had time to enhance.

Things they always pick late that are really nice: tithes, +2 happiness from temples, +2 happiness from gardens, religious community, and swords into plowshares. In fact you can almost always get tithes, religious community, and swords into plowshares which is quite amazing for the tall/tradition style many players play. Just buy 1-2 inquisitors and you'll be good all game with phenomenal growth rate and production and save all your faith for great people after industrial.

It is far more likely that your religious neighbor will pick crappy beliefs that help you less then these secondary choices anyway. This is why I never plan ahead of time to not try for a religion. I always leave the opportunity open by getting an early faith source and decide later if I'll go all the way. This is never a bad strategy as even if you don't get a religion faith has uses. it means you have the faith the buy a religious building from a foreign religion or to plant your prophet later for some good faith and an extra GP in the industrial. The AI pick some great things sometimes but it can be difficult to keep the religion you want inside your cities if you don't have your own as every AI on earth targets you more. The likelihood of getting and keeping exactly what you want is low without major faith investment on your part into the inquisitors and missionaries of the foreign religion so the modifiers for tourism and relations are rather unreliable to count on.

However, if you just want to see what comes and buy stuff when it comes (the religious buildings approach) this can work out ok as long as you aren't too isolated. The AI always pick every religious faith building and Jesuit education and sometimes glory of god so watch the conversion notifications carefully and buy stuff as they happen. I especially like getting the opportunity to faith-buy an immediate science building but it's unreliable for speedy science victories as the likelihood of you having that religion right as you get the tech is low and you don't want to be waiting to build them. When it works out though it's awesome as you'll probably never get the belief any other way on Deity. They love it too much.

 

[sugerdady87]

I almost always play this way. A few games back, all 5 religions went on turn 52. On deity, its almost futile to found your own religion unless you have access to deserts (desert folklore), have a unique religious trait or start next to a faith generating mountain.

Faith gives you access to purchasing of great engineers regardless of founding a religion.

 

[danaphanous]

On Deity even desert folklore is unreliable even with the start for it as often at least one AI is near desert and picks it first due to having access to the shrine first.

I'd say a more reliable reason to try to found would be starting with a nearby faith natural wonder or getting the terrain to pick any solid faith pantheon when your choice comes around. Stone circles can be pretty significant too and the AI are less likely to take it then other faith pantheons in my experience. It's pretty random every game though which is why I recommend making the decision case by case with each new game as I see the beliefs get chosen.

 

[Volcanon]

In contrast to some of the above people, if you let the AI keep converting your cities you'll have a good chance of getting all of religious buildings, which are not religion dependent. A mosque doesn't shut off because your city flipped from Islam to Pastafarian.

 

[fyar]

I do think that there should be incentives for people to spread religion with Missionaries even if they haven't founded the religion. An ability to use a GP a third time to do a second enhancement for Missionary and Inquisitor bonuses sounds like it could be a good idea. So like, Interfaith Dialogue would be moved to a Missionary belief and it'd work even if you didn't found the religion, so long as you use the Missionary of that religion. And yes, there should be requests between major civs for religion, like, if someone has a religion that has nice follower beliefs, you could go to the diplomacy screen and be all "Please spread your religion into our cities" and they'd be all "we're glad you see the purity of our faith and shall eagerly send a mission your way", and a few turns later there comes a Missionary. Alternatively they could request that of you and you'd get a little positive diplo boost for making due on it.

I think this is a great idea! There should definitely be more motivation for spreading a religion that wasn't founded by you. Some "missionary beliefs" could be very similar to interfaith dialogue, like getting gold, culture, golden age points, from each spread. Even better would be a belief where the missionary remembers its home city and sends back food, hammers, or even great person points with each spread. You could even get creative... maybe a missionary belief that gives you some % likelihood of getting a copy of the unit garrisoned in a city it spread to. Or a missionary belief that, after its last spread, remains in the city it spread to and grants you permanent vision there (as if you had a spy there). Or a missionary belief that also grants a small influence boost when you spread to city-states.

I think one reason I like Gyra Solune's idea is that it's much more reflective of history. Many civilizations have sent missionaries to foreign lands, spreading a religion that was founded by some other nation.

 

[MightySpice]

I pretty much ignore religion allways. There is not really a downside doing this. Having and maintaining a religion costs a lot, but does not bring you near a victory.

 

[unpossible251]

It becomes a good strategy with Indonesia, imo. Open with liberty (dont laugh! Indonesia works best wide) and tech beeline to optics, then theology. From medieval, when you're established with anceint / classical buildings, a wonder or two, perhaps an early conquer, switch to piety. Hopefully you're subject to a little foreign religious pressure by that point; if from 2 or 3 faiths, all the better. Build candis wherever youre under any religious pressure, and throughout medieval get piety to religious tolerance policy (2 Panthenons).

Its a weird strategy, but kinda fun. Basically, a non faith anceint - classical, then start to bring in faith (finally!) with candis and theology wonders, and religion comes from all sorts of foreign faiths. Candis pull in at least 4, often up to ten (in theory up to 16) faith per turn, cost u next to nothing, and u can juggle a bunch of interesting (double) panthenons, followers, enhancer and reformation. Diplomatically play yourself off to the most favorable neighbour.

It may, of course, all fall over. But that can work fine too, youve got the beginnings of a wide empire, forget about religion and max out commerce to get +6 happies from your superspices.

Go for it, I say! Lotsa fun.

 

[unpossible251]

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I think one reason I like Gyra Solune's idea is that it's much more reflective of history. Many civilizations have sent missionaries to foreign lands, spreading a religion that was founded by some other nation.

Yeah, seconded. Agree, there is a diplomatic option "stop sending missionaries to my cities" and it would be nice if that caused an increase in missionary attrition - as well as the diplomatic penalty.

No point in patching so close to civ6, but there should be another diplomatic option - "i invite you to send your missionaries to my land" - which removes missionary attrition penalty for that civ and gives you a small diplomatic boost.

 

[danaphanous]

I think the strategy of saving faith and buying what comes your way can be a good call if there are several nearby strong religious leaders and all you want is stuff to buy. This makes more sense to do if you are a smaller empire then a large one. However, there are a lot of hidden opportunity costs to doing this:

1. the majority of religious beliefs aren't stuff you can buy but need the religion present to buff you in some way. Religious community and swords into plowshares are amazing for instance, also happiness from gardens and temples. All amazing benefits that require you to keep that religion around. A lot of pantheons are like this too but the likilihood of the AI spreading you something that is great and works perfectly with your terrain is pretty low compared to the likilihood it won't work with your empire. t feels great when the desert folklore guy spreads his religion to your desert empire but the likelihood of luck not being on your side is much higher. Ironically, some of the best beliefs that work well in all empires the AI choose late or not at all meaning they likely belong to weak religions thus you can't get the benefits from some of the stronger passive buffs imho. It is far more likely the AI who converted you has beliefs half of which do nothing for you, whereas if you'd founded even a late religion (which is usually possible with only moderate effort) you can get tithes and religious community at least which are always there and arguably stronger then anything you get by the AI fighting over your cities. What's better? a sizeable amount of gold every turn and 15% production all game or a few buildings?

2. Also, you need lots of faith to use what does benefit you permanently. The benefits that stay with you are purchaseable things: Holy Warriors, Buying science buildings, and religious buildings. This is only a tiny fraction of the beliefs and getting the ones you want is unreliable. In many pangaea games though, it's pretty likely the dominant religion will give you the opportunity to buy at least one type of religious building and maybe two. However, you still need the faith to use them and you gave up the opportunity to get lots of free faith from your terrain pantheon. (the easiest way to get it early) As such you are unlikely to have this amount of faith to buy a lot of them without a lot of extra time spent building late shrines and temples. If you are going to spend all that time building faith to buy the leftovers from another religion, why would you not do it a bit earlier so you could own the 4th or 5th religion? You'd get to keep your pantheon which would mean extra faith usually to buy even more stuff. You could also claim some permanent benefits. And you also will still have plenty of opportunity to buy foreign religious buildings founding late as they'll get into your border cities from the earlier religions.

Basically founding 4th or 5th is not only pretty reliable with a late faith pantheon (this play doesn't have much of an opportunity cost either), it has better benefits then the best non-founding lucky game. Tithes, religious community, and +2 happiness from temples or gardens are USUALLY there. Exception might be larger maps. In the case of a larger empire or warring game: all this translates to better happiness options, money, growth, or production. If you are going to settle a large empire or conquer the world I'd always recommend owning your own religion. It's just better.

Not founding makes much more sense for a small empire as it is on these games where you have very large cities that you can count on all the main religions sending prophets. However, I still argue you've given up more then you lost and these games are all based on luck rather then sure benefits from religion.

You guys see buying a few troops or religious building as free but by not attempting a religion you've given up potentially game-changing buffs to your empire.