[NFP] Religious Victory Elimination Thread

[CrabHelmet]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [15]
Gitarja/Indonesia [20]
Gorgo/Greece [17] (16+1) - Let's just run the all the great things Gorgo can do for Religious Victory:

1. Gorgo can get Production for faster Holy Sites and Faith for locking down a Pantheon thank to being able to run both of the two early Policy Cards. This means you are likely to get the Faith-generating Pantheon you need without risking losing a Prophet. Other Civs have to choose between being likely to get a Pantheon and the risk of missing out on a Great Prophet.

2. Gorgo gets early culture really, really fast. That means that you can rush to Mysticism. Once at Mysticism, you can work +2 Great Prophet Points a turn without any comparative loss relative to other Civs thanks to the extra policy card slot. Between points 1 and 2, Gorgo is one of the fastest Civs on this list to reach a Great Prophet, which makes her enormously reliable for Religious Victory.

3. Gorgo's early culture means you can hit key Civics like Theology faster than anyone else. That means you can get Temples before anyone else. That means you get both Apostles and a significant Faith boost before anyone else.

4. Thanks to Acropoles, controlling City-States is trivially easy and you will have lots under your thumb. A level 2 Religious City-state Alliance gives +2 Faith to every Shrine. Even just one of those can make 16 Faith across your empire with 8 Cities, and that's without needing to work any tiles or do anything else, it's purely passive. This is a lot of Faith for a trivial investment. In addition, it means you almost certainly have the bonus for whatever Religious City-States are in your game, and some of those like Yerevan are complete game-changers. Between points 3 and 4, Gorgo actually has some of the stronger Faith output of Civ on this list, and it's fairly reliable and doesn't require you getting a specific Pantheon, just exploring properly.

5. Hoplites and Acropoles come at the right time to produce a Golden Age for Exodus of the Evangelists at exactly the time when your Religion really needs it.

Gorgo is a really good Religious Civ. So is Pericles, actually, only half an inch behind Gorgo, but that mistake was made ages ago so I need to spend time on Gorgo now. Let's compare Gorgo to some of the remaining Civs.

Mongolia has absurdly strong Apostles. However... Mongolia cannot lock down a Faith generating Pantheon. Mongolia cannot reliably get a Great Prophet without having to focus on Holy Sites so hard that on higher difficulties you can put yourself in danger. Mongolia has no secondary ways of generating Faith. Mongolia's UB is quite hard to hit very early and often won't get built until mid-Medieval, because you're not going to be getting to the second building of an Encampment that fast when you need Holy Sites and Theatre Squares for Culture and also Campuses to not fall behind generally and Commercial Hubs or Harbours because all of this is expensive.

Pachacuti has a Mountain-bias for Faith adjacency. However... this is inconsistent. Start 10 Pachacuti games now just hitting to restart. In about 30% of them, the game will lump you with just two or three mountains often not positioned in a way for a good Holy Site. In these games, Pachacuti has essentially nothing useful for Religion whatsoever. In the remaining 70%, you will be beaten to Earth Goddess about half the time on the highest difficulties, because Pachacuti cannot generate early Faith and Earth Goddess is a very popular Pantheon. Pachacuti doesn not even get started on Religious Victories in about two-thirds of his games. The fact he has made it this far is ludicrous and he should have gone 5-6 Civs ago.

Kupe can have a very patchy start to getting Religious Victory. To get the Faith you need for a Faith-generating Pantheon, you will need to settle essentially immediately. You can't afford to lose time on this, there's no opportunity to spend 5-6 turns looking for an ideal location like a normal Kupe game. That means sometimes you're just going to get a mediocre capital, which really doesn't help when you have to then juggle Holy Sites and Settlers so much. Kupe's Marae is powerful, but it takes a little while to get to and makes for a relatively slow Exodus of the Evangelists compared to Gorgo. Kupe is really depending quite a bit on easy sea travel. This is huge and the best feature of Kupe with respect to a Religious Victory, and can make Kupe on some maps literally the best Religious Civ, but also map dependent, and some maps he's fairly mediocre. Gorgo is not map dependent - she is consistently good.

Mansa Musa struggles hugely to get up Holy Sites and secure Prophets. He has decent Faith-generating options, but especially on higher difficulties, it is very easy to just miss a Great Prophet altogether. The -30% Production is really significant. Also, his Faith-generating options come late. Unless you settle his City in a very mediocre location, punishing yourself in other ways, you simply can't get the Pantheon you want with Mansa Musa in many games - he absolutely has to work the +1 Production card and not the +1 Faith/+1 Gold card. Very powerful once he gets going, but a lot of times he can just flop early. Gorgo does not flop early, she is consistently good.

Gitarja's Faith options are not as good as they look. +0.5 Adjacency for Holy Sites on Coast makes getting even +2 quite hard, and realistically for Gitarja to get good Faith you must settle every City on the coast. This is a big restraint that hits her Production pretty bad and makes getting her Shrines and Temples up hard. Plus she has no Culture for the above.

Gorgo is better than all of the Civs above at Religious Victory. The real conversation is whether she's better or worse than Pedro, which I think is a tough choice which we will hopefully get to later.

Hojo Tokimune/Japan [29]
Jadwiga/Poland [20]
Kupe/Maori [16]
Mansa Musa/Mali [23]
Pachacuti/Inca [0] (1-3) ELIMINATED - Frankly should never have made it this far, more than had his time.
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [33]
Saladin/Arabia [32]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[Drivingrevilo]

With Jayavarman and Pachacuti gone, I think we're finally down to the crème-de-la-crème. All these Civs have direct, powerful, and at least semi-consistent bonuses towards religious victory. It's a matter of picking between very strong candidates.

I predict that attention will focus on Kupe, Gorgo, and Genghis, since they are Civs 'less associated' with religious victory. But 'less associated' does not necessarily equal 'less powerful'. In my mind, the weakest is actually Gitarja.

For the benefit of fairness, what are Gitarja's religious strengths?

1.) City centres earn +2 faith per turn for being next to coast or lake tiles. Since she also has a Tier 2 spawn bias for coast, this means that Gitarja will almost always be earning +2 faith from the first turn and, therefore, can grab the first pantheon.
2.) Coasts & lakes grant minor adjacency for holy sites (and other districts). This gives her greater flexibility in their placement (e.g. she is not tied to mountain ranges) and synchronises well with her coastal bias.
3.) Religious units do not pay movement points to embark or disembark. This is a nice quality of life bonus which shaves off a few turns here-and-there for a RV.
4.) Additionally, by simple virtue of being a naval Civ, she is probably going to reach Cartography earlier than most (e.g. you're more likely to fulfil the Eurekas for Sailing, Shipbuilding, and Cartography). Since crossing oceans is a hard lock on how quickly you can earn your religious victory, this is an indirect bonus towards the win type.

These bonuses are good, no doubt about that. However, I feel that each one is slightly underwhelming compared to Gitarja's competitors. Let's run through them again, in reverse order:

4.) Potential early ocean travel is great. But others get it even faster: Norway at Shipbuilding, and Kupe right from the go. And it's a 'win-faster' bonus more than anything else.
3.) No embarking/disembarking costs is neat, but it's very situational. It's not going to win you the game – and of course, its use cases decrease exponentially the more land there is in your map.
2.) Coast/lakes granting +0.5 adjacency to holy sites is *not that much* at all. I think this is Indonesia's biggest flaw: the devs clearly wanted to incentivise her to place holy sites next to coast, but the bonus they gave her only allows you to get, what, a +2 holy site in the majority of cases? If you're lucky and a one-tile island spawns just off the coast, then you've got yourself a +3 holy site. But this is very situational; and even if you do manage it, it's still worse than the base adjacencies possible from mountain ranges, or by Japan/Poland, or by any of the Civs tied to pantheon-related terrain.
1.) This leaves the +2 faith from coastal cities. Sure, it grabs you the first pantheon: but Indonesia faces the strange problem of being a religious-themed Civ with no obvious pantheon choice to help with religious victory. Being tied to coast doesn't lend itself to 'Dance of the Aurora' / 'Desert Folklore' / 'Sacred Paths'; and 'Earth Goddess' runs into the problem that she wants to place districts on her coastal tiles, thereby crushing the tiles with the most appeal. This essentially leaves the settler pantheon or 'God of the Sea'; and while both are useful in general, they don't help with religious victory specifically.

In addition, a few more points need to be made:
5.) Gitarja receives no bonuses to earning a Great Prophet: no reduced price holy sites, no extra wildcard, etc. And as has been pointed out several times previously, what's the point in earning the first pantheon if you then miss out on a Prophet?
6.) Gitarja receives no meaningful bonuses to culture generation (+0.5 coastal adjacency for theatre squares is not enough). This essentially forces her to pick 'Choral Music' – assuming, of course, that it is still available. But even then, she'll be trailing behind a Gorgo, Peter, or Pedro.
7.) Gitarja's uniques do not arrive early enough to help her secure a Classical Era golden age (Kampung is at Shipbuilding, Jong is at Mercenaries). This makes it a struggle for her to grab that all-important 'Exodist of the Evangelists' golden age; and although the same argument can be made for a few others (e.g. Japan, Georgia, Poland), it feels like the nail in the coffin for Gitarja when added on top of all her other issues.

And finally, there's perhaps the most obvious flaw of all. More than any other Civ, Gitarja is situationally bound to the coast. Even Kupe can make great use of inland forest/jungle cities: Gitarja is essentially vanilla away from the sea. So while she is absolutely great on coastal maps – my second fastest religious victory was Gitarja on an Archipelago map – on other map types she has almost nothing. And yes, other Civs here are also map dependent to a degree (e.g. Mali and desert, Brazil and rainforest); but coast just feels the most restrictive of all.

(Here rests the case for the prosecution)

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [15]
Gitarja/Indonesia [17] (20-3) See above.
Gorgo/Greece [18] (17+1) I completely agree with CrabHelmet on Gorgo. It's hard to stress how quickly she can storm through the civics tree just by sweeping up barbarians; and this gets her to shrines, temples, and theocracy before everyone else (except maybe Peter). Having access to apostles while the AI is barely starting with missionaries is a joy to behold.
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [29]
Jadwiga/Poland [20]
Kupe/Maori [16]
Mansa Musa/Mali [23]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [33]
Saladin/Arabia [32]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[JhGf_123]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [15]
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30] (29+1) I see him as top 3 material. Half price holy sites guarantee a religion *and* guarantee high faith output - plus, he’s got strong culture, science, and production games too.
Jadwiga/Poland [20]
Kupe/Maori [16]
Mansa Musa/Mali [20] (23-3) I agree that Gitarja is weaker than others. Yet I have the same feeling about Mansa Musa. Here I copy & paste a warning shot I made back on page 4, accompanied now by a downvote: “Mansa Musa is still very good at religion overall. But we need to remember how significant his early production malus is. In a recent deity attempt as Mali, I restarted the game because I missed out on a religion. I didn't do anything wrong, it's simply that my production was so bad that I didn't have time to get more than one holy site down before the prophets were all gone. In the next game, I had a similar situation and only narrowly grabbed the last religion by faith purchasing the prophet, which was not an ideal use of my early faith. TL;DR: Mansa is great if you manage to get a religion, but he suffers more than anyone else in the race to get there.” These are the differentials that start to matter.
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [33]
Saladin/Arabia [32]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[Francel]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [15]
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [20]
Kupe/Maori [13] (16-3) - Think he's still here in part because he was deleted from the list for awhile. What does he have going for him? A higher chance of meeting some of the city states first? The marae? It gives some extra faith but doesn't come online until theater squares. That's too late to make a huge difference imo. Can't harvest to expedite holy site or its project either.
Mansa Musa/Mali [20]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [33]
Saladin/Arabia [33] (32+1) - Down to the strongest few, time to start upvoting some civs again. The flexibility afforded by having a guaranteed great prophet is huge. Free or nearly free tier 3 building is nothing to sneeze at either. Religious spread also boosts research. If paired with the culture enhancing follower belief, then one can focus on religion without falling far behind in culture or science.
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[JJOne]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [15]
Gitarja/Indonesia [18](17+1)
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [20]
Kupe/Maori [10] (13-3)
Mansa Musa/Mali [20]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [33]
Saladin/Arabia [33]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[TCBB]

(I was about to post but, ummm...... do I ignore the previous poster’s scores on account of no explanation given?)

Moderator Action: Yes, ignore votes that do not include a rationale -- Browd

 

[lotrmith]

Ignoring previous vote as no explanations give.


Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [12] 15 - 3 We're downvoting others for having no bonus or incentive to getting a prophet, and likewise for faith generation, so it's only fair for Mongolia to go. Apostles mean nothing if you don't secure a prophet or have the faith to fund them.
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [20]
Kupe/Maori [13]
Mansa Musa/Mali [21]20 + 1 Throwing an upvote just to counter the obvious paper arguments that are not based on actual experience.

Also, his Faith-generating options come late. Unless you settle his City in a very mediocre location, punishing yourself in other ways, you simply can't get the Pantheon you want with Mansa Musa in many games

Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [33]
Saladin/Arabia [33]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[Solver]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [12]
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [18]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [20]
Kupe/Maori [10] (13 - 3) Indeed, likely still here because he was forgotten. Kupe is very fun but RV is hard for him. Marae are quite good for faith generation, but Kupe is one of the worst leaders for getting a Prophet. You want to take some turns to explore, find good land and settle, it's hard to join the Prophet race right away.
Mansa Musa/Mali [22] (21 + 1) I'll add another upvote. It's very fun to found your capital in the middle of a desert for 8-12 food and faith from turn 1. He can often be the first to pick a pantheon, and then with Desert Folklore Mansa Musa can rival even Peter in faith generation. But yes, getting an actual prophet is a bit harder, so he's not a top 3 civ.
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [33]
Saladin/Arabia [33]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[Leucarum]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [12]
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [15] (18-3) Did she slip off the list esrlier? I would definitely have downvoted sooner if I'd spotted her. Pericles' city state bonus is far more useful for an RV. The wildcard slot is helpful to snag an early prophet but she should have gone before Pericles.
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [20]
Kupe/Maori [10]
Mansa Musa/Mali [22]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [34] (33+1) Should have more of a lead than this!
Saladin/Arabia [33]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[Hans Castorp]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [13] (12+1) Genghis' combat bonus is very powerful, and only becomes more so on higher difficulties, when the AI actually produces sizeable numbers of religious units to kill. He doesn't have bonuses to faith generation or getting a religion in the first place. For me, that keeps him from contention for the top slot. But I don't think he should be struggling to make the top 10.
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [12] [15-3] I downvoted Kupe last time, so Gorgo edges him out on this round, though I think she is rather better at RV than he is. I don't agree that she is outmatched by Pericles on this victory condition. Certainly he went rather earlier than I would have expected, and the rankings will reflect a rather skewed picture of the distance between them, but the advantage she has is speed in getting to the point of slotting the GP card. She is a sprinter; he is a marathon runner. In the medium to long run, he can completely outclass her in culture output, but she gets you a religion quicker. That is important, and justifies a relatively high ranking, but the benefits of her LUA start to decline as civics increase in cost, and she has no direct bonus to faith output or religious combat.
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [20]
Kupe/Maori [10]
Mansa Musa/Mali [22]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [34]
Saladin/Arabia [33]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[Josephias]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [10] (13-3) Genghis' combat bonus is powerful. But it is not a given, you'll need to build it via trade routes, and counter any spies the AI invests on you. If you need to stand (or move trough) waves of enemy apostles, you will start suffering attrition, even with the best promoters, and without other apostles as back-up to start rotating (you'll need faith for that), it will be difficult anyhow.
Nevertheless, there have been other strong contenders that have fallen already just because they cannot ensure a GP, and that is the reason why Genghis is in time to struggle. From the remaining, Genghis and Pedro are the ones with less option to get a GP, without bonuses neither to culture, production, or at least uniques that can trigger an early exodus (+4GPP if there is still a prophet to be gained) or provide faith-gold to speed-up purchase (maybe not optimal, but if it is the difference between geting the last achevable proces, it is vital to stay in the race). Kupe is for me in the borderline, as I do not know if the bounuses (extra culture generation when navigating, +1 pop and builder for the first city founded, +1 prod from woods and jungle (and higher possibility to find 3 city states for pholitical philosopy eureka) really make up for founding its first city late. I downvoted Pedro last, and with this vote Genghis stays at 10 as Maori, so let's be it.
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [12]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [21] (20+1) On the other hand, Jadwiga can start gaining Great prophet points as soon as she kicks in its first government, and has minor, if interesting bonuses to its religious play (Culture Bomb conversion will be situational, and extra faith from relics and districts is not much against what others can provided, but nevertheles help supporting a religious play. I had not upvoted her already, and as other options will be repeating, she gets my +1 today.
Kupe/Maori [10]
Mansa Musa/Mali [22]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [34]
Saladin/Arabia [33]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[TCBB]

@Drivingrevilo was right: the attention is focussing on Kupe, Gorgo, and Genghis because they're the 'less obvious' religious leaders, but that doesn't mean they're actually the worst. However, I'm not going to bother fighting against their impending demises: too many of you rush blindly for the 'obvious' choices each time without ever taking into account why people have defended a certain Civ (e.g. comments like "they're only here because they accidentally fell off the thread". Errr, no, they're still here because people have offered lucid arguments in their favour. See also my arguments on page 8 in defence of Kupe)

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [10]
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [12]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Kupe/Maori [10]
Mansa Musa/Mali [19] (22-3) C'mon, you can't dismiss Mansa Musa's early struggles as an 'obvious paper argument'. If you're genuinely saying you've never had a hard time in the early game as Mansa Musa, then you're lying. He has to balance all the usual early game struggles (building settlers, building units to defend against that annoying aggressive neighbour) with the specific demands of rushing a religion (building holy sites, spamming holy site prayers), while *also* operating on a -30% malus, while *ALSO* doing so in low-production desert terrain. Just like @JhGf_123 said, it's a very real threat that you'll miss out on a religion: it's certainly happened to me.
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [35] (34+1) Have those people upvoting Saladin played him since the recent patches? He's received an indirect but significant nerf. The AI no longer prioritises useless beliefs like 'warrior monks' or 'divine inspiration'; if they get the first religion, they actually take decent beliefs like 'choral music' (see some of the examples here: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/post-update-founder-beliefs.658281/). As a result, it's no longer a viable strategy as Saladin to wait for the last religion to come your way. If you want good beliefs, you have to rush a religion like any other Civ: that's a considerable nerf to how you could play him previously. There's also the simple point that Saladin's main strength – spreading his religion boosts his science – is almost redundant in a RV. But we'll get onto that at a later date... For now, I'll upvote Peter instead to put more distance between him and Saladin.
Saladin/Arabia [33]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[bengalryan9]

Good news guys - the dude who flipped out on page 2 over Shaka being eliminated early is back to tell us all how absurd our opinions are.

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [10] Maybe the reason so many people were unsure if his combat bonuses apply to his religious units is because he's pretty bad at founding a religion? Just a hunch.
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [12] I think that when it comes to RV, Gorgo *is* better than Pericles, because she *is* much more likely to hit mysticism first.
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Kupe/Maori [10] In this thread: we go on and on about how important about how fast RVs need to be while dismissing the only leader who can reach the entire map on turn 1.
Mansa Musa/Mali [16] (19-3) Aww, you got to a pantheon in less than ten turns, how adorable. Good luck getting a great prophet, though.
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [35] Look - Russia's way better than Canada, but if we're going to act like Canada's food shortage is crippling in the long term it certainly applies to Russia as well (considering they get less food from the tundra than Canada does).
Saladin/Arabia [34] (33+1) Guaranteed great prophet is a huge plus and means unlike pretty much everyone else in the game a religious victory is ALWAYS on the table for you. Unless you're playing on a gigantic map, you'll still come away with some type of belief you can at least get *some* use out of, so I don't really see being last as a huge loss, or at least the kind of loss that would negate such a huge bonus. Meanwhile, spreading your religion all across your starting continent boosts your science, which speeds up your progress towards Cartography, which is pretty much a requirement to win on any non-pangea map unless you're Harald or Kupe.
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[enKage]

Oh, yeah That's me! I am glad the dude who downvoted Georgia during first week has missed me

Just an addition to civ descriptions in posts above

Mansa Musa does not recieve -30% penalty to building districts! (though suffers from -1hammer mines, but it is not a factor when building 1st holy shrine, suffers from buildings too, but not a factor any more with reworked work ethic) So all he need to do is just make one holy site and buy prophet with faith


Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [11] 10+1 I never had problem on deity with founding religion when I want to. The worst case - chop project and borrow money from AI, pillage rival's holy site, whatever. You win religious victory by theo battles and his apostles are space marines
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [12]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Kupe/Maori [7] 10-3 The worst here, no bonus to early faith / apostles / prophet. Kupe screams for culture victory, so "against the spirit of a thread"
Mansa Musa/Mali [16]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [35]
Saladin/Arabia [34]
Tamar/Georgia [21]

 

[Civ Chemist]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [11] Not upvoting again, but I think the reason people weren't sure about his extra CS in religious combat is mainly because it is not something you typically associate with him. I'm guilty of that myself as I have only ever gone for domination with him and only started thinking about religious Genghis from this thread. But once I tried it, I was absolutely sold on his strenght and I can just recommend everyone to try him out. It is a lot of fun and you might be surprised how powerful he actually can be.
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [12]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31] (30+1): With Gandhi and Russia probably my personal top 3. Half price holy sites with consistent high adjacency without having to rely on terrain or specific pantheon. Great in combination with work ethic and also one of the few that might actually get choral music. Half price theater square (or even encampments) can also be used to cheaply increase holy site adjacency. Might not always be the fastest and will probably be beaten by the likes of Brazil (+ sacred path + work ethic) but he is a lot more consistent.
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Kupe/Maori [7]
Mansa Musa/Mali [16]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [35]
Saladin/Arabia [34]
Tamar/Georgia [18] (21-3): Not sure she deserves to stay here much longer.
1. Faith from Tsikhe is basically irrelevant as you have to spent too much production to get there, which is much better spent on other districts or even just running holy site prayers.
2. 100% faith from protectorate wars sounds great on paper, but they are very very situational. First of all you have to be suzerain of the city state that gets attacked. In religious game you also want to be friends with as many civs as possible to avoid declaration of wars, so no protectorate wars agains them. You probably also don't want to declare on civs you have not yet converted as it can significantly delay your religious victory and you can never be sure that not a random scout on the other side of the map just kills some of your religious units. So it's only really useful on those rare occasions when you have already converted that civ, which also is far enough away from you, you don't have to worry about them attacking you instead.
3. Extra envoys to city states you have converted can be situationally helpful, especially for religious city states. But first of all you cannot control which city states are in the game and where they spawn. And more importantly you have to convert them first. This might not be a problem if they spawn right next to you but will become increasingly more difficult the further away they are. And since the AI loves to convert city states do you really want to spent a bunch of charges just to get an extra envoy. In my religious games I never bother to convert city states as my charges are too valuable to waste on them and even for Geogia (unless it is Yerevan) I think you are better off focusing on enemy cities
4. And finally let's talk about chaining exodus golden ages. She doesn't have any early uniques that would help getting a classical golden age. And if you are not getting a classical golden age that ability does nothing for a medieval exodus and only helps getting a renaissance exodus (i.e 1 out of 3 key golden ages). Sure if you get a classical exodus golden age it makes it very easy to get both a medieval and renaissance golden age, but honestly in religious game getting golden ages is rarely a problem for me. First of all my religious victories are usually won with very few cities (3-6) which means the threshold for golden ages is not that high. Fewer cities also means there is usually some unsettled land around me where I can farm era score for killing barb camps. And then you get a lot of easy era score for converting holy cities. I also often use 1-2 early missionaries (with missionary zeal) as a super scout (while converting some low pop cities for more faith once I unlock pilgrimage) which will give me a lot of era score for meeting other civs and discovering natural wonders.
So all in all (at least for my playstyle) they are not that impressive.

 

[Kmart_Elvis]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [27] (26+1) My second fastest RV was with Gandhi. The leader ability is a reliable source of free faith in the beginning, a stepwell also gives you faith, your trade routes spread religion a little easier, and most importantly, your missionaries have +2 spread. Having an early UU and UI means you can get a golden classical or medieval age and then take Exodus. Now your missionaries have 7 spreads. It's quite easy to take over the world rapidly that way.
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [11]
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [12]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Kupe/Maori [4] (7-3) As much as I like the Maori, I don't think RV is that great for them, even though it looks ok on paper. Faith from maraes can build up your faith income, and early ocean crossing means you can reach civs sooner than later. But - you start in the ocean! It takes several turns to find land, and even then you don't want to settle the first place you can find. By the time you discover a good capital spot, even with your capital bonuses, you're already behind on getting a religion. Plus, even if you had time to get religion, I'd rather ignore it. I like pumping out settlers instead to take advantage of their ocean-crossing. When I play the Maori, it's all about rapid settling, and religion is a distraction.
Mansa Musa/Mali [16]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [35]
Saladin/Arabia [34]
Tamar/Georgia [18]

 

[Dantesedge]

These are some well-deserved finalists!

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [27]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [11]
Gitarja/Indonesia [17]
Gorgo/Greece [9] (12-3) Downvoting is getting incredibly difficult as until it's down to the final five I think everyone here is pretty good. I'll go ahead and take 3 away from Gorgo though sadly; her culture boosts are phenomenal in the very early game and the wildcard can get her the great prophet while others can struggle, but it doesn't take long for the culture boosts to lessen and she doesn't get any extra faith income as the game goes on besides basic HS stuff.

Everyone left (besides Mongolia) has a way to boost their faith income, and I believe Mongolia's super-apostles are better than what Gorgo offers in the end (especially since Kmart Elvis pointed out that one of the new religious beliefs allows whoever grabs it the ability to heal at ANY HS that is following their religion - that sounds pretty good for Mongolia if they can nab it!). She's not weak at the religious game at all... but everyone else here is better. Sorry Gorgo.
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Kupe/Maori [4]
Mansa Musa/Mali [16]
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [35]
Saladin/Arabia [34]
Tamar/Georgia [19] (18+1) I will throw one last up vote to Tamar before I move on to who I think deserve the very, very top spots. I think she deserves to survive another day.

On paper, it doesn’t look like Tamar has much in the way of early bonuses but in fact she has an incredibly strong bonus in the ability to chain three straight eras of Exodus of the Evangelist (Classical through Renaissance). +2 movement and +2 charges to your religious units is a great boost for anyone this early in the game, but only Tamar gets the an extra +2 era score for first time conversions on top of that in order to string along those stronger units. Yeah, others can pull off a chain as well using other era score tricks, but this makes Tamar’s focus easier as it relies solely on religious conversions – the whole point of the victory.

Her ability to control city-states, specifically religious city-states or others designed to help her in this victory route, can be difficult but rewarding. The hardest aspect is they have to be her majority religion; easier for nearby city states (which may not be ones she needs) and difficult for farther away ones and/or next to Hungary or Greece. However, if she nabs Papal Primacy – hardly a competitive belief – saves her envoys and targets the ones she specifically needs while ignoring the others, combined with Amani she can maintain control over those specific strategic ones indefinitely – even if across the world. If the AI wises up and they are attacked, she can at least nab 10 turns of 100% faith.

Now the Tsikhe… I know people dislike this building but it’s come a long way since it’s terrible introduction (it’s current form is now my favorite building in the game – sue me). Tamar can build walls fast with a combination of her +50% civ ability, running Limes for +100%, and (possibly) an extra 100% from the World Congress which the AI prioritizes in the City Center. The possibility of +4 faith (Normal Age) in every city for a Tier 3 building is.. okay, but the possibility of +8 faith (Golden Age) in every city is pretty good. The possibility of +16 faith (Golden Age + protectorate war) is phenomenal. It’s a definite benefit to the mid-game and worth the production with the 150/250% boosts.

For me, she has one major negative which keeps her out of the top elite for me... it can sometimes be extremely difficult to get that Classical Era Golden Age which hurts her early game big time. That's why this is my last up vote for her. Good luck Tamar.

 

[monikernemo]

Are we overexaggerating the difficulty of founding a religion?

Chandragupta/India [17] (Chadragupta is just a little weaker than Ghandhi)
Gandhi/India [27]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [11] (Religious combat bonus is enticing)
Gitarja/Indonesia [14] (17 - 3)
It seems that the bonus Gitarja gets for faith generation or spreading religion are pretty vanilla compared to the rest. Should be placed below Kupe.
Gorgo/Greece [9]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31] (Half price holy sites are always good)
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Kupe/Maori [4] (On naval maps Kupe should have an edge over most other civs, not to mention easy classical golden age for Kupe due to their ability to travel quickly).
Mansa Musa/Mali [17] (16 +1)
Mali's production malus is towards buildings and units and not districts nor projects.
You can always buy a shrine later and just spam projects in the mean time.
At least early into the game, Mali's production malus is partially mitigated since early Malian cities grow quickly as they get plenty of food just by settling in the desert.
In turn, you can free up citizens to work more productive tiles early on.
Pedro/Brazil [20]
Peter/Russia [35]
Saladin/Arabia [34]
(Beyond the free prophet, other very enticing things going for Saladin is cheap worship building and campus adjacency generating faith.
I think the free prophet is great but not phenomenal; the turn in which you get the prophet depends on how fast other civs get their religion.
You might get your religion later than you desire. Maybe an extreme example would be researching the theology civics but you have not found a religion.
If you want a fast religion as Saladin, you ought to build a holy site early anyways but that means that your free prophet ability is useless unless your opponents are very competitive in founding a religion!
The main selling point for Saladin are his Madrasas and cheap worship buildings.)
Tamar/Georgia [19]

 

[Drivingrevilo]

Yesterday I took a swipe at Gitarja; today, I'll take one at Pedro.

So, what are his strengths?
1.) Well, +1 adjacency for districts from rainforests allows him to reliably get +4, +5, or even +6 Holy Sites in the early game. And this can be supercharged if he also gets the 'Sacred Paths' pantheon, turning those Holy Sites into +8, +10, or +12 respectively. Those are seriously impressive numbers (though c.f. the caveat below).
2.) In addition, by virtue of the same ability it's very easy for him to achieve a +4, +5, or +6 Theatre Square in the early game; and since TS is notoriously difficult to achieve high adjacency for, this is a considerable advantage for his culture generation.

Okay: so he has the potential for very high faith generation early game, and the potential for high culture too. But that's where his advantages end. So what about the downsides?
1.) he gets no help with founding a religion.
2.) although more flexible than Gitarja, his bonuses are still situational in that they're locked to specific terrain.
3.) his unique unit arrives too late to help with golden ages, while his unique district is probably also too late to help grab a classical era golden age.
4.) he gets no help with earning a pantheon, and in my experience the AI loves to take 'Sacred Paths' as one of the first choices.

TL;DR: essentially, Brazil's strength for RV is his Holy Site adjacency – but that's it. So I think he's next on the chopping board after the strugglers (Kupe, Gorgo, Gitarja, Genghis) have been eliminated.

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [27]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [11]
Gitarja/Indonesia [14]
Gorgo/Greece [9]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [32] (31+1) Can't remember who I have or haven't voted up at this stage. Half price districts are always good.
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Kupe/Maori [4]
Mansa Musa/Mali [17]
Pedro/Brazil [17] (20-3)
Peter/Russia [35]
Saladin/Arabia [34]
Tamar/Georgia [19]

 

[Lily_Lancer]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [27]
Genghis Khan/Mongolia [12=11+1] We're talking about religious victory, not just founding a religion. Sending a delegation and reject your enemies gives you a reasonable +6 bonus, research printing/diplomatic services enhances this to a powerful +12/18 one, send a trade route makes the bonus insane to be +24/+30,.
Gitarja/Indonesia [14]
Gorgo/Greece [9]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [32]
Jadwiga/Poland [21]
Kupe/Maori [4]
Mansa Musa/Mali [17]
Pedro/Brazil [17]
Peter/Russia [35]
Saladin/Arabia [31=34-3] We're talking about religious victory, not just founding a religion. And Madrassa/ free T3 buildings really don't do a lot towards victories.
Tamar/Georgia [19]