[NFP] Religious Victory Elimination Thread

[Dantesedge]

Chandragupta/India [16]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30] (29+1) My final three would be Peter, Saladin, and Hojo. I voted for Saladin last time, so here is my upvote for Hojo. His adjacency bonuses don't rely on nabbing the right pantheon or hoping for the proper physical geography in order to work, just smart city planning. Jadwiga has that ability too, but Hojo has a half priced Holy Site to top that.
Jadwiga/Poland [13]
Mansa Musa/Mali [24]
Pedro II/Brazil [9]
Peter/Russia [37]
Saladin/Arabia [26]
Tamar/Georgia [eliminated] (1-3) I have upvoted and defended Tamar several times this thread because I felt she had a strong religious game versus most of the civs on this thread. However, now that we are on the final nine... I see her as the weakest in this stellar group so the most fair thing to do is remove her. I pointed out last time that she would struggle in the early game if she did not hit that Classical Golden Age and looking at the civs who are left, that particular negative is a harder hit than any negative aspects of the others who have made it this far. A good run though - kudos.

 

[enKage]

RIP Genghis
For those downvoting just a suggestion to play your very first religious game as Mongolia, you'd be amazed how smoothly it goes
And some final anti-Mongolia myths

But how does it work when you've crossed the ocean and your apostles are fighting on the opposite side of the globe? Presumably your traders don't have the range to reach those Civs – therefore, you can't set up a trading post and you don't get the combat buff from visibility? So it only works for Civs close to you? Sounds like certain people are seriously over-egging this particular strength ....

Mongolia gets trading posts in 1 turn. Every turn their trading range extends, just send a trader, cancel route. In theory Mongolia can get trade post in every civ in a number of turns equaling number of civs with only one trader. If for some reason doesn'r reach other continent, put a crappy city there, send routes. It is even better situation, because no way ohers civ would estabilish trade post in your cities.

You can have the strongest apostle in the game only if you have the ability to buy a few of them. I think faith generation for GK is gonna be an issue at the start

You have the fastest horse tanks in game. It guarantees so much faith from pillaging, that when you get temples, you can instantly buy apostles. More apostles than some civs left here. Especially when those horse tanks multiply in enemy teritory, leading to even more faith. Later you can go peaceful, faith from converted cities will be enough

RV is often and typically more easily won peacefully (else your apostles just get wiped off the map)

With most civs yes. But not a rule for all civs. Don't be a slave of one approach, generally speaking being a slave to one path is a curse of most elimination threads. If you have +9 (or even more) strength horses, you can escort apostles, so noone will condemn them. And with keshiqs apostles gain even +1 movement. Even more, you will condemn enemy apostles instead, so you spare apostles charges. Then pillage holy sites so a civ cannot resurect religion, and install your own religion there


Chandragupta/India [16]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [14] 13+1 Additional conversion from military engineer is underrated. You can buy settlers and military engineers and easily convert some civs as a final hit. Others use only faith, Jadwiga can use faith+gold+hammers to secure RV. Well prepared settler / MI rush can convert few civs in one turn, granting unexpected religious victory. Probably the only civ that could potentially win multiplayer religious victory.
Mansa Musa/Mali [24]
Pedro II/Brazil [6] 9-3 Heh? Still here? top10 religious civ being highly dependent on getting 1-2 pantheons?
Peter/Russia [37]
Saladin/Arabia [26]

 

[JesseS]

Top 8!
Chandragupta/India [16]
Gandhi/India [29] Can someone make the case for India being in the top three/four? Their faith generation doesn't seem great compared to most of the others left and I usually use apostles way more often than missionaries in religious games. Does early missionary spam actually work?
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [11](14-3) Basically a bootleg combination of Japan and Greece that seems weak compared to the present competition. Like, you get good district-based holy site adjacency...but no production discount or adjacency for your other districts. And you get a wildcard slot...but you lose a military slot. Culture bomb faith conversion is more useful for crusade domination games than religious ones. Relics take a lot of luck or set up to get.
Mansa Musa/Mali [24]
Pedro II/Brazil [7](6+1) I don't see why Brazil should go significantly before Mali. IMO, the two have similar, slow-ish start, high faith potential religious games. Either Earth Goddess or Sacred Path are going to provide Brazil with a lot of faith, in addition to their regular rainforest holy site adjacency. I don't think I've seen Earth Goddess gone before I'm able to pick a pantheon, even if my only source of initial faith is God King.
Peter/Russia [37]
Saladin/Arabia [26]

 

[Codeword Iroquois]

Chandragupta/India [16]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [11]
Mansa Musa/Mali [24]
Pedro II/Brazil [4](7-3) Cheaper Patronage with faith and gold isn't all that useful for great prophets, given it's unlikely you'll build up the faith/ gold cost before they go. Rainforest providing adjacency is also somewhat meh, because how likely are you to have enough of rainforest to provide a major bonus?
Peter/Russia [37]
Saladin/Arabia [27](26+1)A guaranteed religion is rather useful for a victory involving a religion.

 

[WineGuy]

Chandragupta/India [16]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [11]
Mansa Musa/Mali [24]
Pedro II/Brazil [1](4-3) Strong in certain cases, but very situational and map-dependent. Plus, I like to role-play with my Civs and Pedro just doesn't feel right going for an RV and not a CV. The weakest of the bunch left standing.
Peter/Russia [37]
Saladin/Arabia [28](27+1) I've had nothing but strong RV-oriented games with Saladin in the past. You get set up, conquer a bit with Mamluks, and then finish up the rest of the world with your apostles. Definitely top 3 in my eyes.

 

[bbbt]

Chandragupta/India [16]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [8] 11-3 How the heck did Jadwiga outlast Gorgo and Genghis? A Hodge podge of benefits that don't add up to much. The early wildcard is the big bonus (same as Greece). But everything else is meh. Minor additional faith from holy site adjacency and relics. And how many cities are you really converting by culture bomb?
Mansa Musa/Mali [24]
Pedro II/Brazil [1]
Peter/Russia [38] 37+1 Haven't upvoted him yet, but it's getting close to winner time. Half priced holy site, dance of the Aurora basically guaranteed, bonus tundra faith, early golden age, he has it all.
Saladin/Arabia [28]

 

[Baigan]

Chandragupta/India [16]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [9] 8+1 A last upvote for bae, who will probably go next. Poland's hybrid religious war kit is what Phillip dreams of. Buffed internal trade routes give gold that maintains your army. The Crusade belief gives a significant +10 combat strength buff when fighting in converted foreign ties. Capture a weak outlying city, use Poland's culture bomb by planting a Fort with Military Engineers (which are criminally overlooked in most games) to convert the next city, rinse and repeat. Make this even better by taking Cross-Cultural Dialogue for additional Science from all these converted citizens to keep your military upgraded. AI civs prioritize taking Worship buildings over Enhancer beliefs when founding their religions so Poland doesn't need to rush for early religion but gets bonuses to it anyway with the Wildcard policy. Poland has access to a religious game that's completely orthogonal to what other religious civs are doing (a fun change of pace, like Kupe or Mansa), but can still fall back on traditional Apostle spam when need be. Since Poland doesn't need to rush for specific pantheons/beliefs, it has more freedom to choose effects that play to the map. Oh, yeah, and every enemy city you convert during war gives +3 era score, so Poland can chain Golden Ages just as well as Tamar, who managed to survive this long almost exclusively based on that ability.
Mansa Musa/Mali [24]
Pedro II/Brazil [0] 1-3 ELIMINATED I'm not too keen on Pedro and think he should've bowed out before Gorgo. Like Peter/Mansa his advantage to religious victory is the powerful faith generation from Sacred Path combined with Rainforest bias. Unlike Peter/Mansa, he has no inherent Faith generation at the start of the game to ensure that he gets that pantheon. Also unlike Peter/Mansa, Pedro is unable to place early Holy Sites in his desired terrain. You either need to place a suboptimal HS on the border of your jungles or unlock Bronze Working to clear the tile for your +6 adjacency HS. He's a one-trick pony and it's time for him to go.
Peter/Russia [38]
Saladin/Arabia [28]

 

[monikernemo]

Civs that can make it to this stage are certainly not weak in religious victories, and I think some posts are getting hyperbolic/dramatic in justifying their downvotes.

Chandragupta/India [17] (16 + 1)
Certainly Chandragupta is just Ghandhi without the innate faith generation. Shouldnt fall off too far from India.
In some situations the added movement speed from territorial war may be useful to quell opponent apostles/missionaries.
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
(I think japan is rated abit too highly. Half price HS and TS is nice, adjacency from meiji is nice, but takes time (population) to build adjacency)
Jadwiga/Poland [9]
Mansa Musa/Mali [24]
(Should be alot closer to russia, but I chose to upvote chandragupta because he should be closer to gandhi)
Peter/Russia [38]
(I feel that if you put mali and russia in the same game, IMO Russia should edge out against mali slightly because the ability to get work ethics more quickly helps you build things in online speed.)
Saladin/Arabia [25] (28 - 3)
Dont quite agree with the argument for Saladin being able to unlock cartography secure RV. If cartography is that significant, then Kupe should be hanging around.
Again, free prophet is nice as a safety net but not a very useful ability since the better followers beliefs are certainly to be chosen by other players.
LA requires a significant amount of investment into infrastructure to be useful.
Cheap T3 religious buildings require temples, campus to generate faith require madrasas.

 

[Ferocitus]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [30]
Jadwiga/Poland [9] - 3 = [6] Not in the same league as the remaining civs.
Mansa Musa/Mali [24]
Peter/Russia [38] + 1 = [39] Easy start for RV, and the starting bias towards tundra means
Russia will win easily in this poll.
Saladin/Arabia [25]

 

[Drivingrevilo]

This thread is really picking up pace: 31 posts in 24 hours. There's a lot I would like to respond to, but I'll try to narrow it down. @kryat wrote a piece against Hojo which, although articulate, had some arguments I strongly disagree with. And a few people have mentioned Mali as a potential top 3 candidate – or in the case of @lotrmith, as even better than Russia – which, again, is something I (very) strongly disagree with.

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31] (30+1)
Jadwiga/Poland [6]
Mansa Musa/Mali [21] (24-3)
Peter/Russia [39]
Saladin/Arabia [25]

Japan: TL;DR: people are underestimating how quickly Japan can get high adjacency holy sites & theatre squares online, the two cornerstones of religious victory.

• It's been claimed a lot that "Japan needs pop 7 cities before they can even reach +3 adjacency". But this assumes that all your districts are being built in one city, and in flat, featureless terrain. In reality, what we're talking about is multiple cities placing multiple districts next to one another, one top of any other natural adjacencies coming from mountains, woods, or natural wonders. So in truth, you only need two cities close to one another to have +3, +4, or even +5 holy sites in the very early game.
• In addition, theres a great synergy in having several half-price districts available. As well as holy sites, Japan also gets half-price theatre squares (and encampments). This means that you only need two pop 4 cities to create a powerful district triangle of holy sites and theatres squares, i.e. the two most important districts for religious victory, at the very early stages of the game.
• Kryat says that Japan has "no outright faith bonuses". I understand his point: i.e. Mali or Indonesia get faith just for settling, while Russia gets free faith from tiles. But I counter this by saying: half-price holy sites is 100% an outright bonus to faith. If you can spam a holy site in every city, you earn a tonne of faith: simples. Only Japan and Russia can do this without the cost of the districts rocketing sky-high.
• Kryat also point outs that Greece gets better theatre squares. But that's not an argument against Japan. Very few Civs get bonuses to theatre squares: Japan is one, ergo, they deserve credit for this, regardless of whether Greece's bonus is even better.
• Finally, I'm not sure Poland's trade routes bonus is relevant to the discussion. If I'm not mistaken, these don't come online until after she has her Sukiennices – in other words, long after it'll be a factor in rushing holy sites. So no, Poland is not as good as Japan.

Mali: TL;DR: Mali has the slowest, most vulnerable early game of any Civ, and this sets them far behind the true contenders.

• It doesn't really matter that Mali can grab first pantheon. First pantheon does not equal first religion – and if you're settling in desert to grab that pantheon, that means you're settling in unproductive, useless terrain which harms your RV in the long-run.
• Now, what's the obvious counter to this? "Oh Driving, that's a straw-man argument: just settle on the edge of the desert and you'll have plenty of productive tiles as Mali". Well yes: but the same point stands for Russia. You do not settle in the tundra as Russia, you settle just on the edge of the tundra: but even then, Russia can still make better use of those tundra tiles, because he gains extra yields from them. So it frustrates me to see people use "Russia's tundra cities" as a straw-man to somehow raise Mali onto a higher pedestal, or to claim that Russia will struggle to reach pop 10 cities. This is simply not true.
• To paraphrase several of the points made by @lotrmith, he essentially says that Mali's malus does not matter because they can instantly buy everything they want – shrines, temples, monuments – which makes them better than Russia because Russia has to hard build those same things. Of course, this misses the point that Mali's gold income takes time to come online. By the time you've managed to research and build your Sugubas & trade routes as Mali, Russia has already got six holy sites down and converted his entire continent.
• I will also point out that the statement "Mali gets a consistent 20% faith discount on purchases" is only true after you've built your Sugubas. So please, let's have some sensitivity to chronology here: you simply cannot say that Mali comes close to competing with Russia during, say, the first 60 or 70 turns of the game.
• And to add a point of my own: if you receive a war declaration in the early game as Mali, it's game over. This is a critical problem with Mansa Musa that's being overlooked. He doesn't have the production to build the slingers, archers, or warriors necessary to defend himself, because of that damn malus which everyone keeps dismissing as irrelevant. But it's 100% relevant to a religious elimination thread – indeed, to any elimination thread – because if you're forced to restart due to an early war declaration, that means you have lost the game. You can sugar-coat it, chalk it down as an unlucky roll: but you have still lost. Mali is the most vulnerable to this, therefore, Mali stands the greatest chance of losing in the early game.

For the benefit of complete simplicity, this is how I would rank the remaining Civs: it will inform my voting habits from now on.
1.) Russia.
2.) Japan.
3.) Arabia.
4.) Gandhi.
5.) Mali.
6.) Chandragupta.
7.) Poland.

 

[Solver]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [3] (6 - 3) The weakest remaining of this bunch. She gets a Top 10 spot as she should, but her bonuses don't compare to having useful Missionaries (both Indians), or a guaranteed religion (Saladin), or extra faith.
Mansa Musa/Mali [21]
Peter/Russia [39]
Saladin/Arabia [26] (25 + 1) He's sliding too far down. No other leader benefits as much from spreading their own religion, and no other leader is as safe as Saladin. On lower difficulties, you can excel at everything. On higher difficulties, going down some path heavily means you have to sacrifice something else. Rushing for a Prophet puts you at risk of losing to an early invasion (less so as Peter / Hojo, but still). Not a problem for Saladin, who can build those early defenders first. Pursuing high faith and religious civics has to come at the cost of your science - but Saladin's bonuses help negate that as well. Where other civs have to make tradeoffs, Saladin just benefits. In fact, if you aim for a culture or science victory with him, you still want to spread your religion as much as possible.

 

[CrabHelmet]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [4] (3+1) - I think Poland is being rather under-rated here. The additional wildcard can be put towards +2 GPP from a Mysticism rush without having to sacrifice other useful options, meaning Poland has one of the most reliable Great Prophets going after Japan, Arabia, and Russia. The culture-bomb can be huge - outright conversion saves a lot of Faith, plus the aggressive forward-settling style provides you both a beachhead for other religious units, and for military units if you're supplementing RV with conquest (probably the fastest way to play RV). I'd rather play Poland than Mali purely because Poland is consistent - I know I can stick Jadwiga in basically any map or environment and have her do well at RV. Mali has a higher peak, but also just flat out collapses a lot.
Mansa Musa/Mali [18] (21-3) - I completely agree with @Drivingrevilo (once again!) and have very little to add on the subject of Mali. I think a lot of people may be remembering the amazing mid-game they had as Mali once they got going, and not the re-rolls on start in Deity after early war.
Peter/Russia [39]
Saladin/Arabia [26]

My voting list looks like this:

1. Peter
2. Tokimune
3. Saladin
4. Ghandi
5. Chandragupta
6. Poland
7. Mali

I might be talked out of 6 and 7 but to be honest I'm pretty firmly set on top 5.

 

[JhGf_123]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [29]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [4]
Mansa Musa/Mali [15] (18-3) Gotta love a good dogpile – especially since I've been calling for Mali's head for several pages. I think we should pin this beautiful comment from CrabHelmet:

I think a lot of people may be remembering the amazing mid-game they had as Mali once they got going, and not the re-rolls on start in Deity after early war.

Mali has awesome potential, *IF* and only *IF* you survive until that point. And even if you do get the ball rolling, you're still 30–40 turns behind where Peter or Hojo or Saladin would be at that equivalent point.

EDIT: forgot to add the most basic point of all: Mali is situationally dependent on literally the worst terrain type in the game, desert. This doesn't matter as much later on, when you've got the Sugubas / IZs / trade routes to make up for it. But early on, it's often fatal. Another aspect of Mali's design which people keep overlooking.

Peter/Russia [39]
Saladin/Arabia [27] (26+1) I think some people are overestimating his powers: apart from the need to reach cartography, having lots of science is, y'know, sorta irrelevant in RV. But he definitely doesn't deserve to be this low. A literal guaranteed prophet, and dirt cheap tier 3 religious buildings. I keep going back and forth between him and Hojo for my number 2 spot, but he's certainly up in the running.

Since we're now apparently doing this, my personal top 10 would be:
1.) Peter
2.) Hojo/Saladin
3.) Hojo/Saladin
4.) Gandhi
5.) Chandragupta
6.) Poland
7.) Mali

 

[Weraptor]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26] (29-3) Last time I checked, RV are won by Apostle spam, not Missionaries or trade routes. They are nice, but not good enough in means of converting other big religious empires.
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [4]
Mansa Musa/Mali [15]
Peter/Russia [39]
Saladin/Arabia [28] (27+1) A little bump for the guaranteed Prophet helping you establish a stronger early game position.

 

[King William I]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [4] - 3 = 1

Someone made a good point about using Crusade in tandem with their culture bomb conversion. However, that convinced me that Poland is meant to use religion as an aid in domination victories rather than the other way around. Just my opinion and it's probably wrong.

Mansa Musa/Mali [15]
Peter/Russia [39]
Saladin/Arabia [28] + 1 = 29

Won my first ever RV as this guy, was about to lose to Pericles in culture and rushed out apostles and mosques with cheap faith buying after ignoring it the whole game. Garunteed prophet is not their only strength

 

[Leucarum]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [ 1]
Mansa Musa/Mali [15]
Peter/Russia [40] (39+1) There aren't many civs that can match Russia's faith production and half-price holy sites means they only have to fear an early Stonehenge when claiming their choice of beliefs. As someone who also upvoted Canada a bit, I have no qualms about their tundra start. At the least, think of those tiles as guilt-free district spots.
Saladin/Arabia [26] (29-3) On the other hand, last choice of beliefs is pretty bad now that there are several good ones. If you're aiming for an RV you really ahould be trying to get a religion before this ability matters - and an RV is something you have to make a decision on very early... Most overrated civ in the top 7 for sure.

 

[lotrmith]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [1]
Mansa Musa/Mali [16]
Peter/Russia [37]
Saladin/Arabia [26]

I suppose it's too much to expect that literally demonstrating Mali's abilities that directly contradict assertions by @Drivingrevilo, @CrabHelmet , @JhGf_123 will actually make them rethink their biases. Oh well.

@Drivingrevilo I've literally shown that Mali's gold income comes online right when you need it. Founding religion on turn 50-70 while making 50+gpt and rapidly expanding with Monumentality for even more sugubas (half price) only gets stronger. I'd love to see a Russia game where they're pumping 50+ faith *and* 50+ gold per turn that early.

@CrabHelmet Avoiding early wars is fairly trivial if you remember how diplomacy works and send delegations on the turn you meet a civ (positive modifier), and meet them with scouts (another positive modifier) and tell them you're happy to meet them (another positive modifier). Then send trade routes to your closest, most aggressive neighbors (you'll be doing this anyways as Mali, for yet another positive modifier). Finally you can also trade away luxuries if you're lucky (for yet even another positive modifier). I mean, yet again, demonstrations I did show how simple this is. For example even after DOW'ing Phoenicia, I have a Declared Friendship with her. Diplomacy, it's easy.

@JhGf_123 Troy is that you? I don't think an average of turn 60, religion founded, 57 gold per turn, and 44 faith per turn is anywhere near "30-40 turns behind" Peter, Hojo, or Saladin.

Perhaps your own playstyles and abilities lead you to crushing early defeats as Mali and that's fine, just say so. But don't go pretending that anyone else (besides Saladin) who has to focus on early Holy Sites at the opportunity cost of units is in any worse position to be DOW'd for having a low army value. Keeping also in mind, of course, that I have also demonstrated that buying shrines outright (done in all three examples) made running prayers unnecessary and redundant in 2 of the 3 games and I'm running prayers then, and later, for lack of necessity to build anything else. I could just as easily build and/or buy units if I felt threatened, which I generally don't since, you know, diplomacy is relatively simple.

Have fun working Russia's 1-food tundra tiles. This takes (12?) turns to reach Pop 2 on standard speeds.

@TCBB I don't know how or why you consider this post a personal attack or name-calling? I'm addressing individual points brought up by those users. And to your point, it doesn't matter if Mali gets eliminated either when the reality is they're better than Russia

 

[Leucarum]

@lotrmith - looks like we posted simultaneously. Russia/Arabia votes missing.

 

[EmJayLambert]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland [1] + 1 = 2
New to the thread and don't wanna see Jaddy go. Culture Bomb conversions are underrated and she can get huge FPT if you play things right and get a load of relics from dead Apostles.
Mansa Musa/Mali [16]
Peter/Russia [37]
Saladin/Arabia [26-3] = 23
I agree that having to rely on getting a religion by default (the two sweetest words in the English language) is not great.

 

[_Malachite_]

Chandragupta/India [17]
Gandhi/India [26]
Hojo Tokimune/Japan [31]
Jadwiga/Poland ELIMINATED (2-3) I've read the arguments made by people who have defended Poland in the past, and they made some good arguments that allowed Poland to fight its way to the top 7. With that said, I still view Poland as a bundle of abilities that aren't individually particularly strong, especially compared to what the other civs here have to offer. I could be underrating culture bombs, but I have to fall back to my experience and say that they come into play far too little to make much of a difference. She had a good run, but she falls short of the potential of the remaining civilizations.
Mansa Musa/Mali [16]
Peter/Russia [37]
Saladin/Arabia [24] (23+1) Saladin is getting burst down way too early. His main strength lies in the fact that he could either immediately pursue a religious game or use his fall back option to pick up a religion later if he needs to do so. None of the other civs have that kind of guaranteed versatility. If you need to take care of a bunch of barbarians or an aggressive neighbouring civilization, you'll be able to do so immediately without the risk of sacrificing your RV.