Seems hard to get a religion on Emperor

[Amrunril]

I think it's more a problem with the AI's difficulty-based bonuses being so heavily frontloaded than a problem with the religion mechanic. Faith/Prophet generation mechanics in isolation are fine IMO.

Exactly, as I note later in my post, the issue stems from the AI's prioritization and start bonuses rather than the underlying mechanics.

 

[Mr. Der]

For those who were wondering what happens when you don't found a religion: It's not the end of the world. If you have massive faith output (which I find happens easily) you can still purchase great people for cheap early on. One of my favorites is to buy an early great writer. It will give you an insane cultural advantage. You can also buy units with theocracy, and then there's also buying buildings of whatever religion your cities end up as.

One strategy I noticed no one mentioned has to do with Rome. Rome has such insane culture from the get go you can actually get political philosophy and the great prophet bonus with it while its still relevant. Having the monument auto-built means you save precious turns right at the start, and makes it less painful to rush a shrine. This is even more viable if you run into a cultural city state near the start. Its honestly one of the less clunky ways of doing it I think. Rome is nuts at the start.

 

[Art Morte]

I'm finding it pretty random when it's tough to get a religion (on Emperor and beyond) and when not. Sometimes I can get it easily and sometimes it seems impossible. What I find disappointing is when a super religious civ like Spain doesn't rush to get a great prophet.

 

[Rosty K]

I'm finding it pretty random when it's tough to get a religion (on Emperor and beyond) and when not. Sometimes I can get it easily and sometimes it seems impossible. What I find disappointing is when a super religious civ like Spain doesn't rush to get a great prophet.

Spain is only religious on paper though, there is nothing in their abilities to help them rush the religion.

 

[Art Morte]

Spain is only religious on paper though, there is nothing in their abilities to help them rush the religion.

But their abilities become next to useless if they don't found a religion. They should rush to get one, simple as that. Yet it seems totally random to me whether they do or don't. I played a game recently where three prophets had been taken and I was hoping to get one, at that point Spain was earning a grand total of 1 great prophet points per turn. Totally nonsensical.

 

[kaspergm]

I do agree that balance is off on religion on Emperor difficulty. One can always argue where the cut-off point should be for it to be realistic for the player to go for a religion, but imo. it should definitely be above Emperor (i.e. it should be viable on Emperor). However, that's not really the case. It's very much possible, but it's going to set you back a lot, probably so much that the collective benefits you'll get over entire game will be less than the cost of actually getting it. Here I'm thinking about allocating the first district slot to holy site in at least one (and possibly two) cities, a lot of hammers being pumped into those sites and associated buildings (or projects) and time lost that could instead have gone into military units or other districts.

 

[Archon_Wing]

Play as Arabia?

But yes the AI's obsession with religion needs to be addressed. I think either a greater portion of civs should be able to found a religion, or have some way that a non-founder can take on a religion.

 

[antimony]

Another option is to set up an early rush and take AI cities with holy sites before they get the GP themselves.

 

[Bee7]

The tendency of the AI to flood your territory with religious units is a huge pain in the ass. Even if you don't care about religion, they hamper the movement of your units in your own territory.

Couldn't agree more with this. Flocks of AI religious units are the bane of my life. They do sometimes bring benefits, if the religion they spread allows you to build, but mostly they just get in the way. One fix would be to allow military units to occupy the same hex when you aren't at war with their home nation, another would be to choke their build rate down to something sensible. I have twice had more than twenty religious units wandering around my patch, which is ridiculous. Since you usually can't tell the sending nation to stop punting them your way, one of the few alternatives to putting up with them is to declare a religious war. If the developers are trying to reduce the amount of warring in Civ 6, as has so often been suggested, then a solution to religious spam would be high on my agenda. Mind you, it is fun hoovering the little beasts up with scouts once war is declared.

 

[Kyro]

I think there shouldn't be a limit on number of Religions that can be founded per game, there should be as many as there are beliefs.

Removing inflation of Faith costs for religious units and making cities less resistant to conversion will resolve the issue of a Religious victory being too difficult.

Also the 'remove heresy' ability of Inquisitors makes defending against conversion way too easy. You spend two missionaries wasting all their charges to convert less than half of a city and all it takes is 1 charge from an inquisitor to undo all the effort. You can't even touch the Inquisitor inside the city. What gives?

Stating there needs to be a limit to the number of Religions because Religious victories would be an uphill task otherwise is ignoring the root cause entirely. The number of Religions is not the issue at all, the root cause is the game mechanics that make conversion such an uphill task.

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Also, if I don't get a religion, what do I do with the faith?

In my current game I managed to miss out on religion.

However, I am suzerain of Valletta and can purchase many buildings and city walls with faith. 80 faith for ancient walls is an absolute bargain

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/City-state_(Civ6)

 

[Depravo]

The tendency of the AI to flood your territory with religious units is a huge pain in the ass. Even if you don't care about religion, they hamper the movement of your units in your own territory.

And they ONLY seem to do this if you've founded a religion. In my current game, I didn't bother and they haven't sent a single missionary my way, even though my cities are free for the taking.

 

[zxcvbob]

If you play as Arabia and get the Last Prophet for free, just save him until you have a holy district in every city as well as a temple somewhere (meanwhile you are accumulating faith to buy apostles). All the best beliefs are taken anyway so you don't lose much by waiting. When you found the religion, all of your cities that have a holy site will convert to your new religion. This goes for captured cities too, hint, hint.

 

[UWHabs]

If you play as Arabia and get the Last Prophet for free, just save him until you have a holy district in every city as well as a temple somewhere (meanwhile you are accumulating faith to buy apostles). All the best beliefs are taken anyway so you don't lose much by waiting. When you found the religion, all of your cities that have a holy site will convert to your new religion. This goes for captured cities too, hint, hint.

While this may work sometimes, it should be noted that just because you get the second-last prophet doesn't mean you found the last religion. It's possible someone else will grab the prophet but not found a religion on that turn, so it might be worth it to rush to get the second-last choice of beliefs. And it very well might be the case that you're better to found earlier to get the earlier benefit.

As for how much the AI will go try to convert your cities, I think it's more a function of the AI and their strategies. My current game I founded a religion and haven't seen a horde come my way - the occasional opposing missionary or apostle. Helps to be allied with Jerusalem and Yerevan in defense, though. I've had other games where my territory is essentially a battleground between opposing forces, and any matter in between. Often it seems like when I want my neighbour to spread their religion to me they never do.

 

[zxcvbob]

Play as Kongo and you'll never see a foreign missionary.

 

[agonistes]

If you want a religion, second or third (first is a dice roll), and you don't yet have a 'feel' for the timing behind things, I wouldn't produce more than one or two settlers to start, and I'd go very light on units. Check the Great Person screen every other turn until you start seeing prophet points being generated, and then check it every turn. Someone mentioned running prayers, and this is sensible, but remember that if you have the time to get a shrine up, its better to build the shrine before running prayers. The shrine will double the GPP output of the holy site while you are running prayers. And that will help combat Russia and Divine Spark. Having a 2:1 GPP advantage is nothing. That can disappear fast. I aim for 3 holy sites and two shrines, and then run prayers if I'm nervous. I've had great days where I can get 3 shrines up, and bad days where I get one and have to burn precious turns running prayers. But I get my religion.

I guess I should mention too, don't waste time researching any unnecessary techs before you go for astrology. You might need mining first if you don't have a patch of land.

God-King is a tough one, and I've tinkered with this choice a bit. Essentially, if you are running prayers, you are generating the faith for your pantheon. And having +1 production will get those holy sites and shrines out faster. But I've found that if you aren't getting faith from another source, yea, you have to bite the bullet and take God-King to have a shot at the pantheon you want. If you don't care about the pantheon (I do), then I'd skip God-King and take the production, and pick the pantheon up as you are generating faith with the shrines/prayers.

The ai WILL purchase great people, make no mistake, so if the race is close, buy the prophet as soon as you can.

If you don't get a religion, faith can be used to buy great people and units. Someone mentioned Valetta, and while I don't usually concern myself with Valetta, I have been suzy of her once, and the boost is considerable. Especially on x2 marathon, which I tend to play. And then you have naturalists. In a current game I can buy a naturalist every 4 turns at the moment, and that is handy if you are going really wide.

Another little tip is that if you research animal husbandry first (and really, if I beeline astrology, I usually find I can research at least one other tech before I start building holy sites), you can hopefully sell some horses for good cash which you then can use to buy shrines. I'm not sure how game speed affects trades, but I get usually get 300+ gold per horse, and in a pinch I trade off 3 gpt for 100 gold - to each ai as long as I have the gpt to swallow. So if you take husbandry first and have horses, you might be able to make a couple of trades before you are done with your first holy site. Obviously buy the shrine in your least productive city.

You could always chop for the holy sites too... but I don't like to chop, and I find you don't have to.

edit: I guess I should mention too that I push hard for religion because I go for specific beliefs. If you only want a religion for a religious vc, I guess you only need to make sure you get *a* prophet, as opposed to the second (or third). My goal is the second.

edit 2: Guess I should also mention... Stonehenge doesn't guarantee first religion. I've sat a warrior on Stonehenge before, and watched the ai's prophet bob and weave for a number of turns until my own prophet had popped. Theoretically, you could put a scout on every holy site/stonehenge you can reach and thwart every ai's attempt at religion.

 

[Nefelia]

China can pretty much guarantee Stonehenge at Emperor difficulty, so long as you have stone within the radius of your first city.

Build order is something like: scout -> scout -> monument -> warrior -> builder -> builder -> Stonehenge -> Warrior.

It comes at a pretty high opportunity cost, but should guarantee first pick at religion. I am pretty particular about my religious bonuses, so I swallow the cost without complaint.

 

[UWHabs]

China can pretty much guarantee Stonehenge at Emperor difficulty, so long as you have stone within the radius of your first city.

Build order is something like: scout -> scout -> monument -> warrior -> builder -> builder -> Stonehenge -> Warrior.

It comes at a pretty high opportunity cost, but should guarantee first pick at religion. I am pretty particular about my religious bonuses, so I swallow the cost without complaint.

That doesn't even guarantee it at emperor. Stonehenge falls usually between turns 22-30 most games for me (I'm at immortal, so maybe a few turns later on emperor). You can basically need to go slinger->builder->builder to "guarantee" it. I also had one game which I quit, where I rushed and got stonehenge, only to realize that I hadn't gotten a pantheon yet and so couldn't found a religion. Had to switch to god-king, and then wait another 25 turns to found the religion...

 

[Archon_Wing]

Spain is only religious on paper though, there is nothing in their abilities to help them rush the religion.

Well, that's why they're kinda weak.

 

[Rosty K]

That doesn't even guarantee it at emperor. Stonehenge falls usually between turns 22-30 most games for me (I'm at immortal, so maybe a few turns later on emperor). You can basically need to go slinger->builder->builder to "guarantee" it. I also had one game which I quit, where I rushed and got stonehenge, only to realize that I hadn't gotten a pantheon yet and so couldn't found a religion. Had to switch to god-king, and then wait another 25 turns to found the religion...

Well, when you already have a prophet, you are guaranteed the religion sooner or later, so a pantheon is a lesser problem now. Also, you don't even need god-king as Stonehenge and/or Holy Site produce faith themselves.