Spain is quite strong when being able to own a religon

myclan

King
Joined
Feb 26, 2008
Messages
673
Mission I think is one of the best improvement in Civ6, +2 science +4 faith if near a campus and on a foreign continent provide very good output.

With the shrine and temple provide culture belief you can get culture with rather low production cost.

With Spain ability you get 6 extra gold from foreign continent trade route, so gold is not a problem.

So all you need is HS+Campus+CH then you can have gold, faith, science and culture.

Spain UU is also very good. With a missionary and policy and religion, you get 55+10+4+4=73, even stronger than infantry!

Though I know founding a religion and survive the early game is quite challenging. WHat do you think?
 
I think that's sort of the issue about them - the Civ 5 Byzantium condundrum of 'major religion based bonuses but no help or guarantees actually founding a religion.
 
You are dependent on the continent system, and you still need districts. It's not bad as a result of conquest, but they really suffer the same problem England does. You just have to jump through so many hoops to even use the civ, and I hate design like that.

Although funny enough they don't need to found a religion to take advantage of most of these bonuses at least.
 
Why do they need to found a religion to benefit from those bonuses?
 
Why do they need to found a religion to benefit from those bonuses?

The Mission requires a Holy Site to get the 4 faith yield and building Holy Sites just for that just doesn't seem like a good idea. If you don't have Holy Sites, you end up with just a 2f/2s improvement (STILL need a campus but at least that's not that bad) which is really not that good considering it comes at Exploration.

There's also no way to really control "different religion" bonus without founding a religion yourself.

I guess you don't need to found a religion to take advantage of the conquistador ability but putting in the faith to do that kind of thing seems awkward, though still viable.
 
I find them to secretly be quite the science powerhouse. One good mountain city on a foreign continent can have multiple campuses' worth of science from Missions.
 
The Mission requires a Holy Site to get the 4 faith yield and building Holy Sites just for that just doesn't seem like a good idea. If you don't have Holy Sites, you end up with just a 2f/2s improvement (STILL need a campus but at least that's not that bad) which is really not that good considering it comes at Exploration.

Faith is a powerful currency. Maybe even more powerful if you're not worried about defending your religion.

The bigger game issue is why you can't win a religious victory just because you didn't found the religion? If you adopt it and take it's conversion to heart, like say … oh I don't know, maybe Spain under Philip? … why doesn't that count too?

The game keeps track of the history of religion conversions of each city. A number of game effects take it into account ("once per city" ones, for example). Religious victory could go to the civ who actively converted the most cities to the one true faith after the whole planet comes to recognize that it is, in fact, the one true faith.
 
Civ 4 managed to do it with the Religious leader diplomatic victory. Wonder if they'll ever work on religion.
 
Faith is a powerful currency. Maybe even more powerful if you're not worried about defending your religion.

The bigger game issue is why you can't win a religious victory just because you didn't found the religion? If you adopt it and take it's conversion to heart, like say … oh I don't know, maybe Spain under Philip? … why doesn't that count too?

The game keeps track of the history of religion conversions of each city. A number of game effects take it into account ("once per city" ones, for example). Religious victory could go to the civ who actively converted the most cities to the one true faith after the whole planet comes to recognize that it is, in fact, the one true faith.

True, although Spain is particularly lackluster without a Religion. No Religion, and your Unique Musket man’s ability to convert cities is not really useful nor are you enhanced inquisitors. That’s different to say Norway - they really are all about faith, and getting a Religion and spending it on something other than settlers and Units is a mistake. Khmer has a similar problem - but weird building Missionaries if you don’t have a Religion, but it’s not as big a deal for them.

To be clear, Spain does get a buff for getting a Religion. The buff is ... they get more benefit from having a Religion. So, the opportunity cost of going for a Religion early is lower.

My gripe with Spain is that I’m having to grab a Religion much earlier than makes sense for Spain historically. But if you wait, you risk losing out on a Religion. Usually I just grab my prophet at sit on him until the Medieval or Renaissance, but then you don’t get much choice with beliefs. Spain is the only Civ that really bugs me with this - I don’t seem to care if other Civs get their Religion too early...
 
I'd love Spain more if the AI doesn't make it its mission to rush religion (yes, I know R&F toned it down, but still).

My personal fix for them is for them to get Great Prophet points on killing enemy units, which should emphasize their domination/religious style a bit more.
 
Holy sites can still be decent if you can reliably get golden ages (which obviously gets harder with higher difficulties) because even without a religion, Monumentality can be powerful for expansion and development, which Spain wants to do.

This isn't to say the Mission is one of the more powerful improvements in the game: the hoops to jump through for you and the techs needed to get there on a lot of maps keep it off that list. Spain, like England, is a "play this way because it'd be historically accurate and cool" civ. Which isn't a hit on FIraxis - every game does this, and some experiments work and some don't. This one just didn't work and will hopefully get a mod in GS.
 
I’d be sad if Spain got a boost to actually getting a Religion. If every Religious Civ gets a bonus to getting a Religion, then how is it a competition to get one?

Indeed, I sort of dislike how Arabia automatically gets a prophet - it makes them a bit more boring. But having a guaranteed prophet does let them have abilities tailored to that, and I guess gives players an option to have a confirmed Religion from turn 1.

What the game is missing is more reason to have and spread a Religion which isn’t your own. The game is set up that way - if you’d don’t found a Religion, you can still benefit from some beliefs, and spread the religion to yourself and others, and get some minor tourism / diplomatic benefits. But because you don’t want to help the AI get a Religious Victory, and the benefits aren’t that great, it just doesn’t happen.
 
I think the trades routes ability, while paraded as the civ ability, really just isn't enough to be one. I'm not sure if dumping in even more power, or adding another component is the right move.
The best one are easily conquistadors. Niterless muskets! I mean you can just buy some crappy missionary or two to support the offensive, that only requires one holy site in a religious city. Obviously getting a chaplain promoted apostle is ideal here.

But Missions do get a nice +2 science boost at cultural heritage; while right now this is way too late in the game, if GS kind of stretches things out to the end, maybe it wouldn't be awful. 4 science and faith on a tile heading into the home stretch ain't bad. I personally think that all UIs need to be looked at for a balance pass on tech tree boosts, though. Cough sphinxes cough
Right now it's basically a renaissance ziggurat.
 
Spain is also quite good to guarantee a golden age after conquistador become available. When using them to take a city from different religon, they convert it before taking it, so always a +3 Era Point bonus for each city.
Holy sites can still be decent if you can reliably get golden ages (which obviously gets harder with higher difficulties) because even without a religion, Monumentality can be powerful for expansion and development, which Spain wants to do.

This isn't to say the Mission is one of the more powerful improvements in the game: the hoops to jump through for you and the techs needed to get there on a lot of maps keep it off that list. Spain, like England, is a "play this way because it'd be historically accurate and cool" civ. Which isn't a hit on FIraxis - every game does this, and some experiments work and some don't. This one just didn't work and will hopefully get a mod in GS.
I usually don't pursuit a very fast victory so often end the game in Industrial era. But by that time there is no Monumentality so I will try to buy a lot of worker by the end of Renassiance. Renassiance is also the age you can get lots of faith thanks to theology. In my recent game I got a Golden age during Medievial age and resulted in a normal age in Renassiance, it's just painful to have to build the worker in every city with hammer.

I enter a normal Classical Age most of the time and golden age in Medievial easily. To gain one more Golden age in Renassiance is very challenging without effective conquest.
 
Last edited:
You don't really need to found a religion with Spain, you just need to have one, and you will get one unless you start with no other civs on your landmass. Holy sites are still useful if you don't have the founder belief. Monumentality has been mentioned, and faith can be pretty important to get a few great people you really want. The trade route bonus can also be very strong if you start reasonably close to have a continental border.
 
Without a religion Spain may not enjoy the +4 combat bonus (with policy it is +8), quite a lot when conquering the world. I also wonder what the conquistador will do if I don't have a religion.
 
The Mission requires a Holy Site to get the 4 faith yield and building Holy Sites just for that just doesn't seem like a good idea. If you don't have Holy Sites, you end up with just a 2f/2s improvement (STILL need a campus but at least that's not that bad) which is really not that good considering it comes at Exploration.

There's also no way to really control "different religion" bonus without founding a religion yourself.

I guess you don't need to found a religion to take advantage of the conquistador ability but putting in the faith to do that kind of thing seems awkward, though still viable.

Did they change something? Far as I know non of the bonusses of the mission require an adjacent holy site.

http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Mission_(Civ6)
 
Without a religion Spain may not enjoy the +4 combat bonus (with policy it is +8), quite a lot when conquering the world. I also wonder what the conquistador will do if I don't have a religion.

There's no reason to forego the combat bonus. Pick a religion and spread it yourself amongst your own cities.

The conquistor's bonus means your new city gets the same religion, so you retain a majority religion and thereby maintain the combat bonus.
 
The bigger game issue is why you can't win a religious victory just because you didn't found the religion? If you adopt it and take it's conversion to heart, like say … oh I don't know, maybe Spain under Philip? … why doesn't that count too?
Because Philip would die and the inquisitors would appoint an Italian proxy to the throne :D.
 
Back
Top Bottom