The race to found religions: cheese?

[moon cricket]

I'm not sold on this holy cities thing yet.

In Sullla's walkthrough he demonstrates how a holy city pays upkeep for his whole empire. Given the permanent cash cow that religious shrines can become, is there any reason to pursue an early tech path other than mysticism, meditation, poly, monotheism?

Even if all or some of the religions you found don't end up spreading widely, it seems like the must-do strategy to found them anyway, at the very least in order to stop opponents getting the bonus from it.

Thoughts?

 

[walkerjks]

At noble, I have been able to consistently get 4 religions if I race for the tech. The problem is the techs I have to defer to get there. I can't really get the religions, and military techs and worker developmental techs. So my cities either grow too slowly or I'm using chariots against the enemy's axemen.

So right now, I'm starting to prefer grabbing the Polytheism and Monotheism religions early and ignoring the rest.

Besides, it's a lot of work to develop 4 religions (think of all the missionary's you have to develop). Plus, I figure once I start playing at higher difficulty levels, the more advanced religions will be harder to get first anyway. So developing single player strategies around Poly and Mono seems a sounder long-term goal anyway.

 

[Stevenpfo]

You don't have to develope all of them. I usually just pick one that's already started to spread on it's own and develope that. I just keep theothers for free bonus buildings and deny the AI them.

 

[kbmusiclover]

One major thing about religions I've found is that it's great to found one first, considering the culture it gives you. The most important thing is the relations it gives you with other cultures (i.e. Sophisticated French Jews tend to despise Heathen Barbaric Buddhist Aztecs).

 

[Legionary37]

If you rush for the religions, you may miss out on the war techs. That could make you vulnerable to a less cultured, more aggressive civ.

 

[gravix]

Current Noble game I'm playing, I've managed to found all but Buddhism. The amount of gold that you get by mid to end game is incredible; I'm set on 20% culture, 80% science, and I still have +100 or so going into the treasury every turn.

Obviously if you are in danger of getting smashed early in the game, you should stay away from religion and work on your military. If you're doing pretty okay, then grab all the religions you can. Adaptability is the key, I think.

 

[fastspawn]

In noble on an archipelago map, i tried racing for all the religions. Usually what happens is there is always one that u miss out, the one being hinduism/buddhism. On the third attempt I managed to get all the religions, by destroying egyptians early on (same island).
And I really decided to only reseach everything that had to do with religion all the way to divine right and philosophy.

In the end I only let out confuciouism to the other civs, and began bribing everyone and everyone loved me and I won a diplomatic victory. Yet there was no movie?

 

[Pinstar]

I wish Theocracy came a bit earlier (like with monotheism or something) because I often find that I only have one religion in the beginning, and by the time I get theocracy, at least one other religion has 'seeded' in my empire.


As for worker, building and military techs, I tend to skip the whole buddism/hindu/jewish race and b-line for Confucianism. It's early enough to be spread, but you pick up some nice and useful techs along the way. Code of laws isn't half bad a tech either.