What could I do if I am not able to found a religion but would like to have a religious victory?

issacxd

Chieftain
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Oct 3, 2017
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I am new to civ series and I am currently playing on Prince difficulty.

I do not know why I cannot recruit a Great Prophet and when I browse the history of recruitment, 4 Great Prophet has been recruited by other civ.

Now I am not able to found a religion and how could I have the religious victory without creating a religion?
 
You cannot. You will either have to pick another victory condition to pursue, or start a new game.
 
Also, conquering an enemy holy city of a certain religion (or even conquering all enemy cities of that religion) does not make it your religion...
 
Oh, that's unfortunate. It seems I have to start a new game. Thanks for your reply!!
 
I am new to civ series and I am currently playing on Prince difficulty.

I do not know why I cannot recruit a Great Prophet and when I browse the history of recruitment, 4 Great Prophet has been recruited by other civ.

Now I am not able to found a religion and how could I have the religious victory without creating a religion?
Since you are new and in case you didn't know: religions are always limited. I think the formula for how many are allowed is half the civs + 1, but it is capped at 7.
On Prince difficulty, you should be more or less save if you research Astrology early and build a holy site as a first district (after building some units usually). Then build a shrine. If you think this is not sufficient, build a holy site in your second city (once you have it). Or do the prayer project in your capital once you have the holy site.
I'm not sure how easy it is to build stonehenge on prince, but this wonder guarantees a religion, the AI loves to build it.
You can also play as Arabia, where you get the last available prophet automatically once all others are used up by the AI.
 
Since you are new and in case you didn't know: religions are always limited. I think the formula for how many are allowed is half the civs + 1, but it is capped at 7.
On Prince difficulty, you should be more or less save if you research Astrology early and build a holy site as a first district (after building some units usually). Then build a shrine. If you think this is not sufficient, build a holy site in your second city (once you have it). Or do the prayer project in your capital once you have the holy site.
I'm not sure how easy it is to build stonehenge on prince, but this wonder guarantees a religion, the AI loves to build it.
You can also play as Arabia, where you get the last available prophet automatically once all others are used up by the AI.
I see. This would be a great help. Thanks for your information !
 
I think the formula for how many are allowed is half the civs + 1, but it is capped at 7.

More precisely, it is half the number of default civs for a particular map +1. So, if you manually add additional civs to, e.g., a Standard sized map, the max religions for that map does not rise with the number of additional civs.
 
More precisely, it is half the number of default civs for a particular map +1. So, if you manually add additional civs to, e.g., a Standard sized map, the max religions for that map does not rise with the number of additional civs.
What about if we manually decrease the number of civs, does that mean everyone gets a religion?
 
I think the limit is too restricting. Even on Prince it's a race and building a holy site sets you so far behind. And this isn't before having to actually spread it.

I also think founding a religion should spread it to X amount of your cities automatically instead of those with holy sites.

ATM, if you want to try religion, Arabia is your best bet. Their ability usually gets you the last prophet, aside from some freak accidents.
 
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Stonehenge does NOT guarantee a religion.

It gives you a great prophet if one is still available. That prophet still has to find a holy site or Stonehenge to found the religion on. It is quite easy to prevent this from happening.

At least until you hit a border pop.
 
What about if we manually decrease the number of civs, does that mean everyone gets a religion?

Certainly, but then the map is going to be pretty empty, which might lead to frustrating game play (excessive barbs, international trade routes lacking range, taking forever to meet other civs, etc
 
Stonehenge does NOT guarantee a religion.

It gives you a great prophet if one is still available. That prophet still has to find a holy site or Stonehenge to found the religion on. It is quite easy to prevent this from happening.

At least until you hit a border pop.

That's true, but Stonehenge usually goes so fast that it is incredibly rare for you to be able to build it after all religions have been founded. Though I suppose it'd be a bad idea to build it later in the game. Not that it's even possible to build SH on many starts anyways, as well is it barely being worth it to build it regardless.
 
@Browd and I'm not 100%, but din't you need a pantheon first to found a religion?

I'm 100% sure the ai has built Stonehenge before I earned a great prophet, but I got my religion first. I believe its often because the ai has to wait for a pantheon.

I've also squatted on Stonehenge and denied the ai prophet entry.

I've also seen Stonehenge built (and Arabia get its prophet, for the matter), but the ai is killed off before founding the religion.

So make no mistake... guarantee of a prophet is not a guarantee of a religion.

That's true, but Stonehenge usually goes so fast that it is incredibly rare for you to be able to build it after all religions have been founded. Though I suppose it'd be a bad idea to build it later in the game. Not that it's even possible to build SH on many starts anyways, as well is it barely being worth it to build it regardless.

I meant it from the other perspective. You can deny a civ a religion even though it has built Stonehenge.
 
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@Browd and I'm not 100%, but din't you need a pantheon first to found a religion?

I'm 100% sure the ai has built Stonehenge before I earned a great prophet, but I got my religion first. I believe its often because the ai has to wait for a pantheon.

I've also squatted on Stonehenge and denied the ai prophet entry.

I've also seen Stonehenge built (and Arabia get its prophet, for the matter), but the ai is killed off before founding the religion.

So make no mistake... guarantee of a prophet is not a guarantee of a religion.

Yes, I had one test game where I rushed to stonehenge but didn't have a pantheon yet. I have also killed an AI before they founded their religion (I was at war with them, and just had to sit on their holy sites as I captured their cities).
 
Stonehenge does NOT guarantee a religion.

It gives you a great prophet if one is still available. That prophet still has to find a holy site or Stonehenge to found the religion on. It is quite easy to prevent this from happening.

At least until you hit a border pop.

Yeah, last game I played, I accidentally killed France's stonehenge prophet before he was able to make it to The Henge to found his religion. The world was -1 religion for the entire game. Oops.
 
I mean you could sit on the Stonehenge tile yes, assuming you can find the civ that built it.

Yeah, last game I played, I accidentally killed France's stonehenge prophet before he was able to make it to The Henge to found his religion. The world was -1 religion for the entire game. Oops.

I wasn't aware Great People can die. I thought they just bounce back to a city if they're "killed"
 
I mean you could sit on the Stonehenge tile yes, assuming you can find the civ that built it.



I wasn't aware Great People can die. I thought they just bounce back to a city if they're "killed"

Not knowing the rules, I took over the city he was sitting in thinking I'd capture him. At the least I thought it would put another GP back into the queue but it didn't seem to.
 
Was France just wiped out?
 
Yea, in that case everything they had would vanish. Great people (and archaeologists for some reason) can't be killed by normal means.

Anyhow, can there be more GPs than religons? If not, I don't really see a point in denying it if they already took a prophet.
 
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