What Do We Think of Religion in Civ VI?

[Finvola]

I turn it off as a victory type and use a mod to prevent civs I don't have open borders with from sending their religious units in. I wish we could use a policy card to stop them from entering like we do with rock bands. IIRC, there was an option/government choice to do that in IV?

 

[Oldlamehand]

I turn it off as a victory type and use a mod to prevent civs I don't have open borders with from sending their religious units in. I wish we could use a policy card to stop them from entering like we do with rock bands. IIRC, there was an option/government choice to do that in IV?

In IV theocracy prevented other than your state religion from spreading across your empire.

 

[Finvola]

Ah that's right, it's been a few years since I played. Something like that or even a policy card like the rock bands have would make such a difference. For now, I'll just keep disabling religious victories. I'd only remove the border control mod if I was playing Kongo.

 

[Abaxial]

Just thinking aloud here - suppose there was religion but not RV? After all, if the whole world IRL converted to Islam, who "wins"? Saudi Arabia? Christianity was founded by what nation? The founding and spreading of religions tends to be carried out by non-state actors, although it may be encouraged, as witness the sending of catholic missionaries to the New World.

So imagine a system by which religions were primarily handled by game systems. A Great Prophet appears randomly every so often (most likely in the early stages of the game) and founds a new religion with random beliefs. This then starts to spread. The player can take various actions to approve or disapprove of the new faith in his territory. If the faith becaomes a state religion, that gives a boost to relations to other nations that have the same religion, and possibly a negative opinion with nations that have a hostile faith. (It would be a characteristic of a religion as to whether it regarded itself as The One True Faith or not.)

Furthermore, not all the beliefs of a religion will necessarily be helpful. For instance, if the religion preaches vegetarianism, then sheep and fish are no longer any use to you, so you may want to discourage this religion, unless it has other benefits that outweight this.

Also, just as religion expands in the earlier stages of the game, it could contract later on, as increasing scientific development boosts secularism or atheism.

Clearly this would be a very major change, perhaps for Civ 7, not just another game mode. I think it could be interesting, and would remove many of the complaints about religion posted above.

 

[untitledjuan]

It sounds like most people are in agreement that religion as a victory condition needs to either go or be reworked. I personally don't mind the way it's implemented, of course I don't have as much experience in how it worked in the past, and would hate to see it completely go.

I am open to the idea of combining religion and diplomacy into a single victory type if it makes room for a possible "aggressive" economic win condition. At least I like the idea of domination victory not being the only aggressive way to win.

Maybe the idea of a world congress can start out in the medieval era with religious councils, which then expands from there.

I think that in Civ4 a sort of "World Congress" could be made earlier on if someone constructed the Apostolic Palace wonder, where all civs sharing a religion could vote when this wonder was built in the Renaissance

 

[Mahi]

I don't mind defending my cities against religious victories. That I can handle and enjoy. But the tedious gameplay to get a religious victory is annoying. I'm not sure I think religious combat should be a thing. The idea seems a bit stupid to me that the combat is done by apostles, I'd rather had that you could purchase certain religious miitary units (like warrior monks, crussader units, etc.). I get the impression that this was the initial idea but they never added more religious units to the pool.

A couple of things that could be interesting:

1. Remove combat ability of apostles, missionaries, inquisisitors. Let them be able to pass closed borders and spread/remove religion peacefully (spread strength would proabably need adjustments)
2. Add more various religious military units that can be purchased by faith. These units can only attack other religous military units, like the apostles today. Perhaps make it possible to upgrade to a normal military unit with a high cost of cold.
3. Add great people person "Religious General" (move Jeanne d'arc to this category) or use great prophets.

That or get rid of religious combat in total and only use military units to do the fighting. Perhaps allow some purchase of religious military units that get bonus if you Casus Belli a religous war.

 

[Vargas1]

Considering that religion has frequently been very active in advancing the sciences and that the idea that science and religion are enemies was mostly a holdover from Victorian melodrama, I would not be thrilled to see this particular myth perpetuated. However, I agree that some kind of secularism mechanic in the late game would make sense.

Fair enough - without getting us off topic, as an American living in a fairly conservative area, it often appears to me that religion and science remain in opposition at least in some aspects. But that's a pretty current view for a historical system, and I'm not wedded to the idea of science being the tradeoff for religion - just something that signifies secularism as a conscious choice, rather than the absence of religion. It also would be neat to implement some sort of benefit for religious freedom - there's a little flavor of this with India's civ ability, but I think it would be interesting to have some sort of mechanic to encourage different religions to flourish in your civ, rather than constantly being at war with each other.

 

[criZp]

If you do not turn off a religious victory, you can only pretend until the AI lands 10 religious units in your territory in one round and seeks an aggressive religious victory. I experienced games where I was forced to declare war just so I could use the military to eliminate religious units.

Yeah luckily I turn off every victory type and just have fun building stuff instead

 

[Oldlamehand]

Yeah luckily I turn off every victory type and just have fun building stuff instead

I always leave all victorious conditions on, although I never strive for religious, cultural or diplomatic victory. It's just an AI option that makes the game harder for me.

 

[Socrates99]

Mostly I just dont like it as a VC. It kind of feels like dom lite. Having it as a VC made it necessary to nerf the passive spread we had in V which makes busy work out of something that felt more natural in V. It also means if you're not a founder you dont want to pick a religion based on its bonuses and spread it in your territory like you would in V because you could inadvertently aid another civ in winning. Just a weird setup.

 

[acluewithout]

I honestly really like the Religion Game. I’d happily lose Religious Victory. But the Religion Mechanics themselves are great.

It would really only take a handful of very small tweaks for Religion to knock it out of the park for me - basically just add late game Reformation Beliefs, a bit more religious unit diversity and a few more places where Religion interacts with Loyalty.

I particularly like the way Religion has got mixed up with Diplomacy. Heaps of fun right there.

 

[walkerjks]

What works for you about the Religion Game in Civ VI (or in previous iterations of Civ)? What doesn’t? Looking into the (possibly distant) future for Civ7, what would an ideal Religion game look like to you?

In 93%* of my games, I don't found a religion. I actively pick slightly bigger (standard size) maps to play on because i don't want the AI to poach a religious victory from my inevitable cultural victory. I also tend to pick crazy religious AI opponents (excepting Peter) because I know they are less likely to compete with culture and I have no desire to compete with them on religion anyway. So that's how religion typically affects my civ 6 games.

Now that wasn't your question. I like the mechanisms of founding a religion and I like that the number of available religions in a given game is slightly limited. Some of the religious benefits might be over powered (*cough* work ethic). I think the way religion spreads makes sense, though religious combat for the AI might be more broken than regular combat for the AI - a good player will destroy the AI in religious spread or regular combat.

I like the "cultivate, not spam" comment. Tourism (well, until rock bands), is kind of a cultivate, not spam victory condition. There is early cultivation of religion, but ultimately, you are trying to overwhelm your opponent. And there are too many ways to goose your faith production to make spamming not pretty much inevitable. Think if there were science or cultural equivalents to pantheons ad religious beliefs - really, you're going to make my theater squares +12 or +14 or +16 culture? And then you are going to convert that culture into production as well? yeah, that should work).

Peter religious victory, Peter cultural victories, Peter science victories, and Peter domination victories are fun (I will never claim a score or diplomatic victory is fun), but come on, man! Peter exposes pretty much all the current issues with religion in civ 6. And while Peter, specifically is a bigger problem than other civs, Mali, Pedro, and others can exploit the religious systems in some pretty extreme ways as well - they just don't have 40% off holy sites.

*Completely made up statistic, put probably close.

 

[MisterBoomBoom]

The Inquisitor and guru units were a pleasant detail surprise with the religious game I must add. Again I just wish they just took more advantage of what they put into the game.

 

[Snarf054]

I'm not sure if this has been suggested or not but Religion should work like spies do. Produce a missionary embed him in a city, give him some missions, and let him go to work. This current system of zealots and heretics throwing lightning bolts at each other non stop all over the world is just ridiculous. Have more Great Prophets and give them powers like the other great people. Let them promote all your missionaries, perform some sort of miracle or the like that will increase your religious pressure, ect. Keep Apostles but make their only use to upgrade your beliefs and eat a little faith. You could also have inquisitors or similar that protect your cites from other religions. Would be a lot more fun and way less annoying than the current system and I m might even turn religious victory back on for the first time in years.

 

[Archon_Wing]

One note and extremely imbalanced.

I was hoping for more complexity like splinter religions so not everything has to do with that rat race early game, but we're kinda passed that.

Some of the beliefs are fun, but also extremely one dimensional.

 

[Shadowstrike]

Somewhat tangential, but having skipped from Civ4 to Civ6, I found that the sheer number of pantheon beliefs was kind of overwhelming. After a lot of games, it's gotten better, since I can categorize them based on what they do (i.e. give you culture/production/faith bonuses for certain terrains, versus things like earth goddess or religious settlements). But for the first few times, I was definitely overwhelmed by the sheer number of choices

 

[Abaxial]

Incidentally, I really disagree that missionaries and gurus are not useful.

Missionaries - just after founding a religion (with tithes, natch) you want to start getting a few cities hauling in the gold ASAP. Don't wait for an apostle, get a cheap missionary out there now. Also, it can be later that you have one isolated city you want to convert, and a missionary is more economic than sending an apostle.

Gurus - to win a RV efficiently, you don't want to spend time converting cities by spreading religion. Form a little "debating club" of at least four apostles, preferable two with the debating promotion. Add a guru. Send the team touring round other nations and combatting (and eliminating) opposing religious units as you find them. This will convert cities without depleting your apostles. You will need gurus to prevent your apostles having to head home for R&R. Prepare to send a stream of them as needed. The more religious units the AI builds, the quicker you can convert his cities.

 

[kaspergm]

I think I liked religion a bit better in Civ 5 than in Civ 6, but neither game got it completely right. Here are some random thoughts ...

Religious Victory ... well, people got what they asked for. I see a lot of dislike about this feature, but basically people kept requesting it back in Civ 5 days. Ironically we see a lot of people calling for an economic victory in the Monopolies thread currently ... just saying. When that's said, I do agree this particular victory type is very boring to pursue and without Yerevan in the game very longwinded as well. But then again, the same can be said about most if not all of the victory types in Civ (6), so I guess we're looking at a bigger and more general problem here.

About limits on religion. I don't like this feature. I know it's supposed to be a race towards great prophets, but I'd rather see some other mechanism in play here. Particularly the idea of reforming an existing religion - so if you're late to the race and doesn't get to found a religion, you should have the option to adopt and then reform another civs religion, which obviously should cause major diplomatic conflict with said civ, but should give you ownership of your own religion. In fact, the whole idea of a state religion needs to be (re?)introduced in the game, i.e. you should be able to name a state religion which should suppress spread of other religions in your cities. Of course there should also be an option to go for no state religion and later in the game possibly even atheism/secularism (supresses all religion, possibly with some other benefits).

About beliefs and balance, apart from some of the imo. very obvious and glaring issues with current beliefs, I wouldn't mind seeing a bit more streamlining, i.e. pantheon beliefs should imo. focus more on giving faith and less on giving other yields or effects. But I guess that's not a clean-cut case, because for civs not focusing on religion, obviously something like Divine Spark in current system can be very juicy (arguably also too juicy imo.).

I wouldn't mind a complete rethinking of how faith works and how it interacts with religious spread, but I'm also aware that such a task would be pretty massive. I dislike how faith has sort of become a universal currency in Civ 6 - buying Great People with faith is at best marginally meaningful, and buying buildings, units and even districts with faith is even less so. But of course if these aspects of faith are removed, we need other applications of it, if it's even to remain a thing - otherwise it'll just end up an empty feature, a bit like tourism is in Civ 6.

 

[Victoria]

Religion itself as a victory condition is a niche fast domination type game you just can outplay the AI in with ease. It is pretty simplistic in my view.

Religion as a concept in the game is to a degree poor because the AI struggles to win this VC meaning every civ that invests in religion puts themselves at a disadvantage conquest wise in the early part of the game. Sure they can take a defensive religion but that is more about playing the faith game. It can however form bonds with diplomacy. Having played diplomacy a lot, it is about tipping a scale and being the same religion gives +5 which is pretty strong. Beyond this, being converted gives you abilities you did not have to work for which is also nice.

Using faith rather than religion is rather different and quite strong, especially with monumentality. So strong that often it is worth investing and not bothering taking a religion but also CV’s are so focused on faith now that it’s become a hybrid approach.

I feel the game has been over tinkered with in some ways and that is so they can deliver more content, less overlap. Religion itself has not changed much and is still of the same value it ever was but faith has become quite dominant in play. Overall I am quite neutral about it while religion has just never felt that interesting. There is not enough differential to make it so.

 

[walkerjks]

Religion as a concept in the game is to a degree poor because the AI struggles to win this VC meaning every civ that invests in religion puts themselves at a disadvantage conquest wise in the early part of the game.

Yep, yep, yep. This is exactly why if I pick my opponents in a culture game, I pick the religious zealots. Let them play their religious games incompetently and I'll work towards what I want. There are times I wish some religion would become the dominant religion in my civ (maybe Chinguetti is an easy suzeiranty), but they tend to be so incompetent this almost never happens.