What is the point of faith?

[khdou]

Just got G&K yesterday and played a quick game on it. Played as mongols and decided to invest a lot of early points into faith to get religion. My question is- after a while, you start getting most of the cities converted, so what can you do beyond that? After you get the 5 beliefs, your great prophets just spread religion, so is there any advantage of getting those over missionaries which do the same thing but much cheaper? (with the mosque of djenne) Also I'm getting another mistake I made was not opting for any beliefs that give you benefits based on number of followers. Or is there something else about religion that I'm missing?

 

[hudders]

The five policy trees at the bottom of the policy window each have a great person attributed to them which you can buy with faith if you open that tree:

Order - Great Engineer
Autocracy - Great General & Great Admiral
Freedom - Great Artist
Rationalism - Great Scientist
Commerce - Great Merchant

 

[Trickster7135]

There's also the religious buildings you can only build with faith, and the belief that lets you buy units with faith.

 

[gozpel]

Plus unlimited unhappiness or gold, if you choose those believes.

 

[petey]

Religion is basically a number of minor bonuses. I tend to get the ones which increase fighting or food or production and not worry so much about bothering to spread it to anybody who's not me, beyond the odd CS quest.

 

[binhthuy71]

If you're playing for a Culture victory Faith is almost indispensable. Once you open the Freedom policy tree you can buy Great Artists with Faith and once you finish it your Great Tile improvements yield goes up by 100%. Between the GAs that you will naturally generate, those that come from buildings and SPs, and those you purchase with Faith you can be in a continuous Golden Age (+20% Culture) for much of the game. You will have so many GAs that you can have the first few create Landmarks and then use the rest for Golden Ages. Spreading your religion is not necessary, but if you take the Papal Primacy belief, open Patronage, and Pledge to protect, you can then create four CS allies with one Great Prophet when you use him to spread your religion in answer to CS quests.

If you plant a few Great Prophets you can generate substantial amounts of Faith which enables you to fulfill other CS quests as well as generating more Faith for the purchase of GAs.

 

[chazzycat]

After you get the 5 beliefs, your great prophets just spread religion, so is there any advantage of getting those over missionaries which do the same thing but much cheaper?

Prophets are much better at converting cities that already have a religion, because they combine the power of a missionary and inquisitor. In fact missionaries are pretty terrible at that - they are best used to spread to cities that don't have an established religion yet. You need prophets to dig out an entrenched religion.

Also I'm getting another mistake I made was not opting for any beliefs that give you benefits based on number of followers. Or is there something else about religion that I'm missing?

Not necessarily. Those beliefs (like tithe) can be very powerful, but they rely on a successful spread to provide their value. So you need to invest in spreading your religion a lot, which can detract from other things you're trying to do. Especially if you are on the higher levels and you get stuck next to Ethiopia or something...then spreading your religion gets tough.

But yeah if there are a lot of cities nearby to spread to, and no competing religions, I'll generally go for tithe and religious texts/itinerant preachers to maximize spread.

 

[Kwami]

Prophets are much better at converting cities that already have a religion, because they combine the power of a missionary and inquisitor. In fact missionaries are pretty terrible at that - they are best used to spread to cities that don't have an established religion yet. You need prophets to dig out an entrenched religion.

They're also good for creating Holy Sites to get even more Faith for even more Great People.

 

[Froze]

It really depends on the start. In my last game as Germany I started in a desert between two rivers (so essentially every tile was flood plains). My second city was further to the west, still in a desert dominated by a river and a wonder w/ faith. I found a relic that gave me enough faith for a panetheon and choose desert folklore. Now pretty much every citizen working the land generated a point of faith, having 10-15 fpt before founding my third city. Pop a great prophet and choose holy warriors.

Besides a few early archers and the occasional CS gift I didn't use hammers or gold to build a single military unit for over three millennium. My entire army was funded by faith, which allowed me to go on a complete wonder rush and building spam with my four cities and the game was effectively over in the BCs.

I also choose Religious texts + Ceremonial Burial so happiness was never an issues (spent the vast majority of the game before making even colosseums) and Swords into Plowshare to drive up the cities to huge pops. Wasn't at war because everyone else was afraid of my holy army.

Religion can be used to support nearly any method of winning the game. Just try to get out of the idea of choosing OP beliefs and choose what best suits your environment/goals.


And with that start I built Petra, finished the Piety/democracy track and started dropping holy sites on desert hills. After freedom they provided 1 food, 3 production, 5 gold, 3 culture, and 13 faith per tile!

 

[Minor Annoyance]

After you get the 5 beliefs, your great prophets just spread religion, so is there any advantage of getting those over missionaries which do the same thing but much cheaper?

They also create the holy site which is quite powerful if you complete piety and then freedom.

 

[meteo63]

They also create the holy site which is quite powerful if you complete piety and then freedom.

By the way, I have a question that is somewhat related to the use of faith. Holy sites, if you complete piety, get extra gold and culture. If you also complete freedom, does the doubling of great person improvement yields apply to that culture as well? In the game that I just played, my holy site culture gain remained at +3 despite finishing the freedom tree. So in a culture game, I'm suddenly a bit more reluctant to settle great prophets.

 

[chazzycat]

I think you answered your own question there. It doesn't double the culture.

 

[Agent Cooper]

While I haven't played anywhere as many G&K games as others here yet, I'm already getting the gist of how powerful religion/faith can be when used right.

About which beliefs are very useful (or pretty much useless), well that's completely situational. Buidling cathedrals with faith and adding growth did wonders for my recently finished cultural win game, not to mention the additional 3 GAs I got with faith. In total, I think I got between 12-14 GAs, two thirds of those burned on golden ages. So, I essentially spent a third of the game in a golden age (including pretty much the entire Industrial & Modern era), adding 20% to my culture output. I had the Taj Mahal thanks to a GE. Massive!

I've just started an Austria game, bagged the Stonehenge with massive chopping around Vienna. Now I just hope the 15% percent modifier with city states is available when I found my religion. If so, aim for the Patronage SP 20% modifer and suddenly every city state you've discovered and isn't at war with, is 'friendly' granting you a massive food/faith/culture/happiness/free unit bonus for the remainder of the game - and you don't have to sink a single piece of gold into them for this. Add the synergy effect with Austria buying selected allied city states for herself pretty much at will and you've got a monster civ.

Where I feel I'm lacking though, is with spreading religion to other civs. Haven't really tried that out yet, figuring out the pros and cons etc.

Edit: your influence with city states aren't calculated in % as I came to write above, but in influence points

 

[Crafty Bison]

If you're playing as Mongolia, I'm not surprised you found religion pointless - you'd be better off investing in units and crushing everyone, travelling much faster than religion ever could.

To see the power of religion, try a civ like the byzantines. Try a load of different religion combinations, and see what does well for each type of game you play.

I usually use the hapiness bonuses and go wide, but you can use it any way you want really - just experiment a load!