What's your favourite religious civic, and why?

[6K Man]

Title pretty much says it all.

I find myself staying in Organized Religion for long periods of time, sometimes the rest of the game once it is available - mainly because I like the +25% for construction of buildings and wonders. In wonder races or when trying to get universities/banks built in commerce cities, that can come in very handy. Being able to build missionaries after SciMeth (especially after capturing a holy city) can be helpful, too.

I rarely use Theocracy, except when I'm Spiritual and preparing for or embroiled in a war.

I don't think I've ever used Pacifism . I have always assumed the extra maintenance for units would be crippling and have avoided it as a result. Is the maintenance that bad, subjectively speaking? Or will I need to brush up on my diplomacy skills to avoid wars caused by low unit counts?

Free Religion is the civic I use most, after OR. The happiness sometimes comes in handy, especially in the later game when I have 3-4 religions in my largest cities (but health is usually more of an issue, except in wartime). +10% science is nice... but is that AFTER all modifiers, or does it just affect base science (like a monastery would)?

Anyway - what about you?

 

[generalstaff]

50% Organized Religion, 50% Theocracy

It depends on the the strategy I am going for, the leader traits, and area my cities are in.

If my cities have good production, have monasteries, and do not face invasion, there is no reason for me to go with Organized Religion. If I am playing an Industrious leader, the double production speed of Forge allows me to feel that I do not need the extra building production since that is the one of the main buildings I find that speed matters in constructing.

There have been a few times I have gone with Free Religion. Those times involved large cities with lots of religions; usually, I only keep open borders with civs who are either the same religion or who I am planning on converting to my religion.

 

[hexem3117]

Organized Religion. The +25% is good for building, and being able to build missionaries can get new cities up and running faster due to culture pop. I usually keep OR throughout most of the game, but I switch to Free Religion later during most games. I'll occasionally use Theocracy if, like you 6K Man, I'm about to be in a war and I'm massing units.

Pacifism is OK, but really not all that great. The only reason I would use it is for the +100% GP birthrate, but I find that by the time I'm able to use Pacifism I've probably already gotten to the higher GP Points needed threshold to make new GPs. Also, whatever the +100% GP birthrate national wonder is, that kind of serves that purpose; I rarely have more than one GP farm.

 

[duckstab]

I can't say I have a favorite. When I'm playing an Aggressive or Charismatic leader I tend towards Theocracy. Otherwise I tend to stay in OR until such time as I have enough religions in my cities to make FR attractive. I'll use Pacifism occasionally with leaders like Ramesses where I'm spamming a lot of wonders and trying to crank out the GPs.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

No favorites. They depend, so much, on GP needs, buildings, whether I can even run a religion, and favorite civics...

 

[Alrin Kharr]

I don't think I've ever used Pacifism . I have always assumed the extra maintenance for units would be crippling and have avoided it as a result. Is the maintenance that bad, subjectively speaking? Or will I need to brush up on my diplomacy skills to avoid wars caused by low unit counts?

It's not quite as bad as you might think. It costs you 1 gold per unit, but its base maintenance cost is quite a bit lower than, say Organized Religion, especially when you have a large empire. Especially in the early-to-mid game, when those Great People don't take all that long to pop, the +100% increase in GPP can be a huge boost if you're running an economy that's heavy on specialists. I've never really found my ability to keep a strong army hindered by Pacifism, to be honest.

 

[Iranon]

Organised Religion - I love my hammers.

 

[Joecoolyo]

I start out with Organized religion, then move over to Pacifism for the rest of the game (with the exception of Theocracy if I'm in a big war and need the xp)

 

[toll_booth]

Free Religion. Some games I never even put on a state religion, so none of the middle three would help. Plus, if you have multiple religions in one city, FR gives you lots of

 

[BTSFanRandy]

Organized Religion early in the game to build faster.
Pacifism if I don't have many religions in my cities.
Free Religion if I have many religions in my cities.

I go for cultural victory, so the Pacifism military maintenance is fine with me as I do not build many units.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Organised religion, although I often change to Pacifism in the run up to liberalism.

 

[Yamps]

I really like Pacifism + Caste for a good warmongering game if the relations are right to keep the army small in the beginning. More GPP means more GS and more GS mean a stronger beeline and a stronger tech from Liberalism, I especially like Steel. After that Theocracy, draft, draft, draft, bum,bum,bum....

Another thing to notice is that free unit cap increases with population, it doesn't hurt that bad when cities are big.

 

[mechaerik]

I voted Theocracy. Nothing like putting out units with an extra promotion. I also run OR a lot, so that i can put out missionaries to convert the nearest neighbor i don't intend to annex.

 

[Joshua368]

Organized Religion is obviously my favorite, it's just so powerful and rather unique as far as civics go. Plus the easy missionaries aren't bad either!

Free Religion I will rather often find myself using towards the end of the game... simplifies diplo and the +10% science can really add up, replacing those monastaries you lose at scientific method.

In times of war if I will jump into Theocracy for level 2 units off the bat... I strongly prefer it to vassalage which forces me out of my precious bureaucracy civic.

Pacifism I very rarely find myself using unless I'm spiritual.

 

[Phoenician]

Love pacifism, amazing for a SE.

 

[Roller123]

Theocracy and Pacifism i dont use, unless spiritual. And even then not often. Free Religion 10% more science is only one slider step and, unless running 100% science, i dont use that either. Remains OrgRel, the "miniForge in every city" civic.

SMAC had it better imho. All civics were equally useful. You had a choice between (+10% production, +10% commerce, -25% unit strength), ( +20% science, -10% maintainance cost, -20% spy), (+25% unit strength, +100% free units, -20% production)

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Theocracy and Pacifism i dont use, unless spiritual. And even then not often. Free Religion 10% more science is only one slider step and, unless running 100% science, i dont use that either. Remains OrgRel, the "miniForge in every city" civic.

SMAC had it better imho. All civics were equally useful. You had a choice between (+10% production, +10% commerce, -25% unit strength), ( +20% science, -10% maintainance cost, -20% spy), (+25% unit strength, +100% free units, -20% production)

If a civic is useless but it puts an AI at friendly, it isn't really useless.

I've won games by running religion civics without having a state religion! Extra maintenance is nothing compared to having unlimited tech trading with AIs or winning via diplomacy...

I guess if I HAD to pick ONLY one religious civic's yield, I would go with pacifism. The GPP are that important. However, they are all viable civics so aside from what somebody likes, I can't see someone saying that any are always better than any of the others. I probably use theocracy the least of the 4 (i'll just ignore paganism), but I still use it pretty frequently and it DEFINITELY has merits, both diplomatically (izzy and justinian/zara/sal among others can be friendly even if you are in NSR, for example) and militarily.

 

[Roller123]

TheMeInTeam
You are right i guess. I havent considered diplomatic uses.(both in civ4 and smac). Since i think they have little in common with what a civic actually does. Say if CivX favors paganism, it would make paganism useful, even though it does nothing else.

I think the prob here is the extreme cost of switching civics, greatly emphasizing their differences. 5 turns of empire wide stop are forcing to look out for the absolute best civic with the absolute least need for changes during the game. Which would be OrgRel in my case.

 

[SirDrake]

I don't think I've ever used Pacifism . I have always assumed the extra maintenance for units would be crippling and have avoided it as a result. Is the maintenance that bad, subjectively speaking?

If I understand correctly, the extra maintenance only applies to units which already induce a maintenance cost. Your base number of free units (determined by difficulty & population) still incur zero cost while in home territory.

I run Pacifism all the time and my overall expenses are usually lower because of the upkeep difference. Vassalage seems to have a much bigger impact on unit costs (I run Vassalage + Pacifism sometimes, too, if I have a large army).

Cheers,
J

 

[Earthling]

I've very fond of free religion because it prevents all the AI from wanting to kill you... Part of this is that I tend to play on large/huge maps and high difficulty so it almost never happens that everyone shares the same faith, and then it's generally better not to stand out. If I do have a religion, which of the other civics I use is entirely situation dependent but none see as much use as free religion.