Why is it so important that you found a religion?

garric

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Everyone's saying "If you miss your chance to get a religion just restart the game." I didn't know this before, so when I started playing I did not found any religion. Am I ruined for the rest of the game? Or can I capture a holy city and reap its benefits? If so, how do I know which city is the holy city?
 
To know who is founding what, and where, make sure to pay attention to those Events when they scroll by.

As to whether you need to found a religion? At higher difficulty levels if you don't found a religion... indeed, restart. (Or beeline for one of the later techs) It's going to be slow going however, as you'll be very hard pressed to keep your cities Happy without a religion helping out. Edit: If this does happen and you want to slug it out, Open Borders with anyone and everyone as soon as possible. Make establishing contact with all the other civs a priority so they'll start spreading their religions to you.
 
Religion is not a must to win. You can get religion from other countries aswell. But you dont have the benefits of the line of sight or to build a shine to get extra income.

You can just capture a holy city and you can get those benifits :)
 
In the upper right hand corner is a row of icons. One of the icons has 2 hands as if praying. Click that icon and you will get a screen of religions - which ones are active, what city founded them, do they have a shrine ...

Religion seems to be an easy path to victory on lower levels of the game.
 
The reason for founding a religon is that one of your cities will become the Holy City for that religon and cause it to spread to other cities. Later when you aquire a Great Prophet you can have them build a shrine in that city. Once you do that, every city in the world which has your religon will pay you 1 g per turn. That can add up to a lot of free gold if you have spread your religon.

You can tell which city is the Holy city by looking at the Change Religon screen, also on the map the Holy city will have a star next to the religon symbol next to the name of the city. I assume that if you capture a holy city you will then get the gold income but rememer just having a holy city does not get you the income until you have a great prophet build a shrine in that city.

It is a great way to boost your income but I would not say you have to give up if you don't have a Holy City. Its just a nice bonus income if you can get it.
 
Actually, I've found it to be much easier to *not* found a religion, especially on higher difficulties where the AI is more aggressive. Why? By having no state religion, no one wants to kill me for religious reasons, so while everyone else is busy cutting each other up on battle lines drawn by their religion, I can choose who I fight carefully. This advantage is worth infinitely more than the gpt I can get from religion, unless I'm able to just convert almost everyone to my religion (which isn't a bad strategy, necessarilly).
 
I would just like to point out that having the holy city does not give you gpt. I'm not sure why people keep saying that. You have to build the shrine, then you get gpt.
 
Khaim said:
I would just like to point out that having the holy city does not give you gpt. I'm not sure why people keep saying that. You have to build the shrine, then you get gpt.

I think they're stating it that way as the former assumes the latter... since the shrine can only be built in the holy city if you have the holy city you're virtually guaranteed to have the shrine (at least eventually)
 
Well, no, you're not. You have to get a great person. They don't just grow on trees, you know.

Hmm...
Great Person Tree
Tech: Construction
Cost: 400 (double production with wood)
Culture: 8
GPP: 4 (Great Engineer)
Increases GPP +150% for this city.
 
That is why Stonehenge is so important. It'll pretty much generate your first great person for you, and it'll be a prophet.
 
I conducted an experiment where I didnt research any of the religious techs and waited as long as possible to convert to a religion. The result was most civs did not like me much at all except for Americans because I converted to catholic which is what Washington was. I was playing Russia. Early in the game the Aztecs declaired war on me. I nearly killed them when elizabeth declaired war on me. At that point I had to make peace with the Aztecs or elizabeth would walk all over me. So I made peace with the Aztecs and fought Elizabeth for a while. She was a little tougher but she was going down. Then the chinese declaired war on me. They had 3x as many millitary units as me and they were using all mounted units which at the time was perfect counter to my units. I had to call off the war with Elizabeth and focus on the chinese. They were extremly tough and while i was fighting them Ceasar declaired war on me. I kept trying to get Washington to help me but he wasnt interested.

Ceasar didn't have a city or border close to mine so I think the chinese convinced him to go to war with me. I managed to get him to agree to peace, but as soon as I did the damn Aztecs declaired war on me again!

So far most of the game I was at war which made it tough to advance my civ. For a while my research was down to 50% because my economy was wearing thin due to war. By the time Ceasar declaired war I had research up to 60 or 70%. I think I was the most advanced civ at that point but barely.

So I learned that religion is key to survival. I don't think it matters what religion you have as long as you get one early and start building temples. From now on I will get some religion techs early. Religion can be used strategicly in a few ways but it is a must have either way.

From now on I will probably try to make sure me and the most powerful civs are the same religion and in good terms. That would prevent a lot of wars i think.
 
Simple: culture. You have a very limited number of cultural buildings unless your cities have religions, at least early in the game.
 
Arkanin said:
Actually, I've found it to be much easier to *not* found a religion, especially on higher difficulties where the AI is more aggressive. Why? By having no state religion, no one wants to kill me for religious reasons, so while everyone else is busy cutting each other up on battle lines drawn by their religion, I can choose who I fight carefully. This advantage is worth infinitely more than the gpt I can get from religion, unless I'm able to just convert almost everyone to my religion (which isn't a bad strategy, necessarilly).

You don´t have to make it your state religion. I founded Judaism and built a shrine for it, but I didn´t make it state religion because my neighbour Isabella had just formed Hinduism and didn´t want to cause a war over it... yet. :satan:
 
If you use missionaries properly, a holy city and shrine can make your earnings skyrocket.
 
Arkanin said:
Actually, I've found it to be much easier to *not* found a religion, especially on higher difficulties where the AI is more aggressive. Why? By having no state religion, no one wants to kill me for religious reasons, so while everyone else is busy cutting each other up on battle lines drawn by their religion, I can choose who I fight carefully. This advantage is worth infinitely more than the gpt I can get from religion, unless I'm able to just convert almost everyone to my religion (which isn't a bad strategy, necessarilly).


Having a religon does more then just gain gold from Holy City / Shrine. The orginized religion civic gives you +25% production in every city that has your state religion. Also, it allows you to build temples for happiness and culture and monistaries for +science. Also, civs are going to attack you if you are in their way or have something you need. Avoiding a state religion is not going to make other civs ignore you. After all they dont dislike you for your religion they dislike you for not having their religion. So, if you have no religion wouldnt they still see you as a heathen because you dont have their religion?
 
Taking this question and putting it in the context of multiplayer, does that mean that religion is overpowered and its effects need to be nerfed? If a human player is unable to found a religion, should they just give up the game?
 
There is a difference between having a religion and founding a religion.

Anyone can have a religion and make it their state religion thus getting the bonus from Organized Religion civic and being able to build religous buildings.

The only benifit of founding the religion is that you have the potential to gain extra income IF you get a Great Prophet and IF you work for it by building missonaries to spread the religion. In itself I do not think you have to quit if you don't found a religion.
 
Plus, when you have a religion's holy city, you can see what units are in every cities under your state religion's influence... very usefull. First convert the enemy cities to your religion with missionnaries and open borders, then, by seeing which units defend the wanted cities, you can choose which units you should build to have the best chances at taking the city.
 
IMHO the reason there is so much debate about how important it is to get a religion is because of how new it is. I'm sure it won't ever be a make or break that you found a religion. Like it's been posted, you can get religion without starting them yourself and then the major thing from religion your missing is the gold and extra seeing ability once you get a shrine and start converting people. However, if you don't go for religions you can start worker improvements quicker and elevate the curve of your civs progression a lot quicker. Founding religions is an easier way to control a religion and a good way to generate commerce, but there are alternatives. I think most people would find it rather hard to actually try and keep religion out of their civilization, whether they founded them or not. I think the key is that if you go down the religious part of the tech tree to start and get beaten to all the early religions then you could be in for a very long game. I think it's not essential if you plan on not founding them, but if miss Buddhism, so you go for Hinduism, then miss Hinduism so you for Judaism, then if you miss Judaism you will be in for a rough ride.

The one strategy that I haven't tried and I'm hoping will come up for me soon is being right next to a spiritual civ that founds multiple religions. Especially India, they will hopefully put some effort into expanding their religion and I'll put my efforts into "the pointy stick faith." The equivalent of when your closest neighbor in civ 3 uses his capitol on building the pyramids and the turn after it's done you take it from him.
 
On the other hand, you take some extra war weariness for fighting civs that share your religion. It's a tradeoff; you'll be able to fight them easily, but your population won't like you for it.

And finally, don't forget the extra culture boost. That plus the ability to build a shrine for lots of cash are the big selling points to having holy cities.
 
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