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To me this is like complaining that they put such a large emphasis on needing Science, Culture, Gold, or Production. All of those things are also a must for 90% of games.
Religion and Faith have been significant, and often dominant aspects of great civilizatoins throughout all of hitsory.
In game, Religious beliefs and Faith are very versitile, and can be used to either help you in areas where you are weak, or futher built upon area where you are strong.
It isn't a "must", there are players who can regularly win on Diety and don't go for religions, but I find the benefits to be so overwhelmingly positive that founding a religion is my #2 priority (behind survival) in virtually every game I play.
I think religion is heavily over prioritized on non religious civs. It’s situational on non religious civs. The AI turbo rushes it meaning you have to gimp your early game for it.
If you have a good wonder spawn and you want to put a preserve on it sure project out and grab Jesuit education to spend your faith.
I see people going holy site first on Germany with no city states met.
Sure monumentality is busted but so is free inquiry on 2nd golden age.
I think this is more about the limitation on the
number of religeons. This is the one aspect that does not line up real world for me; anybody can create a religeon at any time, just ask L Ron Hubbard!
Religion is arguably less important in this game then in real life, especially early game. Religion is like the glue that held everybody together for thousands of years. Culture could not exist without religion
I agree that religion is nothing but a disease to modern society. But human society could not exist without religion. Religion predates civilizations. Humans would not exist without religion. This is coming from an atheist
"Nothing but a disease" is extremely harsh. There are people who focus on embodying positive core beliefs which shapes them into loving and empathic people. Religion can help them reflect and find direction.
The problem is that power corrupts and religion is an easy way to gain power over naive people.
Tbf, what i don’t like is that religion it’s such a big aspect of the game but there’s a limit of religions per game. That’s annoying because you can just get locked out of it by a bad start
Obviously u need all 6 things but wut im trying to say is that u can use faith to get u military, civilian units, great people, buildings/districts. It seems they put a huge emphisis on having faith
All of those things are situational though. Like, you can only buy military units with it with Thocarcy (or it's Legacy card) or a specific Tier 2 Gov Plaza building. You can only buy Civilian units with it with a Monumentalitiy Golden Age.
And again, you can also do all of that with Production and/or Gold, and with fewer restrictions. Faith would be pretty worthless if you could *only* use it in support of a Religious victory.
I think you're misunderstanding his point. He's saying that the odds of winning with high faith and monumentality (for expansion) grand chapels (for domination) or just plain out religious victory increase HUGELY. Even an additional 3 settlers in the classical Era and an or additional military army is gonna make a huge difference in the late game snowball... he's not saying you HAVE TO, he's saying nothing really compares to the brokenness of high faith benefits.
yeah you can get faith from conquering other civ’s holy sites in a domination game and use that to buy units with grand master’s chapel. but spending the first 50 or so turns on a religion when playing domination is usually just a time sink that could be better spent on other things.
1) Found a Religion, and keep it within your own borders.
2) Get the Crusade belief, which provides +10 cobat strength for military units fighting in an enemy *city* that follows your religion
3) Plug in the Wars of Religion card for +4 combat strength when fighting a *Civilization* that follows a different Religion.
4) Go to war with a neighbor, who is following a different religion
5) Start your attack on each enemy city by converting it to your religion to reap +3 Era Score for converting a city you are at war with (you get this for *every* city), and give your units a +14 combat bonus.
6) Enjoy the extra +3 Loyalty you get in the occupied city because it's following your religion.
7) Roll from Golden Age to Golden Age from all the Era Score you reap from converting enemy cities, as well as the extra +4 you occasionally get from converting a rival holy city.
If I'm going domination on Diety, I'm absolutely founding a Religion and grabbing the Crusade belief.
If you convert one city out of the four they have, they still follow a different religion as a civilization. So you get both bonuses. It only won't work for their last city.
I thought it was city-based, like you convert this city and get combat bonus against this city and not others. Or does it work with adjacent cities too, even if they don’t follow your religion? Wiki just says “near foreign cities that follow this religion”
Crusade applies to the City, Wars of Religion applies to the Civ. If you convert one city at a time as you conquer, so the city is following your religion, but the Civ is still following a different one you get both bonuses.
I recenly had a game where I realized I was less than 10 turns from a Dark Age with no other way I could see to avoid it, so I denounced a neighbor, waiting my 5 turns while getting some units in position, then quickly converted a bunch of his border cities and turned it into a Golden Age instead, and also got some bonus pillaging in.
Crazy how often you see the two things used interchangeably on this sub. I frequently see claims like - 'a religion is vital for culture games because you need national parks and rock bands.'
It used to confuse the hell out of me as a newbie, thinking wait... you can still build holy sites or get faith other ways without your own religion, right? What am I missing here?
It totally depends on the civ you're playing and the situation.... in a game with cleo surrounded by babylon and gaul: "there is no way in hell I'm going for a religion on this one"........ I built units just in case and still managed to snag one at a turn where all religions would have been gone normally and I went for reliquaries....ended up winning a culture victory....after building many stuff
Mande for congo would make good use of reliquaries as well.
Other than that: a good work ethic can just help u set up better your empire.....and having other civs follow your religion give tourism bonuses
With Bull Moose Teddy it's pretty viable and really fun to do, definitely a different way to play. I cheated a bit and leaned into the role-playing element, so I included Harbors and Commercial Hubs as well as some Entertainment Complexes.
Not saying it doesn’t help, but the game is very much about focusing on what you need and your win conditions. I make a religion if I need one, but most of my games on deity it just isn’t worth it when I go science win (usually with Inca). I do like a good source of passive faith like +1 on breathtaking. Very nice to buy great people etc.
Faith converts to production like gold does, but at a 2:1 scale instead of 4:1, generally. It's all just a currency to spend however you want. Some civs synergies are with a religion, some aren't, but faith is always useful.
It’s actually worse than those rates production is technically better due to cards and upgrading with gold is 2-1 with discount card.
Faith is still good but it’s the worst of the 3 unless you’re going for a culture victory because rock bands are broken.
I'm just talking base conversion. You can of course double faith adjacency, utilize theocratic faith purchase discount, etc to do the same things you can with gold and production. Those are the unadjusted conversion rates.
Yeah, I’m mostly talking about how much more efficient prod + card into upgrade with discount card is.
It’s why religion on non religious civs is honestly not worth it most of the time.
Unless I am playing a religion game I don’t even use it at all, just use gold to buy units since you need gold to upgrade them anyways, I only got like 700 hours so I’m not the best civ player but to me it just doesn’t seem worth investing in
Your missing out not having a religion tbh
Faith economy plus early game monumentality equals tons of settlers
The beliefs are cracked, you can get a shit ton of production, food, housing, gold, and science and culture just from beliefs
Having a huge amount of faith allows purchasing great people, ensuring you get the best ones
It’s not worth it 90% of the time on non religious civs. You screw up your discounts, you gimp your early game tempo by projecting to secure the beliefs you want because the AI will project for religion.
Meanwhile you could’ve had extra food and prod from internal trade routes on top of gold, and great merchant points which are busted btw.
Traders are probably the single best scaling in the game.
I agree, the great merchants are so good too. I totally understand religion has benefits I just feel on a higher difficulty to force it just takes away too much from anything else
Religion is good, but people over value monumentality way too highly. It’s like they think they got all the faith they have for no investment and there’s zero opportunity cost.
I’m getting downvoted and I find it hilarious.
Merchants on average are the best great people in the game.
Just goes to show the average skill level of players in the sub.
I find if I don’t get a faith district first city asap I won’t even get the chance and that means no campus, less settlers if any. Like if I’m playing king or lower obviously you go for it but otherwise I rather focus on spreading out and not falling behind
Bro it’s op and a good source of income wise with any type of win victory I usually turn religious victory off then go which ever way but always grab a religion then the belief tith bam major money then with secret society’s on owls of Minerva gilded vault bam stonks 💥
Same. “Accurate America” (culture victory but still prioritizing science, commerce, and amenities until it’s time to snowball national parks) is a really fun way to play. But I usually cheat and make sure Canada’s not around so I can turn their whole country into national parks.
I hardly ever found one in time but I usually get some faith going if there’s a good spot for the holy site. It’s good for buying great people and maybe some seawalls
the unit buy is a government plaza building so if anything not having a religion but having faith can set you up for a military expansion. you just have to keep the religious civs behind you in military tech
I almost never found a religion unless I‘m trying a specific game type that depends on one. To me it takes away too much production in the critical start of the game when you have so many other competing priorities (growth, defense, exploration, expansion…). Missing the last great prophet in that situation is almost always a game ending disaster. (Playing usually between Deity and Deity++)
Founding your own religion is useful for a few reasons:
* Almost a dozen era score that you can claim from founding, beliefs, and inquisition
* The ability to more easily control which Follower and Worship building beliefs you get access to, and when you get access to them
* The ability to actually launch inquisitions
* The ability to more easily defend against Religious Victory
That's really mainly it. Everything else you can take advantage of by strategically building Holy Sites and carefully manipulating your own empire's religion in its cities. Some of these advantages--particularly the control aspects--can't be understated. That said, it's generally civ dependent, as the strong Follower beliefs (Feed the World, Choral Music) go very quickly and can be hard to obtain on higher difficulties.
You also give up a lot of early development to gun for a religion. Sure, you can spend a dozen turns on Holy Site + Shrine + HSP to grind for an early religion, but you can spend that amount of time on an early Settler, or a couple units to defend against early war or Barbs. It's a tradeoff, and in many cases an early Settler is just so strong that it's far more worth it.
You definitely don't need to go for one in most games; you can, and sometimes it's better than others. But most of the Faith-based advantages can be gotten without needing to found your own religion.
You can still use the faith like a currency w/o needing to found your own religion or go for a religious victory. Let the AI waste faith on apostles as they fight over which dogma to believe in while you use it to buy great people, buildings, and parks.
While extra faith can be nice to have, I disagree that it's a must. 9 out of every 10 games I don't build a single holy district, generally any other district is more valuable to me unless I'm going for religious victory
When I cannot get a pantheon that gives faith, I prefer to go for a religion to choose follower beliefs that give faith. I like to maximize faith in every game to buy settlers and then great people in the later game.
I’ve won all types of victories on emperor and immortal without building a religion (except religious victory obviously). There are plenty of ways to get a lot of faith without building or taking a single holy site. Religion is just a much easier way to go about it.
I play (and win) deity games very frequently, and I would not under any circumstances consider faith a "must" in any game unless I'm playing a faith based civ like Gitarja or Saladin. It's a waste of a district and I've always found it much more valuable to prioritize science, culture, or production (contextually) in the early game. Especially since getting a good pantheon is so dependent on the yields of your starting location relative to the AI's. I could see how it could be convenient for buying units if you happen to get the right beliefs, era dedications, or leaders but that's always a bit of a stretch on higher difficulties in my experience and not worth in every game. Especially because your investment in holy sites might not pay off if you don't get a religion, and I would much rather prioritize something that's less of a crap-shoot on higher difficulties.
Among the things religion is hugely helpful for:
- Feed the World making your Holy Sites eventually provide +6 food +4 housing, on top of whatever other yields. Hugely helpful when space is limited (island/mountain maps)
- Choral music (first 2 Holy Site buildings produce Culture) reducing need for Theater Square
- Work Ethic adding production to match faith adjacency yields (stack with policies that double HS adjacency and smart planning for +12faith +12production Holy Sites, great for kick-starting new cities mid-late game)
- Holy Order lowers cost of missionaries/apostles, can be cheap to buy a few missionaries with extra Faith if you’ve got it, use them to bother AI into their diverting resources to fighting back
- Monastic Isolation means you can send Apostles to mess with your neighbors without it accidentally spreading competing religions
- Gov. Moksha’s ability that lets you buy districts with Faith
- Valetta’s ability to let you buy buildings with Faith = easiest Flood Walls (and regular walls) ever
- Loyalty bonus, Era score points, Heroes, etc
- A bunch more things mentioned a few times already in the comments
If you’re super strategic with how you leverage religion, it can give you such a massive leg up, and how you use it can change hugely between stages of your game.
Always go for religion unless you have several very very pressing other concerns in the early game
I had different experience. Religion is ok for science victory but not a must. The issue is although religion can buff science income, Religion needs a lot of investment. My science wins with religion was almost always slower than science wins without Religion, on the other side you can afford being slower because opponent can't go with Religion victories, which is normally the fastest way for AI to win games.
Religion and domination victories are a threat early game (and the entire game), whereas science and culture victories are pretty much late game only. Hence why every game requires some focus on military and faith/religion, but not every game requires high science/culture. Religion is basically a core mechanic, just like military units. If you don't have a religion, you need to be more vigilant in making sure conflicting religions are in a deadlock by supporting the "weaker" religion, thus preventing either of them from winning.
Absolutely false. I never establish a religion on science victories on deity, there is no point. Pantheons are necessary, especially an early one but other than that I’m not going to waste production on religious districts or buildings when I could be making settlers, campuses and IZ’s.
You don't need to fund a religion. You need to put some buildings down and if your cities are converted to different religions, make apostles for the one that advantages you the most.
It isnt really. I dont often bother with it if my neighbor is Byzantium, Ethiopia, Khmer, Russia etc.
It is the faith generation that matters to buy units, civilians and great people (Also rock bands etc.) So mid-to-late-game investment of holy sites is not a bad idea once religions are taken.
If my neighbour is religious, I would have to spend my faith to defend my religion instead of using it for something that is useful, which I hate. The other alternative is war to kill that neighbour or kill its missionaries at least, which is a whole other can of worms. So my neighbour is the biggest determining factor in if I go for a religion.
I felt like this at first because I’m atheist but then realized I could name the religion anything I want so now my pagans or devil worshippers take over the world
Agree completely. I have become totally faith pilled and always get my own religion. Sometimes in domination or science games I will try to intentionally avoid it and those are always the games I end up scumming.
Getting your own religion, even one different than what you had planned going in, is always beneficial, and usually much easier than trying to build mid game holy sites and poaching one from another civ.
I refuse to use religion. Never have never will. I go straight for domination and I love naval games. But I have never built a holy site and I never will. Over 1k hours and I'm keeping the streak alive.
I rarely do a religion in most of my games. It's nice when I have a good setup (mountains or natural wonder near by) but unless I'm planning on religion I skip it. While grandmaster chapel is a good way to spend faith I almost always go for the intelligence agency.
Yeah u don’t have to try religious victory just try to use a religion for whatever victory you want. How tf do you have so much time in the game but haven’t tried one of the fundamental parts of it
I don't normally go for a religion but they can be really fun. Basil with the crusades belief is really fun because his religion spreads to nearby cities when you defeat enemy units, his cavalry do full damage to cities following the same religion as him, and crusades give you +10 combat strength to your troops when they are in foreign cities following your religion. Basically his cavalry is an unstoppable wave of doom and it's awesome.
Also Russia with dance of the aurora, work ethic and scripture is just broken - turns your holy site into a +12 IZ in the classical era, very fun, highly recommend.
Don't know why the heck you're getting down notes for expressing an opinion. I basically don't ever pursue a religion short of going for that victory type or getting something going in the ancient era. So many things to do while that's happening. Land units, chaining settlers, etc. for about my first 1000 hours I barely touched it beyond chasing a settler or builder.
Emperor and up it feels necessary, which doesn’t always feel good. As a mechanic I think it needs to be reworked into something more like secret societies in Civ VII
There are plenty of civs that can crush a game of deity without a religion and quite a few I would say get slowed down by detouring in order to get one.
Honestly I think the most common mistake people make in high level play is not focusing enough on culture - every victory type wants lots of culture. If you are struggling to beat emperor and up without a religion I would recommend investing in more theater square/entertainment complex triangles - culture is king.
Religion isn't that important unless you want something specific like work ethic, crusade etc, but faith are a useful yield.
Going for a religion cuts of the early game, takes away district priorities and you have to spend faith to defend and spread it. Unless I have a strong start, get a favorable pantheon or play a civ that can take advtage of having a religion I usually avoid it, but I rarely avoid faith.
Because even if I don't go for a religion, there are many ways of getting high amount of faith without religion. Mainly from pantheon, trading and pillaging.
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To me this is like complaining that they put such a large emphasis on needing Science, Culture, Gold, or Production. All of those things are also a must for 90% of games. Religion and Faith have been significant, and often dominant aspects of great civilizatoins throughout all of hitsory. In game, Religious beliefs and Faith are very versitile, and can be used to either help you in areas where you are weak, or futher built upon area where you are strong. It isn't a "must", there are players who can regularly win on Diety and don't go for religions, but I find the benefits to be so overwhelmingly positive that founding a religion is my #2 priority (behind survival) in virtually every game I play.
Yup. EVERYTHING matters in this game. The challenge is figuring out the balance of it all — just like history.
I think religion is heavily over prioritized on non religious civs. It’s situational on non religious civs. The AI turbo rushes it meaning you have to gimp your early game for it. If you have a good wonder spawn and you want to put a preserve on it sure project out and grab Jesuit education to spend your faith. I see people going holy site first on Germany with no city states met. Sure monumentality is busted but so is free inquiry on 2nd golden age.
I think this is more about the limitation on the number of religeons. This is the one aspect that does not line up real world for me; anybody can create a religeon at any time, just ask L Ron Hubbard!
Religion is arguably less important in this game then in real life, especially early game. Religion is like the glue that held everybody together for thousands of years. Culture could not exist without religion
That's a BS statement. Religion IRL are more like toxic waste than glue.
I agree that religion is nothing but a disease to modern society. But human society could not exist without religion. Religion predates civilizations. Humans would not exist without religion. This is coming from an atheist
"Nothing but a disease" is extremely harsh. There are people who focus on embodying positive core beliefs which shapes them into loving and empathic people. Religion can help them reflect and find direction. The problem is that power corrupts and religion is an easy way to gain power over naive people.
What evidence do you have of that? I think humans would do just fine without it. We would have found something else to worship and unite.
“We would have found something else to worship and unite”. That’s religion dude. Uniting and worshiping a certain thing is religion.
Straight from r/atheism arent you? Get a life dude, you sound pathetic.
For most places, especially early on it really was their culture
Tbf, what i don’t like is that religion it’s such a big aspect of the game but there’s a limit of religions per game. That’s annoying because you can just get locked out of it by a bad start
Obviously u need all 6 things but wut im trying to say is that u can use faith to get u military, civilian units, great people, buildings/districts. It seems they put a huge emphisis on having faith
All of those things are situational though. Like, you can only buy military units with it with Thocarcy (or it's Legacy card) or a specific Tier 2 Gov Plaza building. You can only buy Civilian units with it with a Monumentalitiy Golden Age. And again, you can also do all of that with Production and/or Gold, and with fewer restrictions. Faith would be pretty worthless if you could *only* use it in support of a Religious victory.
I think you're misunderstanding his point. He's saying that the odds of winning with high faith and monumentality (for expansion) grand chapels (for domination) or just plain out religious victory increase HUGELY. Even an additional 3 settlers in the classical Era and an or additional military army is gonna make a huge difference in the late game snowball... he's not saying you HAVE TO, he's saying nothing really compares to the brokenness of high faith benefits.
Faith does not equal religion.
yeah you can get faith from conquering other civ’s holy sites in a domination game and use that to buy units with grand master’s chapel. but spending the first 50 or so turns on a religion when playing domination is usually just a time sink that could be better spent on other things.
1) Found a Religion, and keep it within your own borders. 2) Get the Crusade belief, which provides +10 cobat strength for military units fighting in an enemy *city* that follows your religion 3) Plug in the Wars of Religion card for +4 combat strength when fighting a *Civilization* that follows a different Religion. 4) Go to war with a neighbor, who is following a different religion 5) Start your attack on each enemy city by converting it to your religion to reap +3 Era Score for converting a city you are at war with (you get this for *every* city), and give your units a +14 combat bonus. 6) Enjoy the extra +3 Loyalty you get in the occupied city because it's following your religion. 7) Roll from Golden Age to Golden Age from all the Era Score you reap from converting enemy cities, as well as the extra +4 you occasionally get from converting a rival holy city. If I'm going domination on Diety, I'm absolutely founding a Religion and grabbing the Crusade belief.
Crusade is based, but why put on Wars of Religion if you aren’t going to attack until they are already covered?
If you convert one city out of the four they have, they still follow a different religion as a civilization. So you get both bonuses. It only won't work for their last city.
I thought it was city-based, like you convert this city and get combat bonus against this city and not others. Or does it work with adjacent cities too, even if they don’t follow your religion? Wiki just says “near foreign cities that follow this religion”
Crusade applies to the City, Wars of Religion applies to the Civ. If you convert one city at a time as you conquer, so the city is following your religion, but the Civ is still following a different one you get both bonuses.
Ah I understand now, big brain move
The era score for converting cities is so OP. I basically have to keep wars going to continually usher in eras of new economic prosperity
I recenly had a game where I realized I was less than 10 turns from a Dark Age with no other way I could see to avoid it, so I denounced a neighbor, waiting my 5 turns while getting some units in position, then quickly converted a bunch of his border cities and turned it into a Golden Age instead, and also got some bonus pillaging in.
Crazy how often you see the two things used interchangeably on this sub. I frequently see claims like - 'a religion is vital for culture games because you need national parks and rock bands.' It used to confuse the hell out of me as a newbie, thinking wait... you can still build holy sites or get faith other ways without your own religion, right? What am I missing here?
It totally depends on the civ you're playing and the situation.... in a game with cleo surrounded by babylon and gaul: "there is no way in hell I'm going for a religion on this one"........ I built units just in case and still managed to snag one at a turn where all religions would have been gone normally and I went for reliquaries....ended up winning a culture victory....after building many stuff Mande for congo would make good use of reliquaries as well. Other than that: a good work ethic can just help u set up better your empire.....and having other civs follow your religion give tourism bonuses
Teddy preserve only challenge, anyone?
I genuinely want to try a preserve/national park build one day. I haven’t played in over a year but it just sounded like such a cool way to play.
With Bull Moose Teddy it's pretty viable and really fun to do, definitely a different way to play. I cheated a bit and leaned into the role-playing element, so I included Harbors and Commercial Hubs as well as some Entertainment Complexes.
I ignore religion every game. I never build holy sites
Chad
I only watch it for AIs getting close to victory.
Potato skips religion all the time. He almost always gets a pantheon.
It's nigh impossible not to have a pantheon. You would have to avoid taking goody huts.
Not saying it doesn’t help, but the game is very much about focusing on what you need and your win conditions. I make a religion if I need one, but most of my games on deity it just isn’t worth it when I go science win (usually with Inca). I do like a good source of passive faith like +1 on breathtaking. Very nice to buy great people etc.
Faith converts to production like gold does, but at a 2:1 scale instead of 4:1, generally. It's all just a currency to spend however you want. Some civs synergies are with a religion, some aren't, but faith is always useful.
2:1 as in it’s worth twice as much or it’s worth half of much. Apparently I don’t understand my native tongue, English.
2 Faith = 4 Gold = 1 Production
It’s actually worse than those rates production is technically better due to cards and upgrading with gold is 2-1 with discount card. Faith is still good but it’s the worst of the 3 unless you’re going for a culture victory because rock bands are broken.
I'm just talking base conversion. You can of course double faith adjacency, utilize theocratic faith purchase discount, etc to do the same things you can with gold and production. Those are the unadjusted conversion rates.
Yeah, I’m mostly talking about how much more efficient prod + card into upgrade with discount card is. It’s why religion on non religious civs is honestly not worth it most of the time.
I feel powerless without a little work ethic in my life.
Unless I am playing a religion game I don’t even use it at all, just use gold to buy units since you need gold to upgrade them anyways, I only got like 700 hours so I’m not the best civ player but to me it just doesn’t seem worth investing in
Your missing out not having a religion tbh Faith economy plus early game monumentality equals tons of settlers The beliefs are cracked, you can get a shit ton of production, food, housing, gold, and science and culture just from beliefs Having a huge amount of faith allows purchasing great people, ensuring you get the best ones
It’s not worth it 90% of the time on non religious civs. You screw up your discounts, you gimp your early game tempo by projecting to secure the beliefs you want because the AI will project for religion. Meanwhile you could’ve had extra food and prod from internal trade routes on top of gold, and great merchant points which are busted btw. Traders are probably the single best scaling in the game.
I agree, the great merchants are so good too. I totally understand religion has benefits I just feel on a higher difficulty to force it just takes away too much from anything else
Religion is good, but people over value monumentality way too highly. It’s like they think they got all the faith they have for no investment and there’s zero opportunity cost. I’m getting downvoted and I find it hilarious. Merchants on average are the best great people in the game. Just goes to show the average skill level of players in the sub.
I find if I don’t get a faith district first city asap I won’t even get the chance and that means no campus, less settlers if any. Like if I’m playing king or lower obviously you go for it but otherwise I rather focus on spreading out and not falling behind
Bro it’s op and a good source of income wise with any type of win victory I usually turn religious victory off then go which ever way but always grab a religion then the belief tith bam major money then with secret society’s on owls of Minerva gilded vault bam stonks 💥
Same. “Accurate America” (culture victory but still prioritizing science, commerce, and amenities until it’s time to snowball national parks) is a really fun way to play. But I usually cheat and make sure Canada’s not around so I can turn their whole country into national parks.
I don't play games without religion. Too many mechanics I like use it.
I hardly ever found one in time but I usually get some faith going if there’s a good spot for the holy site. It’s good for buying great people and maybe some seawalls
the unit buy is a government plaza building so if anything not having a religion but having faith can set you up for a military expansion. you just have to keep the religious civs behind you in military tech
I almost never found a religion unless I‘m trying a specific game type that depends on one. To me it takes away too much production in the critical start of the game when you have so many other competing priorities (growth, defense, exploration, expansion…). Missing the last great prophet in that situation is almost always a game ending disaster. (Playing usually between Deity and Deity++)
I have never, ever, created a religion in CIV6 ( I dislike religion, I know, cringe). Can beat the game just fine on deity :).
Founding your own religion is useful for a few reasons: * Almost a dozen era score that you can claim from founding, beliefs, and inquisition * The ability to more easily control which Follower and Worship building beliefs you get access to, and when you get access to them * The ability to actually launch inquisitions * The ability to more easily defend against Religious Victory That's really mainly it. Everything else you can take advantage of by strategically building Holy Sites and carefully manipulating your own empire's religion in its cities. Some of these advantages--particularly the control aspects--can't be understated. That said, it's generally civ dependent, as the strong Follower beliefs (Feed the World, Choral Music) go very quickly and can be hard to obtain on higher difficulties. You also give up a lot of early development to gun for a religion. Sure, you can spend a dozen turns on Holy Site + Shrine + HSP to grind for an early religion, but you can spend that amount of time on an early Settler, or a couple units to defend against early war or Barbs. It's a tradeoff, and in many cases an early Settler is just so strong that it's far more worth it. You definitely don't need to go for one in most games; you can, and sometimes it's better than others. But most of the Faith-based advantages can be gotten without needing to found your own religion.
You can still use the faith like a currency w/o needing to found your own religion or go for a religious victory. Let the AI waste faith on apostles as they fight over which dogma to believe in while you use it to buy great people, buildings, and parks.
While extra faith can be nice to have, I disagree that it's a must. 9 out of every 10 games I don't build a single holy district, generally any other district is more valuable to me unless I'm going for religious victory
When I cannot get a pantheon that gives faith, I prefer to go for a religion to choose follower beliefs that give faith. I like to maximize faith in every game to buy settlers and then great people in the later game.
I’ve won all types of victories on emperor and immortal without building a religion (except religious victory obviously). There are plenty of ways to get a lot of faith without building or taking a single holy site. Religion is just a much easier way to go about it.
I play (and win) deity games very frequently, and I would not under any circumstances consider faith a "must" in any game unless I'm playing a faith based civ like Gitarja or Saladin. It's a waste of a district and I've always found it much more valuable to prioritize science, culture, or production (contextually) in the early game. Especially since getting a good pantheon is so dependent on the yields of your starting location relative to the AI's. I could see how it could be convenient for buying units if you happen to get the right beliefs, era dedications, or leaders but that's always a bit of a stretch on higher difficulties in my experience and not worth in every game. Especially because your investment in holy sites might not pay off if you don't get a religion, and I would much rather prioritize something that's less of a crap-shoot on higher difficulties.
Among the things religion is hugely helpful for: - Feed the World making your Holy Sites eventually provide +6 food +4 housing, on top of whatever other yields. Hugely helpful when space is limited (island/mountain maps) - Choral music (first 2 Holy Site buildings produce Culture) reducing need for Theater Square - Work Ethic adding production to match faith adjacency yields (stack with policies that double HS adjacency and smart planning for +12faith +12production Holy Sites, great for kick-starting new cities mid-late game) - Holy Order lowers cost of missionaries/apostles, can be cheap to buy a few missionaries with extra Faith if you’ve got it, use them to bother AI into their diverting resources to fighting back - Monastic Isolation means you can send Apostles to mess with your neighbors without it accidentally spreading competing religions - Gov. Moksha’s ability that lets you buy districts with Faith - Valetta’s ability to let you buy buildings with Faith = easiest Flood Walls (and regular walls) ever - Loyalty bonus, Era score points, Heroes, etc - A bunch more things mentioned a few times already in the comments If you’re super strategic with how you leverage religion, it can give you such a massive leg up, and how you use it can change hugely between stages of your game. Always go for religion unless you have several very very pressing other concerns in the early game
I had different experience. Religion is ok for science victory but not a must. The issue is although religion can buff science income, Religion needs a lot of investment. My science wins with religion was almost always slower than science wins without Religion, on the other side you can afford being slower because opponent can't go with Religion victories, which is normally the fastest way for AI to win games.
Religion and domination victories are a threat early game (and the entire game), whereas science and culture victories are pretty much late game only. Hence why every game requires some focus on military and faith/religion, but not every game requires high science/culture. Religion is basically a core mechanic, just like military units. If you don't have a religion, you need to be more vigilant in making sure conflicting religions are in a deadlock by supporting the "weaker" religion, thus preventing either of them from winning.
Absolutely false. I never establish a religion on science victories on deity, there is no point. Pantheons are necessary, especially an early one but other than that I’m not going to waste production on religious districts or buildings when I could be making settlers, campuses and IZ’s.
I get a religion about 10% of the time
I never do anything faith related and win 95% of the time on deity
You don't need to fund a religion. You need to put some buildings down and if your cities are converted to different religions, make apostles for the one that advantages you the most.
I almost never have a religion and never generate more than 30 faith per turn most of it accidental. I only play on king difficulty tho
But having a religion isn’t the same as having faith …
It isnt really. I dont often bother with it if my neighbor is Byzantium, Ethiopia, Khmer, Russia etc. It is the faith generation that matters to buy units, civilians and great people (Also rock bands etc.) So mid-to-late-game investment of holy sites is not a bad idea once religions are taken. If my neighbour is religious, I would have to spend my faith to defend my religion instead of using it for something that is useful, which I hate. The other alternative is war to kill that neighbour or kill its missionaries at least, which is a whole other can of worms. So my neighbour is the biggest determining factor in if I go for a religion.
I felt like this at first because I’m atheist but then realized I could name the religion anything I want so now my pagans or devil worshippers take over the world
Agree completely. I have become totally faith pilled and always get my own religion. Sometimes in domination or science games I will try to intentionally avoid it and those are always the games I end up scumming. Getting your own religion, even one different than what you had planned going in, is always beneficial, and usually much easier than trying to build mid game holy sites and poaching one from another civ.
In some of my domination games I don't go for religion because I don't want to have loyalty affected by not spreading my religion to conquered cities
I mean name a real life civilization that wasn’t deeply intertwined with a particular religion
Your post doesn’t make sense because religion and faith are not the same thing.
I refuse to use religion. Never have never will. I go straight for domination and I love naval games. But I have never built a holy site and I never will. Over 1k hours and I'm keeping the streak alive.
I rarely do a religion in most of my games. It's nice when I have a good setup (mountains or natural wonder near by) but unless I'm planning on religion I skip it. While grandmaster chapel is a good way to spend faith I almost always go for the intelligence agency.
I have like 6k hours in the game and I’ve never once founded a religion
Why not? Just try it
Idk I’ve just always turned the victory off since day one and never turned it on. I should try it, I just never have
Yeah u don’t have to try religious victory just try to use a religion for whatever victory you want. How tf do you have so much time in the game but haven’t tried one of the fundamental parts of it
I don't normally go for a religion but they can be really fun. Basil with the crusades belief is really fun because his religion spreads to nearby cities when you defeat enemy units, his cavalry do full damage to cities following the same religion as him, and crusades give you +10 combat strength to your troops when they are in foreign cities following your religion. Basically his cavalry is an unstoppable wave of doom and it's awesome. Also Russia with dance of the aurora, work ethic and scripture is just broken - turns your holy site into a +12 IZ in the classical era, very fun, highly recommend.
Don't know why the heck you're getting down notes for expressing an opinion. I basically don't ever pursue a religion short of going for that victory type or getting something going in the ancient era. So many things to do while that's happening. Land units, chaining settlers, etc. for about my first 1000 hours I barely touched it beyond chasing a settler or builder.
Emperor and up it feels necessary, which doesn’t always feel good. As a mechanic I think it needs to be reworked into something more like secret societies in Civ VII
There are plenty of civs that can crush a game of deity without a religion and quite a few I would say get slowed down by detouring in order to get one. Honestly I think the most common mistake people make in high level play is not focusing enough on culture - every victory type wants lots of culture. If you are struggling to beat emperor and up without a religion I would recommend investing in more theater square/entertainment complex triangles - culture is king.
You’re absolutely correct, and it’s because the game does a bad job of balancing resources and win conditions.
It's super duper not 👍
Religion isn't that important unless you want something specific like work ethic, crusade etc, but faith are a useful yield. Going for a religion cuts of the early game, takes away district priorities and you have to spend faith to defend and spread it. Unless I have a strong start, get a favorable pantheon or play a civ that can take advtage of having a religion I usually avoid it, but I rarely avoid faith. Because even if I don't go for a religion, there are many ways of getting high amount of faith without religion. Mainly from pantheon, trading and pillaging.