Religion

[Eztrelle]

I am struggling with religion.

My neighbour is absolutely swamping my cities/regions with his religion. I have built all the religious buildings I could but some how my neighbour already seems to have enacted tenets that greatly increase his religious fervour. I struggled to generate fervour fast enough.

Not sure how to counteract this.

[Eztrelle]

Bump

[Nekrux]

Well, I must say thanks because I was going to write the same post.

My whole continent got converted by my neighbor.

[Cythal]

Religion seems, from what I can gather. to be tied to ...
1. How much Faith your cities are generating.
2. The number of followers in your population

If another empire is ...
1. Generating more faith than you,
2. Have more followers, and (2 more important bits below)
3, Have an unbroken link to your empire either through
a. Trade route and or an
b. Outpost or City .... (independent cities do not count,)
Then the empire will begin to put pressure on your cities and outpost. It is very difficult to counter this once they take hold of almost all your region. Holding a state religion and choosing the right Civics seems to be the best way to counter this, as well as increasing your faith generation.

[Spread does not work across bodies of water to another Civ's continent. Seem you must have a trade route going through.]

This is the same mechanic with society [Linked to How much influence your cities are generating to keep all surrounding outposts in line. So Faith is to Religion, Influence is to Society.]

When expanding, try leaving a gap of neutral region to stop the spread of "sphere of influence" for religion and society from a rival Civ. If it is an important region you really want, you will need to make a hard decision but I have seen that the it is best to take it when all other surrounding outposts and cities are at 100% of your society and religion, that is there is no broken link back to you capital.

I think this mechanic combats too much expansion.

[Kotli]

A few things that will help you get your faith up to counter the pressure.
Shamanism IMO is better than Polytheism since it scales with population instead of fixed 5 per Territory.
Grab the faith based wonders ASAP as each one of them counts as a holy site giving +20 faith and stability boosts plus they normally have a good boosts to other stuff as well.

[Eztrelle]

All good sound advice thanks for sharing @Kotli and @Cythal

I did have 4 active trade routes with my particular neighbour I refer to. So perhaps I could have cut off trade? I suppose I would have to to consider whats more important to me.. keeping my religion or the trade.

Is there nothing other than building my own faith/fervor (cant remember what the game referes to it as)as a way of quoshing a foreign religion? No diplomatic route "♥♥♥♥ with my priests and your dead.." type stuff??

Ez

[Nekrux]

Originally posted by Cythal:

Religion seems, from what I can gather. to be tied to ...
1. How much Faith your cities are generating.
2. The number of followers in your population

If another empire is ...
1. Generating more faith than you,
2. Have more followers, and (2 more important bits below)
3, Have an unbroken link to your empire either through
a. Trade route and or an
b. Outpost or City .... (independent cities do not count,)
Then the empire will begin to put pressure on your cities and outpost. It is very difficult to counter this once they take hold of almost all your region. Holding a state religion and choosing the right Civics seems to be the best way to counter this, as well as increasing your faith generation.

[Spread does not work across bodies of water to another Civ's continent. Seem you must have a trade route going through.]

This is the same mechanic with society [Linked to How much influence your cities are generating to keep all surrounding outposts in line. So Faith is to Religion, Influence is to Society.]

When expanding, try leaving a gap of neutral region to stop the spread of "sphere of influence" for religion and society from a rival Civ. If it is an important region you really want, you will need to make a hard decision but I have seen that the it is best to take it when all other surrounding outposts and cities are at 100% of your society and religion, that is there is no broken link back to you capital.

I think this mechanic combats too much expansion.

My question is (despite the bonus/malus thing You get by having/not having a strong enough religion), could this become a problem if my neighbor and I start a war by giving him easier ways to win?

On the other hand, I'm happy that my cultural society has spread over the whole continent, and I hope this could counter somehow their religion spread.

[Cythal]

@Nekrux

I think this makes it easier to generate grievances and then therefore Increase War support if demands are not met.

If your neighbours society/religion is spread across your land and you adopt a civic/state religion, they will find it easier to bully you hand over outposts and cities. Works both ways.

As for during war, I have not studied the effect of having my enemies society/religion spread across my lands.

Overall I think this favours no war approach. spread your society and religion far and wide and slowly demand outposts and nearby cities to your hearts content. Of course you will need to make the your rival cower under your power first to do so. In Humankind difficulty this is so hard to do, when you are struggling to catch up.

[Special Wonder]

Faith, like influence, spreads city to city. Thus, spreading your faith comes down to building up followers in one city and having it transfer to another. The more faith a city produces (through followers, holy sites, etc.), the more "power" it has against other faiths.

It's not something I've played with a lot yet but I can relay this story: The whole game, my religion was swamped just like yours. From the ancient era to the late medieval. Until I captured a city separated from our continent by a strait.

Here in this city, my faith flourished enough to finally get its first tenant. I suppose because it had its own holy site already, and it was cut off from the rest of the content and not involved in any trade lanes. As soon as I got this first tenant, my faith swept over my lands like wildfire.

Eventually, it started fighting back against the faith that had dominated for so long and creeping into neighboring lands!

[Cythal]

I just discovered, if you are the top patron to a neighbouring independent city they will adopt your religion.

[Tregon]

Originally posted by Kotli:

A few things that will help you get your faith up to counter the pressure.
Shamanism IMO is better than Polytheism since it scales with population instead of fixed 5 per Territory.
Grab the faith based wonders ASAP as each one of them counts as a holy site giving +20 faith and stability boosts plus they normally have a good boosts to other stuff as well.

I prefer polytheism. I tend to aggressively expand, so having 4-5 territory cities is common. That is 20-25 faith.

Granted, over time shamanism can exceed that, but it does not help if polytheists have already overwhelmed your religion.

[Townsendvol]

Originally posted by Eztrelle:

I am struggling with religion.

My neighbour is absolutely swamping my cities/regions with his religion. I have built all the religious buildings I could but some how my neighbour already seems to have enacted tenets that greatly increase his religious fervour. I struggled to generate fervour fast enough.

Not sure how to counteract this.

I am not sure but I must have gotten pretty lucky here or picked the right wonders, but my religion was dominating my continent. Again not sure how but I did have several wonders that were considered religious places and some of my civics and stuff leaned that way.

In fact even when given the option to get away from religion (I typically would), I didnt because it was such a strong aspect of my empire.

[SirKnechtalot]

religion is cheesy.. just pick shaman, ie pop weighted and and agrarian culture
i picked Edo Japan afterwards with 1 influence per pop and it´s a roflstomp

[AOM]

Originally posted by Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd:

Faith, like influence, spreads city to city. Thus, spreading your faith comes down to building up followers in one city and having it transfer to another. The more faith a city produces (through followers, holy sites, etc.), the more "power" it has against other faiths.

It's not something I've played with a lot yet but I can relay this story: The whole game, my religion was swamped just like yours. From the ancient era to the late medieval. Until I captured a city separated from our continent by a strait.

Here in this city, my faith flourished enough to finally get its first tenant. I suppose because it had its own holy site already, and it was cut off from the rest of the content and not involved in any trade lanes. As soon as I got this first tenant, my faith swept over my lands like wildfire.

Eventually, it started fighting back against the faith that had dominated for so long and creeping into neighboring lands!

This is not entirely correct. Based on an examination of a recent game it appears to be the case that all religion generated in your entire nation is present in each and every city, attached territory, and outpost you have. So, if you picked Shamanism and you have 300 followers, a brand new outpost you drop will begin exerting 300 faith even if that outpost has only a single follower in it. This is what causes Shamanism to snowball out of control relative to Polytheism as populations grow and grabbable territory becomes more scarce.

For example, in a game I am playing now, a Polytheist with 25 territories is exerting 125 faith from a newly dropped outpost. That nation has built 6 holy sites and three wonders that act as holy sites that give faith per city (instead of per every city, attached territory, and outpost). One city has Notre Dame and Angkor Wat. That city is exerting 227 faith.

On the other hand, a Shamanist with roughly the same number of territories is exerting 349 faith in an unattached outpost with one follower. That nation has built 2 holy sites and one faith wonder. Interestingly enough, they took a city from the AI fame leader in battle. This nation has an established religion, and before the war their religion level was 97-99% in all of their cities. However, once the Shamanist player took the AI city, it instantly converted to their religion at 97% even though it is merely occupied and not owned by the Shamanist. That city is now exerting 349 faith pressure against the AI's remaining cities.

A Shaman outpost with one follower dropped by a nation with a decent sized population can more than overwhelm the religious output of a well developed Polytheist city with 49 people and two holy site wonders.

This system is broken. Once you select Polytheism, it's religious game over for you if someone else picks Shamanism and grows their population in a normal way. There is no amount of holy sites and wonders you can build that will ever be enough to overtake them because their entire nation's follower count is exerted as religious pressure by every city, administrative center, and outpost they have. A game should not include such a deterministic feature as a 50% choice you make in the first 10 or so turns of the game.

In a further example of utter brokenness, religiously established cities seem to immediately take the religion of an occupier even before the war is over and cities change hands.

[Oddible]

I've honestly never seen this happen in the 4 games I've played to the end. I've tried Shamanism in two of them and Polytheism in two of them and dominated in religion in both without even trying. This is on Civilization difficulty. Some tips, feedback...

If you're getting overrun by another religion, you have two paths to take. You can try to get your religion up to dominating theirs or you can accept their religion in your lands and work with it. The first is MUCH harder than the second. There are events and civics which give you bonuses for having non-coreligion states. Make sure to pick these! Religion isn't really that big a deal - it was pretty heavily nerfed. Even if you have another civ's religion, you still get THEIR tenets. You just don't get to pick which tenets. Later in the game you can choose civics to get rid of the effects of religion entirely and go for a agnostic society.

^ This would be my approach, once you're behind in religion it will be tough to dig out of it and capturing their cities isn't going to wipe out their religion.