How to improve religion?

[Q]

I can spear it with units but how can I work on improving actual my religion?

[Lemurian1972]

I can't tell if you're asking how to add Beliefs to your religion or how to win a Religious victory so I'll answer the first and give some tips I use for the second.
Your first couple of Apostles will have an Evangelize Belief command, this will let you pick another bonus, up to 4.

1) Ignore Missionaries- spending charges to convert cities is a painfully inefficient way to win at Religion.
2) If the Yerevan City State is in your game, do everything you can to be their Suzerain. It is by far the best perk for making your religion efficient.
3) Ignore Stonehenge, do your best to get Mahabodi Temple. Stonehenge really only gives you a religion a few turns earlier and then is mostly useless (since you need a Faith District anyway), while Mahabodi gives you a hefty 2 Apostles early on without bumping up your cost to purchase them with Faith.
4) Apostles with Proselytizer, Debater, and Translator are the best. Use others to pick additional Beliefs and start an Inquisition, at least early on. Later you can use them to convert cities.
5) Use Proselytizers on the other civs Holy City (capital) converting them in one shot crushes their religious unit production for a long time, giving you time to grow.
6) Use Debaters on your home turf early then move them into other empires. Don't use all their charges, keep them alive and fighting. Winning Theological combat is a much more powerful way to convert enemy cities than using charges. When they're injured bring them back home and heal them on your Holy Site, then repeat.
7) Translators aren't the best but still good, a triple strength charge can convert some smaller enemy cities in one shot pick your targets based on city population.
8) once your Debater apostles are out fighting to expand your faith, use Inquisitors at home. Defend with theological combat and healing, and occasionally clean out any foreign influence with charges.

[Q]

Originally posted by Lemurian1972:

Your first couple of Apostles will have an Evangelize Belief command, this will let you pick another bonus, up to 4.

that's what I've missed :) thank you

[Dray Prescot]

You also need to increase your production of Faith Points (early in the game and as it continues) which you need to buy religious units and buildings. Look closely at tile improvements, Holy Site buildings, additional beliefs, Policies, government (Theocracy) and other Civics, Great Prophet points, etc. to make your religion stronger and more effective. Plus make sure that no one converts (or conquers) your City that founded your Religion. Look very carefully at the Civics Tree, and make pushing religion a priority when choosing what civics to go for.

Your very first religious belief and early Reilgious Policies/Civics are critical to how fast you can get your Great Prophet, the longer you wait the more expensive they get. Every religious belief that you chose needs to be considered carefully. Do not chose beliefs that do things you can do easlily, chose beliefs that enable you to do things that would be hard to do without them.

Having a good religion of your own is the best defense against other religions. Plus it makes for one less religion to worry about infiltrating your Civ. And it makes it a lot harder for another Civ to get a Religious Victory.

[Q]

Originally posted by Dray Prescot:

You also need to increase your production of Faith Points (early in the game and as it continues) which you need to buy religious units and buildings. Look closely at tile improvements, Holy Site buildings, additional beliefs, Policies, government (Theocracy) and other Civics, Great Prophet points, etc. to make your religion stronger and more effective. Plus make sure that no one converts (or conquers) your City that founded your Religion. Look very carefully at the Civics Tree, and make pushing religion a priority when choosing what civics to go for.

Your very first religious belief and early Reilgious Policies/Civics are critical to how fast you can get your Great Prophet, the longer you wait the more expensive they get. Every religious belief that you chose needs to be considered carefully. Do not chose beliefs that do things you can do easlily, chose beliefs that enable you to do things that would be hard to do without them.

Having a good religion of your own is the best defense against other religions. Plus it makes for one less religion to worry about infiltrating your Civ. And it makes it a lot harder for another Civ to get a Religious Victory.

I see... I aways disliked cultural, score, science and religious victories so I prefer to disable them :D
It's alike winning game when it's in very middle state...
But I also understand why those victories are exists - possibly because after specific point there are no more new cultural discovers, no more technologies etc...
I wonder if there is tactic not to care about religion, just following another's religion because it just takes build time for those holy buildings and makes Poland to dislike you XD

[Dray Prescot]

As long as no one else scores a religious victory, you can pursue other victory conditions. But watch out for any Civ+Religion that converts more than half your cities, since you can no longer have a direct way of stopping them from winning when they convert the other Civilizations.

As long as there are several strong religions, do not worry too much. But beware of one religion that keeps growing and growing compared to the other religions. About all you can do then (if you do not have a Religion) is attack them, preferably with allies, and try to capture the city that founded their religion, plus any other Holy Sites/Cities that belong to that Civilization, and their Capital City (which is often the founding Holy Site of their religion)

If you keep anyone from converting YOUR Cities and Civilization then you know that no one besides you can win a Religious Victory, even if you are going for a different Victory Condition. (It seems trite to say that, but it is also true).

Unfortunately, I am certain that it is presently NOT possible (until possible future changes anyway) to conquer and destroy another Civilization with a Religion, and then use that Religion to achieve a Religious Victory for your own Civilization.

What make religion REALLY dangerous would be if it had a stong affect on Diplomacy, i.e. who your possible/allowed enemies and allies were, and/or how your Warmonger status was viewed/changed by them due to religion.

Another change would be some way for one religion to absorb or merge with another religion. This could be an alternate form of a Religius Victory Condition.

A different idea would be to allow Schisms to break up a religion into multiple religions. (Maybe another Civilization or Religion could try to make this happen to a different Religion)).
That would put a different context on Theological Combat (or Warfare)

Maybe you could try to turn another religion's unit into a sort of double agent. The original owner would think he was still loyal, while it was spreading a changed form of that religion.