I don't understand the religion..

[noone_86]

Please explain to me how religion works in Civ 6. I have very limited time to play this game on my friends PC, so any tips will be greatly appreciated.

Playing as Peter I, I conquered Rome and it had a holy site. I upgraded it to a shrine, but when I later on popped a Prophet on top of it, I was not able to faith-buy anything in the city and on teh religious lens the city was covered with blank tiles like the rest. A bug maybe?

After reloading, I built the russian holy site in another city and popped the prophet there. Now some of the city's territory is colored (via the religious lens) and the city is marked. I can buy missionaries and cathedrals too, so I assume this time it went well.

What do I do now?

To spread the religion to my empire, do I spam missionaries to my cities? I've wiped out other 2 civs on the continent and there's no other religion in sight so far. Will the religion spread eventually without doing anything from the city with coloured tiles or must I pump missionaries? Also, while Jerusalem converted to my religion and is marked on the map, its territory isn't coloured via the lens. Will it eventually help me spread my religion (as I assume it should)?

Also, how do I check the religion details of a city? I spent two missionary charges on one and all I saw was "Protestantism +2000" messages, but I can't see any other effect anywhere.

Thank you for any help. Dear god, this game has so many hidden mechanics that aren't described well...

[Paladin]

Collecting religion points early game allows you to start a pantheon. This pantheon gives you the selected perks you want so long as the city that you build follows that religion.

From there, you need to make a great prophet. There are a finite amount of great prophets in the game... and it is the ONLY way to make a religion by bringing it to a holy site.

Once complete, your religion points are now collected as a currency to purchase missionary's and prophets.

Missionaries spread religion to places. But cannot combat other religions.
Prophets combat other religions (and other prophets) so that you can make your own religion primary.

[Damedius]

Once you get the great prophet one city becomes a holy city. This is the city that can buy the religious units to start. Use this city to convert the other cities.

Apostles are more expensive than missionaries but they can upgrade your religion and call for an inquistion which allows you to hire inquisitors.

Inquisitors keep your cities your religion. The remove heresy removes all religion but your religion.

For converting other cities I use a mix of apostles and missionaries. Apostles are better if you get lucky with their promotion. They have one ability that elminates other religions when used. This is the op ability that allows you to win a religious victory especially if you build wonders that allow extra charges.

[noone_86]

Originally posted by Paladin:

Collecting religion points early game allows you to start a pantheon. This pantheon gives you the selected perks you want so long as the city that you build follows that religion.

From there, you need to make a great prophet. There are a finite amount of great prophets in the game... and it is the ONLY way to make a religion by bringing it to a holy site.

Once complete, your religion points are now collected as a currency to purchase missionary's and prophets.

Missionaries spread religion to places. But cannot combat other religions.
Prophets combat other religions (and other prophets) so that you can make your own religion primary.

Mate thank you for trying, but you literally described what happens before you create a religion. Which is fine and dandy, but I did mention that I had created my own religion already, so I had no issues with stage.

Also, unless I'm unaware of some mechanic, "Once complete, your religion points are now collected as a currency to purchase missionary's and prophets" part is totally wrong. Faith points are collected all through the game, I had like 300 before I created my religion. Just... I had nothign to use the on aside from bribing great people.

Originally posted by Paladin:

Missionaries spread religion to places. But cannot combat other religions.
Prophets combat other religions (and other prophets) so that you can make your own religion primary.

That, I know as well. I think it's even in the game's encyclopedia when you check "religion". My question is, does my religion spread passively from my holy city or not? Also, what does Jerusalem do if I'm the suzerain, spam the missionaries, spread the religion passively, or literally act as +1 city influenced by the religion?

[John Hugo]

Why is religion so complicated? It worked fine in Civ 5. Complicated is not fun.

[noone_86]

Originally posted by Damedius:

Once you get the great prophet one city becomes a holy city. This is the city that can buy the religious units to start. Use this city to convert the other cities.

As I asked, must I spam missionaries from it or would religion have some sort of passive spread? Also, what does Jerusalem do for me?

Originally posted by Damedius:

Apostles are more expensive than missionaries but they can upgrade your religion and call for an inquistion which allows you to hire inquisitors.

Inquisitors keep your cities your religion. The remove heresy removes all religion but your religion.

Thank you for the unit descriptions, but civilopedia had me covered there. I'm struggling with the mechanic itself instead...

Originally posted by Damedius:

For converting other cities I use a mix of apostles and missionaries. Apostles are better if you get lucky with their promotion. They have one ability that elminates other religions when used. This is the op ability that allows you to win a religious victory especially if you build wonders that allow extra charges.

Thanks for providing your experience, but so far I'm uncontested by other religions in my continent. Actually, I don't get the apostle promotion thing yet ( I think I met a city-state which allowed to pick promotions rather than get random ones), but I need to check the civilopedia for that, and that will have to wait until I get to the game again.

[noone_86]

Originally posted by nakaVS:

Seems to be pretty easy. No reason to buy anything but apostles tbh.

Why?

[Lonetac]

Apostles are great! I had one convert 5 barbarians around one of my cities into my army. The upgrades you can get from apostles vary greatly and all have good uses. One doubles up as a medic, others are good for spreading religion in other cities, while some are good for keeping your house clean of other religions. Always upgrade and keep the ones that have the same promotions together and use them accordingly. If your apostle gets an upgrade at converting cities, then dont engage in holy fights with them.

My favorite is the upgrade where you lose a apostle in a holy fight he creates an artifact.

[noone_86]

Originally posted by nakaVS:

Originally posted by noone_86:

Why?

Again, not sure if it was from my military districts or city states, but you could pick "remove all other religions" promo from the start. One apostle = easily converted city. 3 charges for a holy city. EZPZ

But if my people are uneducated tw*ts who don't believe in anything (my religion included), I assume missionaries are fine?

[noone_86]

Originally posted by nakaVS:

Originally posted by noone_86:

But if my people are uneducated ♥♥♥♥♥ who don't believe in anything, I assume missionaries are fine?

No clue since you don't even own the game ;)

Indeed I don't. As I mentioned, I've played it together with a friend on his PC, so I can't even check the civilopedia once I'm back home. Oh well, thanks for the tips anyway.

[DarkThug]

I build missionary during early stage of the game or when you go into continent or region that has no religion yet. They are more cost efficient than apostle. It also prevent apostle cost from needlessly increase until you need them. When you are contested by other religion. Apostle is the only way to go.

Also, I try to use all but one charge from an apostle before sending them into religious battle. Once it's strength fall in red, use that last charge to prevent them from dying and giving other religion boost.

[noone_86]

The questions that no one answered though - does the religion spread passively? How long does it take for it to spread? What does Jerusalem do, really?

I would really like to know this before getting a chance to play again.

[noone_86]

Originally posted by DarkThug:

I build missionary during early stage of the game or when you go into continent or region that has no religion yet. They are more cost efficient than apostle. It also prevent apostle cost from needlessly increase until you need them. When you are contested by other religion. Apostle is the only way to go.

That's what I assumed as well. Missionaries seem best to spread the faith in faithless lands. I didn't even know that the prices of apostles would scale (thanks for the info!), but even without it missionaries seem to be cheaper.

Originally posted by DarkThug:

Also, I try to use all but one charge from an apostle before sending them into religious battle. Once it's strength fall in red, use that last charge to prevent them from dying and giving other religion boost.

I'll try that once I get to religious wars. At this moment, my continent is very lonely...

[Helen Carnate]

Yes it will spread on its own if the cities around you do not already have a majority religion. The game never says how long it takes sadly. Every city you have with a majority of your religion will exert pressure on other cities within 10 tiles, slowly converting them. One way to speed up the process is to have 2 or 3 cities in a cluster all with your religion. Then if another city is within 10 tiles of each of those cities, they will have an even higher pressure to adopt your religion. When picking your religion you can also get one of the beliefs that adds 30% to the range so cities within 13 tiles are affected instead of 10.

Read under Religious units and pressure in the civlopedia.

[merccobb]

Religion spreads by the same mechanic as in Civ V, although it is a little more opaque. If a city has a majority religion, a circle graph will show up under the religion lense that shows what proportion of each religion has sway. For some reason, this graph does not show up if the city has no religion, or a non-majority religion, but I assume the underlying mechanics are the same.

Jerusalem has a suzerain bonus that makes it automatically adopt your religion, and it then acts as a second holy city putting out pressure equal to your founding city.

Inquisitors, missionaries, and apostles damaged in religious combat can heal at one of your holy sites, so an effective tactic to stem missionary spam is to position inquisitors and apostles in your border cities with holy sites. When they kill missionaries of the other religion, religious pressure for that religion will drop in a wide radius of the battle, while your own will increase.

[Queen Reena]

There's a lot of good advice in this thread. I recently won a game with a religious victory with Arabia on around turn 150 (tiny map size for those wondering).

Missonaries for uncontested conversions. Converting mainly neutral cities or completely uncontested cities from other religions. Missionaries are the grunts, cheap but have plenty of uses.

Inquisitors: Honestly, I don't have much experience with using them in Civ 6 so far. In my Arabia game I never unlocked them and in previous games I used them but sparingly. Mostly to solidify dominance over cities and entirely remove enemy religion from my lands. They suck at combat.

Apostles: The big daddies. The best religious units in the game. They are the best at religious combat, and only slightly better than Missionaries at base conversion (at base, with favorable promotions they can be MUCH better). That being said Apostles can be expensive and the numbers start adding up quick (in a previous game, I had their cost up to about 800+ each). You do not want to use these guys for petty conversions, use missionaries for that. When you're locked in a full blown Holy War, these are the bulk of your army. They also upgrade your religion. I recommend sacrificing them if you get a bad roll on the upgrade and you don't need them for combat right away.