Are religions worth the trouble?

[8-bit]

I know they add perks to your Civ and I do always start one to add boosts to my growth etc but then I usually spend the rest of the game fending off prophets and having to re-establish my own religion. I'm thinking it would be better to just not bother with it and just allow other Civs to spread their own.(??)

[Sebslocker]

Well there are different ways to play the game. Also it depends on the map. I usually play trying to spread my religion as much as possible. In my current run I managed to spread it to 75% cities in my large archipelago map. I'm swimming in gold while denying others their bonuses. Sometimes its not worth it tho. All depends on connectivity (pressure extends 10 tiles) caravans relations and so on. When you plan or just have a chance to conquer holly city then you can eventually wipe out that religion with ease. I find it fun to play religious civ but its not necessary. You can completely avoid any faith buildings saving time and money.

Edit: Citizen converts every 100 points of pressure. So with 2 nearby cities citizen will convert every 9 turns or so but then cities will put pressure on each other. Strategically placed inquisitor or missionary can shift the balance. So I tend to save up faith until the balance is against me. Otherwise I let time do its thing. Unless remote island or new world is discovered.

[RJJameson]

On higher difficulties than Emperor, I say generally no. Without a faith generating bonus, I just can't spare the time and resources.

On Emperor or below, they certainly can be. You don't get the founder benefit of someone else's religion, and those can be one of the more potent aspects. IF you can snag an early pantheon, and IF that pantheon is generating you a decent amount of faith, it can be worthwhile to go for a religion.

Don't bother though unless you're generating enough faith to get all your Faith buildings (always take Faith buildings as a religious perk)--once those are out, you'll have some extra for missionaries to spread the good word elsewhere--thereby improving your Founder's bonus (I usually go for gold/happiness per population/city that follows the religion). By mid-game, I'm usually getting a nice chunk of gold and LOTS of happiness/culture from my religion, with a solid faith production to back up the missions.

[John]

Fending off great prophets?, the only thing you need is an inquisitor in your city and other religions will no longer be able to use missionaries and great prophets in that city.
1- make a pantheon and choose a belief that is useful for you, for me, i always go for god of the sea as i always make cities near sea resources (at least 3), my cities will grow insanely fast because of that. Usually people go for a good faith booster
2- I usually just make stonehenge for faith, if not build some other buildings for faith and perhaps befriend a city state.
3- once i have a great prophet is choose tithe for extra gold and some happiness booster like pagodas, perhaps divine inspiration if you lack faith generators.
4- improve your religion with perhaps another happiness booster and.... well whatever, i usually go for defenders of the faith, that you are stronger near friendly cities with your religion.

Religion isn't the biggest deal later on in the game, it's still a factor but nothing compared to the early game effect, except tithe, cause that is just broken. And remember, just keep an inquisitor in your cities, maybe use it if another religion becomes dominant and then just buy a new one again.

[knighttemplar1960]

If you are going wide a religion is definitely worth it because faith generation doesn't suffer diminishing returns like culture and science do but you have to decide that you are going to focus on religion and really push it at the beginning of the game to make sure you get the tenets that you want. The Celts really excel at this. They get 1 faith per turn for having one unimproved forest adjacent to their city (you can put a road on it but you can't put a lumber mill or a plantation if it is a silk lux or a camp if it is a truffles lux for example) and they get 2 faith per turn if they have 3 unimproved forest tiles adjacent to the city. That bonus applies to each city that has forest adjacent.

Their special unit the Pictish warrior (spearman) gains faith for the empire for each barbarian unit that they kill. If you play them correctly you can get a religion set up and expanded before the other civs can even get one set up.

Their special building (Opera House) gives +3 happiness so its very easy to go wide with the Celts. As long as you get the tenets that you want first you can pretty much steam roll your religion through the entire game even if you don't invest any social policies in the religion tree.

A few tips:

Explore quickly and see what is near you. Find any nearby faith generating natural wonders and plan your early cities to maximize your faith generation.

In the early exploration phase of the game you can get faith out of ancient ruins after turn 20. There are 2 faith awards, a first time small one that grants you enough to get your pantheon belief (provided no other civ founds a pantheon that turn) and a large faith award that gives you about 33% of the faith required to generate a great prophet. Once you found a major religion you can no longer get this reward from ancient ruins but you can game it a bit by not founding your religion as soon as you get your first great prophet. If you make the first profit wait you can still receive the large faith award from ancient ruins. When you generate your second prophet you can found with the first prophet and enhance with the 2nd on the same turn as long as you don't click next before doing both.

Pick tenets that help your entire civilization. Your pantheon appears in any city you settle prior to establishing a major religion so try to get as many down as you can (keep an eye on your happiness) before you found. A pantheon belief that generates culture or faith (or better yet both) based on worked tiles will also get you off to a quick start. Tithe is good for generating extra gold. Mosques generate additional faith, culture, and happiness. Pagodas generate additional faith, culture, and happiness. Itinerant preachers increase your religious pressure to 15 tiles instead of 10. If you pick religious social policies you can generate insane amounts of faith but you don't have to. If you do that make sure you pick enough to get a reformation belief and grab "to the glory of God" so that you can spend all that extra faith on great people after the industrial era.

If you go wide like that it won't matter if enemy civs send missionaries or great prophets against you because you'll out generate them on faith and be able to counter any moves they make without declaring war. Having large cities makes it very hard for an enemy civ to convert your cities using missionaries and if they use a great prophet its much cheaper in faith costs for you to buy inquisitors than it is for them to buy great prophets and you'll likely have 2 or 3 great prophets created by faith overflow before you get to the industrial era even buying all the faith buildings and spamming missionaries.

[8-bit]

Wow thanks guys. Appreciate the info.

I still have a lot of the finer points of the game to learn and use properly but at least I have a idea of what can be achieved.

[John]

Also, here is a video about religion, it's a long video, but it does pretty much cover everything you wanna know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R42Xtr2Vfww

[8-bit]

Thanks, will check it out. I think I might have check of his other stuff out in the past.

[Matthew]

I don't find it worth. If I get a pantheon without trying I usually go God-king or that one which gives +2 science per city connection. Which is actually a lot early on.

The best part about religions is the extra happiness through faith buildings, but you can still buy those from other religions.

Perhaps if Piety wasn't the worse policy tree it would be better.

[John]

Originally posted by Matthew:

I don't find it worth. If I get a pantheon without trying I usually go God-king or that one which gives +2 science per city connection. Which is actually a lot early on.

The best part about religions is the extra happiness through faith buildings, but you can still buy those from other religions.

Perhaps if Piety wasn't the worse policy tree it would be better.

Yeah you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, how is piety the worst policy tree when it easily outclasses aesthetics, honor, exploration and heck even liberty is bad compared to it. Liberty is great early on, but if you look at it, a free worker, a free settler, it's really bad.

[Matthew]

Super cool opinion. Unfortunately, most disagree with you. Sacred sites is the only redeeming quality, and outside of that it is garbage. Just like your opinion.

[clif9710]

I wish Steam had a way to print out a thread like this one with so much valuable content. True, one can copy and paste but wouldn't it be great, for example, to have a nicely formatted printout with the name of each commenter in bold then the indented comment?

[kkeday]

I tend to warmonger. If I get a religion, fine. If not Ho Hum. I'm going to take their Holy City anyway. I've completed the Religion tree for the sake of trying it, but it is my least favorite tree. Although in the early game it is nice to get the $ boost from the temples.

[Grendalcat]

Religion is certainly worth it to me, at least for culture and science victories. If you can get the Holy Warriors belief, you can bank faith points by posting a military unit in each city, and eventually produce Great Artists or Writers(culture win) or Great Scientists(science win).

Or just use the faith points to produce extra Great Engineers, to speed up whatever wonders you want to build.

[8-bit]

All interesting stuff, thanks guys.

[Bfloo]

I tend to ignore religion these days, but the extra votes if you can get the world religion help if you are going for a diplomatic victory.

The happiness bonuses are useful, especially if you want to warmonger.