The Snowball effect religion

[GirlyKata1337]

I've been messing with religion a lot, and today I think may have created a religion that loves nothing more than spreading

The Key here is starting as byzantium, taking both piety and liberty as your first two social policies. Then the Pantheon belief I chose was Ancestor worship (+1 culture from shrines). While this slows down your ability to found are religion, it basically gives you the ability to unlock those social policies faster.

When I founded my religion, I chose the founder belief to be Church Property (+2 Gold for every city following this religion, including your own). The extra belief I chose was Pilgrimage (+2 faith for every foreign city following your religion). Your starting to see where the title comes from don't you? As the first follower belief, I chose Choral music (+2 culture from temples), again, to speed up my ability to unlock social policies.

When I got the Reformation belief, i chose Unity of Prohpets.

When I enhanced my religion, I didn't care too much what the second follower belief was, so I chose Feed the World (+1 food from Shrines and Temples). As for the Enhancer belief, I chose Missionary zeal, to spread my religion faster.

I realized after how powerful this religion was, when I started spreading it. In no time, I was making 70 gold and 56 faith a turn, as well as 60 culture a turn. What are you going to do against that?

Thoughts?

TL:DR : +2 gold per city, and +2 faith for every foreign city, in addition to +3 culture and +2 food in every city made my religion pretty powerful!

[Sohei]

Meh. That is okay but there are many more powerful combinations.

[Chaoslink]

My most recent map had me surrounded by spices, sugar, citrus, bananas and cocoa. So I took the +1 culture for every plantation. On top of that I'm playing as polynesia on the coast so Moai buff that culture more. Even more culture things from religion and such and next thing you know I'm maxxing out social policies all over the place. Get some writers and musucians in there and before you know it my culture is already overpowering. Once I got into modern eras it took no time before other civs started complaining that my culture was taking over. Took honor early on and made friends with most civs so I could hunt barbarians for more culture (since I was on Terra the other continent was full of em). Generally speaking my religion always supplements a strong culture.

[Tatanka]

+1 culture from pastures
+1 gold for every 4 follower
cathedrals G&K so 1faith 3culture 1happy
temples +2 culture
religious texts
On terra, the entire continent is pretty much my faith, got two neighbours who have their own religion but cant outdo the presure. Even isabella hapilly converted :D
Making 120 faith 434 culture per turn,

[Matthew]

I like it :)

There may be other combinations, but there is something to be said about spreading the one true faith and snuffing out pagan upstart religions from the map :)

Depending on start I'd maybe choose a different pantheon. The lack of starting culture on Piety can indeed be an issue, but imagine something like +2 faith on quarries with a lot of stone near, or desert folklore on a desert start bias. You can always pick up Oracle to speed up policies, or get an early culture city-state alliance.

[Baneken]

I usually go with tithe +2 for each 4 followers since it scales massively at later ages as each citizen = 1 follower and most cities are size 20 or more ...

Pagodas since that +2 happiness is just too good

desert folklore that +1 faith per desert is simply awesome when combined with petra in early game, same +1 culture per pasture.

Key is to get you faith building at turn 20 or bust because after that kiss good bye on getting "the good beliefs" from the list.
Same for religion if you aren't 1st or 2nd you can usually kiss good bye on having pagodas, mosques or cathedrals.

Do note that computer get automatic culture per turn which why it can rush to reformation even before it has a religion ...
Talk abut lame solution for a comp not knowing how to play -.-

As in G&K piety tree it self generates 0 culture (unlike tradition, liberty and honor) , yet computer still has a near equal amounts of policies compared to mine despite droping at least 4 policies solely on piety or sometimes having only piety.

[Tatanka]

Really didnt do this on purpose, just started game to get achievement with arabs market ...
But of course from starting postion all desert, took desert folklore, went a little bit north to settle third city and stumbled on a natural wonder, and look at minimap holy city is smack dab in middle of continent, talk about snowballing religion, pity all of em tryin to be religious here hahaha

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409840184

gonna need army fast though they already angry covet lands and stuff
fun game

[zxcvbob]

I almost always go for Tithe and Itinerant Preachers, plus whatever else seems to fit my map.

Once I got a really early religion but knew there were other strong religious civs in the game. I took Initiation Rites and spread it quickly before the other religions could spread. Holy Moly! My religion took off and spread like wildfire. I had tons of gold in the early-mid game when gold is usually hard to come by. Then the other religions displaced mine, but I had the money already.

[EnigmaVisionary]

Damn ...
Started a game and the nearest civ to mine is Byzantium on the continent.
So, becouse i know that that civ choose the religion path and will be better/quicker than me, i let her do the things, while i concentrate on the other paths (military and culture).
I hate this Byzantium women, she's such a snake
It's hard to beat an AI_specialist, at least at higher difficulty lvl.

The other civs in this game, Egypt, Japan, Aztec, Iroquese, China and Inka.

My starting place is so bad positioned (when i discovered the continent where i started).
It's a continent, the nearest City-State (a port city on a lake) is about 25+ tiles away and the lake is between me and him, the other 2 CSs on this continent are even further away and between me and those is Byzantium.
So, if i want to build a road to them, i have to build it arround the lake (on the left side an go thru CS territory) and about 25+ tiles, or build it in the territory of Bizantium, that cost me about 30+ tiles to the next CS (on the right side of the map) ... it cost to much, so no road.

To reach the nearest CS i had to build a new port-city on the lake, that i didn't do becouse it was such a bad spot (to near to Byzantium and to far away from my capital, ~16+ tiles).
To reach the other CSs and also the other on the whole map, i had to build a new city at the coast, but i didn`t do it till now (~round 140), becouse it is also to far away from my capital (~12+ tiles).

I had to make a decision to build a 2nd city as soon as possible, to "block" Byzantium to build his own city there.
My playstyle is "one-city" till about round 150-200, depending on my position on the map, becouse the 2nd city draws me back in production and growing of my capital.
But in this game, i had to build the 2nd city as soon as possible.
Why "one-city" style, becouse if i want to build WWs or NWs that i need i have to build the requested building in all other cities.
So, till i don't have those WWs and NWs builded i don't build the new cities.

The only positive thing with Byzantium religious path is that i build pagode and mosque in my two cities, after she install her religion in my cities.
But she declared war on me, as i expected.
Now that i know that she has a lot of religious WWs and NWs i will conquer the capital and anexe it to my empire.

I don't know what is best ... to establish asap my own religion (only one left), or let that religion (catholicism) when i conquer the capital (Byzantium) ?