can you choose NOT to found a religion?

[minger]

Can you choose to NOT found a religion when you are the first to discover a technology? It sounds like under some civic choices, it's best to have a homogenous religion in your empire...

[GeoModder]

No, you're stuck with it.

[Provost Harrison]

Well from what I can tell, a religion will spread through your cities but will never disappear (perhaps someone could clarify that?) so you can just create a new religion...but I suppose we will have to wait and see what happens...

[Dinner]

I'm sure a game involving religion will also have an inquisition type feature which allows you to purge selected religions.

[GeoModder]

Of course, pillage the offending cities.

[Addled Platypus]

the fact that religon is tied into the overall cultural figures

WHY?

hopefully an opt out box to check

[Nikolai]

I'm pretty sure you can't choose to not found a religion. BTW, as I've understood it, having several religions are not bad later in the game, quite the opposite actually.

[vovan]

Originally posted by Nikolai
BTW, as I've understood it, having several religions are not bad later in the game, quite the opposite actually.

It would appear to me that the main drawback to that would be if you start a war against one of the nations with your religion, then your people might become sadder for that fact, so I guess having many religions increases the chance that someone will have one of those.

Vovan

[Martinus]

Originally posted by vovan


It would appear to me that the main drawback to that would be if you start a war against one of the nations with your religion, then your people might become sadder for that fact, so I guess having many religions increases the chance that someone will have one of those.

Vovan

But on the other hand, having a uniform religion means if you go to war with a country having that religion, your entire empire will go into disarray - and you should normally want other countries to have your religion, for financial gain.

[Tugger1967]

If you statrt a game with 6 other civs in it, would they all found their own religion ? If that's the case the only way to create alliances would be to convert an entire civ to your religion I think. That could be tough

[vovan]

Originally posted by Tugger1967
If you statrt a game with 6 other civs in it, would they all found their own religion ? If that's the case the only way to create alliances would be to convert an entire civ to your religion I think. That could be tough

That might happen, but keep in mind that the way this works is whoever discovers the appropriate technology first is the one that founds the religion. So, if you have an overwhelming tech lead, then you could singlehandedly found all religions. Which makes me wonder: suppose all your cities are already holy cities, and you found a new religion, will some city be a holy city for two religions then? And if so, then does this only happen when you run out of cities, or can it happen that some city is holy city for two religions if say all your other ones are like tiny colonies. I wonder.

[Sandman]

Bosh pointed out a while ago that this acts a balancing agent: race ahead in tech, and you end up with an awkward mix of religions.

You could just drive out unwanted relgions (although some other civs might take up the religions you've purged).

[DeepO]

Re: can you choose NOT to found a religion?

Originally posted by minger
It sounds like under some civic choices, it's best to have a homogenous religion in your empire...

How so? Cities can have multiple religions, there are even screenshots with multiple 'holy cities' in one city (capital). Why is having 3 religions in a city including the state religion worse than only having the state religion? Do you know of any benefits, civic-wise, that give bonusses if you only have the state religion?

There are plenty of examples where more religions in a city is a good thing: each religion has a temple so you can build 4 temples. Each religion gives shrine-income in the holy city, so in case you've got multiple shrines, you want more religions too... The only negative thing I've heared is that if you declare war on someone which runs a state religion, all cities that also have that religion will get a bigger war weariness hit. If you know of any 'negative' civic choices, I'd be interested to hear them...

DeepO

[minger]

choosing "state religion" or something like that means that people that are not of the state religion produce unhappiness.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by minger
choosing "state religion" or something like that means that people that are not of the state religion produce unhappiness.

Why? I thought it was that cities that had your state religion are happier, regardless of the non-state religions present. And similar for other effects than happiness, like production bonusses.

DeepO