How does religion work? (Game mechanics wise)

[Mr. President]

So I was reading Sullla's guide trying to decide if I would want to play Civilization IV or not, and I got up to the part where he describes founding Hinduism. A question occurred to me: how do you get a state religion if you're not the first to discover its technology? Do you have to wait until you have its technology, or maybe until it spreads to your subjects?

[Nailfoot]

From the way the walkthrough sounds, if you don't discover the religion first you don't get it at all. Notice how the walkthrough implies that Gandi has a big advantage because he has two religions he is in a terrific position? Of course, it did say that religion spread to "Vicky", so I don't know.



Oh well....I guess we will all know in about 12 to 15 hours. Good thing I am about to crash in the bed and sleep most of that away (its 3am here!)

[snoopy369]

I'm pretty sure your subjects can be converted to other nations' religions, so long as you aren't preventing people from converting to other religions. I believe the advantage for Gandhi in that situation was that he had two holy cities, meaning he gained benefits from founding two religions.

[Dravin]

The culture boost in the early game from having a Holy City did look to be significant and from something you didn't even have to build to boot, now just double that.