Found all religions strategy?

[Yavathol]

Hi, haven't got the game yet but it sounds like the AI places quite a high priority on some of the early religion technologies. I was wondering, has anyone out there managed to be first to all the religions?

If this is possible, is it a reasonable strategy? I'm thinking that one would then be the major player in terms of culture, and can pick one religion to spread to all the others, so you never have the diplomatic hindrance of being a different religion. I'm really not into the wargaming aspects of the game, so I'm looking for strategies that will keep the other civilizations in love with me and allow me to get a diplomatic/cultural/science victory

Any thoughts, anyone?

[Fried-Psitalon]

It is possible, but quite difficult. Usually you have to hope/ensure that the AI does not have any civs starting with Mysticism, and even then you still have to scramble. If you can secure the first three religions and then get a wonder (preferably the Oracle, which you can use to snag another religion), you can use the Great Prophets to also assist you in snapping up religions. The best bet for this strategy is probably Saladin.

I've pulled it off once in SP and once in MP. It's a royal pain to spread the religions in multiple cities, but any city with seven monasteries and decent commerce is a research titan, even ignoring all the other structures.

[padillah]

A couple off the top of my head:

Each Shrine gives you Gold based on how many people in the world(?) follow that religion. So if you own them all you get all the gold from shrines.

Another is that, with a shrine, you can see what is going on in a city that has your state religion. You could stifle the other religions (not build their temples or missionaries) and spread the one State Religion and thus have a "spy"-type foothold in every city in the world(?).

Sounds like this deserves some investigation... Hmmm.

Tom P.

[realpolitic]

Founding an early religion, then getting secular techs for the mid term seems like a way of getting a late religion without sacrificing anything.

[Azuarc]

I've been curious about this sort of religion-whore strategy, but the truth is that usually it is very difficult to get both Hinduism and Buddhism. Buddhism alone seems to be a popular beeline target for some civs, so it's not easy to pull that much off, but if you can get the first two, the rest should easily follow.

The advantages of being a founder of a religion and having others follow your lead is definitely a big advantage, and one I so far have not tried to ignore, even though I hate trying to find the time to build monasteries and missionaries amongst everything else.

[DeepO]

Saladin is a nice choice. Ensuring no other civ starts with mysticism is also a near-requisite, otherwise you'll have to be lucky. The Oracle is key for Code of laws or Monarchy, while GPs should go to techs.

Hum. Basically what Fried said

Let me add one of my own then: try playing one difficulty level below what you can win on, and focus exclusively on religions. That means you can handle the focus on research in your empire, without fear of being overrun. In many situations, all getting all religions is not a good idea as you can only build warriors for your protection. Alphabet, and trading away some of your techs for the military ones is also part of the strategy to get all religions.

DeepO

[Cabbagemeister]

The thing is, even if you get all the religions, you might only want to spread one of them around. Yeah, putting multiple religions in every foreign city can get you a decent amount of gold if you have all the shrines, but as far as I can tell, it's not THAT much--maybe 50 gpt for each religion. If you balance that against the sheer number of missionaries you have to build in order to spread seven religions among 50 cities, as well as the ridiculous time this would take (with only 3 missionaries allowed to be active or in training at a time), and the possible diplomatic impact of some civ with multiple religions per city switching to a different religion from yours and suddenly refusing to trade resources with you because you are a "heathen"--well, I'm not convinced its worth it.

Anyone tried this yet?

[alva]

The thing is, even if you get all the religions, you might only want to spread one of them around

* flush *

That my friend was the sound of that idea disapearing down the loo.
Religions auto spread as well, so there is no way you can control it.
It's possible in theory but it ain't gonna happen in practise.

[Cabbagemeister]

Originally posted by alva

That my friend was the sound of that idea disapearing down the loo.
Religions auto spread as well, so there is no way you can control it.
It's possible in theory but it ain't gonna happen in practise.

Well, of course you can't control it entirely, but you can certainly spread your own religion faster than the auto-spread. It's not that difficult to make sure that a pagan civ converts to your state religion rather than to one of your minority religions.

Not that difficult, of course, unless the civ is determinedly isolationist and won't open their borders with you...

[Jon Shafer]

Rather than not spreading any you can spread one of them to every city and then all the others to 2/3 or 3/4 of their cities. Once everyone is your state religion you'll get the diplo benefits while also getting the shrine bonus.

[JoeGator]

Holy **** I can't wait to get this game.

[JoeGator]

Holy **** I can't wait to get this game.

[Addled Platypus]

Hey Trip

What is your take on converting one of your own cities?

It took me a while to find all religons. I saw one of my cities "missing" being converted. So I sent that particular missionary over and ...converted my own city.

[Tventano]

Even spreading multiple religions in your own empire gets more difficult. Missionaries fail more often when more religions are already present. The monastries and temples give good plusses in science and culture rate. For border cities this is really important.

[ShroudedMist]

I really think CivIV could do with a mod that limits the number of religions that any one civilization can found.