Found all religions strategy?

[Tenarrus]

Sounds like a great strategy and very unique. For MP it would be interesting to see in the works because if I saw someone going after all the religions I'd have a nice miltary force at their doorstep to unleash my athiest ways. Fear the wrath of the roman steel first then the wrath of god when your dead.

I have a good understanding of how religion works in the game but I'll have to try the religion path to get a better understanding of the religious tech tree and all their benefits.

[Fried-Psitalon]

It's a very interesting play in MP. Tough to do and withstand "military criticism" but if you can, the advantage of being the only one to use the Religion civics (as well as any religion spread giving you potential spying ability) is pretty significant.

One MP game I "auctioned off" my religions - I actually got a Great Artist in exchange for a shipment of three Christian missionaries. Sweet!

[stormwriter]

You know one small thing i noticed while going for the Found All Religions strategy? I got most of the early religion techs, and of course that left me nothing for economy/military. Not thinking this through, i had built a worker first thing in my city, cause i wanted him to improve the land ASAP.

Well, A THOUSAND FRICKIN YEARS LATER, i finally get a tech that allows my worker to do something! He sat around doing nothing for a thousand years until i got Agriculture, and then i could start building farms.

Then, i find Stone, so i could build Wonders faster, but i didn't have Masonry to build a Quarry. Geezuz!

Then, i couldn't build a Quarry cause it wasn't in my Cultural Borders! Argh!

All these little things you are used to having when you are doing a "regular" game, without this religion-hording.

[PBN]

Agreed with Storm here. To me, it seems, the only real concern is that you found OR even inherit a religion by the time you hit Organized Religion. It seems like you are giving the AI the edge, but the goal is hitting the most productivity by the time you hit OR. The bonus on mines and the added benefit to Stone and Marble (requiring Quarry) without Religion seems (to me, at least) to overdue the benefits of the religion being one I founded.

[DeepO]

You're vastly underestimating what a (near-)monopoly on religions can mean to your diplomacy game. If you play it right, you don't need military techs that badly...

DeepO

[PBN]

I've tried both, and I really don't see it. For the games where I forsake my own religion, I emphasize on trade. Trading with a city that has a religion you don't will more times than not get you the religion from the state you are trading with. The diplomacy gains come from having the same state religion, I haven't seen a boost for being a founder of that religion. I also seem to recall having a "heathen" penalty from a religion that held one I founded that was NOT my state religion (perhaps I'm mistaken).

[DeepO]

That's not what I meant: if you control all religions, you control all missionaries. You also control who you decide to be your friends, and who the world will fight. Nearly an afterthought is that you also control who trades with whom...

Like I said, the diplo game can be a lot deeper. You're the master puppeteer if you want to.

DeepO

[PBN]

Ah, now I see what you're saying. It becomes more of an extraverted diplomatic game, rather than an introverted build up one. Makes sense.

[khumak]

found all religions

On the harder levels I don't think it's possible to discover both Buddism and Hinduism before any of the AIs. Even if I skip all other research and just go straight for the religious techs the AI ALWAYS beats me to both of those. If I chose a leader that starts with Mysticism I could grab Hinduism first but no way could I get Buddism.

If I ignore everything else I can get Judaism first and I always get Christianity first. Getting the rest of them first mostly depends on you getting GPs before the AI and using them to discover religions.

[stormwriter]

But, you can't trade to get the back techs until you get the Alphabet.
But, i will admit, once i did acquire the ability to trade (and i was SORELY behind in techs!) the other civs offered me LOTS of stuff!
My first trade was in 40AD(!) and i traded Polytheism, and got Fishing, Hunting and some money.
Next trade in the same year, i traded Monarchy, and got Math, Animal Husbandry and money.
Next trade in 480AD, i traded Alphabet and got Sailing, Archery, and Bronze Working.

So, you can see how fast i got those techs back. So, i'm back up to speed, but now i got stone and masonry to speed up Wonder production, not to mention the Industrious trait of Gandhi, and Angkor Wat!

[Apocalypse Cow]

I think I'm becoming a religion whore. I got 6 out of 7 religions(no buddhism) in my last game, and I used them to my advantage.

One thing that I have noticed, that I'm not sure has been mentioned before, is that religion density matters. A denser religion presence makes newly founded cities flip quicker. I chose Hinduism as my state religion, got Organized religion, and started cranking out temples and monasteries and missionaries like crazy, making sure that all of my cities(even the ones that had started other religions) were Hindu. I also took advantage of early game kindness in other civs to get open borders and Hindu-ize them ASAP. That way, when later in the game they were eyeing me up as easy meat(I was very weak militarily) The "brothers of the faith" diplo made things easier. Getting a foothold in early with your state religion also makes the religion density greater, and more likely that any new cities will be flipped quickly as well. In addition, great prophets can add quite a bit of culture, IIRC, when added as super-specialists.

To augment this strategy, I was a wonder-whore as well, focusing on the culture/GP heavy ones first.(I had 2 cities with 25,000 culture, and my capitol had ~85,000) The combination of wonders and religion made me very military weak, but very diplomacy, research, culture, and production strong. Sure, I didn't get hinduism to ALL the cities, but I think I had something along the lines of 75% influence. And that mattered.