Founding multiple religions?

[Sleestax]

Has anyone come up with a good strategy for what to do with your civ when you have founded multiple religious in different cities? I like the advantages of a single state-religion, but I don't want to keep switching it constantly as I "discover" more "Advanced" religions.

For example, my current civ has a hindu temple in every city and also has Hinduism set as the state religion. I just discovered Christianity and one of my cities is now christian!

I sent the free missionary off to another nearby civ and converted their city instead of my own. Still, I am at a loss about what to do since I am now a Hindu civ that controls the Christian holy city.

[Tennyson]

I use organized religion and even though I have one official religion I spread the rest around to get the benefit of temples and etc.

[padillah]

Re: Founding multiple religions?

Originally posted by Sleestax
Has anyone come up with a good strategy for what to do with your civ when you have founded multiple religious in different cities? I like the advantages of a single state-religion, but I don't want to keep switching it constantly as I "discover" more "Advanced" religions.

I'm at a loss as for why you would keep switching religions.

To what end? There's no difference between any of the religions other than their spread. If you want to be Hindu, be Hindu. The extra religions are in case the other civs want to be a different religion, you still get gold from the shrine.

Tom P.

[Sleestax]

The reason for switching is to increase the worshipers of that particular religion. This has been useful when I have had other civ's cities nearby and they have a lot of followers of that religion as well. Many times those cities has switched to my civ because of it. It's sort of the religion version of the "culture bomb"

[Tufturk]

You can spread Christianity, and with a second Great Prophet (assuming you use your first to build the Hindu shrine), build the Christianity shrine as well. Double shrine income.

Founding multiple religions is a great diplomatical tool, as Civs will generally switch to a new religion if they found one, sparking bad relations. If you have founded 4 of them, less for the rest, and you control much of the spread and who you want to be religious buddies with.

Once a neighbour adopts "your" religion but has cities with other religions where yours hasn't spread, I find it helpful to move missionaries into their land, then give them as gifts. Your neighbour will have a better chance of successfully using the missionary to spread the religion, as one gets a bonus when trying to spread religion in one's own cities.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Tufturk
Founding multiple religions is a great diplomatical tool, as Civs will generally switch to a new religion if they found one, sparking bad relations. If you have founded 4 of them, less for the rest, and you control much of the spread and who you want to be religious buddies with.

It can get messy though. I founded Hinduism and switched to it, then founded Judaism - more for the Org Rel civic than for the religion. I started spreading Hinduism to the neighbours, but Judaism was spreading faster on its own. Soon two of the 3 neighbours had switched to Judaism, with one of them threatening me with Praetorians.

Someone built the Oracle, I missed Stonehenge, missed the Parthenon by one turn, leaving a single priest trying to get 300 GPp on his own for the shrine (I'd already made a scientist in my capital), while facing the prospect of having to switch to a religion that'll zap my own Org Rel bonus. Oh dear. :shakes-head:

So, founding multiple religions can get a bit out of control sometimes, and makes for some awkward situations.

Originally posted by Tufturk
Once a neighbour adopts "your" religion but has cities with other religions where yours hasn't spread, I find it helpful to move missionaries into their land, then give them as gifts. Your neighbour will have a better chance of successfully using the missionary to spread the religion, as one gets a bonus when trying to spread religion in one's own cities.

I wondered about that 'gift' option the missionary has when abroad. What you suggest sounds a good idea, especially if support costs and ability to build another mish sooner (if at the max) are considered.

[Meatlord]

Of course the ultimate benefit of founding multiple religions is the extra coin you receive from the Free Religion civic. I try to spread every religion to every city. The increase in Gold is staggering and it gives you something to build in the later stages of game if you aren't warmongering.

[Quillan]

Ideally, I'd want every religion I founded in each city I control. The only reason I can see for multiple switches of the state religion, though, is for diplomatic purposes. If, for example, I've founded Hinduism and Christianity, and a couple of my neighbors have wound up predominately Christian, then switching to Chrisitianity will help diplomatic relations with them. I try not to overly spread the religions of others; I don't see any reason to give them money.

[gibby6923]

I personally try to found as many religions as possible but I tried something new in my last game I did not adopt them as my state religion and found it really help in foreign relations.

[Skanky Burns]

Founding religions gets you gold. By building missionaries and spreading it to as many cities as you can (friend and foe alike) you can increase your own income significantly, provided you have built the correct religion wonder in each founding city.

Switching religions is irrelevant to who founded what. Switch to what the other side uses (or use a different one, if you want to annoy them).

[khumak]

There's 2 disadvantages I see to founding most or all of the religions yourself.

1. Religion spreads on it's own along trade routes but which one spreads is random. If you found 3 or 4 different religions your state religion might never spread very far without building a bunch of missionaries. Having your state religion in all of your cities is pretty nice both for the production boost from Organized Religion and also for the GP boost later on from Pacifism.

2. The main advantage to founding multiple religions is the money you get from multiple shrines. Building these shrines costs you a great prophet though. If you just pick one or 2 to found yourself you can wait for the AI to build the shrines in the other ones and then take them by force. After playing around more with commerce and trade I've come to the conclusion that you can get way more income through trade than you can through shrines anyway.

I usually either go for Monotheism or Civil Service for my first religion depending on whether I'm doing a heavy research focus or not.

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Founding religions gets you gold. By building missionaries and spreading it to as many cities as you can (friend and foe alike) you can increase your own income significantly, provided you have built the correct religion wonder in each founding city.

I don't think anyone is in any doubt as to what Religions do, or how useful they are. The question here concerns the management of the pros and cons of multiple religions.

[Azuarc]

Originally posted by Cort Haus It can get messy though. I founded Hinduism and switched to it, then founded Judaism - more for the Org Rel civic than for the religion. I started spreading Hinduism to the neighbours, but Judaism was spreading faster on its own. Soon two of the 3 neighbours had switched to Judaism, with one of them threatening me with Praetorians.

This can happen a lot when your capital isn't a coastal city. Inevitably that means your second or third usually is, so although the first religion is in your cap, the later one is in the coastal city and starts spreading like a virus as soon as you have Sailing.

Having your founding city with immediate water access can be very handy. I've gotten contact with Civs across the map because the religion somehow got to one of their cities and I had vision into their area.

But it can get dangerous when that later religion pops into a border town. Especially a triple point.

[Proteus_MST]

Normaly I actively try to spread every religion I found to every city within my empire.
Aside from this I send missionaries from one religion (usually my state religion) to other empires so that the other leaders might convert to this religion which (of course) helps me in diplomacy.

Which Religion becomes my state religion depends on the circumstances. Normally the first religion I found becomeds my state religion, but often religions I found later spread at a higher speed among my cities (or other civilizations) which is a reason for me to switch to these religions as state religion (often happens when I first found hinduism and then judaism)

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Cort Haus
I don't think anyone is in any doubt as to what Religions do, or how useful they are. The question here concerns the management of the pros and cons of multiple religions.

Duh.

Might I then point out to you that if 1 gold for every city in existance is good, then 7 gold for every city in existance is even better? Perhaps I need to spell it out to you also that if you founded all religions you can switch to any at will for diplomatic purposes.