Is Religion really useful?

[Dis]

I haven't been able to pinpoint exactly how much religion helps me. But my games go so much better when I grab those early religions. Something I was able to do recently when I played India (ghandi).

My last game as the americans I wasn't able to grab any religions. And then the barbarians beat me up.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Finarfin
Someone should do a mod that replaces religions with different narcotics.

[Enigma_Nova]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
One word, and one word only: Pacifism

Three words:
Industrious Organised Religion

[Datajack Franit]

I don't like losing the free spy in every city I own.

Anyway, do you find normal being able to found 4 religions in a Monarch game? I'm very surprised by this accomplishment. No, I'm not Isabella.

[Tventano]

But you do not have to found the religions yourself. In a game I was next to Isabella who founded three religions. After I was done with her, they prospered as mongal cities

Unfortunately in that game Ghandhi founded the other four religions and I could not really catch up with him. On the great plains map, he just had too much resources and I was in the middle neighbouring everybody.

[TomVeil]

At different points in the game, I have found all of the religious civics, even Paganism, to be useful. For my style of play (super-friendly, kill them with commerce), Free Religion is great. It's the mid-to-late game, I'm holding 2nd place, and then BAM! All of those Monasteries start cranking out missionaries, my cities jump to 3-4 religions each, and the bonuses expand them to colossal sizes, allowing me to develop such a strong economy that I can pump out military units without sacrificing anything.

[Enigma_Nova]

Except the ability to build more settlers, buildings, or wonders.

[Blake]

I find pacifism the least useful religious civic, in theory it's great and prehaps on an island it'd be okay, but with the level of military you need in the typical slugfest pacifism will simply kill your economy.

I remember one game where switching to pacifism took me from 50% economy to 0% economy hemorrhaging like 20g per turn, and my army was for barb-supression alone! Boy, I couldn't switch back out fast enough.

An early religion can result in a dominating lead, when it works out you end up with friendly AI buffer civs in all directions, with all their cities revealed so no-one can sneak through their territory.

IMO Asoka is the king of religious domination, Ghandi's okay but I'd rather take "half industrial" with half-price Organized Religion. Thanks to the efficiency of Organized it's easy to have a large empire and still be making 100g/turn at 0% cash allocation. And the combination of Organized and Spiritual is downright nifty, since every civic is highly affordable (except maybe pacifism)

And there needs to be a "Religious Domination" victory of some kind, have 70% of the people in the world worshiping your religions or something. To make it not too easy it could also be like the Economic Victory of SMACX, firstly you need most the people in the world worshiping your religions, you next need to spend a large lump sum of gold (something like 20000+50 for every city) and your plans for the "Global Theocracy" are put in motion, 20 turns later you win. The way to stop the victory would be to capture enough holy cities to lower the percentage

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Burning a holy city is really silly - especially considering the cash it generates

I´ve done this on a few occasions. But that was before I understood the inner workings of the religion concept. More cash for me! :

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Blake

And there needs to be a "Religious Domination" victory of some kind, have 70% of the people in the world worshiping your religions or something. To make it not too easy it could also be like the Economic Victory of SMACX, firstly you need most the people in the world worshiping your religions, you next need to spend a large lump sum of gold (something like 20000+50 for every city) and your plans for the "Global Theocracy" are put in motion, 20 turns later you win. The way to stop the victory would be to capture enough holy cities to lower the percentage

QFT!

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Blake
I find pacifism the least useful religious civic, in theory it's great and prehaps on an island it'd be okay, but with the level of military you need in the typical slugfest pacifism will simply kill your economy.

It depends on your play style. I love switching to Pacifism, esp when I have The Partheneon. The number of Great People coming out from your GP cities are very high. I tend to use Great Prophets as super specialists, except for the first one who will build the shrine for my state religion. I hoard the GAs for culture bombs, GMs for trade routes, GSs for academies and GEs are also super specialists as well.

Originally posted by Blake
And there needs to be a "Religious Domination" victory of some kind, have 70% of the people in the world worshiping your religions or something.

Until some empire adopts Free Religion, which torpedoes this victory condition

[Bill3000]

Actually, Religious Victory is quite easily added. The tags are already programmed to allow it.

[Zoid]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Until some empire adopts Free Religion, which torpedoes this victory condition

Well, that´s what ICBM´s are for

[Shaka II]

I usually stay organized until most of my building is done, then switch to free religion. I never really evaluated whether pacifism is better, but I suppose if you're leader rich, then it pacifism would offer larger gains.

[Monsto]

Originally posted by Finarfin
Someone should do a mod that replaces religions with different narcotics.

classic.

only problem is balancing the effects so that not everyone tries to get the found Crack . . . which of course makes your workers go 8x speed with a 4% cumulative chance per turn of just dying outright, and a 10% chance per improvement to have screwed it up.

i suppose pot would slow down all the work by 15% but add 2 happy to every city. Hash would slow work by 30% but add 3 happy to every city, and NO unhappy in the city it was founded.

cocaine would bump worker speed by 4x with the 2% cumulative chance to die, but no chance of screwing it up.

wine adds to happiness, so vodka should add MORE happiness, but reduce growth speed cuz everyone is out on benders and then glarfing it back up. this'd be GREAT for cities that reach terminal size.

What i leave out?