Is Religion really useful?

[Shaka II]

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

Are you suggesting religion is like a narcotic?

Or how about certain enjoyable and addictive drinks or deserts like chocolate, ale, whiskey, lemonade, orange soda (for Aeson), ... One could found the chocolate making process and command royalties among all users. Might have to modify the tech tree a bit.

[Monsto]

Originally posted by Shaka II


Are you suggesting religion is like a narcotic?

Or how about certain enjoyable and addictive drinks or deserts like chocolate, ale, whiskey, lemonade, orange soda (for Aeson), ... One could found the chocolate making process and command royalties among all users. Might have to modify the tech tree a bit.

oh wow. . . i left out beer and caffiene . . .

beer: founding city gets X turns of We Love the King and 'golden age' effect combined followed by just as long a time of -50% everything (cept happy) from the hangover.

caffiene: +1 hamner from city tiles with a hamner, but -1 happiness cuz GOD that guy is a jerk. (anyone that's ever worked in an office environment knows who i'm talkin about)

refined sugar: +1 happiness cuz the orange soda and twinkies are great, -5% hamners from the perpetual snack breaks.

[Arrian]

The opiate of the masses...

I find that my holy city can essentially finance my entire empire, once I've spread the religion around and built the cash-boosters (market, grocer, bank, wall street).

I also like Pacifism for the great person rate boost, and typically find that I can afford a respectable defensive military (enough to fight off an AI attack). Actually, as I've been playing on Prince, I've actually had armies large enough to conquer major civs... and done so, while still running Pacifism.

-Arrian

[inca911]

One well spread religion is certainly valuable. It does cost a lot to try to push a second or third onto the world just to get more gold. I'd say prohibitively so. Those great prophets could be used as specialists and all those hammers from missionaries for something else. Even cultural wins don't need religions as much as they need the culture slider, setting cities to culture, and the existing multipliers.

[Arrian]

Yep, additional GP's should probably be settled in your holy city, or used to trigger a GA.

I have a game going now where I have two holy cities of my own (only one shrine, though) and two captured holy cities (both w/shrines). I've spread all four religions around (particularly the three w/shrines).

-Arrian

[[to_xp]Gekko]

Religion is almight.
I've just won my first cultural victory (2047 d.c.) with Gandhi on Warrior, unchecked space victory and time victory, Normal size map with 6 civs, playing custom continents with 1 continent per civ. I somehow managed to found SIX religions ( I missed taoism ) sure I was playing on warrior and I'm sure I would get my arse kicked on settings higher than noble , but religion alone gave me something like 250 gold per turn in the endgame, and I didnt even focus on spreading it around in every single foreign city. it just spread automatically, meaning almost every city on the globe had one of my religions in it. so I was basically getting 1 gold for every city on the map. my 6 well developed cities all had 6 religions in them, which allowed me to build 2 cathedrals for each religion ( the +50% culture , which are vital for a cultural victory ) . I just went totally pacifist trought the whole game, trying not to make enemies, and I managed to only get attacked once by the weakest civ on the globe, but it lasted only 20 turns or so due to us signing peace soon after. kept research at 100% until just before fiber optics ( didnt want to miss the bonuses the kremlin gives, which coupled with my tons of gold made me invincible ) then as I had nothing more to research I just went 100% culture until my 3rd "wonder factory" city reached legendary state .

I won just because of religion. and I didnt even strive too much, else I could have easily had at least 2x the gold ( I was using universal sufferage + free speech + kremlin , so gold was my bread and butter )

[Destroyer]

Acid - You invent a brand new religion, all your units wonder aimlessly around the map in search of a petrol station.

Ketamine - You 're entire civ becomes prophets after being convinced they have been talking directly with God.

Ecstacy - Automatically assume the pacifism civic, and are able to stage illegal raves on any farmland.

[Odin]

Multiple religions + multiple shrines + missionaries =

[vee4473]

Originally posted by Odin
Multiple religions + multiple shrines + missionaries =

I'd say that answers the OP's question...

[Artuero]

Religion, especially multiple religions, add significantly to per turn culture (through the +1 per religion (perhaps only for state religion unless under free religion or no state religion) as well as the religious buildings.

The cash and happiness effects are also very useful. Even the +1 happy from a temple can help as they are relatively easy to build.

One effect that hasn't been talked about much is the ability to build one or more monestaries and significantly increase your early game research abilities.

I have a question though. I can't seem to figure out how to get the spy effect. Let's say you found 7 religions. You do not get line of sight into all cities with a religion even if you have built all 7 shrines. Do you only get the spy effect in cities that have your state religion? What about under free religion civ?

[Enigma_Nova]

From what I can tell, you only get the +1 culture (without a building) for your State religion, or for all religions if you have no state religion.
The same applies to Line of Sight from your Ubershrines.

[Hauptman]

Ecstasy also gives X2 city growth from all the humpin and free love!~

LOL @ Caffine. That was the best.

[Shaka II]

I don't think we should ditch religion all together, just pare it back a bit, seven is a bit much. How about Hinduism, Buddhism, and either Judaism or Islam, and then have ale, tea, coffee, and chocolate, figuring that these are at least as important as religion. If you doubt this, just go to England and see the empty churches, but not the empty pubs.

To keep these techs away from the religious paths, an example tech tree might be:

The first to discover compass founds tea making (+1 gold for each tea house/allows tea house +1 health), the first to discover pottery founds brewing (+1 gold for each tavern/allows tavern +1 happy), alternatively, if this is too early for brewing, guilds could be used to enable brewing/taverns, the first to discover machinery founds coffee making (+1 gold for each coffee shop/allows coffee shop +1 production), and the first to discover calendar founds chocolate making (+1 gold for each chocolatier/allows chocolatier +1 gold).

On the other hand, we could do away with religion all together and add several replacements like optics (allows optician +1 science, +1 production), printing press (allows bookshop +2 culture), industrialism (allows general store +2 happy, +1 production). Later techs/improvements get larger bonuses.

Again, there could be royalties associated with founding these techs analogous to German optics or Swiss chocolate or teas from India/China, etc., ales from England or in older times Roman or Egyptian fermented beverages (wine, but we have grapes already).