Church of the Nativity

[Broken Hawk]

I built the Church of the Nativity in Zaragoza where Christianity was founded and being followed. I guess that is a DUH! The rest of my Civ is following the state religion of Buddhism under the Civic of Pacifism. 41% of the world is Buddhist, it spread pretty fast on it's own. 9% is Christian. So my question is do I leave Zaragoza Christian or convert it to Buddhism? Which action is best from a cultural standpoint? Thanks.

[Jamski]

Convert it to your state religion. If you have a state religion, you want the WHOLE state to follow it.

[Kirghiz]

You are really better off converting your whole state to Christianity and spread Christianity to any and every city in the world you possibly can. The reason is that YOU get a 1 gold bonus per turn for every city in the world that has Christianity since you have the Church Of The Nativity. It'll probably mean producing a BUNCH of Christian Missionaries to get this done.

On the other hand, you probably should have used the Great Prophet as a super specialist, or in the very least built the Buddhist building if you were the one that founded Buddhism.

It's not the best plan to use a Great Prophet to build the special building for a religion that isn't widespread unless you are planning on spreading it shortly afterward.

[joncnunn]

Broken Hawk, I don't know if you have the Budist holy city in your empire or not and if you have the Budist holy city weather or not you've already built the Budist building from your post.

Case 1 : Your empire is mostly Budist but you don't own the holy city :
You did the right thing building the Church of the Nativity. At the momement, you are still better off remaining Budist as a whole empire, but you should spread Christianity like mad throughout your empire now to build up the gold Zaragosa gets.
In the mean time Zaragosa does need to have Budism spread to it rather quickly to fully benifit from the Pacifism bonus.

Case 2: You have the holy city of Budism and your empire is mostly Budist, and have not built the Budist special building it:

OOPS!

Pray to get another Great Prophet soon.

Case 3 : You have the holy city of Budism in your empire and it already had the Budist special building.

You did the right thing building the Church of the Navity.

Now that city should have had a Budist missonary sent there long ago just to help out your city with the Budist special building, and needs it now more than ever with the Church of the Navity.

You just need to build Christian missonaries like mad and spread them throughout your empire to benifit Zaragosta.

[djpsychonaut]

Originally posted by Kirghiz
You are really better off converting your whole state to Christianity and spread Christianity to any and every city in the world you possibly can. The reason is that YOU get a 1 gold bonus per turn for every city in the world that has Christianity since you have the Church Of The Nativity. It'll probably mean producing a BUNCH of Christian Missionaries to get this done.

Agreed, you should spread this religion around as much as possible. On the issue of state religion though, you don't have to have your state religion be Christianity in order to get the gold for the Church of the Nativity.

You should stay Buddhist though as your state religion though for diplomatic reasons, you'll become a leper on the world stage if your the only Christian nation. Also, if Buddhism is so widespread, then it would take a long time for you to displace it as the state religion in other empires. You should absolutely spread Buddhism to the Christian holy city. You can have more than one religion per city, and there's never any reason to have a city NOT have your state religion.

[Kirghiz]

Originally posted by djpsychonaut You should stay Buddhist though as your state religion though for diplomatic reasons, you'll become a leper on the world stage if your the only Christian nation.

I didn't think of that, good call there.

[djpsychonaut]

Sharing religion with lots of other civs helps you QUITE a bit! Plus, setting your state religion to the religion "owned" by another civ doesn't really give them any incremental benefit in and of itself. The religion being in the city is what gives them additional gold and line of sight.

[Broken Hawk]

I could have sworn the Great Prophet was born in Madrid where Buddhism was founded. The option to build a holy building was either shaded or not available. I guess the Great Prophet was born in another city. The moral of the story is to slow down and pay better attention.

[vee4473]

Re: Church of the Nativity

Originally posted by Broken Hawk
I built the Church of the Nativity in Zaragoza where Christianity was founded and being followed. I guess that is a DUH! The rest of my Civ is following the state religion of Buddhism under the Civic of Pacifism. 41% of the world is Buddhist, it spread pretty fast on it's own. 9% is Christian. So my question is do I leave Zaragoza Christian or convert it to Buddhism? Which action is best from a cultural standpoint? Thanks.

first off, don't think that you have to choose between religions in a city...spread all religions you have founded included the state religion.

My understanding of religion:

If you adopt a state religion, spread it to all of your cities and make a civics choice that takes advantage of having a state religion.

But, that doesn't mean that you should poo poo the idea of using GP's to build the shrines of all the religions you have founded.

Doing so gives you much needed coin. It doesn't negate the state religion at all.

[vee4473]

and from a cultural standpoint, the more religions you have, the more temples etc you can build.

religion takes a little while to grasp in the game.

also remember that if you didn't found a religion, adopting Theocracy, i think, will keep foreign religions from spreading and deny the ai the gold if they have the shrine.

Did you found Buddhism? This is irrelevant from a cultural standpoint I think, but to deny the founding ai of gold, it is an important one to consider.

[Bluefusion]

Wow you guys are really complicating matters.

Case 1, 2, 3, 4, ad infinitum:

If you don't have the Buddhist holy city, capture it. Save yourself a lot of missionary work.

[djpsychonaut]

Originally posted by vee4473
also remember that if you didn't found a religion, adopting Theocracy, i think, will keep foreign religions from spreading and deny the ai the gold if they have the shrine.

In this case, even if Broken Hawk didn't found Buddhism, it would still be better to remain a Buddhist nation because most of the world is Buddhist. It would be a good idea to also spread that as the state religion. Even if you're giving a lot of money to an ally, it's better than giving a little bit of money to an enemy... I think that the gold you are giving to the AI is still worth the benefit you're giving away.

If you don't have the Buddhist holy city, capture it. Save yourself a lot of missionary work.

Obviously though, it would be best to own the Buddhist holy city, even if you have to take it by force...

[joncnunn]

My own empire (just finished researching railroad) includes 3 religions relics [Judism & Taoist via discovery + Budism via conquest]),
Every city in my empire now has Judism plus at least one other religion. Before Sci Theory I ensured that all four religions that were in my empire each built a Monstary. I siwtched to no state religion early because the world became too fragmented.

3+ religions are a major cash cow, the city that founded Judism is going to get Wall Street while the city that founded Taoism is going to get Oxford since they are already leaning those directions. And I'm running a large suplus at 80% sci - 10% culture - 10% taxes. The cash is being used for military upgrades.

[Falconne]

Originally posted by Kirghiz
You are really better off converting your whole state to Christianity and spread Christianity to any and every city in the world you possibly can. The reason is that YOU get a 1 gold bonus per turn for every city in the world that has Christianity since you have the Church Of The Nativity.

If you have the holy city, don't you get the gold for foreign cities that have that religion, regardless of whether it is your state religion or not?

The advantage of switching state religions here would be that you get LOS into those foreign cities, but the diplomacy hit isn't worth it.

[djpsychonaut]

No, the gold from the shrine is not dependent on your state religion.

The diplomacy hit is why I'm arguing that in this situation, it would be best to stay Buddhist.