Benefits to founding a 6th religion?

[phooey73]

Noble setting
Archipelago, Huge

This is the largest sprawling connected landmass I've ever seen on Archipelago. There are 4 of us on the landmass, and its probably even about 25% of the total landmass.

I'm playing Washington (first time, love it!).
I neglected other techs to get to the religions and to Metal Casting, and I'm building the Colossus (I should get it). Its 165 AD, I think I've got about 15 cities. Most of them have lighthouses, and I'm fishing heavily.

Alexander is my only adjacent neighbor. Montezuma and Isabella are on the continent and I have contact with them and no one else. Isabella founded Buddhism, and Montezuma is also Buddhist. Alexander and I are Hindu, and I've founded Hinduism, Judaism, Confuscianism, Christianity, and Daoism.

I was able to trade my more advanced techs for older ones I'd neglected. As a result, all four of us are technologically way ahead of the other seven civs I haven't met yet.

Montezuma has Monarchy and Horseback Riding, and he isn't trading them, and I haven't traded anyone Code of Laws... don't think anyone else has it yet, nor philosophy. I just finished researching Philosophy. Well, last night I mean.

I'm contemplating my next move. I know I need to EXPAND and stake out more area. I imagine that's what I'll do. I'm still able to do 60% research right now, so I'm thinking... expand and military and culture up on my border with Alex. Expand until I couldn't possibly afford any more expansion. Oh yeah, and get some great prophets to spread my religions.

That's the plan. But then I think, what about Islam?

I played one game on Warlord, where I did found 6 religions.... and proceded to try to get all 6 religions in every single one of my cities. By the time you get to the 6th one.... it seems they are failing 75% of the time. The 5th religions fails pretty frequently too.

So the total effort to make the missionaries that will spread your 6th religion to a city.... is more than for the other 5 religions before it. Not worth it.

But is there any value to keeping some other Civ from getting Islam? Its going to make it out there regardless, but if its clustered in my territory, its less likely. But maybe its good to have another religion out there in the wilds? Stir up some fights?

[JackRudd]

I suppose you'll get a little bit more money from it - you can build the shrine.

[phooey73]

I don't think I will get much money from it and it certainly not enough to justify that much research.

If I found it, it will be competing from the same vantage point with my other five religions and Isabella's. No one else is going to spread religions in their cities like I do (and I am NOT signing open borders just to get my missionaries into other Civs). So to make it worthwhile, I'd have to spread it myself and I already have 5 different religions to spread.

So I'll expand and beef up and if it makes my research drop to zero.... I'll deal with the consequences. I love cheap courthouses!!

[Quillan]

There is one benefit I see in your situation to founding Islam. From what you say, you have all the religions currently except Buddhism. If you found Islam, you guarantee that when you do find the other civilizations, they will all be religionless; that makes them ripe for the horde of Hindu missionaries you send over. This converts them all to your state religion, making them friendly to you, and decidedly hostile to Monty and Isabella. You might consider picking one of them and sending them something like Christianity instead, whichever one of them is most disliked by the others. That will give them someone else to hate without putting that enemy into the same bloc with Isabella and Monty.

If you fail to get Islam, there is the possibility that one of them will research it, and thus you may find a huge Islamic bloc of nations out there when you get to Optics.

Oh, and I have a question, too. Just how do you know you are technologically well ahead of the other civilizations you haven't met yet?

[Solver]

Quillan has a good point, but this is, in fact, least dangerous with Islam. Islam comes late, so even if someone else founds it, it's going to spread pretty slowly relative to the amount of cities the other civs already have. So I'd say even if Islam gets founded elsewhere, you're not going to have a very hard time converting the others to Hinduism.

I like the Divine Right technology, though, because of the Spiral Minaret, but in your situation, I'd say you should much rather expand and research something else - the 5 religions you have is plenty enough to keep your Missionaries busy the entire game if you want to. And Prophets as well.

[JackRudd]

Presumably a historian has just come up, and "an unknown civilization" hasn't got into the top 8 most advanced civs.

[phooey73]

We are definitely #1-4 in tech (it actually came up as one of the random ranking things), beyond that its partly guessing, and I've also "retired" to see the map and the full graphs of various types (yes, cheesy, but when I'm done for the night, why not?), though I don't think tech specifically is one of them, you can get an idea by looking at the graphs... not sure which one, maybe power? All I remember at the moment is the feel of it.

I really neglected a lot to get to code of laws first. I didn't even have bronze working or pottery. I don't think I even had mining.

Once I had code of laws, I got alphabet and proceded to trade both writing and alphabet for the techs I missed. Then I went for metalcasting, followed by theology and philosophy.

I think there is some more trading in there.

Oh yeah, most notably, Monty gave me Mathematics for my Metal Casting. That was very nice. Which sets me up nicely to get Calendar before I overextend myself and squander my researching power.

[phooey73]

I am really liking this set up. Lots of Resources, and variety too! Its nice to be on the resource-rich portion of the map for a change (at least I assume the whole map can't be this way)

[Yosho]

In that situation, the biggest advantage to founding Islam is probably just denial; if you found it, then no one else will, which means no one else will get the happiness/diplomacy/shrine benifits of founding a religion. If you found all the religions, then that means people on the other continent have no religions at all for a long time, and the lack of happyness will hurt their economy.

[Era Vulgaris]

Re: Benefits to founding a 6th religion?

Originally posted by phooey73
Noble setting
Archipelago, Huge

... and I've founded Hinduism, Judaism, Confuscianism, Christianity, and Daoism.

This is slightly off topic, but IMHO if you've founded 5 or 6 religions, you need to move up a difficulty level (or 2 perhaps).

[snafuc4]

Originally posted by Solver
Islam comes late, so even if someone else founds it, it's going to spread pretty slowly relative to the amount of cities the other civs already have.

If the other Civs you know about haven't already met the ones you don't know about, /any/ religion is going to spread like wildfire throughout their religionless cities, so if the unmet Civs get Islam before you you're going to have whole swathe of Islamic mullahs being unhappy with you when you meet.

A thought to consider is alowing Izzie or Boney to get Islam first (trade them the enabling techs) if you don't want to give up the research tree you're on; this would allow /you/ to control the spread of religion to the unmet Civs..