Rethinking Religon Usefulness

[Silver14]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Settler level?

I find the suggestion insulting.

Actually it was Prince level.

It was from a game I played in January.

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?postid=4261432#post4261432

I will admit that tech trading and barbarians were both disabled though.

I've attached the save file:

[Silver14]

Originally posted by Paddy the Scot
nice looking game there Silver

Thanks

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Silver14
Actually it was Prince level.

Well if you have only one city I found it very hard to discover philosophy by 490BC.

[Silver14]

It was a Marathon game for one, and a philosophical leader for another. I made obtaining religions a priority.

You should try a game or two of OCC, it will open your eyes as to what you can do with fewer cities...sometimes in Civ IV it’s easier early on.

[Ijuin]

Originally posted by samspock

Try this some time: Capture an enemy city that has is the holy city for two relgions just before you get taoisim or islam. It will put the holy city there giving you three. Probably easier than forcing it on your capital.

Silver14: How did you manage four in one city?

Hey, what determines which city becomes the holy city of a new relition? I thought it was just whatever city happened to be next after the one that contributes the beakers to achieve the new tech?

[trev]

Personally I only rarely spread religions beyond my own cities, I think the AI civ will gain more from the religion you give it than the 1 gold you gain from the shrine, because it allows them to build temples for happiness and monastries for science and culture. On the other hand I welcome foreign religions into my own cities for the happiness and science and culture benefits and will actively spread foreign religions to all my cities. Especially to all border cities which will get multiple cathredrals to fight the culture wars.

[fed1943]

If it is a duel, I agree with you.
But if there several AI civs, then you will gain more with the religion'spread then the opposition.
Best regards,

[Silver14]

Civs that share your religion will like you better. Civs that share the same religion will like each other better. In the game I had above the two religions I didn't found were founded by two Civs who were together on the same continent.

This left the other Civs at a disadvantage of getting religion late in the game, I only allowed one to spread as I didn't want them to change religions against me and it would make it easier for me to unit them against the others.

Often later in the game I have noticed a division between Civs, those on your side and those on the other guys. Usually it seems evenly squared off as long as you haven’t pissed every one off.

Having good relations through religions is key to a diplomatic victory and would have been key to a religious victory had they not removed it.

The gold is a kickback, manipulation is the primary goal of spreading one religion to other Civ's.

[QuixotesGhost]

The more I play the more I come to the conclusion that if you want to found an early religon you really need to leverage the advantages that the religon branch gives you. The religous techs are not worth researching for just founding the religon, you need to use the other benefits they give you.

As in:

You Research Monotheism to say "Yay! Judaism" ... not worth it.

You Research Monotheism for Organized Religon then use the Oracle to grab Metal Casting and churn out Forges quickly and get a huge production advantage going. Plus, hey, you grabbed Judaism on the way, definatley worth it.

[Blake]

Originally posted by Ijuin


Hey, what determines which city becomes the holy city of a new relition? I thought it was just whatever city happened to be next after the one that contributes the beakers to achieve the new tech?

Hmm well I do know these two rules:
1) The capital is lowest priority.
2) Cities without a religion are highest priority.
3) Holy cities are not lower priority than non-holy cities w/ religion.

On 3, say you found Conf in your 2nd city, and it spreads to your 3rd city. You then found Tao, it is possible that Tao will found in the Conf holy city, despite city #3 being not a holy city.

[Nacht]

I checked the SDK. CvPlayer::foundReligion seems to be the relevant function.

According to that function each city gets assigned a value as follows:

- start with 10
- Add city size
- Add a random number in the range from 0 to 9 (this range can be changed by changing FOUND_RELIGION_CITY_RAND in GlobalDefines.xml)
- divide by number of religions present + 1
- if it is the capital divide by 8
- if the result is less than 1 make it 1.

The religion is founded in the city with the highest value. If two or more cities share this value the oldest city is chosen.

[Silver14]

In my latest game I moved my capital from London to Mecca as the three religions I founded managed to be in that city.



I had London, captured Mecca early in the game with a swarm of warriors. 8 warriors vs. 2 usually wins at this stage, free city.

I founded Hinduism, built York shortly there after. Hinduism spread to London and York then I founded Judaism. I felt lucky that the holy city for it ended up with the one for Hinduism. When I pulled off the CS slingshot I was shocked that Confucianism landed there as well. Mecca was generating a good deal of research as it had a pair of Gem mines. London was probably ignored as it was the capital and York had a religion in it and wasn't generating as much research at the time. I'm guessing from what Nacht/Blake have said that those are the reasons Mecca ended up founding three religions.

[cal_01]

Best way to corner everyone with your religion is to land next to some creative Civs. I landed next to Cyrus and someone else a while back, and they took my religion and spread it like wildfire. Ended up winning a diplo victory that game!