Spiritual trait

[Blake]

A great trick with spiritual+myticism leaders is the fast great prophet (works double great for Saladin).

Found an early religion, I tend to favor Buddhism if my research is good, or Hinduism if it isn't good (by the time you fail to research Hinduism you'll know if Buddhism is still available so can grab it instead).
Assuming you get the early religion quickly grab priesthood and throw up the temple, assign the priest.

Around about 800BC the prophet will pop out, you can use him for one the following powerful techs (he will always prefer Polytheism/Meditation so you need to research both):
Theocracy: This requires you research Monotheism and Writing.
Monarchy: Avoid researching Writing and Masonary. Great if you have wines and eliminates all happy problems.
Code of Laws: Avoid researching Masonry, research Writing.
Civil Service: Avoid researching Masonry and research/oracle Code of Laws. You'll need to finish the last few turns of research the normal way.

Masonry will unlock Monotheism which is why you have to avoid researching it (if you pop it... bad luck).

Of course anyone can get a fast prophet via temple, but it goes smoothest for those with both spiritual and mysticism. And Saladin gets it crazy early.
For philo leaders (non-saladin) it's usually easier to build stonehenge.

[couerdelion]

Originally posted by Blake
A great trick with spiritual+myticism leaders is the fast great prophet (works double great for Saladin).

Works well on the easy levels but I find usually that both early religions go too quickly on Emperor levels and above.

As an alternative, the quick Stonehenge (very easy with Ghandi) will usually generate a prophet in time to pop something like Code of Laws, which, if it can be combined with the Oracle, will open up either Philosophy or Civil Service.

But that was your original strategy anyway

[Blake]

It is exceedingly civ-count and map size dependent. Small civ counts and smaller maps are easier to beat the AI on.
On larger maps the slower research gives more time for their bonuses (ie free worker) to kick in.

From experience, with random settings, I'd say each AI civ has about a 1 in 7 chance of starting with mysticism AND going for a one of meditation or hinduism. Also, if I understand correctely, the AI doesn't actually get a research speed advantage (it comes later from improvements and lower upkeeps) and furthermore the human player will always win a tied religion race by virtue of player order. I may be wrong on one of those points though.

On say a small map with normal settings it's quite easy to found religion on emp. I even remember doing it as Cathy once, because the only nearby resources were camp/mine ones.

I expect differing opinions on the difficulty of founding religions comes from a combination of small sample size ("I tried meditation twice and missed both times...") and differing map settings. With 18 civs out there it's infinitely harder than with only 5...

[allybhoy]

I like spiritual, you can get the science lead. then change to military civics, build a great army, trash the opposition and get back to science without losing turns. I usually take a coule of cities until my balance is negative, and build again and take another few