I finally bought Civ4

[Geronimo]

I finally purchased Civ4. Not having learned my lesson from previous civ purchases I found myself staying awake until 4am on a monday morning before work having to pry myself away from the keyboard.

There is something I need cleared up right away. After finding that I could be the founder of a given religion I decided to see if for my first game I could try gain a monopoly on all of the religions. It seemed to go well but suddenly Moses has appeared in rival France's (a Bhuddist country) Paris.

Does this mean I can never build the shrine for judaism in my empire?

Are there any bennefits to being the founder of a religion?

[rah]

Besides being able to build the shrine, converting the heathens, and denying the AI's foundings, no.

And just because Moses appeared, (he's a great person) and not the founder of Judaism in game terms.

You can still build the shrine if you are the founder and have a great prophet to spare.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by rah
Besides being able to build the shrine, converting the heathens, and denying the AI's foundings, no.

And just because Moses appeared, (he's a great person) and not the founder of Judaism in game terms.

You can still build the shrine if you are the founder and have a great prophet to spare.

oh! so a Great Prophet in Civ4 can be used to build a shrine for *any* religion so long as you posses it's founding city?

How valuable is the shrine really? less so than the average wonder?

as far as converting the heathens go, does that work differently for the founding civ than for one that adopts the religion later?

[Arrian]

Shrines ROCK, if you spread the religion. The shrine will bring in 1 gold per turn per city the religion has spread to. Religion spread happens passively (at a fairly low rate, and restricted to cities that lack religion entirely) or actively (build missionaries, send them to cities, and convert). How much you get out of your shrine thus depends on your investment in missionaries. Note: you cannot spread your religion to other empires unless you have "open borders" with them *and* they are not a different religion + running Theocracy (Theo prevents all non-state religion spread in the empire using it). You can put your religion into cities that already have a religion, though there is a chance of failure. The failure chance increases with the # of religions in the city (thus, it's easier if you're the 2nd religion than if you're the 7th).

Your shrine city should get all gold modifying improvements ASAP (market, grocer, bank and eventually Wall Street). This can be quite powerful.

-Arrian

[rah]

You can also "ASK" other civs to convert to your religion if one of there cities posses it. Then they can happily spread it for you. This isn't that common but it is possible. (usually you have to already share a religion for them to be friendly enough for them to do it, but I've converted to an AI's religion to make the happy enough to convert to mine )

[Zebek]

Originally posted by rah
You can also "ASK" other civs to convert to your religion if one of there cities posses it. Then they can happily spread it for you. This isn't that common but it is possible. (usually you have to already share a religion for them to be friendly enough for them to do it, but I've converted to an AI's religion to make the happy enough to convert to mine )

You mean you convert to his/her religion and then ask s/he to convert to your first religion?? never tried that !! It works good??

If hes running a religion, usually, is because he have more cities with this religion, then "yours" isnt majoritary in his civ. You have a low chance to get the "conversion" even hes happy.

I really never got a conversion from a civ thats running Theocracy.

[Arrian]

Yeah, it's pretty rare to even have the option. I never thought about converting, getting them to switch, and then converting back... devious of you, rah. I hope you were playing a Spiritual leader!

Usually the best plan is to spread your religion to all their cities - they will often convert on their own then. The exception is when they've founded their own religion and spread it around their empire. Then they'll probably stay put.

-Arrian

[Nacht]

You can only ask a civ to convert to your State religion. So converting, asking, reconverting won't work.

Asking to convert is often quite pointless, it costs money and if they do it at all they probably would have converted by themselves soon anyway.

[Geronimo]

So rather than attempting to monopolize being the founder of several religions should I just pick one winner religion early on and then proselytize the hell out of it?

Is it feasible to get multiple shrines to multiple religions so that no matter what religion the AI's pick they get stuck sending you cold hard cash?

[JackRudd]

If you really prioritize Great Prophets, it can be pretty easy to get multiple shrines.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by JackRudd
If you really prioritize Great Prophets, it can be pretty easy to get multiple shrines.

Does it work well even if none of your cities have a majority population of adherents to the religion you build a shrine to?

So that if you found all or nearly all of the religions you can build all or nearly all of the shrines even if all of your cities are bhuddist or something?

I suppose multiple shrine approach works best if you found most of the religions and build mostly wonders that pointedly increase your odds of getting great prophets?

Can a city where I founded a new religion be converted to another religion? so far I've noticed each founder city has steadfastly remained committed to the religion that was locally invented there.

If a founder city is converted to some other religion is it still possible to establish a shrine there?

Can a single city be a founder city for multiple religions? would this be an attractive thing to arrange for the prupose of shrine stacking to make a super income city? If so what's the best way to arrange to have one city be the founder city for multiple religions?

Is there any penalty to stacking monasteries and temples of totally separate religions in a single city? Do they simply add their effects make two templs 2x as good as one even if they are different religions?

Thanks in advance for any more insight on how this all works in civ4.

[Targonis]

You can make a TON of money in the game if you are the founder of several religions. You can spread all religions all over the place if you have open borders.

So, found religions, and then make the holy building for them(as great prophets allow). If you have multiple religions, go to the religion advisor and make the building for the religion that has the highest percentage, since that will give you the largest bump to money, at least in the short term.

The holy building will also increase the passive spread of religion to other cities.

[Zebek]

Originally posted by Geronimo
Does it work well even if none of your cities have a majority population of adherents to the religion you build a shrine to?

The amount of gold you get depends on the number of cities in the "world" (not only in your civ) that have that particular religion. So, build the shrines of the majoritaire religions first.

Originally posted by Geronimo
So that if you found all or nearly all of the religions you can build all or nearly all of the shrines even if all of your cities are bhuddist or something?

Yes, you can.

Originally posted by Geronimo
I suppose multiple shrine approach works best if you found most of the religions and build mostly wonders that pointedly increase your odds of getting great prophets?

If you are trying to get prophets try to bulid wonders that get a bonus to GP-Prophet, like Oracle, Stonehenge, Spiral Minaret, .... Also, Specialists-Priests get a bonus to Prophets. It works better if you build all that at the same city.

Originally posted by Geronimo
Can a city where I founded a new religion be converted to another religion? so far I've noticed each founder city has steadfastly remained committed to the religion that was locally invented there.

Cities doesn't belong to any religion, cities can have all 7 religions at same time, and there is no way to put them away, but razing the city. If you have 2, 5 or the 7 religions in a city you can get the bonus from converting your state to any particular religion.

Originally posted by Geronimo
If a founder city is converted to some other religion is it still possible to establish a shrine there?

Yes, you can, even if you aren't running that religion.

Originally posted by Geronimo
Can a single city be a founder city for multiple religions? would this be an attractive thing to arrange for the prupose of shrine stacking to make a super income city? If so what's the best way to arrange to have one city be the founder city for multiple religions?

Yes, one city can be holy city of more than one religion and of course its a good thing because you only need to put financial buildings in that city (specially Wall Street) to multiply religion benefits, but........ thats random !!!. Religions can be found at any available city in your civ. However, if you found the 3 first religions (you only need 6 techs) before you put your second city in the map you will have all 3 holy cities at your capital, because there is only one city available.

Originally posted by Geronimo
Is there any penalty to stacking monasteries and temples of totally separate religions in a single city? Do they simply add their effects make two templs 2x as good as one even if they are different religions?

No penalty, the effects are added.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Zebek


The amount of gold you get depends on the number of cities in the "world" (not only in your civ) that have that particular religion. So, build the shrines of the majoritaire religions first.

thanks!

So will a shrine even get gold from cities I don't have contact with? maybe even cities that I don't even know exist?

[JackRudd]

It will indeed.