Imagine no religion...

[zeace]

Sometimes it's nice to ignore religions. If you find that you have a lot of happy resources near your first few cities and that you have a number of neighbors with different religions, just ignore religion and bee-line for scientific method. Getting early biology and physics can set you up to grow very strong. Plus you can trade/give your "friends" scientific theory before they're ready for it. It tends to screw up their religious goals and drop their tech rate. If a well timed war is started a few turns later it can devastate them.

[Arrian]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Actually I've thought that monasteries should be allowed post scientific method, just without the science bonus - otherwise it puts the later religions at a bit of a disadvantage as they have less time to have a base of monasteries for creating missionaries and thus they will lose the missionary output game as well as coming late and not spreading as far.

Yeah, that can be annoying. You either have to switch back to ORG REL or accept that you cannot spread the religion (except from any pre-existing monasteries you built). I've often found myself delaying Sci Method a turn or two to rush a couple of monasteries (typically of a religion founded by someone else that I've conquered).

-Arrian

[sjm]

Somewhat off topic, but don't forget that you can use organised religion to build missionaries anywhere (no monastery required). If you're able to focus on building missionaries, it means you're probably not bogged down in a costly war, so it might well be worth switching to OR for its production benefit as well. The more religions you're trying to spread, the better, as you can churn out loads of different missionaries every turn, and build them near to the cities that lack the religion.

Furthermore, the 25% production bonus for infrastructure is another welcome addition when you're not tied up militarily. It'll rapidly increase the rate at which you can build other science boosting structures, as well as any other infrastructure, which allows your cities to grow and thus be more productive quicker.

Obviously switching civics is more interesting when you're spiritual, but with a large empire, it can be well worth switching to OR for a while for the boost to infrastructure in all your cities (the more you have, the bigger your absolute net gain from the extra production).

You can then switch to free religion later to get the extra 10% science, which is only really worthwhile once your cities are actually producing a decent amount of science anyway (which generally pre-supposes some sort of infrastructure for any tangible benefits).

[MasterDave]

Scientific method should improve output of Libraries and Universities to offset the loss of Monasteries. It is patently absurd that researching Scientific mething so drastically reduces your beaker output, that many players, including myself will delay researching it for as long as possible.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Actually I've thought that monasteries should be allowed post scientific method, just without the science bonus - otherwise it puts the later religions at a bit of a disadvantage as they have less time to have a base of monasteries for creating missionaries and thus they will lose the missionary output game as well as coming late and not spreading as far.

I'm more amenable to this suggestion which is sensible.

[zeace]

Most science during the "dark ages" was done by priests and monks. They were some of the few people on earth who didn't have to spend every day trying to grow enough food to eat. The church considered most of this research to be "theology" and was very supportive of it.

But near the end of the dark ages there was a new movement towards the scientific method. The church was not a big fan of this method as it left no room for god. All priests and monks were suddenly forbidden from participating in this research, and theology was focused on purely religious subjects.

Researchers like Galileo were literally imprisoned for their research. You don't think the threat of prison would cause a 10% drop in research?

Fortunately, the scientific method improved research in the long run (observatories and such) and that made up for the loss of a few priests.

[gorland]

Looks like an Athiest love fest..former agnostic here...P)ersonal spiritual experience killed any Athiestic leanings I had....I would like to see more choices in the game such as branches of different religions..I think like maybe Sunni Vs. shiete..not sure I spelled that right...

[mijae]

Originally posted by Blake
I'm atheist but I have far too much affinity with the Buddhism/Tao line to dislike the religious system - and poly/monotheism has been a large part of human history.

I don't know if anyone here has seen the anime Saiyuki, but this reminds me that in many of my normal games I've aimed for founding Buddhism just from personal favoritism... if we had more godless priests like Genjo Sanzo I'd be a full-fledged religious nut

[MRT144]

first off this is a game and as you can tell the religions in the game have nothing if anything to do with their real world monikers.

second as such the whole point of religion in the game is to generate choices and strategy for people.

third if we are going to debate relgion and science i think some people have already made the point that it has aided in many ways, not just in europe but look at islam and others.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by gorland
Looks like an Athiest love fest..former agnostic here...P)ersonal spiritual experience killed any Athiestic leanings I had....I would like to see more choices in the game such as branches of different religions..I think like maybe Sunni Vs. shiete..not sure I spelled that right...

No it doesn't...we are discussing strategic possibilities.

Yeah, I think the model of monasteries as I stated would be quite handy as it would make sense with the loss of their research ability as stated in the discussion.

As for that loss of research, well, I am sure you will make up for it with some of the changes around that era, such as education (universities) and astronomy (obsevatories) and the increase in commerce from some of the new civics and buildings (such as banks which allow you to pump out more science, or free market).